Sidor som bilder
PDF
ePub

With all their honourable points of ignorance,
Pertaining thereunto, (as fights, and fireworks;2
Abusing better men than they can be,
Out of a foreign wisdom,) renouncing clean
The faith they have in tennis, and tall stockings,
Short blifter'd breeches, and those types of travel,
And understand again like honest men;

vertue, not in bravery; they rode not with fannes to ward their faces from the wind," &c. Again, in Lingua, &c. 1607, Phantastes, who is a male character, is equipped with a fan.

STEEVENS.

The text may receive illustration from a passage in Nashe's Life of lacke Wilton, 1594: "At that time (viz. in the court of King Henry VIII.] I was no common squire, no undertroden torch-bearer, I had my feather in my cap as big as a flag in the foretop, my French doublet gelte in the belly, as though (lyke a pig readie to be spitted) all my guts had been pluckt out, a paire of fide paned hose that hung down like two scales filled with Holland cheeses, my long stock that fate close to my dock,-my rapier pendant like a round sticke, &c. my blacke cloake of black cloth, ouerspreading my backe lyke a thornbacke or an elephantes eare;-and in confummation of my curiofitie, my handes without gloves, all a more French," &c. RITSON.

In Rowley's Match at Midnight, Act I. sc. i. Sim says: "Yes, yes, she that dwells in Blackfryers, next to the fign of The Fool laughing at a Feather."

But Sir Thomas Lovell's is rather an allusion to the feathers which were formerly worn by fools in their caps. See a print on this subject from a painting of Jordaens, engraved by Voert; and again, in the ballad of News and no News :

" And feathers wagging in a fool's cap." DoUCE. 2-fireworks;) We learn from a French writer quoted in Montfaucon's Monuments de la Monarchie Françoise, Vol. IV. that some very extraordinary fireworks were played off on the evening of the last day of the royal interview between Guynes and Ardres. Hence, our " travelled gallants," who were present at this exhibition, might have imbibed their fondness for the pyrotechnic art. STEEVENS.

2

-blister'd breeches,] Thus the old copy; i. e. breeches puff'd, swell'd out like blisters. The modern editors readboister'd breeches, which has the fame meaning. STEEVENS.

Or pack to their old playfellows: there, I take it, They may, cum privilegio, wear away 4

The lag end of their lewdness, and be laugh'd at.

SANDS. 'Tis time to give them phyfick, their

diseases

Are grown so catching.

CHAM.

What a loss our ladies

Will have of these trim vanities!

Lov.

Ay, marry, There will be woe indeed, lords; the fly whoresons Have got a speeding trick to lay down ladies; A French fong, and a fiddle, has no fellow.

SANDS. The devil fiddle them! I am glad, they're

going; (For, fure, there's no converting of them ;) now An honeft country lord, as I am, beaten A long time out of play, may bring his plain-fong, And have an hour of hearing; and, by'r-lady, Held current musick too.

[blocks in formation]

This night he makes a supper, and a great one,

To many lords and ladies; there will be

The beauty of this kingdom, I'll affure you.

4

-wear away-] 0 Old copy-wee away. Corrected in Lor. That churchman bears a bounteous mind

the fecond folio.

MALONE.

indeed,

A hand as fruitful as the land that feeds us;

His dews fall every where.

CHAM.

No doubt, he's noble; He had a black mouth, that faid other of him.

SANDS. He may, my lord, he has wherewithal;

in him, Sparing would show a worse sin than ill doctrine: Men of his way should be most liberal,

They are set here for examples.

CHAM.

True, they are so; But few now give so great ones. My barge stays; $ Your lordship shall along :- Come, good fir Thomas, We shall be late else: which I would not be, For I was spoke to, with fir Henry Guildford, This night to be comptrollers.

SANDS.

I am your lordship's.

[Exeunt.

s-My barge flays;] The speaker is now in the King's palace at Bridewell, from which he is proceeding by water to York-place, (Cardinal Wolfey's house,) now Whitehall.

MALONE. SCENE IV.

The Prefence-Chamber in York-Place.

Hautboys. A small Table under a State for the Cardinal, a longer Table for the Guests. Enter at one Door ANNE BULLEN, and divers Lords, Ladies, and Gentlewomen, as Guests; at another Door, enter Sir HENRY GUILDFORD.

GUILD. Ladies, a general welcome from his grace Salutes ye all: This night he dedicates To fair content, and you: none here, he hopes, In all this noble bevy, has brought with her One care abroad; he would have all as merry As first-good company, good wine, good welcome Can make good people. O, my lord, you are

6

tardy;

7.

noble bevy,] Milton has copied this word: "A bevy of fair dames." JOHNSON.

Spenser had, before Shakspeare, employed this word in the fame manner:

" And whither runs this bevy of ladies bright?"

Again, in his Fairy Queen :

Shepheard's Calender. April.

"And in the midst thereof, upon the flowre,
"A lovely bevy of faire ladies sate."

The word bevy was originally applied to larks. See the Gloffary to the Shepheard's Calender. MALONE.

7 As first-good company, &c.] As this passage has been all along pointed, [As first, good company,] Sir Harry Guildford is made to include all these under the first article; and then gives us the drop as to what should follow. The poet, I am perfuaded, wrote:

As first-good company, good wine, good welcome, &c. i e. he would have you as merry as these three things can make

Enter Lord Chamberlain, Lord SANDS, and Sir THOMAS LOVELL.

The very thought of this fair company
Clapp'd wings to me.

CHAM. You are young, fir Harry Guildford.

SANDS. Sir Thomas Lovell, had the cardinal
But half my lay-thoughts in him, fome of these
Should find a running banquet & ere they rested,
I think, would better please them: By my life,
They are a sweet society of fair ones.

you, the best company in the land, of the best rank, good wine, &C. THEOBALD.

Sir T. Hanmer has mended it more elegantly, but with greater violence:

8

As first, good company, then good wine, &c. JOHNSON.

- a running banquet-] A running banquet, literally speaking, is a hasty refreshment, as fet in oppofition to a regular and protracted meal. The former is the object of this rakish peer; the latter, perhaps, he would have relinquished to those of more permanent defires. STEEVENS.

A running banquet seems to have meant a hasty banquet. "Queen Margaret and Prince Edward, (says Habingdon, in his History of King Edward IV.) though by the Earle recalled, found their fate and the winds so adverse, that they could not land in England, to taste this running banquet to which fortune had invited them." The hasty banquet, that was in Lord Sands's thoughts, is too obvious to require explanation.

It should feem from the following lines in the prologue to a comedy called The Walks of Islington, 1657, that fome double meaning was couched under the phrase, a running banquet: "The gate unto his walks, through which you may "Behold a pretty prospect of the play; "A play of walks, or you may please to rank it "With that which ladies love, a running banquet."

MALONE.

« FöregåendeFortsätt »