FOOTNOTES:
[396] These are cant phrases for being intoxicated.
[397] The statute here referred to is the 4th of James the First, 1606, which directs that any persons convicted of being drunk shall pay five shillings, or be set in the stocks during the space of six hours for the first offence; and for the second be bound in a recognizance for his good behaviour.
[398] The word fees was till now accidentally omitted, though inserted in both the old copies.—Collier.
[399] These names, which are generally considered as synonymous, appear from this passage to signify different kinds of vehicles, or different sizes of the same. About this time they were come into general use. Dr Percy, in his Notes to the "Northumberland Household Book," p. 448, says, from Anderson's "Origin of Commerce," that coaches were introduced into England by Fitz-Alan, Earl of Arundel, A.D. 1580; but from the following passage in the works of Taylor the Water-Poet, 1630, p. 240, they appear to have been used some years earlier:—"For in the yeere 1564, one William Boonen, a Dutchman, brought first the use of coaches hither, and the said Boonen was Queene Elizabeth's coachman; for indeede a coach was a strange monster in those days, and the sight of them put both horse and man into amazement: some said it was a great crabshell brought out of China, and some imagin'd it to be one of the pagan temples, in which the cannibals adored the divell: but at last those doubts were cleared, and coach-making became a substantial trade: so that now all the world may see they are as common as whores, and may be hired as easie as knights of the post." Dr Percy observes, they were first drawn with two horses, and that it was the favourite Buckingham who, about 1619, began to draw with six horses which, Wilson tells us ("Life of King James," 1653, fol. p. 130), "was wondered at then as a novelty, and imputed to him as a mastering pride." About the same time, he introduced sedan chairs.
[400] [Edits., ladies 'gin.]
[401] The 4to of 1611 reads—
"Why their gross souring husbands stink;"
which is perhaps right.—Collier.
[402] Bridal bowl is the reading of 1611, and not bride alebowl, as Mr Reed gave it.—Collier.
[403] [Edits., by.]
[404] [Lie is strictly a mixture of water and alkaline salt; see the "Merie Tales of Skelton," No. 2 (Old English Jest-Books ii. 6). But here it signifies the water of the pot de chambre.]
[405] St Paul's Cathedral, which at this period was open all day, and the resort of all the idle, profligate, or necessitous people in town.
Bishop Carleton tells us ("Thankful Deliverance," 1625, p. 101), that Babington'a and Ballard's Conspiracy was "conferred upon in Paul's Church."—Gilchrist.
[406] [Back-yard.]
[407] See ["Popular Antiquities of Great Britain," ii. 71.]
[408] [Old copies, I'll.]
[409] i.e., Respectful. So, in "The Second Part of Amonio and Mellida," act iii. sc. 4—
"I give the noble duke respective thankes."
In "Every Man out of his Humour," act v. sc. 4—
"I am bound to pledge it respectively, sir,"
and in "Cynthia's Revels"—
"Methinks he did not this respectively enough."
[410] Meaning a bill announcing that the plague had occasioned forty deaths. During the plague, the theatres were closed; and, to a new player such an event was doubly calamitous.—Collier.
[411] It was formerly customary for the counters in London to receive the remains of the sheriffs' dinners, for the use of the prisoners confined there.—See Stow's "Survey," vol. i. b. iii. p. 51. edit. 1720.
[412] [Mistress Smell-smock advanced Frances the dress, the cost of which was to be repaid, and Frances says that she made up the money in six weeks.]
[413] Breeches. The term occurs in almost every writer of the times.
[414] In "Philocothonista," 1635, p. 46, it is said: "Of glasses to qnaffe in, the fashions and sizes be almost without number, some transported hither from Venice and other places, some made in the Citie by strangers." The manufactory of glass at Venice was then very considerable. See Howell's "Letters," 1754, p. 56.
[415] [See Nares, edit. 1859, p. 923.]
[416] Formerly there were a set of itinerant musicians who used to earn a scanty pittance by going about in winter evenings to taverns and inns, playing for the entertainment of the company they found there. Sir John Hawkins ("History of Music," v. 66) mentions a person who was an excellent performer, and yet submitted to get his living by this practice so late as the year 1735. It is said that some musicians attended the greater inns so constantly that they might in some sort be styled retainers to the houses. A very curious and rare tract, with the title of "The Actors Remonstrance or Complaint for the Silencing of their Profession," 1643, has the following apposite passage:—"Our Musike that was held so delectable and precious that they scorned to come to a Taverne under twenty shillings salary for two houres, now wander with their Instruments under their cloaks, I meane such as haue any, into all houses of good fellowship, saluting every roome where there is company with Will you have any musike, Gentlemen?" Such was one consequence of the severity of Puritan discipline.—Collier. [Hazlitt's "English Drama and Stage," 1869, p. 263.]
[417] I find blue coats used to be worn on St George's day, but what order of people the fashion was confined to, I have not been able to discover. It is mentioned in epigram 33 of Rubbe and a great cast. The second bowle, by Thomas Freeman, 4to, 1614.
"With's coram nomine keeping greater sway,
Then a court blue coat on Saint George's day."
[Blue coats were worn by beadles. See Dyce's Middleton, i. 485.]
[418] Both the old copies name this country Catita, but the change is probably right.—Collier.
[419] See note to "The Parson's Wedding," act v. sc. 2.
[420] Here the Captain most likely jumped from the table, and made his escape; but we are left to infer it.—Collier.
[421] The metre of this line was spoiled by the omission of the article in it, arising from a non-attention to the old copy.—Collier.
[422] Till now it ran "Why may not I, a fool, get a wise child, as a wise man get fools," according to the corrupt reading of the copy of 1636.—Collier.
[423] [Old copies, now will.]
[424] In the statute of 4 James I., cap. 5, sect. 4, is a penalty on any person continuing drinking or tippling in inns, victualling-houses, or ale-houses, &c.
[425] [Lawyers are still called gentlemen of the long-robe.]
[426] [Edits., Femini.]
[427] [Edits., summer's; but compare p. 378.]
[428] Hand.