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NOTES TO THE MASQUE OF OWLS.

Page 52.

HE Masque of Owls, &c.] "In all the editions of Jonson, from the folio of 1641, in which it was first printed, this masque has been erroneously dated 1626. That however it was performed before Prince Charles, previously to his accession to the throne, is proved by his being addressed in it as Your Highness, and by a previous allusion to the Prince of Wales' three feathers; but Mr. Chamberlain's letter to Sir Dudley Carleton of August 21, 1624, puts the matter beyond doubt by mentioning it as having been performed two days since" (i.e. August 19, 1624). Nichol's Progresses, vol. iii. p. 997.

P. 55. From thence the story was ta'en.] From thence is very unlike the scholarly Jonson's mode of expressing himself. The folio has

(For thence the story was ta'en).

P. 58. Coventry blue.] This celebrated dye was mentioned in the Gipsies Metamorphosed, vol. vii. p. 388.

NOTES TO THE FORTUNATE ISLES.

Page 62.

HE Fortunate Isles, &c.] The position of this masque in the 1641 folio appears quite correct, but the date should have been Twelfth Night, 1624-25, instead of 1626(7), which has so misled Gifford. In Chalmers' Second Apology, p. 219, I find that the following entry had been made :-" 29th December, 1624.-For the Palsgrave's company a new play called The Masque. The Masque's book was allowed of for the Press, and was brought me by Mr. Jon[son] the 29th December, 1624." This had not been noticed by Gifford, and it was altogether unknown to him that there were sundry copies in existence of a quarto of thirteen leaves, with the title, "The Fortunate Isles and their Union, celebrated in a Masque designed for the Court, on the Twelfth Night, 1624." Sir Henry Herbert says: "Upon twelve night, the masque being put off, and the Prince only there, Tu Quoque, by the Queen of Bohemia's servants at Whitehall," and "Upon Sunday night

In

following, being the 9th of January (1624-5), the masque was performed." The king's mortal illness had evidently shown itself, for Chamberlain, writing on January 8, 1624-5, says: "The King kept his chamber all Christmas, only going out in his litter in fair weather, to see some flights at the brook" (Cal. Jac. p. 431). the Inigo Jones volume of the old Shakspeare Society publications, there is a fac-simile of the great architect's sketches for the costume of four figures in this masque, from the originals in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire. There are also valuable descriptions by Mr. J. R. Planché. Plate iii. p. 58. Jonson will be found to have turned to the unused pages of Neptune's Triumph.

P. 64. With bombing sighs.] I cannot remember to have met this word elsewhere. If it did not speak its own meaning, it would be sufficiently explained by the following passage from Bacon's Natural History, fol. p. 151: "It would make a little flat noise in the room where it was struck, but it would make a great bombe in the chamber beneath.”

P. 69. And risse again like cork.] This risse was a favoured form of Jonson's which Gifford by some lucky chance took under his special patronage. See Poetaster, vol. ii. p. 370, and English Grammar, vol. ix. p. 284 (chapter xix.)

P. 72. Enter Skogan and Skelton, in like habits as they lived.] These are two of the characters whose costume, as sketched by Inigo Jones, is facsimiled in the Shakspeare Society volume.

P. 73. Except the four knaves entertain'd for the guards

Of the kings and the queens that triumph in the cards.] A triumph at cards we now call a trump. Cotgrave explains "Triomphe, the card-game called Ruffe or Trump, also the Ruffe or Trump at it." Perhaps Jonson was alluding to the duty of the Knaves in this game.

P. 74. But she is not grill.] Nares is of no assistance here, but in Peter Levins' Rhyming Vocabulary, A.D. 1570, I find, "Gril, cold, algidus," and Mr. Wheatley, the excellent editor, quotes Rom. de la Rose:

"While they han suffred cold full strong

In wethers grille, and derke to light.”

P. 75. Mary Ambree.] This famous lady has been already noticed in The Silent Woman, vol. iii. p. 418, and in A Tale of a Tub, vol. vi. p. 133.

P. 75. Or Westminster Meg.] Some of the notices of this Amazon are amusing; and crop up in unexpected places. For instance, in Vaughan's Golden Grove, 1608, we find that "Long

Meg of Westminster kept alwaies twenty courtezans in her house, whom by their pictures she sold to all commers." And in Holland's Leaguer, 1632, “It was out of the citie, yet in the view of the citie, only divided by a delicate river .it was re

nowned for nothing so much as for the memory of that famous Amazon Longa Margarita, who had there for manie yeares kept a famous infamous house of open hospitality."

P. 75. Doctor Rat.] It is strange that Nares should be in doubt whether this was the name of anybody. Doctor Rat is one of the leading characters in that genuine old English piece of fun, Gammer Gurton's Needle.

P. 8o. Where Proteus' herds, and Neptune's orcs do keep.] See ante, p. 36, and my note thereon.

NOTE TO CHLORIDIA.

Page 99.

GAME call'd nine-pins, or keils.] Keils from the French "Quille," defined by Cotgrave to be "a big peg, or pin of wood, used at nine-pins."

NOTES TO AN EXPOSTULATION WITH
INIGO JONES.

Page 106.

N Expostulation, &c.] It is idle to assert that there was no ill feeling between Jonson and Inigo before 1633. As early as 1619 he told Drummond that "Jones having accused him for naming him behind his back, A foole; he denied it, but, says he, I said He was ane arrant knave, and I avouch it.” Vol. ix. p. 403. And again, "He said to Prince Charles of Inigo Jones, that when he wanted words to express the greatest villaine in the world he would call him ane Inigo." Vol. ix. p. 403.

The question of authenticity has long ago been settled by Mr. Collier, who discovered among the Bridgewater MSS. a copy of the Expostulation in Jonson's autograph.

P. 109. Both him and Archimede; damn Archytas.] It is rather bold of Gifford to say that the fifth verse could not have been written by Jonson. How does he know that Archimede was in

tended to be only a trisyllable? Remember too what Macaulay says, "Ben's heroic couplets resemble blocks [for sails] rudely hewn out by an unpractised hand with a blunt hatchet," and then goes on to describe them as " jagged mis-shapen distiches." Archytas was a philosopher, mathematician and practical mechanic, whose wooden flying dove was the wonder of antiquity. He was a Greek of Tarentum, and lived about 400 B.C.

P. 109. Control Ctesibius.] Ctesibius, a native of Alexandria, lived about 250 B.C. He is said to have invented a water-clock, a hydraulic organ, &c.

P. 110. You'd be an Assinigo by your ears.] Some versions print years for ears. Assinigo is a Portuguese word meaning a young donkey. Jonson uses it in The Staple of News, vol. v. p. 287, without any reference to the Architect; and R. Brome too has it in his Mad Couple, vol. i. p. 13.

[blocks in formation]

Of lantern-lerry, with fuliginous heat.] This phrase, as Nares observes, seems to give some colour to the notion of Lanthorn Leatherhead being intended for Inigo. See note, vol. iv. p. 383.

P. 114. A cave for wine or ale.] See post p. 419, The Dedication of the King's new cellar to Bacchus.

NOTES TO LOVE'S WELCOME AT WELBECK.

Page 120.

HEN was old Sherwood's head more quaintly curl'd?]
Thomas Warton, p. 100, notes Milton's imitation:

"To nurse the saplings tall, and curl the grove

With ringlets quaint, and wanton windings wove."

But Jonson himself remembered Drayton's line:

"Where Sherwood her curl'd front into the cold doth shove."Polyolb. st. xxxiii.

P. 120. When did the air so smile, the wind so chime.] The editors have changed winds into wind to the injury of the sense. P. 121. Out-cept, sir, you can read with the left-hand.] This is the other instance in which Jonson brings in the quaint word which so tickled Horne Tooke. See vol. vi. pp. 131, 155.

P. 121. Derbyshire.] Jonson wrote and his friends printed Darbyshire-the pronunciation which the head of the Stanleys has still the good sense to retain.

P. 121. By his thewes he may.] Spenser uses this word as Jonson does:

"And straight delivered to a fairy knight,

To be upbrought in gentle thews and martial might."

P. 121. A poor neighbour of your honour's in the country.] The editors have injuriously altered this from the county of the folio.

P. 122. The surety of his girdle.] Why is Jonson robbed of his little joke, "the sure-tie of his girdle," as the folio has it?

P. 125. All reckon'd o' the country skirts.] Here again something like nonsense is made by the change from the "county skirts" of the folio.

P. 127. [Safe from the ground.] This line is quite unnecessarily interpolated. The word "found," which he considers to be without a corresponding rhyme, had already two, as anybody can satisfy himself who reads the two lines preceding it.

NOTES TO LOVE'S WELCOME AT BOLSOVER.

Page 139.

HE Fates spinning them round and even threads, and of their whitest wool, without brack or purl.] This must remind every one of the couplet in the lines on Lord Bacon's birthday, post, p. 425 :

"Whose even thread the Fates spin round and full,

Out of their choicest and their whitest wool." Brack is a crack or break. For purl see vol. ii. p. 146.

P. 140. Both your pious and just progenitors.] In this same year was published a noble engraving by Van Voerst, after Vandyck, in which the queen (in a most interesting condition) is presenting an olive wreath to the king. The couplet beneath it may have been supplied by Jonson :

"Filius hic Magni est Jacobi, hæc filia Magni
Henrici soboles dic mihi qualis erit?"

NOTES TO EPIGRAMS.

Page 146.

O my Bookseller.] Up to 1616 Jonson's publishers appear to have been Nicholas Linge, William Holme, Walter Burre, M. L., Thomas Thorpe, Nicholas Oky.

P. 146. How, best of poets, dost thou laurel wear!] King James

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