As TROILUS is going out, enter, from the other fide, PANDARUS. PAN. But hear you, hear you! TRO. Hence, broker lackey! ignomy and shame' Pursue thy life, and live aye with thy name! [Exit TROILUS. PAN. A goodly med'cine for my aching bones!— O world! world! world! thus is the poor agent defpis'd! O traitors and bawds, how earnestly are you fet a' work, and how ill requited! Why should our endeavour be fo loved,' and the performance fo loath'd? what verfe for it? what inftance for it?-Let me fee: Full merrily the humble-bee doth fing, the nonfenfe of fome wretched buffoon who reprefented Pandarus. When the hero of the scene was not only alive, but on the ftage, our author would fcarce have trufted the conclufion of his piece to a fubordinate character whom he had uniformly held up to deteitation. It is ftill lefs probable that he should have wound up his ftory with a ftupid outrage to decency, and a deliberate infult on his audience. But in feveral other parts of this drama I cannot perfuade myself that I have been reading Shakspeare, As evident an interpolation is pointed out at the end of Twelfth Night. See note Vol. IV. p. 173. STEEVENS. 9 Hence, broker lackey!] Thus the quarto and folio. For broker the editor of the second folio fubstituted brother, which in the third was changed to brothel. Broker in our author's time fignified a bawd of either fex. So, in King John: This bawd, this broker, this all-changing word," &c. See Vol. VIII. p. 67, n. 6. MALONE. 2 ignomy and fhame-] Ignomy was used in our author's time for ignominy. See Vol. VIII. p. 588, n. 7. MALONE. 3-loved,] Quarto; defir'd, folio. JOHNSON. I And being once fubdu'd in armed tail, Sweet honey and fweet notes together fail.Good traders in the flesh, fet this in your painted cloths.4 As many as be here of pander's hall, 4 -Set this in your painted cloths.] i. e. the painted canvas with which your rooms are hung. See Vol. VI. p. 93, n. 4. STEEVENS. 5 Some galled goofe of Winchester-] The publick ftews were anciently under the jurifdiction of the Bishop of Winchester. РОРЕ. Mr. Pope's explanation may be fupported by the following paffage in one of the old plays, of which my negligence has lost the title: "Collier! how came the goofe to be put upon you? "I'll tell thee: The term lying at Winchester in Henry the Third's days, and many French women coming out of the Isle of Wight thither, &c. there were many punks in the town," &c. A particular fymptom in the lues venerea was called a Winchefter goofe. So, in Chapman's comedy of Monfieur D'Olive, 1606: the famous fchool of England call'd Winchefter, famous I mean for the goofe," &c. Again, Ben Jonfon, in his poem called, An Execration on Vulcan: this a fparkle of that fire let loose, "That was lock'd up in the Wincheftrian goofe, "When Venus there maintain'd a mystery." In an ancient fatire called Cocke Lorelles Bote, bl. 1. printed by Wynkyn de Worde, no date, is the following lift of the different refidences of harlots: "There came fuch a wynde fro Winchester, Till then I'll fweat,4 and seek about for eases; "Some at faynt Kateryns ftroke agrounde, "Alfo in Ave Maria Aly, and at Weftmenfier; "And by cause they have loft that fayre place, 66 [Exit. They wyll bylde at Colman hedge in space," &c. Hence the old proverbial fimile, " As common as Coleman Hedge:" now Coleman-freet. STEEVENS. As the public ftews were under the control of the Bishop of Winchester, a ftrumpet was called a Winchester goofe, and a galled Winchester goofe may mean, either a ftrumpet that had the venereal difeafe, or one that felt herfelf hurt by what Pandarus had faid. It is probable that the word was purpofely used to express both these fenfes. It does not appear to me from the paffage cited by Steevens, that any fymptom of the venereal difeafe was called a Winchester goofe. M. MASON. Cole, in his Latin Dict. 1669, renders a Winchester goose by pudendagra. MALONE. There are more hard, bombaftical phrafes in the ferious part of this play, than, I believe, can be picked out of any other fix plays of Shakspeare. Take the following fpecimens: Tortive,-perfiftive, protractive,—importless,—infifture,—deracinate,—dividable. And in the next A&t: pafi-proportion,-unrefpe&ive,—propugnation,— Self-affumption,-felf-admiffion,—affubjugate,-kingdom'd, &c. TYRWHITT. 4- I'll fweat,] i. e. adopt the regimen then ufed for curing what Pistol calls "the malady of France." Thus, fays the Bawd in Measure for Meafure :-" what with the fweat, &c. I am cuftomfhrunk." See note on Timon of Athens, Act IV. fc. iii. STEEVENS. 5 This play is more correctly written than moft of Shakspeare's compofitions, but it is not one of thofe in which either the extent of his views or elevation of his fancy is fully difplayed. As the ftory abounded with materials, he has exerted little invention; but he has diverfified his characters with great variety, and preferved them with great exactnefs. His vicious characters difguft, but cannot corrupt, for both Cretida and Pandarus are detefted and contemned. The comick characters feem to have been the favourites of the writer; they are of the fuperficial kind, and exhibit more of manners than nature; but they are copioufly filled and powerfully impreffed. Shakspeare has in his ftory followed, for the greater part, the old book of Caxton, which was then very popular; but the character of Therfites, of which it makes no mention, is a proof that this play was written after Chapman had published his verfion of Homer. JOHNSON. The first feven books of Chapman's Homer were published in the year 1596, and again in 1598. They were dedicated as follows: To the moft honoured now living inftance of the Achilleian virtues eternized by divine Homere, the Earle of Effexe, Earl Marshall, &c. and an anonymous Interlude, called THERSYTES his Humours and Conceits, had been published in 1598. Puttenham alfo, in his Arte of English Poefie, 1589, p. 35, makes mention of "Therfies the glorious noddie &c. STEEVENS. The interlude of Therfites was, I believe, published long before 1598. That date was one of the numerous forgeries of Chetwood the Prompter, as well as the addition to the title of the piece,— "Therfites his Humours and Conceits;" for no fuch words are found in the catalogue published in 1671, by Kirkman, who appears to have seen it. MALONE. P. 410. How the devil luxury, with his fat rump, and potatoe finger, tickles thefe together.] Luxuria was the appropriate term used by the school divines, to express the fin of incontinence, which accordingly is called luxury, in all our old English writers. In the Summe Theologie Compendium of Thomas Aquinas, P. 2. II. Quæst. CLIV. is de Luxuriæ Partibus, which the author diftributes under the heads of Simplex Fornicatio, Adulterium, Inceftus, Stuprum, Raptus, &c. and Chaucer, in his Parfon's Tale, defcanting on the feven deadly fins, treats of this under the title De Luxuria. Hence, in King Lear, our author uses the word in this peculiar fense: "To't, Luxury, pell-mell, for I want foldiers." And Middleton, in his Game of Chefs: in a room fill'd all with Aretine's pictures, "Thou shalt not fo much as the chafte pummel fee But why is luxury, or lafcivioufnefs, faid to have a potatoe finger?This root, which was in our author's time but newly imported from America, was confidered as a rare exotic, and efteemed a very ftrong provocative. As the plant is fo common now, it may entertain the reader to fee how it is defcribed by Gerard in his Herbal, 1597, p. 780: This plant, which is called of fome Skyrrits of Peru, is generally of us called Potatus, or Potatoes.There is not any that hath written of this plant;-therefore, I refer the defcription thereof unto those that shall hereafter have further knowledge of the fame. Yet I have had in my garden divers roots (that I bought at the Exchange in London) where they flourished until winter, at which time they perished and rotted. They are used to be eaten roasted in the afhes. Some, when they be fo roasted, infuse them and fop them in wine; and others, to give them the greater grace in eating, do boil them with prunes. Howfoever they be dreffed, they comfort, nourish, and ftrengthen the bodie, procure bodily luft, and that with great greediness." Drayton, in the 20th fong of his Polyolbion, introduces the fame idea concerning the skirret: "The kirret, which, fome fay, in fallets ftirs the blood." Shak fpeare alludes to this quality of potatoes in The Merry Wives of Windfor: "Let the sky rain potatoes, hail kiffing comfits, and Inow eringoes; let a tempeft of provocation come.' Ben Jonfon mentions potatoe pies in Every Man out of his Humour, among other good unctuous meats. So, T. Heywood, in The English Traveller, 1633: 66 Caviare, fturgeon, anchovies, pickled oysters; yes "And a potatoe pie: befides all thefe, "What thinkeft rare and coftly." Again, in The Dumb Knight, 1633: " truly I think a marrowbone pye, candied eringoes, preferved dates, or marmalade of cantharides, were much better harbingers; cock-Sparrows stew'd, dove's brains, or fwans' pizzels, are very provocative; ROASTED POTATOES, or boiled fkerrets, are your only lofty dishes." Again, in Decker's Honeft Whore, 1635: "If the be a woman, marrow-bones and potatoe-pies keep me," &c. Again, in A Chafte Maid of Cheapfide, by Middleton, 1620: "You might have fpar'd this banquet of eringoes, "Artichokes, potatoes, and your butter'd crab; "They were fitter kept for your own wedding dinner." Again, in Chapman's May-Day, 1611: "a banquet of oyfter-pies, fkerret-roots, potatoes, eringoes, and divers other whetftones of venery." Again, in Decker's If this be not a good Play the Devil is in it, 1612: "Potatoes eke, if you fhall lack, "To corroborate the back." Again, in Jack Drum's Entertainment, 1601: "by Gor, an me had known dis, me woode have eat fom potatos, or ringoe." Again, in fir W. D'Avenant's Love and Honour, 1649: "You shall find me a kind of sparrow, widow; |