A Select Collection of Old English Plays Volume Viii Part 109

[450] i.e., Plot or contrivance. Tarlton produced a piece called "The Plat-form of the Seven Deadly Sins;" and in "Sir J. Oldcastle," by Drayton and others, first printed in 1600, it is used with the same meaning as in the text, viz., a contrivance for giving effect to the conspiracy.

"There is the _plat-form_, and their hands, my lord, Each severally subscribed to the same."

--_Collier_.

[451] [A common proverb.]

[452] [The ordinary proverb is, "The devil is _good_ when he is pleased."]

[453] The Italian for _How do you do_?

[454] _Skinker_ was a _tapster_ or _drawer_. Prince Henry, in "The First Part of Henry IV." act ii. sc. 4, speaks of an _underskinker_, meaning an _underdrawer_. Mr Steevens says it is derived from the Dutch word _schenken_, which signifies to fill a cup or gla.s.s. So in G. Fletcher's "Russe Commonwealth," 1591, p. 13, speaking of a town built on the south side of Moscow by Basilius the emperor, for a garrison of soldiers, "to whom he gave priviledge to drinke mead and beer, at the drye or prohibited times, when other Russes may drinke nothing but water, and for that cause called this newe citie by the name of Naloi, that is, _skinck_, or _poure in_." Again, in Marston's "Sophonisba," iii. 2--

"Ore whelme me not with sweets, let me not drink, Till my breast burst, O Jove, thy nectar _skinke_."

And in Ben Jonson's "Poetaster," act iv. sc. 5--

"ALB. I'll ply the table with nectar, and make 'em friends.

"HER. Heaven is like to have but a lame _skinker_."

And in his "Bartholomew Fair," act ii. sc. 2: "Froth your cans well i'

the filling, at length, rogue, and jog your bottles o' the b.u.t.tock, sirrah; then _skink_ out the first gla.s.s ever, and drink with all companies."

[455] Suspicion.

[456] [Be in accord with reason.]

[457] [Old copy, _call'st_.]

[458] Similar to this description is one in Marlowe's "Edward II.," act i.

[459] Old copy, _are_.

[460] [Old copy, _knew_.]

[461] See note to "Cornelia" [v. 188].

[462] In Shakespeare's "Coriola.n.u.s," Sicinius asks Volumnia, "Are you mankind?" On which Dr Johnson remarks that "_a mankind woman_ is a woman with the roughness of a man; and, in an aggravated sense, a woman _ferocious, violent, and eager to shed blood_." Mr Upton says _mankind_ means _wicked_. See his "Remarks on Ben Jonson," p. 92. The word is frequently used to signify _masculine_. So in [Beaumont and Fletcher's]

"Love's Cure; or, The Martial Maid," act iv. sc. 2--

"From me all _mankind_ women learn to woo."

In Dekker's "Satiromastix"--

"My wife's a woman; yet 'Tis more than I know yet, that know not her; If she should prove _mankind_, 'twere rare; fie! fie!"

And in Ma.s.singer's "City Madam," act ii. sc. 1--

"You brach, Are you turn'd _mankind_?"

[463] [Old copy, _strumpets_.]

[464] Whether I will or not. This mode of expression is often found in contemporary writers. So in Dekker's "Bel-man of London," sig. F 3: "Can by no meanes bee brought to remember this new friend, yet _will hee, nill he_, to the taverne he sweares to have him."

It may be worth remark that it is also found in "Damon and Pithias,"

from which the character of Grim is taken.

[465] [Old copy, _reake_.]

[466] Sometimes called _Pucke_, alias _Hobgoblin_. In the creed of ancient superst.i.tion he was a kind of merry sprite, whose character and achievements are recorded in a ballad printed in Dr Percy's "Reliques of Ancient Poetry." [See "Popular Antiquities of Great Britain," iii. 39, et seq.]

[467] Pretty or clever. So in Warner's "Albion's England," b. vi. c. 31, edit. 1601--

"There was a _tricksie_ girl, I wot, albeit clad in gray."

The word is also used in Shakespeare's "Tempest," act v. sc. 1. See Mr Steevens's note thereon.

[468] This is one of the most common, and one of the oldest, proverbs in English. Ulpian Fulwell['s play upon it has been printed in our third volume.] It is often met with in our old writers, and among others, in a translation from the French, printed in 1595, called, "A pleasant Satyre or Poesie, wherein is discovered the Catholicon of Spain," &c., the running t.i.tle being "A Satyre Menippized." It is to be found on pp. 54 and 185. Having mentioned this tract, we may quote, as a curiosity, the following lines, which probably are the original of a pa.s.sage for which "Hudibras" is usually cited as the authority--

"Oft he that doth abide Is cause of his own paine; But he that flieth in good tide Perhaps may fight againe."

--_Collier_.

[469] [A word unnoticed by Nares and Halliwell. The latter cites _haust_, high, doubtless from the French _haut_. So _hauster_ may be the comparative, and signify higher.]

[470] Till now printed _Puzzles_ as if because it had puzzled Dodsley and Reed to make out the true word. In the old copy it stands _Puriles_; and although it may seem a little out of character for Grim to quote Latin, yet he does so in common with the farmer in Peele's "Edward I.,"

and from the very same great authority. "'Tis an old saying, I remember I read it in Cato's '_Pueriles_' that _Cantabit vacuus coram latrone viator_," &c.--_Collier_. [The work referred to in the text was called "Pueriles Confabulatiunculae; or, Children's Talke," of which no early edition is at present known. But it is mentioned in "Pappe with an Hatchet" (1589), and in the inventory of the stock of John Foster, the York bookseller (1616).]

[471] Head. See note to "Gammer Gurton's Needle" [iii. 242].

[472] Shall never cease, stop, or leave of. So in Ben Jonson's "Staple of News," Intermean after 4th act--

"He'll never _lin_ till he be a gallop."

Mr Whalley proposes to read _blin_. "The word," says he, "is Saxon, and the substantive _blin_, derived from _blinnan_, occurs in the 'Sad Shepherd.' Yet the word occurs in Drayton in the sense of stopping or staying, as it is used here by our poet--

"'Quoth Puck, my liege, I'll never _lin_, Hut I will thorough thick and thin.'

"--'Court of Fairy.' So that an emendation may be unnecessary, and _lin_, the same as _leave_, might have been in common use."

The latter conjecture is certainly right, many instances maybe produced.

As in "The Return from Parna.s.sus," act iv. sc. 3--

"Fond world, that ne'er think'st on that aged man, That Ariosto's old swift-paced man, Whose name is Time, who never _lins_ to run, Loaden with bundles of decayed names."

In "A Chast Mayd in Cheapside," by Middleton: "You'll never _lin_ 'till I make your tutor whip you; you know how I serv'd you once at the free schoole in Paul's Church Yard." And in, "More Dissemblers besides Women," by the same, act iii. sc. I: "You nev'r _lin_ railing on me, from one week's end to another." [_Lin_ is common enough in the old romances.]