A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 12Dodsley, Robert
General
A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 12
Dodsley, Robert
English drama
[77] There were several works published about this time containing the
results of the various writers' _experiences and observations_ in the
new plantations in America.
[78] [Shafts.]
[79] You acquired citizenship in right of your father, and without
personal service.
[80] An allusion to Godfrey of Boulogne or Bulloigne.
[81] _Innocent_, it must be remembered, in the language of our old
dramatic writers, denotes _an idiot_.
[82] [Enjoy, in the sense of a man having knowledge of a woman.] Doll
Tearsheet says of Pistol, in the "Second Part of Henry IV.," "These
villains will make the word captain as odious as the word _occupy_,
which, was an excellent good word before it was ill-sorted," [See
Nares, edit. 1859, in _v._; and Percy Folio MS. ("Loose and Humorous
Songs," p. 29.)]
[83] "_Tallies_," says Johnson, "are sticks cut in conformity to
others, by which accounts were kept." Jack Cade reproaches the Lord
Say, "with having caused printing to be used, whereas before no other
books were made use of by their forefathers but the score and _tally_.
And Cade has the Exchequer Office on his side, where accounts are still
partially kept after this most barbarous fashion."
[84] The name of a tooth-drawer, real or imaginary, who attended
fairs. In 1592 Chettle printed his tract called "Kindhart's Dream."
Dilke observes: "I am inclined to think, however, that _kind-heart_
was the '_travelling name_' of some notorious quack tooth-drawer, or
a cant name given to the whole race of them. So the stage-keeper, in
the induction to 'Bartholomew Fair,' when expressing his fear of the
author's success, says: 'He has ne'er a sword-and-buckler man in his
fair, nor a little Davy, to take toll of the bawds there, as in my
time; nor a _kind-heart, if anybody's teeth should chance to ake in
his play_.' And further, it is part of the 'covenant and agreement,'
in the same induction, that the audience shall not 'look back to the
sword-and-buckler age of Smithfield, but content themselves with the
present. Instead of a little Davy, to take toll of the bawds, the
author doth promise a strutting horse-courser, with a leer drunkard,
two or three to attend him in as good equipage as you would wish. _And
then for kind-heart the tooth-drawer_, a fine oily pig-woman, with,'"
&c., &c. [Lambskin's reply is obviously allusive to the name by which
Stephen has just addressed the widow.]
[85] The _artemisia_ or _southern_ wood is meant.
[86] Jane has been too successful in her play on the names and
qualities of the flowers to have chosen this at random; and I am
inclined to think the following extract from the "Winter's Tale" will
serve to elucidate her meaning--
"The fairest flowers o' the season
Are our carnations and _streak'd gilliflowers._
_Which some call nature's bastards_: of that kind
Our rustic garden's barren; _and I care not_
_To get slips of them_.
POL. Wherefore, gentle maiden,
Do you neglect them?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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