[332] From A Funeral Elegy on Burbadge, first printed by Collier, we learn that the great actor took the part of Malevole in The Malcontent:—
“Vindex is gone, and what a loss was he!
Frankford, Brachiano, and Malevole.”
The elegy is in the main unquestionably genuine.
[333] “A quotation from the part of Osrick in Hamlet. Sly might have been the original performer of that character.”—Steevens.
[334] The meaning is that in The Malcontent, which had been originally acted at Blackfriars Theatre, the practice of wearing feathers had been so ridiculed that the feather-makers of Blackfriars had suffered injury in their business. In v. 4 occurs the passage in which the use of feathers is ridiculed:—“For as now-a-days no courtier but has his mistress, no captain but has his cockatrice, no cuckold but has his horns, and no fool but has his feather.” &c. Blackfriars was noted as being the residence of Puritans, many of whom followed the trade of feather-makers. There is some amusing ridicule of the Puritan feather-makers in Ben Jonson’s Bartholomew Fair, Randolph’s Muses’ Looking-Glass, &c.
[335] Judge.
[336] Box.
[337] The expression “in decimo sexto” is used in reference to the company of the Children of the Chapel, acting at Blackfriars. Cf. Middleton’s Father Hubburd’s Tales (Works, ed. Bullen, viii. 64):—“But for fear I interrupt this small actor in less than decimo sexto, “&c. The Children’s Company at the Blackfriars seems to have appropriated Jeronimo, i.e., The Spanish Tragedy, in which the King’s Company at the Globe had an interest; whereupon the King’s Company retaliated by acting Malevole, i.e. The Malcontent. The expression “Malevole in folio” means “The Malcontent acted by men-actors.”—Dyce did not understand the passage.
[338] A proverbial saying. “L. S.” in the Shakespeare Society’s Papers, ii. 85 (1847), quotes from Plutarch’s Symposium, v. 1:—“For upon what other account should men be moved to admire Parmeno’s sow so much as to pass it into a proverb? Yet ’tis reported that Parmeno, being very famous for imitating the grunting of a pig, some endeavoured to rival and outdo him. And when the hearers, being prejudiced, cried out, ‘Very well, indeed, but nothing comparable to Parmeno’s sow,’ one took a pig under his arm and came upon the stage; and when, tho’ they heard the very pig, they still continued, ‘This is nothing comparable to Parmeno’s sow,’ he threw his pig amongst them to show that they judged according to opinion and not truth” (Creech’s translation). Phædrus has a fable on the subject.
[339] Halfpennies.