A Select Collection of Old English Plays Volume Viii Part 97

[30] He ran in debt to this amount to usurers, who advanced him money by giving him _lute-strings and grey paper_; which he was obliged to sell at an enormous loss. There is a very apposite pa.s.sage in Nash's "Christ's Tears over Jerusalem," 1593, where he is referring to the resort of spendthrifts and prodigals to usurers for supplies: In the first instance, they obtain what they desire, "but at the second time of their coming, it is doubtful to say whether they shall have money or no: the world grows hard, and we are all mortal: let them make him any a.s.surance before a judge, and they shall have some hundred pounds (_per consequence_) in silks and velvets. The third time if they come, they have baser commodities: the fourth time _lute-strings and grey paper_; and then, I pray pardon me, I am not for you: pay me that you owe me, and you shall have anything."

So also in Greene's and Lodge's "Looking Gla.s.s for London and England,"

1594, a gentleman thus addresses a usurer, in hopes of inducing him to relent: "I pray you, sir, consider that my loss was great by the commodity I took up: you know, sir, I borrowed of you forty pounds, whereof I had ten pounds in money, and thirty pounds in _lute-strings_, which when I came to sell again, I could get but five pounds for them."

[31] Some case of horse-stealing, which had lately taken place, and which had attracted public attention.

[32] See Collier's "Bibliogr. Catal.," ii. 512. Extr. from Stat. Reg., i. 184, and a woodcut in his "Book of Roxburghe Ballads," 1847, p. 103.

[33] The t.i.tle of an old ballad. Compare Collier's "Extr. from Stationers' Registers," i. 7, 19, and Rimbault's "Book of Songs and Ballads," p. 83.

[34] The words of Aulus Gellius are these: "Neque mihi," inquit.

"aedificatio, neque vasum, neque vestimentum ullum est manupreciosum, neque preciosus servus, neque ancilla est: si quid est," inquit, "quod utar, utor: si non est, egeo: suum cuique per me uti atque frui licet."

Tum deinde addit: "Vitio vertunt, quia multa egeo; at ego illis quia nequeunt egere."--Noct. Attic., lib. xiii. c. 23.

[35] Ovid "Rem. Am." l. 749.

[36] Nash seems, from various parts of his works, to have been well read in what are called, though not very properly in English, the burlesque poets of Italy. This praise of poverty in the reply of Ver to the accusation of Summer is one proof of his acquaintance with them. See "Capitolo sopra l'epiteto della poverta, a Messer Carlo Capponi," by Matteo Francesi in the Rime Piacevoli del Berni, Copetta, Francesi, &c., vol. ii. p. 48. Edit. Vicenza, 1609--

"In somma ella non ha si del b.e.s.t.i.a.le, Com' altri stima, perche la natura Del poco si contenta, e si prevale," &c.

[37] [Jesus.]

[38] Sir J. Hawkins, in his "Hist. Music," iv. 479, contends that the _recorder_ was the same instrument as that we now term a _flageolet_.

Some have maintained that it is the _flute_. [See Dyce's "Glossary" to his second edit. of _Shakespeare_, in v.]

[39] Chaucer [if at least he had anything to do with the poem,]

translates _day's-eye_, or _daisy_, into _margarete_ in French, in the following stanza from his "Flower and the Leaf"--

"Whereto they enclined everichon With great reverence and that full humbly, And at the l.u.s.t there began anon A lady for to sing right womanly A bargaret in praising the _day's-eye_, For as, methought, among her notes swete, She said, _Si douce est la margarete_."

[40] Nash seems often to have quoted from memory, and here he has either coupled parts of two lines, so as to make one, or he has invented a beginning to the ending of Ovid's "Metam.," ii. 137. [The author seems merely to have introduced sc.r.a.ps of Latin, without much regard to their juxtaposition.]

[41] [A common subject at shows.]

[42] [A _jeu-de-mots_ on the scale in music and the Latin word _sol_.]

[43] [Some play on words is here probably meant. _Eyesore_ quasi _eye-soar_.]

[44] It may be doubtful whether this is the right word. Old copy, _sonne_.

[45] [Old copy, _baddest_.]

[46] [Old copy, _Heber_.]

[47] The quarto reads--

"And as for poetry, _woods_ eloquence."

It is no doubt a misprint for _words' eloquence_, or the eloquence of words.

[48] [Old copy, _source_. The emendation was suggested by Collier.]

[49] [Former edits.--"Envy envieth not outcries unrest."

And so the 4to.]

[50] [Old copy, _slight_.]

[51] On this subject Camden tells us: "There was both this summer (1592) and the last so great a drought all England over, that the fields were burnt, and the fountains dried up, and a great many beasts perish'd everywhere for want of water. The Thames likewise, the n.o.blest river of all Britain, and which has as full and large a tide as any in Europe (for it flows twice a day above sixty miles from the mouth of it, and receives an increase from the mixture of many other streams and rivers with it), was, however, sunk to that degree (to the wonder of all men) on the 5th September, that a man might ride over it near London Bridge, so shallow was the channel."

[52] There seems to be no account of this flood, unless it was that which occurred in the autumn of 1579. See Stow's "Annals," edit. 1615, fol. 686, and Collier's "Extr. from Stat. Reg.," ii. 105. There was also a great partial flood in 1571; but it is not mentioned as having affected the Thames.

[53] i.e., Persons who had drunk the Thames water fell ill.

[54] Guesses.

[55] _Had I wist_ is _had I thought_; and the words are often met with as the reproof of imprudence. So afterwards again in this play--

"Young heads count to build on _had I wist_."

[56] Skelton wrote a humorous doggrel piece called the "Tunning of Elinor Rummin," which is here alluded to.

[57] This anecdote is from Aulus Gellius, "Noct. Attic.,"

lib. xvii. c. 9--

"Asiam tune tenebat imperio rex Darius: is Histiaeus, c.u.m in Persia apud Darium esset, Aristagorae cuipiam res quasdam occultas nuntiare furtivo scripto volebat: comminiscitur opertum hoc literarum admirandum.

Servo suo diu oculos aegros habenti capillum ex capite omni, tanquam medendi gratia, deradit, caputque ejus leve in literarum formas compungit: his literis, quae voluerat, perscripsit: hominem postea, quoad capillus adolesceret, domo continuit: ubi id factum est, ire ad Aristagoram jubet; et c.u.m ad eum, inquit, veneris, manda.s.se me dicito, ut caput tuum, sicut nuper egomet feci, deradat. Servus ut imperatum erat, ad Aristagoram venit, mandatumque domini affert: atque ille id non esse frustra ratus, quod erat mandatum, fecit: ita literae perlatae sunt."

Herodotus "Terps," c. 35, tells the story somewhat differently. The following is Mr Beloe's translation of it:--

"Whilst he was in this perplexity, a messenger arrived from Histiaeus at Susa, who brought with him an express command to revolt, the particulars of which were impressed in legible characters upon his skull. Histiaeus was desirous to communicate his intentions to Aristagoras; but as the ways were strictly guarded, he could devise no other method. He therefore took one of the most faithful of his slaves, and inscribed what we have mentioned upon his skull, being first shaved; he detained the man till his hair was again grown, when he sent him to Miletus, desiring him to be as expeditious as possible: Aristagoras being requested to examine his skull, he discovered the characters which commanded him to commence a revolt. To this measure Histiaeus was induced by the vexation he experienced from his captivity at Susa."

It is pretty evident that Nash took Aulus Gellius as his authority, from the insertion of the circ.u.mstance of the defective sight of the servant, which certainly is important, as giving Histiaeus an excuse for shaving his head.

[58] Peter Bales, who is here immortalised, has also received honourable mention in Holinshed's Chronicle. He was supposed by Evelyn to be the inventor of shorthand, but that art was discovered some years earlier by Dr Timothy Bright, who is better known as the author of "A Treatise of Melancholy," which was first published in 1586. Bales was born in 1547, and many of the incidents of his life have come down to us; for while the lives of poets and philosophers are left in obscurity, the important achievements of a writing-master are detailed by contemporaries with laborious accuracy. Mr D'Israeli, in his "Curiosities of Literature,"

has not scrupled to devote many pages to Bales's contests for superiority with a rival penman of the name of Johnson. Bales was the improver of Dr Bright's system, and, according to his own account in his "Writing Schoolmaster," he was able to keep pace with a moderate speaker. He seems to have been engaged in public life, by acting as secretary where caligraphy was required; and he was at length accused of being concerned in the plot of Lord Ess.e.x; but he was afterwards vindicated, and punished his accuser. The greatest performance, that in which his exalted fame may most securely rest, was the writing of the Lord's Prayer, Creed, Decalogue, with two Latin prayers, in the compa.s.s of a penny. Brachygraphy had arrived at considerable perfection soon after 1600, and in Webster's "Devil's Law Case," there is a trial scene, in which the following is part of the dialogue--

SANITONELLA. Do you hear, officers?

You must take special care that you let in No _brachygraphy_ men to take notes.

1st OFFICER. No. sir.

SANITONELLA. By no means: We cannot have a cause of any fame, But you must have some scurvy pamphlets and lewd ballads Engendered of it presently.

In Heywood's "Pleasant Dialogues and Dramas," 1637, he complains that some persons by stenography had drawn the plot of his play, and put it into print; but he adds (which certainly does not tell much in favour of the perfection of the art as then practised) that it was "scarce one word true."

[59] In the margin opposite "Sol should have been beholding to the barber, and not to the beard-master," the words "_Imberbis Apollo_, a beardless poet," are inserted in the margin.

[60] From what is said here, and in other parts of the play, we may conclude that it was performed either by the children of St Paul's, of the Queen's Chapel, or of the Revels. Afterwards Will Summer, addressing the performers, says to them: "Learn of him, you _diminutive urchins_, how to behave yourselves in your vocations," &c. The epilogue is spoken by a little boy, who sits on Will Summer's knee, and who, after it is delivered, is carried out.