1113. Cold Harbour] See note, p. 58.—Nares (Gloss.), citing the present passage, says, that Cold Harbour “seems to be used as a kind of metaphorical term for the grave.”
1115. western pug] “I doubt the sand-eyde asse will kicke like a Westerne Pugge, if I rubbe him on the gall.” Greene’s Theeves falling out, &c., sig. C, ed. 1637.—“In so much that [during the plague] euen the Westerne Pugs receiuing mony here, have tyed it in a bag at the end of their barge, and so trailed it through the Thames,” &c. Dekker’s Wonderfull Yeare, 1603, sig. F 3.
1116. Open.] Old ed. “Mist. Open.”
1117. brave girls, worth gold] The expression seems to have been proverbial; one of Heywood’s plays is entitled The Fair Maid of the West, or A Girle worth gold, 1631.
1118. the Brazen Head] See Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (first printed in 1594) in my ed. of Greene’s Dram. Works, and the extract there given from the prose tract, The Famous Historie of Friar Bacon (on which that play is founded), “How Fryer Bacon made a Brazen Head to speake, by the which hee would have walled England about with Brasse,” vol. i. pp. 141, 215. The friars lost all their labour through the folly of a servant named Miles, who having been set to watch the Head while they retired to rest, neglected to call them when at last it spoke.
1119. Open.] Old ed. “Mist. Open.”
1122.
Open.
Gos., &c. ] Old ed. here, and afterwards, “Omnes.”
1123. snuffling] Old ed. “snafling;” but see his next speech.
1124. fagary] i.e. vagary.
1125. if you be remember’d] i.e. if you recollect.
1126. tawny-coat] “Tawny was the usual dress of a summoner or apparitor.” Reed.
1127. I must lose my hair, &c.] “Alluding to the consequences of lewdness, one of which, in the first appearance of the disease in Europe, was the loss of hair.” Reed.
1128. A knack to know an honest man] A Pleasant Conceited Comedie, called, A knacke to know an honest Man, As it hath beene sundrie times plaied about the Citie of London, was printed in 1596, the author unknown.
1129. gelt feathers] i.e. golden feathers. But I am by no means confident that I have restored the right reading. Old ed. “Get fethers.”
1130. scape] Old ed. “scapt.”
1131. Irish] “Is a game which differs very slightly from backgammon. The manner of playing it is described in The Compleat Gamester, 1680, p. 109.” Reed.
1132. bearing] “Bear as fast as you can ... when you come to bearing, have a care,” &c. The Compleat Gamester, pp. 155-6, ed. 1674.
1133. And that, &c.] A line preceding this one seems to have dropt out: perhaps another is wanting after And yet to try, &c.
1134. Meg of Westminster’s courage] Meg of Westminster, or long Meg of Westminster, was a virago, of whom frequent mention is made by our early dramatists; and indeed, like the heroine of the present piece, she had the honour of figuring in a play called after her, in 1594 (see Malone’s Shakespeare, by Boswell, vol. iii. p. 304). At that period, however, she is supposed to have been dead. She is introduced in an ante-masque in B. Jonson’s Fortunate Isles—Works, vol. viii. p. 79, ed. Giff. A 4to tract, entitled The Life of Long Meg of Westminster: containing the mad merry prankes she played in her life time, not onely in performing sundry quarrels with divers ruffians about London; but also how valiantly she behaued her selfe in the warres of Bolloingne, was printed (perhaps not for the first time) in 1635; and forms part of Miscellanea Antiqua Anglicana, 1816, 4to.
1135. puttocks] i.e. kites.
1136. like a firework, &c.] So Dekker (see notes, pp. 490, 503) in his Whore of Babylon, 1607;
1137. linstock] Or lintstock—a stick with the match (the lint) at one end of it, used in firing cannon.
1138. galley-foist] i.e. a long barge with oars: it frequently means that of the lord mayor.
1139. shovel-board shilling] i.e. a shilling used at the game of shovel-board, and which was always smooth, that it might “slide away” easily.
1140. strouts] i.e. struts.
1141. boot-halers] “Cotgrave explains Picoreur to be ‘a boot-haler (in a friend’s country), a ravening or filching souldier.’” Reed. Freebooters, plunderers, halers of boot (profit), or booty.
1142. ging] i.e. gang. “This substitution of i for a,” says Gifford, in a note on the word, “was common in our author’s days.” B. Jonson’s Works, vol. iv. p. 161. But the fact is, ging is of great antiquity: “The gouernour of this gyng.” Gawayn and the Green Knight, MS. Cott. Nero A. X. fol. 94.
1143. corago] “A corruption of coraggio, Ital.” Collier.
1144. Bononia ... Bologna] One and the same place!
1145. Volterra] Old ed. “Valteria.”
1146. jobbering] i.e. jabbering.
1147. Not a cross] i.e. not a penny.—Cross, a piece of money, many coins having a cross on one side.
1148. skeldering] “A cant term, generally applied to a vagrant, and often used by our ancient poets. It appears to have been particularly appropriated to those vagabonds who wander about under the name of soldiers, borrowing or begging money.” Reed. See also Gifford’s note on B. Jonson’s Works, vol. ii. p. 8: “Skeldring was a cant term for impudent begging,” &c.:—and Dekker’s Gull’s Horn-book, p. 129, reprint; “whom he may skelder [i.e. cheat, defraud], after the genteel fashion, of money.”
1149. glasiers] i.e. “eyes.” Dekker’s Lanthorne and Candlelight, 1612, sig. C 2.
1150. black patches] Were used as an ornament, not only by ladies, but also by some effeminate gallants of those days.
1151. Isle of Dogs] Opposite Greenwich. It seems to have been a place where persons took refuge from their creditors and the officers of justice.
1152. whip-jack] In Dekker’s Belman of London, 1608, sig. D 2, the description of “A Whipiacke” is much the same as that which Moll gives here.
1153. horns for the thumb] Pickpockets were said to place a case, or thimble, of horn on their thumbs, to support the edge of the knife in the act of cutting purses: see Gifford’s note on B. Jonson’s Works, vol. iv. p. 413.
1154. nipping Christian] i.e. cutpurse.
1155. maunderer upon the pad] “Mawnding, asking (begging).” “Pad, a way.” Dekker’s Lanthorne and Candlelight, 1612, sig C 2.
1156. an upright man] “Is a sturdy big-bonde knaue, that neuer walkes but (like a Commander) with a short truncheon in his hand, which hee cals his Filchman. At Markets, Fayres, and other meetings his voice amongst Beggars is of the same sound that a Constables is of, it is not to be controld. He is free of all the shiers in England, but neuer stayes in any place long, &c. &c.... These [upright men] cary the shapes of soldiers, and can talke of the Low Countries, though they neuer were beyond Dover.” Dekker’s Belman of London, 1608, sig C. 3.
1157. a wild rogue] “Is a spirit that cares not in what circle he rises, nor into the company of what Diuels hee falles: in his swadling clouts is he marked to be a villaine, and in his breeding is instructed to be so.... These Wilde Rogues (like wilde geese) keepe in flocks, and all the day loyter in the fields, if the weather bee warme, and at Bricke-kils, or else disperse themselues in cold weather, to rich mens doores, and at night haue their meetings in Barnes or other out places,” &c. Id. sig. D.
1158. an angler] “Is a lymb of an Vpright man, as beeing deriued from him: their apparell in which they walke is commonly frieze Jerkins and gally slops: in the day time, they beg from house to house, not so much for reliefe, as to spy what lyes fit for their nets, which in the night following they fish for. The Rod they angle with is a staffe of fiue or six foote in length, in which within one inch of the top is a little hole boared quite thorough, into which hole they put an yron hooke, and with the same doe they angle at windowes about midnight, the draught they pluck vp beeing apparell, sheetes, couerlets, or whatsoeuer their yron hookes can lay hold of,” &c. Id. sig. C 4.
1159. a ruffler] “The next in degree to him [the Vpright man] is cald a Ruffler: the Ruffler and the Vpright-man are so like in conditions, that you would sweare them brothers: they walke with cudgels alike; they profess armes alike.... These commonly are fellowes that haue stood aloofe in the warres, and whilst others fought, they tooke their heeles and ran away from their Captaine, or else they haue bin Seruing-men, whome for their behauiour no man would trust with a liuery,” &c. Id. ibid.
1160. the salomon] i.e. “the masse.” Dekker’s Lanthorne and Candlelight, 1612, sig. C 3.
1161. kinchin mort in her slate] Old ed. "kitchin-mort."—“Kinching-morts are girles of a yeare or two old, which the Morts (their mothers) cary at their backes in their Slates (which in the Canting-Tongue are Sheetes) if they haue no children of their owne, they will steale them from others, and by some meane disfigure them, that by their parents they shall neuer be knowne.” Dekker’s Belman of London, 1608, sig. D 3.
1162. my dell and my dainty wild dell] Dell is a girl yet undebauched: “these Dells are reserued for the Vpright-men, &c.... Of these Dells, some are termed Wilde Dells, and those are such as are born and begotten vnder a hedge: the other are yong wenches that either by death of parents, the villainie of Executors, or the crueltie of maisters and mistresses, fall into this infamous and damnable course of life.” Id. sig. D 3, 4.
1163. I’ll tumble this next darkmans in the strommel, &c.] i.e. I’ll tumble this next night in the straw, and drink good drink (baufe being probably, as Reed has observed, a mistake for bouse), and eat a fat pig, a cock (or capon), and a duck. See Dekker’s Lanthorne and Candlelight, 1612, sig. C 2, 3.
1164. old] i.e. abundant.
1165. bousing ken] i.e. ale-house. See Dekker’s Lanthorne and Candlelight, 1612, sig. C 2.
1167. lib ken or our stalling ken] i.e. our house to lie in, or our house to receive stolen goods. See Dekker’s Lanthorne and Candlelight, 1612, sig. C 2, 3 (where “Stuling ken.”)
1168. queer cuffin ... ben cove, &c.] Old ed. “ben caue.” “The word Coue or Cofe, or Cuffin, signifies a man, a fellow, &c. But differs something in his propertie, according as it meetes with other wordes: For a Gentleman is called A Gentry Coue, or Cofe: A good fellow is a Bene Cofe: a Churle is called a Quier Cuffin; Quier signifies naught,” &c. Id. sig. C.
1169. pedlar’s French] “That pedlers french, or that Canting language, which is to be found among none but Beggars.” Dekker’s Belman of London, 1608, sig. C.
1170. Ben mort, &c.] i.e. Good wench, shall you and I rob a booth, rob a house, or cut a purse, and then we’ll lie down asleep under the woods (or bushes), &c.—Old ed. here, and in Moll’s repetition of the words, “heaue a booth.” See Dekker’s Lanthorne and Candlelight, 1612, sig. C 2, 3.
1171. Cut benar, &c.] i.e. Speak better words, and hold your hands and your legs. See Id. ibid.
1172. heave a bough] Moll, or rather the printer, has omitted the explanation of these words: see note, p. 539.
1173. Song by Moll and Tearcat] The old ed. gives the first two lines to Moll, and prefixes “T. Cat.” both to the third and tenth lines.
1174. A gage, &c. &c.] i.e. A quart pot of good wine in an ale-house of London is better than a cloak, meat, bread, butter-milk (or whey), or porridge, which we steal in the country. O I would lie all the day, O I would lie all the night, by the mass, under the woods (or bushes), by the mass, in the stocks, and wear bolts (or fetters), and lie till a palliard lay with my wench, so my drunken head might quaff wine well. Avast to the highway, let us hence, &c. See Dekker’s Lanthorne and Candlelight, 1612, sig. C 2, 3; and The Groundworke of Conny-catching, 1592, sig. A 2. In the fourth line, as Reed observes, “lay” should probably be “lap.” A palliard is a beggar born: “he likewise is cald a Clapperdugeon: his vpper garment is an old cloake made of as many pieces patch’d together, as there be villanies in him,” &c. &c. Dekker’s Belman of London, 1608, sig. D.
1175. stalled to the rogue] “This done, the Grand Signior called for a Gage of Bowse, which belike signified a quart of drinke, for presently a pot of Ale being put into his hand, hee made the yong Squire kneele downe, and powring the full pot on his pate, vttered these wordes, I doe stall thee to the Rogue by vertue of this soueraigne English liquor, so that henceforth it shall be lawfull for thee to Cant (that is to say) to be a Vagabond and Beg,” &c. Dekker’s Belman of London, 1608, sig. C. “Stalling, making or ordeyning.” Dekker’s Lanthorne and Candlelight, 1612, sig. C 3.
1176. bestow] Old ed. “bestowes.”
1177. boards] “Borde, a shilling.” Dekker’s Lanthorne and Candlelight, 1612, sig. C 2.
1178. cut ben whids] i.e. speak good words. See Id. ibid.
1179. trine me on the cheats] i.e. hang me on the gallows. See Id. sig. C 2, 3.
1182. gallant ... brave] i.e. smartly dressed.
1183. strike] “The act doing, is called striking.” Dekker’s Belman of London, 1608, sig. H 2.
1184. shells] “The money, the Shelles.” Id. ibid.
1185.
L. Nol.
S. Beau., &c. ] Old ed. here, and afterwards, “Omnes.”
1186. figging-law, &c.] "In making of which law, two persons haue the chiefe voices, that is to say, the Cutpurse and the Pickpocket, and all the branches of this law reach to none but them and such as are made free denizens of their incorporation....
1188. The rest] Old ed. here, and afterwards, “Omnes.”
1189. boiled] “The spying of this villanie is called Smoaking or Boiling.” Dekker’s Belman of London, 1608, sig. H 2.
1190. the Swan] One of the theatres on the Bankside.
1192. a synagogue, &c.] According to Dekker, those who were under the figging-law had occasionally “solemne meetings in their hall.” Belman of London, 1608, sig. H 3.
1193. pacus palabros] Pocas palabras (Spanish), i.e. few words—an expression which is found under various corrupted forms in our old writers. It is usually put into the mouths of low people, among whom it seems to have been current: “With this learned oration the Cobler was tutord: laid his finger on his mouth, and cried paucos palabros.” Dekker’s Wonderfull Yeare, 1603, sig. E 4.
1194. Of cheators, lifters, nips, foists, puggards, curbers] “The Cheating Law, or the Art of winning money by false dyce: Those that practise this studie call themselues Cheators, the dyce Cheaters, and the money which they purchase Cheates.” Dekker’s Belman of London, 1608, sig. E 2.—“The Lifting Law ... teacheth a kind of lifting of goods cleane away.” Id. sig. G 3, where various kinds of lifters are described.—Concerning nips and foists, see note, p. 544.—Of puggards I can find no mention: pugging seems to mean thieving in the Winter’s Tale, act iv. sc. 2, Malone’s Shakespeare (by Boswell), vol. xiv. p. 334; and, according to Steevens (ad loc.), "is used by Greene in one of his pieces."—“The Curbing Law [teaches] how to hooke goodes out of a windowe.... He that hookes is cald the Curber.... The Hooke is the Courb.” Dekker, ubi supra, sig. G.
1195. black-guard] Meant, properly, the lowest drudges of the kitchen, turnspits, carriers of wood, coal, &c., who attended the progresses of the court: see Gifford’s notes on B. Jonson’s Works, vol. ii. p. 169; vii. p. 250.
1196. love] Old ed. “loues.”
1197. have] Old ed. “has.”
1198. than your six wet towns] “These I should apprehend to be Fulham, Richmond, Kingston, Hampton, Chertsey, Staines.—The other intermediate towns are, Chelsea, Battersea, Kew, Isleworth, Twickenham, and Walton. N.” Note in Reed’s ed. of Dodsley’s Old Plays.
1200. gascoyne-bride] i.e. a bride who wears gascoynes,—gaskins, or galligaskins.
1201. plunges] i.e. difficulties, perplexities.
1202. cast] Old ed. “casts.”
1203. monthly] “i.e. madly; as if under the influence of the moon.” Steevens.
1204. resolv’d] i.e. satisfied.
1206. and] i.e. if.
1207. Cheats] Qy. “cheaters:” see p. 546 and note; but compare p. 554, last line but one.
1209. me] Old ed. “hee.”
1210. and] i.e. if.
1212. gentlewomen] i.e. Mrs. Gallipot, &c.—Old ed. “Gentlewoman.”
1213. a book] “Alluding, no doubt, to some tract of the time. Dekker himself wrote several of the kind; but it is not to be supposed that any of these are here so roughly handled.” Collier. Not to be supposed indeed; since Dekker wrote a portion of the present play.
The footnote scheme used lettered references, repeating a-z. On numerous of occasions, letters were repeated, and sometimes skipped. The numeric resequencing of notes here resolves those lapses. Footnotes are sometimes referred to directly in a footnote by its letter designation. The few direct references to a lettered note use the new numeric value.
Footnotes frequently refer to other notes, usually only by referring the the page where they can be found. Sometimes those cross-references are not accurate and the correct location cannot be ascertained.
Footnote 655 on p. 298 was misplaced. It should have followed the word ‘are’ rather than ‘gold and pearl’.
Note n311 (‘thine aim’) refers to a note on p. 134, but no relevent note appears there. Another note n397 (‘attone them’) refers to the same page 134, and again there seems to be no relevent note. No other notes in this volume are candidates. Both remain unlinked.
Note 405 refers to a note on p. 149. The reference is to note 402 on p. 194, the numbers having been transposed.
Note n856 (‘chain’) refers to a note on p. 381. While the word occurs on that page, there is no relevant note. Perhaps either note 761 or 780 was intended.
Errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected, and are noted here. The references are to the page and line in the original.
| 63.32 | part of the first line of a couplet.[”] | Removed. |
| 194.34 | put [t]hem together | Added. |
| 144.31 | prevented] See note, p. 4[0/9]. | Replaced. |
| 233.1 | I’ll work it so[,] | Removed. |
| 290.22 | [good.] Boy, be ready, boy. | sic |
| 431.6 | Moon-like changing dayes.[”] | Added. |
| 508.2 | is worth a pair of two[.] | Added. |
| 365.32 | [“]The same play upon words | Removed. |
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.
the glory of his complement] I doubt if Steevens’s explanation of this passage be the right one, or if complement mean here any thing more than courtly address.
Steevens’s remark, cited here by Reed, that a horse was sometimes denominated a footcloth, is certainly wrong. “Sir Bounteous,” observes Nares (Gloss. in v.), “is said to [be] alight[ed] from his footcloth, as one might say, alighted from his saddle.”
the high German’s size] This person is probably alluded to in the following passage of Dekker’s Newes from Hell, &c. 1606: “As for Rapier and dagger, the Germane may be his journeyman.” Sig. B. See also Beaumont and Fletcher’s Knight of the Burning Pestle—Works, vol. i. p. 215, ed. Weber; and Shirley’s Opportunity—Works, vol. iii. p. 407, where Gifford observes, that “he seems to have been ‘a master of fence,’ or common challenger.”
Since writing the note on this passage, I have met with the following lines in The Travailes of the Three English Brothers, &c. (by Day, W. Rowley, and Wilkins), 1607;
I am told that a gentleman in London possesses an edition of the Life of Long Meg of Westminster, printed in 1582.
I ought to have substituted “lap” for “lay,” as Reed (see note) suggests.