Scene 2. Page 198.
Arm. Why, sadness is one and the self same thing, dear imp.
This word, which is well explained by Mr. Ritson, was often, as in the present instance, used to pages. Thus Urquhart in his Discovery of a jewel, &c. p. 133, calls a person of this description "a hopeful youth and tender imp of great expectation."
Scene 2. Page 200.
Moth ... the dancing horse will tell you.
The best account of Banks and his famous horse Morocco is to be found in the notes to a French translation of Apuleius's Golden ass by Jean de Montlyard, Sieur de Melleray, counsellor to the Prince of Condé. This work was first printed in 1602, 8vo, and several times afterwards. The author himself had seen the horse, whose master he calls a Scotishman, at Paris, where he was exhibited in 1601, at the Golden Lion, Rue Saint Jaques. He is described as a middle-sized bay English gelding, about 14 years old. A few quotations from the work itself may not be unacceptable. "Son maistre l'appelle Moraco.... Nous avons vu son maistre l'interroger combien de francs vaut l'escu: et luy, donner trois fois du pied en terre. Mais chose plus estrange, parce que l'escu d'or sol et de poids vaut encor maintenant au mois de Mars 1601, plus que trois francs: l'Escossois luy demanda combien de sols valoit cest escu outre les trois francs; et Moraco frappa quatre coups, pour denoter les quatre sols que vaut lescu de surcroist." In which remark the counsellor shows himself less sagacious than the horse he is describing. He proceeds: "Après un infinité de tours de passe-passe, il luy fait danser les Canaries avec beaucoup d'art et de dexterité." The rest of the numerous tricks performed by this animal are much the same as those practised by the horses educated under the ingenious Mr. Astley. We also learn from this French work, that the magistrates, conceiving that all this could not be done without the aid of magic, had some time before imprisoned the master, and put the horse under sequestration; but having since discovered that every thing was effected by mere art and the making of signs, they had liberated the parties and permitted an exhibition. The Scotchman had undertaken to teach any horse the same tricks in a twelvemonth. It is said that both the horse and his master were afterwards burned at Rome as magicians; nor is this the only instance of the kind. In a little book entitled Le diable bossu, Nancy, 1708, 18mo, there is an obscure allusion to an English horse, whose master had taught him to know the cards, and which was burned alive at Lisbon in 1707; and Mr. Granger, in his Biographical history of England, vol. iii. p. 164, edit. 1779, has informed us that within his remembrance a horse which had been taught to perform several tricks was, with his owner, put into the Inquisition. The author of the life of Mal Cutpurse, 1662, 12mo, mentions her "fellow humourist Banks the vintner in Cheapside, who taught his horse to dance and shooed him with silver." In the eighth book of Markham's Cavalarice or the English horseman, 1607, 4to, there is a chapter "how a horse may be taught to doe and tricke done by Bankes his curtall." It is extremely curious, and towards the end throws light upon the second line of Bastard's epigram quoted by Mr. Steevens.
Scene 2. Page 203.
Arm. Green, indeed, is the colour of lovers.
Green eyes, jealousy, and the willow, have been mentioned as the subjects of this allusion; but it is, perhaps, to melancholy, the frequent concomitant of love. Thus in Twelfth night, "And with a green and yellow melancholy;" certainly in that instance, the effect of love.