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quently used by our old poets in the classical sense of an abyss or
devouring gulf. Thus Shirley :

"You come to scour your maw with the good cheer
Which will be damn'd in your lean barathrum,
The Wedding.

That kitchen-stuff devourer."

P. 435. Present and accommodate it unto the gentleman.] See vol. i. p. 36.

P. 435. My mango, bring him too.] Cooper, in his Thesaurus Linguæ Romanæ et Britannica, 1587, has: "Mango. A baude that paynteth and pampereth up boyes, women, or servauntes to make them seeme the trimmer, thereby to sell them the deerer."

P. 436. Stay, thou shalt see the Moor ere thou goest.] There had evidently been some quarrel about the play of the Battle of Alcazar.

P. 436. One Demetrius, a dresser of plays about the town.] Gifford seems to miss the joke which Jonson loves to dwell upon in the synonyms Decker and Dresser. It is of course absurd to say that the quarrel broke out for the first time with the production of the Poetaster. It must have been going on for many months both in taverns and on the stage.

P. 437. But you know nothing by him,] i. e. of him. See Gifford's note, vol. i. p. 132, and ante, p. 143: "He knows some notorious jest by this gull." See also post, pp. 482, 483.

P. 442. You had lain in my house.] Jonson printed lyen. In the next page, six lines from the foot, Chloe exclaims: "A god, oh my god!"

P. 444. What, and be tired on by yond' vulture.] See Catiline, vol. iv. p. 242:

"And let

His own gaunt eagle fly at him to tire."

P. 445. She in the little fine dressing, sir.] See Gifford's note in Bartholomew Fair, vol. iv. p. 378.

P. 446. Kiss me again,'tis a virtuous punk; so!] Charles Dickens was not a great reader, but he had certainly studied Jonson's writings, and notably Bartholomew Fair, from which he borrowed the character of Stiggins. The use of this word So, standing by itself, is common both to him and to Jonson, and frequently occurs in both. In his "readings" it was accompanied by a motion of the hand, which said more than could have been expressed in a long sentence.

P. 447. An Arion riding on the back of a dolphin.] See the Staple of News, vol. v. p. 241, and Neptune's Triumph, vol. viii. p. 29.

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P. 449. Sting him, my little neufts,] i. e. newts. This spelling bears out Skinner's idea that a newt is an eft, a small lizard—just as an awl is a nawl; an eyass, a niaise, &c.

P. 449. We wait you, sir.] Jonson printed, "We await you."

P. 451. Caduceus and petasus.] The rod and winged hat of Mercury. Cooper (1587) has, "Caduceum, a little white rodde that harroudes used, goyng to intreate of peace." This is very near the harrots of Jonson's common characters.

P. 453. Away with your mattery sentences,] i. e. "full of solid sense and observation," as Gifford explains "material," post, p. 476.

P. 453. Reach him one of our cates.] The word one is an unmeaning interpolation. Jonson printed, "Reach him of our cates."

P. 454. How now, Vulcan! will you be the first wizard,] i. e. wise man, the original signification of the word. Sir John Cheke, in his translation of St. Matthew, has, "when Jesus was boorn in beethleem a citi of Juri in king heroods dais, lo then ye wisards cam from th'eest parties to Jerusalem." Milton also uses it for the same "wise men" in his Ode on the Nativity.

P. 455. Throw thee down into the earth.] The folio has, "throw thee down into earth," and, I apprehend, correctly.

P. 455. We are a king, cotquean.] See Gifford's note at p. 456. Johnson's explanation, "A man who busies himself with women's affairs," is quite correct. Cotquean is, I suspect, a corruption of cock-quean, quasi "male-wife," whereas cuck-quean is "cuckold's quean," the wife of a cuckold. Gifford found out his mistake when he came to edit Ford, where (ed. Dyce, i. 117) he defines "Cotquean, a contemptuous term for one who concerns himself with female affairs: an effeminate meddler."

P. 456. Heaven is like to have but a lame skinker, then.] A skinker is a drawer or tapster. See vol. ix. P. 73.

P. 457. Why, ay, you whoreson blockhead, 'tis your only block of wit.] The word ay is an unmeaning interpolation. For block of wit, see ante, p. 233. In Satiromastix (p. 194) Dekker puts it into the mouth of Tucca: "But, sirra Ningle, of what fashion is this knight's wit, of what blocke?"

P. 458. We banish him the quire of gods.] In the folio, quire is printed queere, which I note as showing how Jonson must have pronounced the word.

P. 463. The poult-foot stinkard.] See vol. vii. p. 234: "This polt-footed philosopher, old Smug here of Lemnos." Taylor, the Water-poet (Ep. 23), has a similar epithet :

"And saw the net the stump foot blacksmith made
Wherein fell Mars, and Venus was betrayed."

And Heywood, in the Brazen Age, employs the same word as
Jonson :

"I heard her once mock that polt-foot of yours."

P. 463. He's turn'd faun now.] Against Gifford's note on this word Southey wrote: "A Faune or Fawne, I suppose, is synonymous with a fawner."

P. 464. Take heed how you give this out; Horace is a man of the sword.] Dekker did not forget this in Satiromastix, from which I make a rather long extract, as being so highly illustrative of the desperately personal tone of Dekker's retaliation. I have modernized the spelling:

"Boy. Captain, captain, Horace stands sneaking here.

Tucca. I smelt the foul-fisted mortar treader! Come my most damnable fastidious rascal; I have a suit to both of you. Asinius. O hold, most pitiful captain, hold.

Horace. Hold, captain! "Tis known that Horace is valiant, and a man of the sword.

Tucca. A gentleman, or an honest citizen, shall not sit in your penny bench theatres, with his squirrel by his side cracking nuts; nor sneak into a tavern with his mermaid, but he shall be Satyr'd and Epigram'd upon, and his Humour must run upon the stage. You'll have Every gentleman in's humour, and Every gentleman out on's humour. We that are Heads of legions and bands, and fear none but these same shoulder clappers, shall fear you, you serpentine rascal !

Horace. Honour'd captain!

Tucca. Art not famous enough yet, my mad Horasratus, for killing a Player, but thou must eat men alive! Thy friends! sirra wildman, thy patrons? Thou anthropophagite, thy Mæcenasco!"

P. 465. This wolfish train.] Jonson, I think, invariably prints wolvish, as was indeed the custom of the time.

P. 465. Gifford's characteristic note cannot be understood without referring to his edition of Massinger. In the Duke of Milan, vol. i. p. 281, is a line,

"Battening like scarabs in the dung of peace,"

to which he appended a note: "Scarabs means beetles. M. MASON. Very true; and beetles means scarabs! W. GIFFORD." For this

he was attacked by the Edinburgh Reviewers, and against them his note at p. 465 is directed. Jonson has the word again, vol. iv. p. 15.

P. 466. Who, to endear themselves to an employment,] i. e. to make themselves valuable-the reverse of cheap. The folio has any in place of an-of course, rightly.

P. 466. To be the props and columns of their safety.] This passage requires to be read with care, to understand how completely the sense is destroyed by substituting "their safety" for the "his safety" of the folio.

P. 470. Note." This ridiculous love scene."] I had written that "I failed to see anything ridiculous in the love passage" before I discovered that it had been selected by Charles Lamb, as a justification of his eloquent eulogy on the Poetaster. See my note to P. 363, ante.

P. 474. What think you three of Virgil, gentlemen.] Here Jonson inserted a marginal note: "Vizt Mecænas, Gallus, Tibullus."

P. 474. Pathless, moorish minds.] Moorish means moor-like, or barren. Chapman has a line in his continuation of Marlowe's Hero and Leander, Sest. iii.:

"Base fools! when every Moorish fool can teach,”

which puzzled the editors until Mr. Dyce pointed out that the second fool was a play upon the word fowl, which is still a fertile source of merriment in Scotland, and that Moorish should be spelt with a small m, the allusion being to the lap-wing.

P. 478. Venus' Dardane nephew.] Jonson states in the margin of the folio that "Venus' Dardane nephew" is Iulus; that the "Trojan prince" is Eneas; that "Earth and Heaven's great dame" is Juno; and that the " giant race" are Caus, Enceladus,

&c.

P. 481. Remember to beg their land betimes.] As Philip Herbert, earl of Montgomery, stood a horsewhipping from lord Ramsay, and then "begged the lands" of sir Henry James. So Ford in Love's Sacrifice (ed. Dyce, ii. 79):

"I fear my lands and all I have is begged ;

Else, woe is me, why should I be so ragged."

P. 485. The body of the state.] The folio has properly, "body of a state." Ten lines lower down, the stage direction in the folio is, "This while the rest whisper Cæsar."

P. 485. Dost thou think I meant to have kept it, old boy?] For "old boy," the folio has "bold boy!" How much more characteristic of Tucca.

P. 485. I scorn it with my three souls.] So Shakspeare in Twelfth Night, A. ii. S. 3: "Shall we rouze the night owl with a catch that will draw three souls out of one weaver ?"

P. 486. Skeldering for a drachm.] See ante, pp. 7 and 375.

P. 487. Make them hold up their spread golls.] Dyce says golls are "hands, fists, paws." To quote Richard Brome as to the use of a word is almost the same as quoting Jonson himself:

"Now strike up, piper, and each lover here

Be blith, and take his mistris by the gol."

Jovial Crew, iii. 428.

P. 488. Demetrius Fannius, play-dresser and plagiary.] Dekker (dresser) throws this back upon Jonson. "Demetrius shall write thee a scene or two in one of thy strong garlicke Comedies; and thou shalt take the guilt of conscience for't, and sweare 'tis thine owne, old lad, 'tis thine owne." Satiromastix, p. 201.

P. 489. Note 9.] It is curious that Marston should attack Jonson for employing "new minted words, such as real, intrinsicate, and delphicke," when he makes use of two of them himself in his earliest works:

"Delphick Apollo ayde me to unrip

These intricate deepe oracles of wit." Vol. iii. p. 218. And, "By your sweete selfe, than whome I knowe not a more exquisite, illustrate, accomplished, pure, respected, ador'd, observed, pretious, reall, magnanimous, bounteous." Vol. i. p. 23. Never was there a more reckless user of words:

"Straight chops a wave, and in his sliftred paunch

Down fals our ship, and there he breaks his neck;
Which in an instant up was belkt again." Vol. i. p. 17.
When he wants to indicate morning, in a most tragic scene, it is :
"And now Aurora's horse trots azure rings." Vol. i. p. 79.
And at a still more melancholy time, we have:

"The black jades of swart night trot foggy rings
'Bout heaven's brow. 'Tis now starke deade night!"

Vol. i. p. 104.

But if one verse is to be admired above all the others, it is:
"He will unline himself from bitchery."

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