A Select Collection of Old English Plays Volume Viii Part 110

[473] See [Dyce's "Middleton," iii. 97, and] Note 20 to the "Match at Midnight."--_Collier_.

[474] This must have been addressed to the audience, and may be adduced as some slight evidence of the antiquity of the play, as in later times dramatists were not guilty of this impropriety. The old morality of "The Disobedient Child" has several instances of the kind; thus, the son says to the spectators--

"See ye not, my maysters, my fathers advyse?

Have you the lyke at any time harde?"

Again, the Man-cook--

"Maysters, this woman did take such a.s.saye, And then in those dayes so applyed her booke."

--_Collier_ [ii. 276, 284].

[475] See Note 25 to "Ram Alley."--_Collier_. [In "Romeo and Juliet,"

i. 3, the Nurse says, "Nay, I do bear a brain," i.e., I do bear in mind, or recollect (Dyce's edit. 1868, vi. 398). Reed's explanation, adopted by Dyce, seems hardly satisfactory.]

[476] See note to "Gammer Gorton's Needle," iii. 205. Query, if the pa.s.sages there quoted may not refer to this very character of Akerc.o.c.k and his dress, as described in act i. sc. 1.--_Collier_. [Probably not, as this play can hardly have been in existence go early, and the character and costume of Robin Goodfellow were well understood, even before "Gammer Gurton's Needle" was written.]

[477] So in "The Return from Parna.s.sus," act v. sc. 4--

"I'll make thee run this lousy case, _I wis_."

And again in Ma.s.singer's "City Madam," act iv. sc. 4--

"Tis more comely, _I wis_, than their other whim-whams."

[478] "He had need of a long spoon that eats with the devil," is a proverbial phrase. See [Hazlitt's "Proverbs," 1869, p. 176.] So Stephano, in the "Tempest," act ii. sc. 2, alluding to this proverb, says, "This is a devil, and no monster: I will leave him; I have no _long spoon_." See also "Comedy of Errors," act iv. sc. 3, and Chaucer's "Squier's Tale," v. 10916--

"Therefore behoveth him a _ful long spone_, That shall ete with a fiend."

[479] [To vomit. One of the jests of Scogin relates how that celebrated individual "told his wife he had _parbraked_ a crow"--a story which occurs in the "Knight of the Tour-Landry" (Wright's edit., p. 96). See also Fry's "Bibl. Memoranda," 1816, p. 337. A note in edition 1825 says:] This is a word which I apprehend is very seldom found in writers subsequent to the year 1600. It is used by Skelton, and sometimes by Spenser. See Todd's "Johnson's Dict."

[480] [Old copy, _He falls_; but Akerc.o.c.k evidently disappears simultaneously.]

[481] [Old copy, _names_.]

[482] [Old copy, _song_.]