Otway’s comedy, The Soldiers Fortune (4to, 1681), where Courtine says: ‘I shall be ere long as greasy as an Alsatian bully,’ comes third; and Mrs. Behn’s reference to Alsatia in this play, which is often ignored, claims fourth place. We then have Shadwell’s famous comedy, The Squire of Alsatia (1688), with its well-known vocabulary of Alsatian jargon and slang, its scenes in Whitefriars, the locus classicus, a veritable mine of information. The particular portions of Whitefriars forming Alsatia were Ram-Alley, Mitre Court, and a lane called in the local cant Lombard Street. No. 50 of Tempest’s Cries of London (drawn and published in James II’s reign) is called ‘A Squire of Alsatia’, and represents a fashionable young gallant. Steele, Tatler (No. 66), 10 September, 1709, speaks of Alsatia ‘now in ruins’. It is interesting to note that many authorities, ignoring Settle and Mrs. Behn’s allusions, quote Powel and Otway as the only two places where the word ‘Alsatia’ is found before Shadwell made it so popular.
p. 202 Dornex. Or dornick, a worsted or woollen fabric used for curtains, hangings and the like, so called from Tournai, where chiefly manufactured. cf. Shadwell’s The Miser (1672), Act i, I: ‘a dornock carpet’. Also Wit and Drollery (1681): Penelope to Ulysses:—
The Stools of Dornix which that you may know well
Are certain stuffs Upholsterers use to sell.
p. 202 Henry the Eighth. Henry VIII had been put on by Davenant in December, 1663 with a wealth of pomp and expenditure that became long proverbial in the theatrical world. An extra large number of supers were engaged. Downes dilates at quite unusual length upon the magnificence of the new scenery and costumes. The court scene was especially crowded with ‘the Lords, the Cardinals, the Bishops, the Doctors, Proctors, Lawyers, Tip-staves.’ On New Year’s Day, 1664, Pepys went to the Duke’s house and saw ‘the so much cried up play of Henry VIII; which tho’ I went with resolution to like it, is so simple a thing, made up of a great many patches, that, besides the shows and processions in it, there is nothing in the world good or well done.’ On 30 December, 1668, however, he saw it again, ‘and was mightily pleased, better than ever I expected, with the history and shows of it.’ In The Rehearsal (1671), Act v, I, Bayes says: ‘I’l shew you the greatest scene that ever England saw: I mean not for words, for those I do not value; but for state, shew, and magnificence. In fine I’ll justifie it to be as grand to the eye every whit, I gad, as that great Scene in Harry the Eight.’
p. 203 Joan Sanderson. See note Vol. I, p. 456: Joan Sanderson. The Roundheads, Act iv, IV (p. 402).
p. 204 Haunce in Kelder. Literally Jack-in-the-Cellar, i.e. the unborn babe in the womb. cf. Davenant and Dryden’s alteration of The Tempest, Act iv, sc. II. ‘Stephano, I long to have a Rowse to her Grace’s Health, and to the Haunse in Kelder, or rather Haddock in Kelder, for I guess it will be half Fish’. and also Dryden’s Amboyna (1673), Act iv, sc. I, where Harman senior remarks at Towerson and Ysabinda’s wedding: ‘You Englishmen … cannot stay for ceremonies; a good honest Dutchman would have been plying the glass all this while, and drunk to the hopes of Hans in Kelder till ‘twas bedtime.’
p. 204 an Apple John. An apple John is usually explained as being a kind of apple said to keep two years and to be in perfection when shrivelled and withered, cf. 2 Henry IV, ii, IV, and the context. If the allusion here is to such a kind of apple Sir Feeble’s phrase is singularly inept, as may perhaps be intended to be the case.
p. 204 St. Martin’s Trumpery. The parish of St. Martin-le-Grand was formerly celebrated for the number of shops vending cheap and imitation jewellery within its purlieus. ‘St. Martin’s ware’ came to mean a forgery.
p. 205 nick their Inclinations. To nick = to thwart. A somewhat uncommon use. Generally, to nick (slang), means ‘to arrest’, ‘to waylay and stop’.
p. 207 the wonderful Salamanca Doctor. cf. Notes, Vol. II, p. 433. silken Doctor. The City Heiress. Prologue (p. 202); and Vol. II, p. 437. Salamanca. The City Heiress, v, V (p. 297).
p. 208 the Twire. cf. Note, Vol. II, p. 440. Amorous Twire. The Feign’d Curtezans, i, II (p. 319).
p. 210 gutling. Guzzling, cf. supra, p. 479.
p. 210 Docity. cf. Note, Vol. II, p. 441. Docity. The Feign’d Curtezans. ii, I (p. 340).
p. 210 laid in Lavender. An old and common phrase for ‘to pawn’. cf. Florio, Worlds of Wordes (1593): ‘To lay to pawne, as we say, to lay in Lavender.’ Ben Jonson, Every Man out of his Humour, Act iii, sc. III: ‘And a black sattin suit of his own to go before her in; which suit (for the more sweet’ning) now lies in Lavender.’
p. 210 Enter Rag and Landlady. Mrs. Behn remembered how Don John treated Dame Gillian, his landlady. The Chances, i, IX.
p. 211 Judas. cf. Note, Vol. I, p. 457. The Roundheads. v, II (p. 413).
p. 211 flabber. Fat; puffed out. A very rare adjective, perhaps only here. The N.E.D. quotes this passage with a reference to the adjective ’.laberkin’ = puffed out, puffy, and a suggestion that it is akin to the substantive ‘flab’ = something thick, broad, fat.
p. 212 this old Sir Guy of Warwick. Sir Guy of Warwick is an old slang name for a sword; a rapier. The name is taken from the romance (of which there were many versions) and which proved extraordinarily popular. It was first licensed ‘in prose by Martyn Parker’ to Oulton, 24 November, 1640. Smithson’s version was first printed in black letter, and a second edition appeared in 1686. John Shurley’s version was published 4to, 1681 and again 1685. Esdalle, English Tales and Romances, enumerates sixteen versions, editions and abridgements, concluding with ‘The Seventh Edition’ 12mo, 1733.
p. 214 Enter Bredwel. Lady Fulbank supplying Gayman with money through the medium of Bredwel ‘drest like a Devil’ is reminiscent of incidents in Dryden’s first comedy, The Wild Gallant (1663, and revised version, 1667; 4to, 1667), where Lady Constance employs Setstone, a jeweller, to accomodate Loveby with ready cash. Loveby is benefited to the tune of two hundred and fifty pounds, which are filched from the study of old Lord Nonsuch, who complains in much the same way as Sir Cautious. Loveby declares it must be the devil who has enriched him, and forthwith rescues his ‘Suit with the Gold Lace at Sleeves from Tribulation.’ Owing to his poverty he has been unable to visit Constance, and when he appears before her in his gay clothes he excuses his fortnight’s absence by saying, I have been ‘out of Town to see a little thing that’s fallen to me upon the Death of a Grandmother.’ In Act i of The Wild Gallant Loveby gives Bibber a humorous description of a garret, which may be paralleled with Bredwel’s ‘lewd’ picture of Cayman’s chamber—The Lucky Chance, Act i, II. It must be allowed that Mrs. Behn bears away the palm in this witty passage. The Wild Gallant is, by Dryden’s own confession (cf. the First Prologue), founded on a Spanish plot. In the Preface he says: ‘The Plot was not Originally my own: But so alter’d by me, (whether for better or worse, I know not) that, whoever the Author was, he could not have challeng’d a Scene of it.’ So vast, indeed, is the library of the Spanish Theatre that it has not as yet been identified, a task which in view of the author’s own statement may well be deemed nigh impossible. Recent critics have pertinently suggested that the device of furnishing Loveby with money was the chief hint for which Dryden is indebted to Spain. The conduct of the amour between Lady Fulbank and Gayman, founded as it is on Shirley’s The Lady of Pleasure, has nothing in common with Otway’s intrigue between Beaugard and Portia—The Atheist (1683)—which owes itself to Scarron’s novel, The Invisible Mistress.
p. 222 the Gad-Bee’s in his Quonundrum. Gad-Bee, vide supra. The False Count, Act ii, II (p. 129), note, p. 481. Quonundrum or Conundrum. A whim; crotchet; maggot; conceit. The N.E.D. quotes this passage, cf. Jonson’s Volpone, Act v, sc. II: ‘I must ha’ my crotchets! And my conundrums!’ Dic. Cant. Crew (1700) has: ’.Conundrums_. Whimms, Maggots and such like.’
p. 222 jiggiting. To jigget = to jig, hop or skip; to jump about, and to fidget, cf. T. Barker, The Female Tatler (1709), No. 15: ‘She has a languishing Eye, a delicious soft Hand, and two pretty jiggetting Feet.’ cf. to giggit. Note, Vol. II, p. 436. fisking and giggiting. The City Heiress, ii, II (p. 262).
p. 223 we’ll toss the Stocking. This merry old matrimonial custom in use at the bedding of the happy pair is often alluded to. cf. Pepys, 8 February, 1663: ‘Another story was how Lady Castlemaine, a few days since, had Mrs. Stewart to an entertainment, and at night begun a frolique that they two must be married; and married they were, with ring and all other ceremonies of church service, and ribbands, and a sack posset in bed and flinging the stocking; but in the close it is said my Lady Castlemaine, who was the bridegroom, rose, and the King come and take her place.’
p. 224 the Entry. In the Restoration theatre it was the usual practice for the curtain to rise at the commencement and fall at the end of the play, so that the close of each intermediate act was only marked by a clear stage. There are, however, exceptions to this rule, more particularly when some elaborate set or Tableau began a new act. A striking example is Act ii, The Forc’d Marriage.
p. 224 Mr. Cheek. Thomas Cheek was a well-known wit and songwriter of the day. His name not infrequently occurs to the graceful lyrics with which he supplied the theatre. There are some pretty lines of his, ’.orinna, I excuse thy face’, in Act v of Southerne’s The Wives Excuse; or, Cuckolds make Themselves (1692); and a still better song, ‘Bright Cynthia’s pow’r divinely great,’ which was sung by Leveridge in the second act of Southerne’s Oroonoko (1699), came from his prolific pen.
p. 225 Bandstrings. Strings for fastening his bands or collar which were in the seventeenth century frequently ornamented with tassels, cf. Selden, Table-Talk (1689): ‘If a man twirls his Bandstrings’. and Wood, Ath. Oxon. (1691): ‘He [wore] snakebone bandstrings (or bandstrings with huge tassels).’
p. 225 yare. Eager; ready; prepared from A.-S. geáro. cf. Measure for Measure, iv, II: ‘You shall find me yare’. and The Tempest, i, I: ’.heerly, my hearts! yare, yare!’. also Act v, sc. I: ‘Our ship … is tight and yare.’ Also Antony and Cleopatra, v, II: ‘yare, yare, good Iras; quick.’ Ray gives it as a Suffolk word, and the ‘hear, hear’ of Lowestoft boatmen of to-day is probably a disguised ‘yare, yare’.
p. 226 Livery and Seisin. A very common error for the legal term ’.ivery of seisin’ which signifies the delivery of property into the corporal possession of a person.
p. 251 Song. Oh! Love. Mr. Bullen, who includes this ‘impassioned song’ in his Musa Proterva: Love-Poems of the Restoration (1889), has the following note: ‘Did Mrs. Behn write these fine verses?… Henry Playford, a well-known publisher of music, issued in the same year [1687] the Fourth Book of The Theatre of Music, where “O Love, that stronger art” appeared with the heading “The Song in Madam Bhen’s last New Play, sung by Mr. Bowman, set by Dr. John Blow.” At the end of the song Playford adds, “These words by Mr. Ousley.” … Mrs. Behn usually acknowledged her obligations; but she may have been neglectful on the present occasion. Ousley’s claim cannot be lightly set aside.’ There is nothing to add to this, and we can only say that Aphra Behn had such true lyric genius that ‘Oh! Love that stronger art’ is in no way beyond her. A statement which neither disposes of nor invalidates Ousley’s claim based, as this is, upon such strong and definite evidence.
John Bowman (or Boman) who acted Bredwel had ‘as a boy’ joined the Duke’s Company about 1673. He was, says Cibber, in the days of Charles II ‘a Youth fam’d for his Voice’, and he often sang before the King, no indifferent judge of music. Bowman’s name appears as Peter Santlow in The Counterfeit Bridegroom; or, the Defeated Widow (1677). He soon became an actor of considerable merit, and created Tattle in Love for Love (1695). He is said to have remained on the stage for the extraordinary period of sixty-five years, and to have played within a few months of his death. Davies speaks highly of his acting, even in extreme old age. Oldys (MS. note on Langbaine) refers to him as ‘old Mr. John Bowman’. Cibber, in his Apology (1740), speaks of ‘Boman the late Actor of venerable Memory’.
p. 234 half Pike. ‘Now Hist. A small pike having a shaft of one half the length of the full-sized one. There were two kinds; one, also called a spontoon, formerly carried by infantry officers; the other, used on ships for repelling boarders, a boarding-pike,’—N.E.D. which quotes (inter alia) Massinger, &c., Old Law (4to, 1656), Act iii, II: ’.ere’s a half-pike’. and Froger, Voyages (1698): ‘Their ordinary Arms are the Hanger, the Sagary (assagai), which is a very light Half-Pike.’
p. 245 Geometry. A colloquial term for magic.
p. 247 a Sirreverence under your Girdle. ‘To have an M under (or by) the Girdle’ was a proverbial expression = to have a courteous address by using the titles Mr., Mrs., Miss, &c. cf. Halliwell, Dictionary Archaic and Proverhial Words; ‘M. … to keep the term “Master” out of sight, to be wanting in proper respect.’ cf. Eastward Hoe (1605), Jonson, Chapman, and Marston, iv, I: ‘You might carry an M under your Girdle’. and not infrequently. Sir- (or Save-) Reverence is an old and very common colloquialism. It was the most usual form of apology when mentioning anything likely to offend, or naming a word for which excuse was thought proper or necessary. Wherefore it came to stand in place of various words of obscene sound or meaning. There are innumerable instances from Mandeville (1356); down to recent times, and even Devonshire dialect to-day.
p. 248 the George in White-Fryers. The George tavern was situated in Dogwell Court, and some little time after the abolition of the vicious privileges of Alsatia by the Act 8 and 9 William III, c. 27 (1697), it was converted into the printing office of William Bowyer, the elder. These premises were destroyed by fire, 30 January, 1713. Scene II, Act i of Shadwell’s The Squire of Alsatia (1688), is laid ‘at the George in Whitefriars’.
p. 249 he cullies. To cully = to cheat; trick. Although the verb, which came into use circa 1670, and persisted for a full century, is rare, the substantive ‘a cully’ (= a fool) is very common. For the verb, cf. Pomfret, Poems (1699), Divine Attributes: ‘Tricks to cully fools.’
p. 249 he pads. The substantive ‘pad’ = a path or highway. Bailey (1730-6) has ‘to Pad … to rob on the road on foot.’ cf. Ford’s The Lady’s Trial (1639), v, I: ‘One can … pick a pocket, Pad for a cloak or hat’. and also Cotton Mather’s Discourse on Witchcraft (1689), chap, vii: ‘As if you or I should say: We never met with any robbers on the road, therefore there never was any Padding there.’
p. 250 sport a Dye. To play at dice. ‘To sport’, generic for ‘to parade’ or ‘display’ was, and is a very common phrase. It is especially found in public school and university slang. This is a very early example.
p. 250 Teaster. i.e. a tester—sixpence, cf. Farquhar’s Love and a Bottle, (1698), i, I, where Brush says: ‘Who throws away a Tester and a mistress loses sixpence.’
p. 251 to top upon him. To cheat him; to trick him; especially to cheat with dice. cf. Dictionary of the Canting Crew (by B.E. gent., 1696): ‘Top. What do you Top upon me? c. do you stick a little Wax to the Dice to keep them together, to get the Chance, you wou’d have? He thought to have Topt upon me. c. he design’d to have Put upon me, Sharpt me, Bullied me, or Affronted me.’
p. 251 we are not half in kelter. Kelter (or kilter) = order; condition; spirits. cf. Barrow, Sermons, I, Ser. 6: ‘If the organs of prayer are out of Kelter, or out of time, how can we pray?’ Dictionary Canting Crew (1690), has: ‘Out of Kelter, out of sorts.’ The phrase is by no means rare.
p. 251 as Trincolo says. Lady Fulbank mistakes. The remark is made by Stephano, not Trincalo. Dryden and Davenant’s The Tempest (1667), Act ii, I: ‘Ventoso. My wife’s a good old jade … … Stephano. Would you were both hanged, for putting me in thought of mine!’
p. 252 Ladies of Quality in the Middle Gallery. The jest lies in the fact that the middle gallery or eighteenpenny place in a Restoration theatre was greatly frequented by, if not almost entirely set aside for, women of the town. cf. Dryden’s Epilogue on the Union (1682):—
But stay; me thinks some Vizard-Mask I see
Cast out her Lure from the mid Gallery:
About her all the fluttering Sparks are rang’d;
The Noise continues, though the Scene is chang’d:
Now growling, sputt’ring, wauling, such a clutter!
‘Tis just like Puss defendant in a Gutter.
And again, in his Prologue to Southerne’s The Disappointment (1684), he has:—
Last there are some, who take their first degrees
Of lewdness in our middle galleries:
The doughty bullies enter bloody drunk,
Invade and grabble one another’s punk.
p. 257 Hortensius. Cato Uticensis is said in 56 B.C. to have ceded his wife Marcia to Q. Hortensius, and at the death of Hortensius in 50 B.C. to have taken her back again—Plutarch, Cato Min., 25.
p. 258 he has a Fly. A fly = a familiar. From the common old belief that an attendant demon waited on warlocks and witches in the shape of a fly, or some similar insect. cf. Jonson’s The Alchemist, I (1610):—
You are mistaken, doctor,
Why he does ask one but for cups and horses,
A rifling fly, none of your great familiars.
Also Massinger’s The Virgin Martyr, ii, II:—
Courtiers have flies
That buzz all news unto them.
p. 271 Snow-hill. The old Snow Hill, a very narrow and steep highway between Holborn Bridge and Newgate, was cleared away when Holborn Viaduct was made in 1867. In the days of Charles II it was famous for its chapmen, vendors of ballads with rough woodcuts atop. Dorset, lampooning Edward Howard, has the following lines:
Whence
Does all this mighty mass of dullness spring,
Which in such loads thou to the stage dost bring?
Is’t all thine own? Or hast thou from Snow Hill
The assistance of some ballad-making quill?
p. 271 Cuckolds Haven. This was the name given to a well-known point in the Thames. It is depicted by Hogarth, Industry and Idleness, No. 6. Nahum Tate has a farce, borrowed from Eastward Hoe and The Devil’s an Ass, entitled Cuckold’s Haven; or, An Alderman no Conjuror (1685).
p. 278 Nice and Flutter. The two typical Fops of the day. Sir Courtly Nice, created by Mountford, is the hero of Crowne’s excellent comedy, Sir Courtly Nice (1685). In Act v he sings a little song he has made on his Mistress: ‘As I gaz’d unaware, On a face so fair—.’ Sir Fopling Flutter is the hero of Etheredge’s masterpiece, The Man of Mode; or, Sir Fopling Flutter (1676). Sir Fopling, a portrait of Beau Hewitt, became proverbial. The rôle was created by Smith.
p. 278 shatterhead. A rare word for shatter-(scatter) brained. cf. The Countess of Winchilsea, Miscellany Poems (1713), ‘Pri’thee shatter-headed Fop’.
p. 278 Craffey. Craffy is the foolish son of the Podesta in Crowne’s City Politicks (1683). He is described as ‘an impudent, amorous, pragmatical fop, that pretends to wit and poetry.’ He is engaged in writing Husbai an answer to Absalom and Achitophel.
p. 278 whiffling. Fickle; unsteady; uncertain. To whiffle = to hesitate; waver; prevaricate. cf. Tillotson, Sermons, xiv (1671-94): ’.veryman ought to be stedfast … and not suffer himself to be whiffled … by an insignificant noise.’ 1724 mistakenly reads ‘whistling’ in this passage.
p. 279 Bulkers. Whores. cf. Shadwell, Amorous Widow (1690), Act iii: ’.er mother sells fish and she is little better than a bulker.’ A bulker was the lowest class of prostitute. cf. Shadwell’s The Scowerers, Act i, I: ‘Every one in a petticoat is thy mistress, from humble bulker to haughty countess.’ Bailey (1790) has: ‘Bulker, one that would lie down on a bulk to any one. A common Jilt. A whore.’ Swift, A Tale of a Tub, Section II, has: ‘They went to new plays on the first night, haunted the chocolate houses, beat the watch, lay on bulks.’
p. 279 Tubs. A patient suffering from the lues venerea was disciplined by long and severe sweating in a heated tub, which combined with strict abstinence was formerly considered an excellent remedy for the disease. cf. Measure for Measure, Act iii, sc. II: ‘Troth, sir, she has eaten up all her beef, and she is herself in the tub.’ Also Timon of Athens, iv, III: ‘Be a whore still’ …
p. 279 Jack Ketch. cf. Dict. Canting Crew (by B.E. Gent, 1690): ’.ack Kitch. The Hangman of that Name, but now all his Successors.’ He exercised his office circa 1663-87. It was Ketch who bungled the execution of Monmouth. There are innumerable contemporary references to him. cf. Dryden’s Epilogue to The Duke of Guise (1682):—
‘Jack Ketch’, says I, ‘’. an excellent physician.’
THE FORC’D MARRIAGE.
p. 286 The Nursery. Vide note, little Mrs. Ariell, Vol. II, p. 430-1.
p. 287 King. Mr. Westwood. It has been quite mistakenly suggested that Westwood was Otway’s theatrical name. Westwood was a professional actor of mediocre though useful attainments. He is cast for such rôles as Tom Faithfull in Revet’s The Town Shifts (April, 1671); Eumenes in Edward Howard’s The Woman’s Conquest (1671); and Battista in Crowne’s Juliana (1671).
p. 300 unsuit. A rare form of ‘unsuitable’.
p. 304 devoir. Endeavour; effort. This passage is quoted in the N.E.D.
p. 305 The Representation of the Wedding. This curious tableau is a striking example of the Elizabethan ‘Dumb Show’ lingering on to Restoration days. Somewhat similar, though by no means such complete, examples may be seen in Orrery’s Henry the Fifth (1664), at the commencement of Act iv, and again in the same author’s The Black Prince (19 October, 1667), Act ii. It must be confessed that Mrs. Behn has made an excellent use of this technical contrivance. In the Restoration theatre it was the usual practice for the curtain to rise at the beginning and fall at the end of the play, so that the close of each intermediate act was only shown by a clear stage. Although I have marked Act ii, sc. I of The Forc’d Marriage ‘The Palace’, I have little doubt that as the drama was staged Smith and Mrs. Jennings advanced and the curtain fell behind them hiding the rest of the characters, only to rise again upon Scene II, ‘The Court Gallery’. Philander and Galatea played upon the apron stage. If they, however, maintained their places in the tableau, they would have immediately after entered on to the apron, before the curtain, by way of the proscenium doors. In any case Scene I must have been acted well forward.
p. 312 rencounter. Meet.
p. 322 Phi. Who’s there. The Duke of Buckingham, in The Rehearsal (1671), Actus ii, scaena V, has a fray burlesquing this passage.
p. 325 Phi. Villain, thou ly’st. cf. The Rehearsal, Actus v, scaena I: _’.ieutenant-General. Villain, thou lyest.’.
p. 330 Campania. The operations of an army in the field during a season. cf. Edmund Everard’s Discourses on the Present State of the Protestant Princes of Europe (1679): ‘Since the last campania the Three … have entred into the entanglement of a War.’
p. 331 Pattacoon. A Spanish dollar value 4s. 8d; vide supra, Vol. I, The Rover (I), ii, I (p. 36) and note on that passage, p. 442.
p. 347 in a dishabit. This word is excessively rare, if this be not the unique example. The N.E.D. fails to include it. Dishabille had been introduced from France in the reign of Charles II, and (in its various forms) became exceedingly popular. It is noticeable that all other editions, save the first quarto (1671), in this passage read ’.n an undress’.
p. 352 or smothers her with a pillow. This is only in the first quarto. Here in particular, and throughout the whole scene, Mrs. Behn’s reminiscences of Othello are very patent.
p. 358 Enter Erminia veil’d. In Sir William Barclay’s The Lost Lady (folio 1639), a good, if intricate, tragi-comedy, which was received with applause after the Restoration [Pepys saw it 19 January, 1661, and again, rather more than a week later, on the 28th of the same month], and not forgotten by Buckingham when he penned The Rehearsal, Milesia (supposed dead), the wife of Lysicles, appears to her husband as a ghost —Act v, sc. I. It is very possible that Mrs. Behn hence took her hint for the phantom of the living Erminia. It is noticeable that generations after Tobin borrowed not a few incidents from The Lost Lady for The Curfew, produced at Drury Lane, 19 February, 1807, a posthumous play. In Lodowick Carlell’s The Fool Would be a Favourite; or, The Discreet Lover (12mo, 1657), we have Philantus confronting Lucinda as his own ghost—(Actus Quintus).
p. 358 Tiffany. A kind of thin silk gauze. cf. Philemon Holland’s Plinie, Bk. XI, ch. xxii: ‘The invention of that fine silke, tiffanie, sarcenet, and cypres, which instead of apparell to cover and hide, shew women naked through them.’ All subsequent editions to 4to 1671, read ’.affety’ in this passage.
THE EMPEROR OF THE MOON.
p. 390 Lord Marquess of Worcester. Charles, Marquis of Worcester (1661-1698), father of Henry Somerset, second Duke of Beaufort, was the second son [Henry, his elder brother, died young] of Henry Somerset, first Duke of Beaufort (1629-1700), by Mary, eldest daughter of Arthur, first Lord Capel. The first Duke of Beaufort, the staunchest of Tories, was high in favour with Charles I, Charles II, and James II. Charles, the son and heir, was killed through an accident to his coach in Wales, July, 1698, and the shock is said to have hastened the old Duke’s end.
p. 391 acted in France eighty odd times. The original scenes were produced by the Italian comedians at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, 5 March, 1684. Their popularity did not wane for many a decade. In the fifth edition (1721) of Gherardi’s Théâtre Italien there are far fuller excerpts from the farce than in the first edition (1695).
p. 392 who now cannot supply one. The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. If Mrs. Behn’s complaint about the public is true, James II was, none the less, himself a good friend to the stage, and many excellent plays were produced during his reign. There is, however, considerable evidence that at this period of strife—religious and political, rebellion and revolt —things theatrical were very badly affected, and the play-house poorly attended.
p. 393 No Woman without Vizard. cf. Cibber in his Apology (1740), ch. viii: ‘I remember the ladies were then observed to be decently afraid of venturing bare-faced to a new comedy, till they had been assured they might do it, without the risk of an insult to their modesty: or, if their curiosity were too strong for their patience, they took care, at least, to save appearances, and rarely came upon the first days of acting but in masks (then daily worn, and admitted in the pit, the side-boxes, and gallery) which custom, however, had so many ill consequences attending it, that it has been abolished these many years.’
p. 394 Sice. Six. The number six at dice.
p. 394 it sings Sawny. Saunie’s Neglect. This popular old Scotch song is to be found, with a tune, on p. 317, Vol. I, D’Urfey’s Wit and Mirth; or, Pills to Purge Melancholy (1719). It had previously been given in Wit and Drollery (1681). It commences thus:—
Sawney was tall and of noble race
And lov’d me better than any eane
But now he ligs by another lass
And Sawney will ne’er be my true love agen.
Ravenscroft, in The London Cuckolds (1682), Act iii, introduces a link-boy singing this verse as he passes down the street.
p. 394 There’s nothing lasting but the Puppets Show. About this time there was a famous Puppet Show in Salisbury Change which was so frequented that the actors were reduced to petition against it. cf. The Epilogue (spoken by Jevon) to Mountfort’s The Injured Lovers (1688), where the actor tells the audience they must be kind to the poet:—
Else to stand by him, every man has swore.
To Salisbury Court we’ll hurry you next week
Where not for whores, but coaches you may seek;
And more to plague you, there shall be no Play,
But the Emperor of the Moon for every day.
Philander and Irene are the conventional names of lovers in the novels and puppet plays which were fashionable. It is interesting to note that less than a century after this prologue was first spoken, The Emperor of the Moon was itself being played at the puppet show in Exeter Change.
p. 395 Doctor Baliardo. The Doctor was one of the leading masks, stock characters, in Italian impromptu comedy. Doctor Graziano, or Baloardo Grazian, is a pedant, a philosopher, grammarian, rhetorician, astronomer, cabalist, a savant of the first water, boasting of his degree from Bologna, trailing the gown of that august university. Pompous in phrase and person, his speech is crammed with lawyer’s jargon and quibbles, with distorted Latin and ridiculous metaphors. He is dressed in black with bands and a huge shovel hat. He wears a black vizard with wine-stained cheeks. From 1653 until his death at an advanced age in 1694 the representative of Dr. Baloardo was Angelo Augustino Lolli. The Doctor’s speeches in Arlequin Empereur dans la Lune (1684), are a mixture of French and Italian.
p. 395 Scaramouch. In the original Arlequin Empereur dans la Lune Scaramouch is Pierrot. The make-up and costume of Pierrot (Pedrolino) circa 1673 is thus described: ‘La figure blanchie. Serre-tête blanc. Chapeau blanc. Veste et culotte de toile blanche. Bas blancs. Souliers blancs à rubans blancs.’ It will be seen that he differed little from his modern representative. Arlechino appeared in 1671 thus: ‘Veste et pantalon à fond jaune clair. Triangles d’.toffes rouges et vertes. Boutons de cuivre. Bas blancs, Souilers de peau blanche à rubans rouges. Ceinture de cuir jaune à boucle de cuivre. Masque noir. Serre-tête noir. Mentonnière noire. Chapeau gris à queue de lièvre. Batte. Collerette de mousseline.’
Colombine (Mopsophil) in 1683 wore a traditional costume: ‘Casaquin rouge bordé de noir. Jupe gris-perle. Souliers rouges bordés de noir. Manches et collerette de mousseline. Rayon de dentelle et touffe de rubans rose vif. Tablier blanc garni de dentelles.’
p. 397 your trusty Roger. cf. John Weever’s Ancient funerall monuments (folio, 1631): ‘The seruant obeyed and (like a good trusty Roger) performed his Master’s commandment.’ Roger stands as a generic name.
p. 399 Lucian’s Dialogue. The famous [Greek: Ikaromenippos hae hypernephelos]—’Icaromenippus; or, up in the Clouds.’ Mrs. Behn no doubt used the translation of Lucian by Ferrand Spence. 5 Vols. 1684-5. ’.caromenippus’ is given in Vol. III (1684).
p. 399 The Man in the Moon. The Man in the Moone, by Domingo Gonsales (i.e. Francis Godwin, Bishop of Llandaff, and later of Hereford), 8vo, 1638, and 12mo, 1657. This is a highly diverting work. The Second Edition (1657) has various cuts amongst which is a frontispiece, that occurs again at page 29 of the little volume, depicting Gonsales being drawn up to the lunar world in a machine, not unlike a primitive parachute, to which are harnessed his ‘gansas … 25 in number, a covey that carried him along lustily.’
p. 399 A Discourse of the World in the Moon. Cyrano de Bergerac’s [Greek Selaenarchia] or the Government of the World in the Moon: Done into English by Tho. St. Serf, Gent. (16mo, 1659), and another version, The Comical History of the States and Empires of the Worlds of the Moon and Sun, newly Englished by A. Lovell, A.M. (8vo, 1687).
p. 400 Plumeys. Gallants; beaus. So termed, of course, from their feathered hats. cf. Dryden’s An Evening’s Love (1668), Act i, I, where Jacinta, referring to the two gallants, says: ‘I guess ‘em to be Feathers of the English Ambassador’s train.’ cf. Pope’s Sir Plume in The Rape of the Lock. In one of the French scenes of La Precaution inutile, produced 5 March, 1692, by the Italian comedians, Gaufichon (Act i, I) cries to Leandre: ‘Je destine ma soeur a Monsieur le Docteur Balouard, et trente Plumets comme vous ne la détourneroient pas d’un aussi bon rencontre.’ The French word = a fop is, however, extremely rare. Plumet more often = un jeune militaire. cf. Panard (1694-1765); Oeuvres (1803), Tome III, p. 355:—
Que les plumets seraient aimables
Si leurs feux etaient plus constants!
p. 401 Cannons. Canons were the immense and exaggerated breeches, adorned with ribbons and richest lace, which were worn by the fops of the court of Louis XIV. There is more than one reference to them in Molière. Ozell, in his translation of Molière (1714), writes ‘cannions’. cf. School for Husbands, Vol. II, p. 32: ‘those great cannions wherein the legs look as tho’ they were in the stocks.’
Ces grands cannons où, comme en des entraves,
On met tous les matins ses deux jambes esclaves.
—Ecole des Maris, i, I.
cf. Pepys, 24 May, 1660: ‘Up, and made myself as fine as I could, with the linen stockings on and wide canons that I bought the other day at Hague.’
p. 403 The Count of Gabalis. The Abbé Montfaucon de Villars (1635-73) had wittily satirized the philosophy of Paracelsus and the Rosicrucians and their belief in sylphs and elemental spirits in his Le Comte de Gabalis ou Entretiens sur les sciences secrètes (Paris, 1670), which was ‘done into English by P.A. Gent.’ (P. Ayres), as Count Gabalis, or the Extravagant Mysteries of the Cabalists, exposed in five pleasant discourses (1680), and thus included in Vol. II of Bentley and Magnes, Modern Novels (1681-93), twelve volumes. It will be remembered that Pope was indebted to a hint from Gabalis for his aerial machinery in The Rape of the Lock.
p. 406 Iredonozar. This name is from Gonsales’ (Bishop Godwin) The Man in the Moone: ‘The first ancestor of this great monarch [the Emperor of the Moon] came out of the earth … and his name being Irdonozur, his heirs, unto this day, do all assume unto themselves that name.’
p. 407 Harlequin comes out on the Stage. This comic scene, Du Desespoir, which affords such opportunity for the mime, although not given in the first edition of Le Théâtre Italien, finds a place in the best edition (1721). The editor has appended the following note: ‘Ceux qui ont vù cette Scène, conviendront que c’est une des plus plaisantes qu’on ait jamais jouée sur le Théâtre Italien.’
p. 408 a Man that laugh’d to death. This is the traditional end of l’unico Aretino. On hearing some ribald jest he is said to have flung himself back in a chair and expired of sheer merriment. Later days elucidate his fate by declaring that overbalancing himself he broke his neck on the marble pavement. Sir Thomas Urquhart, the glorious translator of Rabelais, is reported to have died of laughter on hearing of the Restoration of Charles II.
p. 410 Boremes. A corrupt form (perhaps only in these passages) of bouts-rimés. ‘They were a List of Words that rhyme to one another drawn up by another Hand and given to a Poet, who was to make a Poem to the Rhymes in the same Order that they were placed on the List.’ —Addison, Spectator, No. 60 (1711).
p. 413 Flute Doux. Should be flute-douce. ‘The highest pitched variety of the old flute with a mouthpiece.’—Murray, N.E.D. cf. Etheredge, The Man of Mode (1676), ii, II: ‘Nothing but flute doux and French hoyboys.’
p. 420 a Curtain or Hangings. When several scenes had to be set one behind another the device of using a curtain or tapestries was common. cf. Dryden and Lee’s The Duke of Guise (1682), Act v, where after four or five sets ‘the scene draws, behind it a traverse’. We then have the Duke’s assassination—he shrieks out some four lines and dies, whereon ’.he traverse is drawn’. The traverse was merely a pair of curtains on a rod. All the grooves were in use for the scenes already set.
p. 422 Harpsicals. A common corruption of harpsicords on the analogy of virginals. The two 4tos, 1687 and 1688, and the 1711 edition all read ’.arpsicals’. 1724 gives ‘Harpsicords’.
p. 435 Ebula. The Ebelus was a jewel of great price bestowed upon Gonzales by Irdonozur. He tells us that: ‘to say nothing of the colour (the Lunar whereof I made mention before, which notwithstanding is so incredibly beautiful, as a man should travel 1000 Leagues to behold it), the shape is somewhat flat of the breadth of a Pistolett, and twice the thickness. The one side of this, which is somewhat more Orient of Colour than the other, being clapt to the bare skin of a man, in any part of his body, it taketh away from it all weight or ponderousness; whereas turning the other side it addeth force unto the attractive beams of the Earth, either in this world or that, and maketh the body to weigh half so much again as it did before.’
p. 446 Guzman of Salamanca. A Guzman was a common term of abuse. The first English translation (by James Mabbe) of Aleman’s famous romance is, indeed, entitled The Rogue, and it had as running title The Spanish Rogue. There is a novel by George Fidge entitled The English Gusman; or, The History of that Unparalleled Thief James Hind (1652, 4to). Salamanca had an unsavoury reputation owing to the fictions of Titus Gates. cf. The Rover (II), Act v: ‘Guzman Medicines.’
p. 446 Signum Mallis. This curious phrase, which is both distorted cant and canine, would appear to mean ‘your rogue’s phiz’.
p. 446 Friskin. ‘A gay lively person.’—Halliwell.
p. 446 Jack of Lent. A puppet set up to be thrown at; in modern parlance, ‘Aunt Sally’. Hence a butt for all.
p. 451 Spitchcock’d. To spitchcock is to split lengthwise, as an eel, and then broil.
p. 458 Stentraphon. A megaphone.
p. 460 They fight at Barriers. A comic combat between Harlequin and Scaramouch forms one of the traditional incidents (Lazzi), which occur repeatedly in the Italian and Franco-Italian farces. cf. Dryden’s Epilogue spoken by Hart when The Silent Woman was played before the University of Oxford in 1673:—
Th’ Italian Merry-Andrews took their place,
And quite debauch’d the Stage with lewd Grimace:
Instead of Wit and Humours, your Delight
Was there to see two Hobby-horses fight,
Stout Scaramoucha with Rush Lance rode in,
And ran a Tilt at Centaure Arlequin.
End of Project Gutenberg’s The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III, by Aphra Behn