[p. 44] Rustick Antick. A quaint country dance.
Act IV: Scene i
[p. 62] Hypallages. A figure of speech by which attributes are transferred from their proper subjects to others.
[p. 62] Belli fugaces. Ovid, Amorum, I, 9, has ‘Militat omnis amans et habet sua castra Cupido’, and the idea is common. I have made no attempt to correct the tags of Latinity in this play. Mrs. Behn openly confessed she knew no Latin, and she was ill supplied here. I do not conceive that the words are intentionally faulty and grotesque. Lady Knowell is a pedant, but not ignorant.
[p. 65] Madame Brenvilliers. Marie-Marguerite d’Aubray, Marquise de Brinvilliers, was executed at Paris 16 July, 1676.
[p. 66] Bilbo-Blades! Or oftener ‘bilbo-lords’, = swash-bucklers, cf. The Pilgrim (folio, 1647), v, VI, where Juletta calls the old angry Alphonso ‘My Bilbo Master’.
[p. 70] whip slap-dash. These nonsensical bywords, which were very popular, are continually in the mouth of Sir Samuel Harty, a silly coxcomb in Shadwell’s The Virtuoso (1676). Nokes, who was acting Sir Credulous, had created Sir Samuel Harty.
[p. 71] The Bell in Friday-street. The Bell was an inn of note in Friday Street, Cheapside. cf. Cal. State Papers (1603-10, p. 455): ‘Sir Thomas Estcourt ... to Thomas Wilson. Is about to leave London and proffers his services. If he has occasion to write to him he may have weekly messengers ... at the Bell, Friday Street.’
Act IV: Scene i
[p. 79] th’ Exercise. The puritanical term for private worship, cf. 1663 Flagellum; or, O. Cromwell (1672), 21. ‘The Family was called together to prayers; at which Exercise ... they continued long.’ cf. The Roundheads (Vol. I), Act ii, I: ‘his Prayers; from which long-winded Exercise I have of late withdrawn my self.’