In the first volume, and in the greater part of the second volume, I marked the deviations from the old editions with a minuteness which I afterwards saw to be unnecessary; and throughout the remainder of the work I accordingly abandoned that system of annotation.
“Not fainting,”
Read
“Nor fainting.”
pan’d hose] Are, I believe, more correctly described by Gifford as “breeches composed of small squares or pannels.” Note on Massinger’s Works, vol. ii. p. 485, ed. 1813. “A kind of trunk breeches, formed of stripes of various-coloured cloth, occasionally intermixed with slips of silk or velvet, stitched together.” Introd. to Ford’s Works, p. clxxvii.
Scirophorion ... Hecatombaion] When I reprinted Gifford’s note on these words, which he calls “a miserable ostentation of Greek literature,” I forgot to observe, that the “Grecian Moneths” were formerly not unfamiliar to the vulgar; see, for instance, the last page of Pond’s Almanack, 1610.
kerry merry buff] So Nash, “Yea, without kerry merry buffe be it spoken,” &c. Haue with you to Saffron-walden, 1596, sig. F 4; and Kempe, “One hath written Kemps farewell to the tune of Kery, mery, Buffe.” Dedication of the Nine daies Wonder, 1600.
Cornelius’ dry-fats] Compare Taylor, the water-poet: “She [the bawd] will harbour no ventred commodity in her warehouse, and if the Informer or Constable doe light vpon one of her conceal’d dryfats, Punchions, fardels,” &c. A Bawd, p. 103—Workes, 1630.
“Enter Doyt and Dandyprat.”
Read
“Re-enter Doyt,” &c.
“I’ll keep time just to a minute, I.”
Read, for the metre,
“I will keep,” &c.
lantern and candle-light] “Was anciently accounted one of the cries of London, being the usual words of the bellman:” see Nares’s Gloss. in v.
“marry, Blurt master-constable.”
Read
“marry, Blurt, master constable!”
a proverbial expression: see p. 225 of the same vol.
“Enter Blurt and all his Watch.”
Read
“Re-enter Blurt,” &c.
For “his” of old ed. the sense requires that we should read “this,”—an alteration which I intended, but by some oversight neglected, to make in the text. As to my note, “lie] i. e. lay—for the sake of the rhyme”—the word, I believe, is rightly explained; but I find that Brathwait has used “lies” for “lays,” even in the middle of a line:
steaks] That this is the right reading, appears from a passage in Your Five Gallants: see vol. ii. p. 287.
Without thee] I was wrong in supposing that the earlier part of the line had dropt out: see notes on imperfect couplets, vol. i. p. 424, vol. ii. pp. 7, 307, &c.
scurvy murrey kersey] So in The Two Merry Milke-Maids, 1620; “foolish, scuruy, course-kersie, durty-tayl’d, dangling dug-cow.” Sig. C. 3.
i’ th’ wold of Kent] I ought not to have altered “wild” into “wold:” compare The Marriage-Broaker by M. W.; “Ride to my Farm i’ th’ wild,” p. 27—Gratiæ Theatrales, 1662.
a warning-piece] The text is quite right: so Dekker, “Ther’s a warning peece. Away.” Whore of Babylon, 1607, sig. C. iv.; and S. Rowley,
the row] Perhaps I ought to have printed “row” with a capital letter,—i. e. Goldsmiths’-Row in Cheapside: see Stow’s Survey, b. iii. p. 198, ed. 1720; and Gifford’s note on B. Jonson’s Works, vol. v. p. 93.
We learn from Downes’s Roscius Anglicanus that this play was one of the early dramas revived between 1662 and 1665, p. 36, ed. Waldron.
Longacre] The editor of 1816 is mistaken: this word was used for an estate in general; compare Lady Alimony, 1659, “It will run like Quicksilver over all their Husbands Demains: and in very short time make a quick dispatch of all his Long acre.” Sig. B 3.
A passage of Gammer Gurton’s Needle, which stands thus in the various editions of Dodsley’s Old Plays,
has drawn forth the following extraordinary note from Steevens: “I believe we should read halse anchor, or anker, as it was anciently spelt; a naval phrase. The halse or halser was a particular kind of cable,” &c., vol. ii. p. 11, last ed.—If Steevens, or the other editors, had only taken the trouble to look at the 4to of 1575, they would have found the true reading—“halfe aker,” i. e. small bit of ground.
Weber remarks, &c.] The mistake of Weber may be traced to Langbaine, who says, “This Play is mentioned by Sir Thomas Bornwel in The Lady of Pleasure, Act 1. Sc. 1.” Acc. of English Dram. Poets, p. 372.
“a corruption of will.”
Read
“a corruption of wilt.”
We saw Samson bear the town-gates on his neck from the lower to the upper stage, with that life and admirable accord, that it shall never be equalled, unless the whole new livery of porters set [to] their shoulders] Middleton seems to have had in his recollection a passage of Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost: “Sampson, master: he was a man of good carriage, great carriage; for he carried the town-gates on his back, like a porter.” Act i. sc. 2.
Europa’s sea-form] Probably “sea-form” is used in the sense of sea-seat,—the bull on which she sat.
play Ambidexter] I was wrong, I believe, in saying that this expression has an allusion to Preston’s Cambises: it is by no means uncommon.
“Hist! a supply.”
Read, with old ed.,
“Pist! a supply.”
See notes, vol. ii. pp. 460, 468.
After this line insert “Exit;” and in the note, for “and thrown a scarf over his face (see what follows), the audience,” &c., read “and having made his exit at one door, had re-entered at the other with a scarf thrown over his face, the audience,” &c.
“Master, hist, master!”
Read, with old ed.,
“Master, pist, master!”
See notes, vol. ii. pp. 460, 468.
The boy means that she made his father a cuckold: compare Dekker’s Owles Almanacke, 1618; “Men whose wiues haue light heeles, are called Ramme-headed Cuckolds,” p. 10.