8 them means and bases: but one Puritan amongst them, and he sings psalms to hornpipes. I must have saffron, to colour the warden pies; mace,— dates,-none; that's out of my note: nutmegs, seven; a race, or two, of ginger; but that I may beg;-four pound of prunes, and as many of raisins o' the sun. AUT. O, that ever I was born! [Grovelling on the ground. CLO. I'the name of me, AUT. O, help me, help me! pluck but off these rags; and then, death, death! CLO. Alack, poor soul! thou hast need of more rags to lay on thee, rather than have these off. AUT. O, sir, the loathsomeness of them offends comedy of The Gentle Craft, or the Shoemaker's Holiday, 1600, some of these three-man songs are printed. STEEvens. 7 means and bases:] Means are tenors. So, in Love's Labour's Lost: 8 66 he can sing "A mean most meanly." STEEVENS. • warden pies;] Wardens are a species of large pears. I believe the name is disused at present. It however afforded Ben Jonson room for a quibble in his masque of Gypsies Metamorphosed: "A deputy tart, a church-warden pye." It appears from a passage in Cupid's Revenge, by Beaumont and Fletcher, that these pears were usually eaten roasted: "I would have had him roasted like a warden, "In brown paper." The French call this pear the poire de garde. STeevens. Barrett, in his Alvearie, voce Warden Tree, [Volemum] says, Volema autem pyra sunt prægrandia, ita dicta quod impleant volam. REED. I'the name of me,] This is a vulgar exclamation, which I have often heard used. So, Sir Andrew Ague-cheek:-" Before me, she's a good wench." STEEVENS. me more than the stripes I have received; which are mighty ones, and millions. CLO. Alas, poor man! a million of beating may come to a great matter. AUT. I am robbed, sir, and beaten; my money and apparel ta'en from me, and these detestable things put upon me. CLO. What, by a horse-man, or a foot-man? CLO. Indeed, he should be a foot-man, by the garments he hath left with thee; if this be a horseman's coat, it hath seen very hot service. Lend me thy hand, I'll help thee: come, lend me thy hand. [Helping him up. AUT. O! good sir, tenderly, oh! CLO. Alas, poor soul. AUT. O, good sir, softly, good sir: I fear, sir, my shoulder-blade is out. CLO. How now? canst stand? AUT. Softly, dear sir; [Picks his pocket.] good sir, softly you ha' done me a charitable office. CLO. Dost lack any money? I have a little money for thee. AUT. No, good sweet sir; no, I beseech you, sir: I have a kinsman not past three quarters of a mile hence, unto whom I was going; I shall there have money, or any thing I want: Offer me no money, pray you; that kills my heart.' I 'that kills my heart.] So, in King Henry V. Dame Quickly, speaking of Falstaff, says" the king hath killed his heart." STEEVENS. See Vol. VIII. p. 101, n. 7. MALONE. CLO. What manner of fellow was he that robbed you? 2 AUT. A fellow, sir, that I have known to go about with trol-my-dames: I knew him once a servant of the prince; I cannot tell, good sir, for which of his virtues it was, but he was certainly whipped out of the court. CLO. His vices, you would say; there's no virtue whipped out of the court: they cherish it, to make it stay there; and yet it will no more but abide.3 with trol-my-dames:] Trou-madame, French. The game of nine-holes. WARBURTON. In Dr. Jones's old treatise on Buckstone Bathes, he says: "The ladyes, gentle woomen, wyves, maydes, if the weather be not agreeable, may have in the ende of a benche, eleven holes made, intoo the which to troule pummits, either wyolent or softe, after their own discretion: the pastyme troule in madame is termed." FARMER. The old English title of this game was pigeon-holes; as the arches in the machine through which the balls are rolled, resemble the cavities made for pigeons in a dove-house. So, in The Antipodes, 1638: "Three-pence I lost at nine-pins; but I got "Six tokens towards that at pigeon-holes.' Again, in A Wonder, or a Woman never vex'd, 1632: "What quicksands, he finds out, as dice, cards, pigeon-holes." STEEVENS. Mr. Steevens is perfectly accurate in his description of the game of Trou-madame, or pigeon-holes. Nine holes is quite another thing; thus: O o being so many holes made in the ground, into which o they are to bowl a pellet. I have seen both played O at. RITSON. This game is mentioned by Drayton in the 14th song of his Polyolbion: "At nine-holes on the heath while they together play." STEEVENS. 3abide.] To abide, here, must signify, to sojourn, to live for a time without a settled habitation. JOHNSON. 4 AUT. Vices I would say, sir. I know this man well: he hath been since an ape-bearer; then a process-server, a bailiff; then he compassed a motion of the prodigal son, and married a tinker's wife within a mile where my land and living lies; and, having flown over many knavish professions, he settled only in rogue: some call him Autoly cus. CLO. Out upon him! Prig, for my life, prig:" he haunts wakes, fairs, and bear-baitings. AUT. Very true, sir; he, sir, he; that's the rogue, that put me into this apparel. CLO. Not a more cowardly rogue in all Bohemia; if you had but looked big, and spit at him, he'd have run. AUT. I must confess to you, sir, I am no fighter: I am false of heart that way; and that he knew, I warrant him. CLO. How do you now? AUT. Sweet sir, much better than I was; I can stand, and walk: I will even take my leave of and pace softly towards my kinsman's. CLO. Shall I bring thee on the way? AUT. No, good-faced sir; no, sweet sir. you, To abide is again used in Macbeth, in the sense of tarrying for a while: "I'll call upon you straight; abide within." MALONE. motion of the prodigal son,] i. e. the puppet-shew, then called motions. A term frequently occurring in our author. WARBURTON. Prig, for my life, prig:] To prig is to filch. MALONE. In the canting language Prig is a thief or pick-pocket; and therefore in The Beggars' Bush, by Beaumont and Fletcher, Prig is the name of a knavish beggar. WHALLEY. CLO. Then fare thee well; I must go buy spices for our sheep-shearing. AUT. Prosper you, sweet sir!-[Exit Clown.] Your purse is not hot enough to purchase your spice. I'll be with you at your sheep-shearing too: If I make not this cheat bring out another, and the shearers prove sheep, let me be unrolled, and my name put in the book of virtue! 6 8 Jog on, jog on, the foot-path way, Your sad tires in a mile-a. [Exit. let me be unrolled, and my name put in the book of virtue !] Begging gypsies, in the time of our author, were in gangs and companies, that had something of the show of an incorporated body. From this noble society he wishes he may be unrolled, if he does not so and so. WARBURTON. 1 "Jog on, jog on, &c.] These lines are part of a catch printed in An Antidote against Melancholy, made up in Pills compounded of witty Ballads, Jovial Songs, and merry Catches, 1661, 4to. p. 69. REED. And merrily hent the stile-a:] To hent the stile, is to take hold of it. I was mistaken when I said in a note on Measure for Measure, Act IV. sc. ult. that the verb was-to hend. It is to hent, and comes from the Saxon penzan. So, in the old romance of Guy Earl of Warwick, bl. 1. no date: Again: "Some by the armes hent good Guy." "And some by the brydle him hent." Again, in Spenser's Fairy Queen, B. III. c. vii : "Great labour fondly hast thou hent in hand.” STEEVENS. |
