A Select Collection of Old English Plays
Chapter 409 : [106] [Old copy, _turn_.][107] Middleton uses _squall_ for a wench in his "Michae

[106] [Old copy, _turn_.]

[107] Middleton uses _squall_ for a wench in his "Michaelmas Term" and in "The Honest Wh.o.r.e," edit. Dyce, i. 431, and iii. 55. Here it evidently means a person of the male s.e.x. [When used of men, a little insignificant fellow, a whipper-snapper. Presently we see that Lentulo was referring to the Duke's son.]

[108] [Cuckoldy. A loose form of expression.]

[109] [Bomelio, in his disguise, is made to talk bad French and Italian, as well as English; this had been done in the ease of Dr Caius who, however, only spoke broken English. The nationality of Bomelio is therefore doubtful; but these _minutiae_ did not trouble the dramatists of those days much.]

[110] [Old copy, _Vedice_--an unlikely blunder.]

[111] Pedlar's French, often mentioned in our old writers, was the cant language of thieves and vagabonds.

"When every peasant, each plebeian, Sits in the throne of undeserv'd repute: When every pedlar's French Is term'd Monsigneur."

--"Histriomastix," 1610, sig. E2.

[112] [i.e., Tarry _for_ me. So in the t.i.tle of Wapull's play, "The Tide tarrieth no Man."]

[113] Beat. See Nares, 1859, in _v_. Lambeake. Mr Collier refers us to the "Supplement to Dodsley's Old Plays," 1833, p. 80, Gabriel Harvey's "Pierces' Supererogation," 1593, and to "Vox Graculi," 1623.

[114] Come to be hanged.

[115] Old copy, _slave_.

[116] The following scene reminds us of the ancient story of the "Physician of Brai."

[117] Sure.

[118] Old copy, _flight_. Mr Collier suggested _sight_.

[119] He bites like the pestilence.

[120] Penulo makes his _exit_ (though not marked in the old copy), and the stage then represents some place near the cave of Bomelio, who enters with Fidelia.

[121] Old copy, _then_.

[122] Mr Collier printed _come of_.

[123] Old copy, _oft been_.

[124] Old copy, _O_.

[125] Old copy, _my favour_.

[126] Old copy, _for_.

[127] Old copy, _her_.

[128] Above this line Mercury's name is inserted as the speaker: as it seems, unnecessarily.

[129] Old copy, _Venus_.

[130] Old copy, _Fortune_. It is Mercury who afterwards cures Bomelio.

[131] Old copy, _replaies_.

[132] Old copy, _Hot's_.

[133] Old copy, _my_.

[134] Old copy, _But_, which would seem to convey the exact reverse of what Phizanties intends--that he did not know Hermione's birth, but, presuming him to be of obscure birth, did not wish him to marry Fidelia.

[135] Old copy, _But_.

[136] Old copy, _end_.

[137] [Evidently a proverbial expression, of which the import can only be obscurely gathered from the context. _Nock_ is the same, of course, as _hock_.]

[138] [There was a second edition, presenting considerable variations, generally for the better, in 1592. See Hazlitt's "Handbook," 1867, p. 466.]

[139] [For _stuff_ the edit, of 1592 subst.i.tutes _wares_.]

[140] This division is omitted in the edition of 1592, and it seems unnecessary.

[141] [Old copy, _his_.]

[142] [Sweetheart, mistress.]

[143] [Old copy, _often_.]

[144] [We should now say, "as fast _as_;" but the form in the text is not uncommon in early literature.]

[145] An intentional corruption, perhaps for _importance_.

[146] Adventures.

[147] Swaggerer, hence the well-known term, _swash-buckler_, for a roaring blade.

[148] In the snare: What care I who gets caught?

[149] "_What care I to serve the Deuill,"_ &c., edit. 1592.

[150] Edit. 1584 has _boniacion_.

[151] [Old copies, _but_.]

[152] [A simpleton or b.u.mpkin.]

[153] [A term of contempt, of which the meaning is not obvious. It might seem to indicate a person employed in attending to a house of office.]