666. Over I was] i. e. above, beyond what I was—absurdly altered by Weber to “As e’er I was.”
667. we] Old ed. “he.”
668. come off roundly] i. e. pay well.
669. and] i. e. if.
670. The fig, &c.] See the latter part of Gifford’s note on B. Jonson’s Works, vol. i. p. 51, and Douce’s Illust. of Shakespeare, vol. i. p. 492.
671. yellow bands] i. e. bands dyed with yellow starch, which was once very fashionable, and is said to have been invented by Mrs. Turner, who was executed Nov. 1615, for having been concerned in the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, and wore at the gallows a ruff of her favourite colour,—the hangman, we are told, having his bands and cuffs also yellow. Hence the epithet “hateful” in the text. Yet B. Rich, in The Irish Hubbub, declares that “yellow starcht bands ... beganne even then [i. e. immediately after Mrs. Turner’s death] to be more generall than they were before;” and they were certainly worn in 1621: see note on Albumazer—Dodsley’s Old Plays, vol. vii. p. 133, last ed.
672. hose] i. e. breeches.
675. being] Qy. “blessing?”
676. mere] i. e. whole.
679. hackney-man] In Dodsley’s Old Plays, and Weber’s B. and F., “hackney-coachman!”
680. come] Old ed. “came.”
681. and] i. e. if.
682. prettiest] Old ed. “pretiliest.”
683. lin] i. e. cease.
684. sadness] i. e. seriousness.
685. and] i. e. if.
687. resolv’d] i. e. convinced, satisfied.
688. feeling] Altered, in Dodsley’s Old Plays, to “felling,” which Weber corrected into “selling.”
690. master] Old ed. “me” (a misprint for M.).
691. Thou hast no charge, &c.] See p. 373.
692. Here they come, &c.] Gifford observes that there is a somewhat similar incident in The New Inn—note on Ben Jonson’s Works, vol. v. p. 433, where he cites the present passage very incorrectly.
693. and] i. e. if.
694. here] After this word, the old ed. has “Exeunt,” and gives the next speech of Ricardo, on another page, as “Epilogue,”—which in fact it is.
695. do] Old ed. “do’s.”
696. William Rowley] Whose name stands together with Middleton’s on the title-pages of several plays, is generally considered as a dramatist of the third class. He appears also to have been an actor,—one of the company of players belonging to the Prince of Wales,—and to have excelled more in comedy than tragedy. An alteration of his best piece, A New Wonder, a Woman never vext, was performed with success at Covent Garden theatre in 1824.
697. other] Old eds. “t’other.”
698. niceness] i. e. scrupulousness.
701. shooting at these butts ... pricks ... rove] A succession of puns. The prick was the point or mark in the centre of the butts: to rove meant to shoot an arrow with an elevation, not point blank.
702. disgest] Frequently used for digest by our old writers.
703. twixt] Old eds. “Betwixt.”
705. diminiting] i. e. diminishing.
706. parle] i. e. parley.
707. armorer] Old ed. “armourers.”
708. Col.’s Fr.] Old eds. “Capt. friend.”
709. brabbling matter] i. e. matter of broil.
710. before me] An exclamation: so towards the conclusion of this act, Russell says,
711. enter in] i. e. shew in—but qy. “enter 'em?” So at p. 81, “I would not enter his man,” &c.
712. beshrow] i. e. (as ed. 1622 has) “beshrew.”
713. good] i. e. as Shylock explains it, sufficient—in a pecuniary sense.
714. remora] “The Latin name of a fish that adheres to the sides and keels of ships, and retards their way.” Whalley’s note, Ben Jonson, Works, vol. ii. p. 442, ed. Gifford.—The word is often used by our early dramatists. See p. 269 of this vol.
715. beget] Old ed. “begets.”
718. murdering-piece] Was the name of a very destructive piece of ordnance: see Nares’s Gloss. in v. Shakespeare uses the word, Hamlet, act iv. sc. 5.
719. fears] i. e. frightens.
720. frailty] First ed. “fraileto;” ed. 1622, “frailtie to.”
721. resolve] i. e. assure, satisfy, convince.
723. and] i. e. if.
724. censure] i. e. opinion.
725. conditions] i. e. dispositions.
728. and] i. e. if.
729. mistress] Old eds. “Master”—the original MS. having had merely “M.”
730. fine] Old eds. “fiue.”
731. Points] Old eds. “Appoints.”
733. what’s] So ed. 1622. First ed. “what.”
734. circular] i. e. roundabout.
736. make yourself unready] i. e. undress yourself: compare pp. 35, 396, and notes.
737. jugal] i. e. nuptial.
738. have] Old eds. “has.”
739. whisper] i. e. whisper to your brother the cause of my] sorrow.
740. Cornish hug] A particular lock, practised by the Cornish wrestlers.
741. Chough, a Cornish gentleman] Old eds. “Chawgh,” &c.—Chough or chuff is a sea-bird, generally thought a stupid one, common in Cornwall: and a Cornish chough appears to have been a name for a silly fellow from the country;
742. Red-shanks] An appellation of contempt given to the Scottish Highlanders and to the native Irish. “Both summer and winter (except when the frost is most vehement), going always bare-legged and bare-footed, our delight and pleasure is not only in hunting of red-deer, wolves, foxes, and graies [i.e. badgers], whereof we abound and have great plenty, but also in running, leaping, swimming, shooting, and throwing of darts. Therefore in so much as we use, and delight so to go always, the tender delicate gentlemen of Scotland call us Redshanks.” MS. quoted by Pinkerton—Hist. of Scot. vol. ii. p. 396.
743. quarrels] A play on the word—squares of glass in windows.
745. the Mount] i. e. St. Michael’s Mount in Cornwall.
746. and] i. e. if.
747. you’ll] So ed. 1622. First ed. “you.”
748. the roaring school] See act iv. sc. 1.—Roarers, or roaring-boys (repeatedly mentioned by our early dramatists), were the bullying bucks who, in Middleton’s time and long after, infested the streets of London. It is, perhaps, unnecessary to remark, that the picture of them in the present play is a comic exaggeration; and that “roaring” was never reduced to a science, or taught in a school.
750. near 'em] i. e. in the Tower.
751. the bears] In Paris Garden, Southwark: see note, vol. i. p. 407.
752. Hercules and thou, &c.] I recollect no mention elsewhere of these worthies having been “on the Olympic Mount together;” but for an account of the wrestling between Corineus and the giant Goemagot, or Gogmagog, see A. Thompson’s translation of Jeffry of Monmouth’s British History, p. 35, and Drayton’s Poly-olbion, First Song, p. 12, ed. 1622.
753. come] Old eds. “com’d.”
754. Turk, though not worth tenpence] So in Dekker’s Satiromastix, 1602, “wilt fight, Turke-a-tenpence?” sig. H 2; and in Dekker and Webster’s Westward Ho, 1607, the great Turk is called “the ten-penny infidel:” see my ed. of Webster’s Works, iii. 95.
755. Insufferably] Old eds. “Insufferable.”
756. remembrance] To be read as if written rememberance: but qy. “remembrancer?”
757. and] i. e. if.
758. first esteem’d] This scene, and nearly the whole of the first scene of the second act, are given in the Spec. of Engl. Dram. Poets by Lamb, whose remarks on them are too weighty to be omitted here: “The insipid levelling morality to which the modern stage is tied down would not admit of such admirable passions as these scenes are filled with. A puritanical obtuseness of sentiment, a stupid infantile goodness, is creeping among us, instead of the vigorous passions, and virtues clad in flesh and blood, with which the old dramatists present us. Those noble and liberal casuists could discern in the differences, the quarrels, the animosities of man, a beauty and truth of moral feeling, no less than in the iterately inculcated duties of forgiveness and atonement. With us all is hypocritical meekness. A reconciliation scene (let the occasion be never so absurd or unnatural) is always sure of applause. Our audiences come to the theatre to be complimented on their goodness. They compare notes with the amiable characters in the play, and find a wonderful similarity of disposition between them. We have a common stock of dramatic morality, out of which a writer may be supplied, without the trouble of copying it from originals within his own breast. To know the boundaries of honour, to be judiciously valiant, to have a temperance which shall beget a smoothness in the angry swellings of youth, to esteem life as nothing when the sacred reputation of a parent is to be defended, yet to shake and tremble under a pious cowardice when that ark of an honest confidence is found to be frail and tottering, to feel the true blows of a real disgrace blunting that sword which the imaginary strokes of a supposed false imputation had put so keen an edge upon but lately; to do, or to imagine this done in a feigned story, asks something more of a moral sense, somewhat a greater delicacy of perception in questions of right and wrong, than goes to the writing of two or three hackneyed sentences about the laws of honour as opposed to the laws of the land, or a common-place against duelling. Yet such things would stand a writer now-a-days in far better stead than Captain Ager and his conscientious honour; and he would be considered as a far better teacher of morality than old Rowley or Middleton if they were living.” P. 136.
759. Reduce] i. e. Bring back.
760. stings] Old eds. “strings.”
761. fro] Or frow—i. e. woman.
762. for] Old eds. “from.”
763. quit] i. e. requite.
765. No] Old eds. “Not” (a misprint for “Noe”).
766. Is’t] Old eds. “If.”
767. Achilles’ spear] So in Shakespeare’s Second Part of Henry VI.;
769. certes] i. e. certainly.
770. agrees] I have not altered this word into the plural, because a rhyme is intended.
771. sleights] i. e. artifices.
772. When in a new glass, &c.]
In The Second Part of the Iron Age, 1632, by Heywood, Helen strangles herself, after surveying the ruins of her beauty in a looking-glass.
773. canker] i. e. wild rose, or dog-rose.
774. earns] i. e. yearns, grieves. So Lilly;
So Spenser also writes the word.
776. the Colonel’s Friend] Old eds. “the Colonels Second”—i.e. one of the gentlemen who attended the Colonel in the duel with Captain Ager; and who (if I rightly understand the last lines of this scene) has set up for a teacher of “roaring” during peace-time.
777. do] Old eds. “does.”
778. welkin] i. e. sky.
779. cheat] Was certainly wheaten bread of the second sort; but qy., is the word used here for a fine sort of bread—as it seems also to be in a passage quoted by Nares, Gloss, in v.?
780. First Roar.] Old eds. “2. Roar.”—but he is second only with reference to the person who spoke last.
781. and] i. e. if.
782. tables] i. e. tablets, memorandum-books.
783. bronstrops] In A Cure for a Cuckold, by Webster and W. Rowley (first printed in 1661), is the following passage, which appears to contain an allusion to A Fair Quarrel;
“Pettifog. ...This informer comes into Turnbull street to a victualling-house, and there falls in league with a wench.
Compass. A tweak or bronstrops? I learned that name in a play.”
Both tweak and bronstrops (the former being a word of more frequent occurrence than the latter) seem to be equivalent to punk; but in act iv. sc. 4 of the present play, a distinction is made between them: “mayst thou first serve out thy time as a tweak [harlot], and then become a bronstrops [bawd] as she is.”
784. obtrect] i. e. slander.
785. fucus] Equivalent, perhaps, to painted jade: our early writers repeatedly use this Latin term to signify the colours with which ladies improved their complexions.
786. Trim.] First ed. “Chau.” Sec. ed. “Sec.”
787. Dislocate thy bladud] i. e., I suppose, draw thy sword. The reply of the Usher, “Bladud shall conjure,” &c., seems to allude to the story of King Bladud, who was famous for “his craft of nygromancy:” see Mirror for Magistrates, I. 106. ed. Haslewood, and note there.
788. gentlemen] Old eds. “gentleman.”
790. whiffler] i. e. whiffer, puffer—of tobacco, which Vapour sold. “Taking the whiff” (an expression of which the meaning is uncertain) was one of the accomplishments of a smoker: see B. Jonson’s Every Man out of his Humour—Works, ii. 9, 97. ed. Gifford.
791. mark] A play on the word—a mark was 13s. 4d.
792. roll ... pudding] Tobacco made up in particular forms; so were ball, leaf, &c., mentioned presently in the epitaph.
794. censure] i. e. opinion.
795. enters] The only stage-direction in old eds. is “Enter the Colonels Sister, meeting the Surgeon.”
796. chilis] Old eds. “Chillis.” “Also out of the gibbosyte or bounch of the liuer there issueth a veyne called concaua or chilis,” &c. Vigon’s Workes of Chirurgerie, 1571, fol. ix.
797. œsophag] Old eds. “orsophag.”
798. syncope] Old eds. “syncops.”
799. tumefaction] Old eds. “turmafaction.”
800. sarcotic] Old eds. “sarcotricke.”
801. opoponax] Old eds. “apopanax.”
802. sarcocolla] Old eds. “sacrocolla,” which, perhaps (see the lady’s reply), was an error of the author, not of the printer.
803. ginglymus] Old eds. “Guiguimos.”
804. enemies fly] Old eds. “enemy flies.”
805. First Fr. of Col. [reads] Old eds. “1 Liefetenant reads”—but the person called here Lieutenant is one of the Colonel’s two friends who had acted as his seconds in the duel: towards the conclusion of the play we find,
and presently after,
The other friend who attended him in the duel, having figured in the preceding scene as a teacher of roaring, is not present, it should seem, in the sick chamber.