Act V: Scene iii
p. 198 _Plymouth Cloaks._ Obsolete slang for a cudgel ‘carried by one
who walked _en cuerpo_, and thus facetiously assumed to take the place
of a cloak’. Fuller (1661), _Worthies_, ‘Devon’ (1662), 248, ‘A
Plimouth Cloak. That is a Cane or a Staffe whereof this the occasion.
Many a man of good Extraction comming home from far Voiages, may chance
to land here [at Plymouth] and being out of sorts, is unable for the
present time and place to recruit himself with Cloaths. Here (if not
friendly provided) they make the next Wood their Draper’s shop, where a
Staffe cut out, serves them for a covering’. Ray, _Prov._ (1670), 225,
adds, ‘For we use when we walk _in cuerpo_ to carry a staff in our
hands but none when in a cloak’. _N.E.D._, which also quotes this
passage of _The Rover._ cf. Davenant:—
Whose cloak, at Plymouth spun, was crab-tree wood.
p. 199 _Album Græcum._ The excrement of dogs and some other animals
which from exposure to air and weather becomes whitened like chalk. It
was formerly much used in medicine.
Act V: Scene iiib
p. 209 _Guzman Medicines._ Trashy, worthless medicines. In _The Emperor
of The Moon_, Act iii, 2, ‘Guzman’ is used as a term of abuse to
signify a rascal. The first English translation (by James Mabbe) of
Aleman’s famous romance, _Vida del Picaro Guzman d’Alfarache_, is,
indeed, entitled _The Rogue_, and it had as running title _The Spanish
Rogue._ There is a novel by George Fidge entitled _The English Gusman;
or, the History of that Unparallel’d Thief James Hind._ (1652, 4to.)
p. 209 _Copper Chains._ In allusion to the trick played by Estifania on
the churlish Cacafogo in Fletcher’s _Rule a Wife and Have a Wife._ He
lends her 1000 ducats upon trumpery which she is passing off as rich
gems, and when later he scents the cozenage, he bawls out:—
Plague of her jewels, and her copper chains,
How rank they smell!
— (Act v, 2.)
The phrase became proverbial for shams.
p. 211 _disimbogue._ This word is generally used of the waters of a
river or the outlet of a lake pouring into the open sea.
p. 212 _by Play-Bill, summon’d here._ In Restoration times one method
of announcing the next day’s performance to the public was by putting
out bills on posts in the streets adjacent to the theatre. There are
allusions to this in Pepys, 24 March, 1662 and 28 July, 1664. The whole
subject has been exhaustively treated by Mr. W. J. Lawrence in ‘The
Origin of the Theatre Programme’— _The Elizabethan Playhouse_ (Second
Series).
Epilogue
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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