confers upon us; besides, it is your imperfection, but my solace. Par. [speaks as having a cold.] I thank your worship; so it is mine, now. Mor. What says he, Cutbeard? Cut. He says, præsto, sir, whensoever your worship needs him, he can be ready with the like. He got this cold with sitting up late, and singing catches with cloth-workers.' Mor. No more. I thank him. Par. God keep your worship, and give you much joy with your fair spouse!-uh! uh! uh! Mor. O, O! stay, Cutbeard! let him give me five shillings of my money back. As it is bounty to reward benefits, so it is equity to mulct injuries. I will have it. What says he? Cler. He cannot change it, sir. Mor. It must be changed. Cut. Cough again. Mor. What says he? [Aside to Parson. Cut. He will cough out the rest, sir. Par. Uh, uh, uh! Mor. Away, away with him! stop his mouth! away! I forgive it. [Exit Cut. thrusting out the Par. Epi. Fie, master Morose, that you will use this violence to a man of the church. Mor. How! Epi. It does not become your gravity, or breeding, as you pretend, in court, to have offer'd this outrage on a waterman, or any more 9 He got this cold with sitting up late, and singing catches with cloth-workers.] The Protestants, who came from Flanders, and brought with them the woollen manufactory, were much given to singing at their work. To this Falstaff alludes. "I would I were a weaver; I could sing all manner of songs." These are the people whom our author here calls cloth-workers. WHAL. boisterous creature, much less on a man of his civil coat. Mor. You can speak then! Mor. Speak out, I mean. Epi. Ay, sir. Why, did you think you had married a statue, or a motion only? one of the French puppets, with the eyes turn'd with a wire? or some innocent out of the hospital,' that would stand with her hands thus, and a plaise mouth, and look upon you? Mor. O immodesty! a manifest woman! What, Cutbeard! Or some innocent out of the hospital,] i. e. some natural fool. In the margin of Whalley's copy I find this extract from the Register of some parish church, probably his own: "Thomas Sole, an innocent, about the age of fifty years and upward, buried 19th September 1605." Enough has now been said of this very common expression. 2 A plaise mouth,] A mouth drawn all on one side. WHAL, So in a satire by T. Lodge, reprinted in Beloe's Anecdotes, Vol. II. p. 115: "This makes Amphidius welcome to good cheer, "And keep his pleise-mouth'd wife in welts and gardes." "Plaise-mouth'd, I presume," the Editor says, means foulmouth'd, or rather, perhaps, with a mouth as large as that of the plaise." But the plaise has a small mouth and plaise-mouth'd is used by our old writers for primness, affected prudery, or contempt. Thus Decker: "I should have made a wry mouth at the world like a playse." Honest Whore. And Nashe, in his Lenten Stuff, "None woone the day but the Herring, whom all their clamorous suffrages saluted with Vive le roy, save only the playse and the butte, that made wry mouthes at him, and for their mocking have wry mouths ever since." The Editor is not more fortunate in his explanation of welts and gardes in the same line." Welts and gardes," he says, 66 are gowns and petticoats." Welts, it is well known, are broad hems, or facings; gardes are borderings of lace, fur, &c. It is better to leave our old terms alone, than to explain them at random. Epi. Nay, never quarrel with Cutbeard, sir; it is too late now. I confess it doth bate somewhat of the modesty I had, when I writ simply maid: but I hope I shall make it a stock still competent to the estate and dignity of your wife. Mor. She can talk! Epi. Yes, indeed, sir. Enter MUTE. Mor. What, sirrah! None of my knaves there? where is this impostor Cutbeard? [Mute makes signs. Epi. Speak to him, fellow, speak to him! I'll have none of this coacted, unnatural dumbness in my house, in a family where I govern. [Exit Mute. Mor. She is my regent already! I have married a Penthesilea, a Semiramis; sold my liberty to a distaff. Enter TRUEWIT. True. Where's master Morose? Mor. Is he come again! Lord have mercy upon me! True. I wish you all joy, mistress Epicone, with your grave and honourable match. Epi. I return you the thanks, master Truewit, so friendly a wish deserves. Mor. She has acquaintance too! True God save you, sir, and give you all contentment in your fair choice, here! Before, I was the bird of night to you, the owl; but now I am the messenger of peace, a dove, and bring you the glad wishes of many friends to the celebration of this good hour. Mor. What hour, sir? True. Your marriage hour, sir. I commend your resolution, that, notwithstanding all the dangers I laid afore you, in the voice of a night crow, would yet go on, and be yourself. It shews you are a man constant to your own ends, and upright to your purposes, that would not be put off with left-handed cries. Mor. How should you arrive at the knowledge of so much? True. Why, did you ever hope, sir, committing the secrecy of it to a barber, that less than the whole town should know it? you might as well have told it the conduit, or the bake-house, or the infantry that follow the court,* and with more security. Could your gravity forget so old and noted a remnant, as, lippis et tonsoribus notum? Well, sir. forgive it yourself now, the fault, and be communicable with your friends. Here will be three or four fashionable ladies from the college to visit you presently, and their train of minions and followers. Mor. Bar my doors! bar my doors! Where are all my eaters? my mouths, now? Enter Servants. Bar up my doors, you varlets! 3 That would not be put off with left-handed cries.] Inauspicious or unlucky cries; alluding to Virgil: Supe sinistra cavâ prædixit ab ilice cornix; as he had called himself the night-crow before. WHAL. This is Upton's note, with the exception of the conclusion, which seems incorrect. Whatever the night-crow may be, it is not the cornix of Virgil. Jonson literally translates the Greek word wTinopak, a species of owl, with which we are not acquainted. *The infantry that follow the court,] Meaning, perhaps, the idle train that attended the Progresses, and found accommodation as they could. One of this description is mentioned by Webster: "A lousy knave, that within this twenty years rode with the blackguards (vol. ii. 169) in the dukes carriages, amongst spits and dripping pans." White Devil. 4 Where are all my eaters?] Eaters, as I have already observed (Vol. II. p. 168,) are servants. In Antony and Cleopatre Epi. He is a varlet that stirs to such an office. Let them stand open. I would see him that 66 a similar expression occurs- by one that looks on feeders." i. e. says Dr. Johnson, " by one that looks on while others are eating." That Dr. Johnson should give a wrong interpretation of the word is not extraordinary, as he totally mistakes the whole drift of the passage. He is followed by Steevens, who, in a few plain words, sets every thing right; and quotes the expression in the text, to justify his sense of the term: Mr. Malone throws aside the judicious interpretation of Steevens, and brings back the egregious blunder of Dr. Johnson. The opportunity of insulting the memory of our poet was not to be lost." So fantastick and pedantick a writer" he says, as Ben Jonson, having in one passage made one of his characters call his attendants his eaters, appears to me, a very slender ground for supposing feeders and servants to be synony. mous." There can be no doubt of it; but Mr. Malone is so imperfectly acquainted with "Ben Jonson," that he constantly hazards his own character for accuracy, (to say nothing more,) whenever he attempts to speak of him on any specific grounds. Eaters, and its synonyms, are used in more than one place, and by more than one character, in Jonson, for servants. Nor does this sense of the word rest on his authority, as Mr. Malone supposes. I can produce him twenty instances of the same expressions, used in the same sense. Sir W. Davenant was not a pedantic writer, yet he has (the Wits, A. III.) "tall eaters in blue coats," the livery of servants, as Mr. Malone well knows; nor was Fletcher a fantastic one, yet we find in the Nice Valour, A. III. S. 1. servants he has, lusty tall feeders." And againbut these are so direct to the purpose, that more is unnecessary. The passage in Antony and Cleopatra, which gave rise to these remarks, is contained in the last scene of the third act. Antony enters unexpectedly, and finds Thyreus (Cæsar's messenger) kissing Cleopatra's hand-Upon which, after treating Thyreus with the utmost contempt, and ordering him to be whipt, like a slave-he exclaims, "Ha! "Have I my pillow left unpress'd in Rome, Both Dr. Johnson, and Mr. Malone, take the person by whom Antony is abused, to be Thyreus. A stranger idea was never |