p. 44 _Within a Mile of an Oak._ A proverbial saw. cf. D’Urfey’s _Don
Quixote_ (1696), III, Act V, i, where Teresa cries: ‘The Ass was lost
yesterday, and Master _Carasco_ tells us your Worship can tell within
a mile of an Oak where he is.’
p. 44 _Rustick Antick._ A quaint country dance.
+ACT IV: Scene i+
p. 62 _Hypallages._ A figure of speech by which attributes are
transferred from their proper subjects to others.
p. 62 _Belli fugaces._ Ovid, _Amorum_, I, 9, has ‘Militat omnis amans
et habet sua castra Cupido’, and the idea is common. I have made no
attempt to correct the tags of Latinity in this play. Mrs. Behn
openly confessed she knew no Latin, and she was ill supplied here.
I do not conceive that the words are intentionally faulty and
grotesque. Lady Knowell is a pedant, but not ignorant.
p. 65 _Madame Brenvilliers._ Marie-Marguerite d’.ubray, Marquise de
Brinvilliers, was executed at Paris 16 July, 1676.
p. 66 _Bilbo-Blades!_ Or oftener ‘bilbo-lords’, = swash-bucklers,
cf. _The Pilgrim_ (folio, 1647), V, vi, where Juletta calls the old
angry Alphonso ‘My Bilbo Master’.
p. 70 _whip slap-dash._ These nonsensical bywords, which were very
popular, are continually in the mouth of Sir Samuel Harty, a silly
coxcomb in Shadwell’s _The Virtuoso_ (1676). Nokes, who was acting
Sir Credulous, had created Sir Samuel Harty.
p. 71 _The Bell in Friday-street._ The Bell was an inn of note in
Friday Street, Cheapside. cf. _Cal. State Papers_ (1603-10, p. 455):
‘Sir Thomas Estcourt ... to Thomas Wilson. Is about to leave London
and proffers his services. If he has occasion to write to him he may
have weekly messengers ... at the Bell, Friday Street.’
+ACT IV: Scene ii+
p. 79 _th’ Exercise._ The puritanical term for private worship, cf.
1663 _Flagellum; or, O. Cromwell_ (1672), 21. ‘The Family was called
together to prayers; at which Exercise ... they continued long.’ cf.
_The Roundheads_ (Vol. I), Act II, i: ‘his Prayers; from which
long-winded Exercise I have of late withdrawn my self.’
+ACT IV: Scene iv+
p. 83 _Mirabilis._ Aqua mirabilis, a well-known invigorating cordial,
cf. Dryden’s _Marriage à la Mode_ (1672), III, i: ‘The country
gentlewoman ... who ... opens her dear bottle of Mirabilis beside, for
a gill glass of it at parting.’
p. 84 _Tranghams._ Nick-nacks, toys, trinkets, cf. Arbuthnot, _History
of John Ball_ (1712-3), Pt. II, c. vi: ‘What’s the meaning of all
these trangrams and gimcracks?’
+ACT V: Scene i+
p. 92 _to souse._ cf. _Florio_ (ed. 1611): ‘to leape or seaze greedily
upon, to souze downe as a hauke.’
p. 93 _this Balatroon._ A rogue. The word is very rare. cf. Cockeram
(1623): ‘_Ballatron_, a rascally base knave.’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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