FOOTNOTES:
[321] Ram-Alley is one of the avenues into the Temple from Fleet Street. It formerly, among other places, claimed to be exempt from the process of the Courts of Law, a privilege which was taken from it by the Stat. of 9 & 10 William III. c. xxvii. s. 15.
[322] [Compare Dyce's Middleton, iii. 81.]
[323] [Old copies, my.]
[324] [A contemptuous allusion—one of many—to the profusion with which James I. created this dignity for the sake of raising money.]
[325] [Edits., wholesale-men.]
[326] A paint or composition used by the ladies to beautify the face and heighten the complexion. It is mentioned in Ben Jonson's "Sejanus," act ii. sc. 1—
"To-morrow morning
I'll send you a perfume, first to resolve
And procure sweat, and then prepare a bath
To cleanse and clear the cutis; against when
I'll have an excellent new fucus made,
Resistive 'gainst the sun, the rain, or wind,
Which you shall lay on with a breath or oil,
As you best like, and last some fourteen hours."
["Works," by Gifford, 1816, iii. 45, where breath seems to be an error—forsaw, brush.]
[327] A laundress is the name still preserved at the Inns of Court for the women, who attend to the men in chambers.
[328] The 4o of 1636 has it If I spend, which was followed by Mr Reed, but the first 4o of 1611 gives the true reading, If I speed.—Collier.
[329] Meaning Constantia, so disguised.—Collier.
[330] See note to "The Antiquary," act iv. sc. I (vol. 13.)
[331] See note at p. 277 suprá.
[332] [Old copies, man's.]
[333] [Edits., and much. This seems to have been introduced as a playful allusion by Widow Taffata to herself], unless these words should be given to Adriana.
[334] [Edits., five.]
[335] [This part of the dialogue is conducted by Adriana and Taffata above, while the other persons enter and converse below.]
[336] Bring it back.
[337] i.e., Puppet-shows. See note to "The Antiquary," act i. sc. I (vol. 13.)
[338] [Properly the stick to hold the gunner's match; but here the meaning is figurative.]
[339] i.e., Whip thee.
[340] Tiresias, the blind prophet of Thebes. Sec "The Œdipus" of Sophocles, and that of Dryden and Lee.
[341] [Edits., 'Tis.]
[342] Absolutely. So in "The Honest Man's Fortune," by Beaumont and Fletcher—
"I am as happy In my friend's good, as if 'twere merely mine."
[343] Perhaps we ought to read Now he returns, and not Now he retires; but both the old copies are uniform in favour of retires.—Collier. [Retire may be right, as it is justifiable to interpret it in its original sense of draw back, in which it is almost equivalent to return.]
[344] [Old copies, a power.]
[345] Barry uses this word garboils in a sense to which it was not usually applied. The Rev. Mr Todd, in his edition of Dr Johnson's Dictionary, says, "Bishop Hall has rendered Virgil's arma, i.e., battles, by the word garboil." This is a mistake, for Hall is laughing at Stanihurst for having so done in his attempted hexameter translation of the Æneid—
"Give me the number'd verse that Virgil sung,
And Virgil's self shall speak the English tongue;
Manhood and garboiles shall he chaunt with changed feet," &c.
—B. i. sat. 6.
But there are many authorities besides Shakespeare, in his "Antony and Cleopatra," for its employment. Gascoigne inserts it in the speech of Hercules in the "Princely Pleasures of Kenilworth": "A garboyel this in deede," ["Works" by Hazlitt, ii. 93]. Drayton also uses it in [his "Mortimeriados," 1596,] quoted in "England's Parnassus," p. 444—
"Such is the garboyle of this conflict then;
Brave Englishmen encountering Englishmen."
and T. Heywood, in his "Rape of Lucrece," 1608, talks of "the head of all these garboyles, the chief actor of that black sin," &c.—Collier.
[346] [Ride, perhaps a form of prick.]
[347] Formerly printed studient, and for the measure it must be read so.—Collier. [The form studient is legitimate, though uncommon, and has been restored.]
[348] [This form of address was borrowed from the university.]
[349] i.e., Subtleties. So in "Every Woman in her Humour," 1609, sig. H 4: "He has his pols and his œdypols, his times and his tricks, his quirks, and his quilits," &c.
Again, in Lyly's "Euphues," 1581, p. 56: "Not only the, quirks and quiddities of the Logicians, but also," &c.
See also Mr Steevens's note on "Hamlet," act v. sc. I.
[350] [Edits., fecks-law, of which I fail to comprehend the meaning, if any. Tha phrase firk of law occurs again at p. 329, and in the sense of a trick or sleight.]