The Spanish name is ‘guarda infanta,’ which puzzles Don Torribio, as to what his cousin had to do with infants. Our word was first (as Heywood writes) verdingale: which, as Johnson tells us, ‘much exercised the etymology of Skinner, who at last seems to determine that it is derived from vertu garde.’ This, however, Johnson thinks does not at all get to the bottom of the etymology, which may, he says, be found in Dutch. Perhaps the old French petenlair was of the same kindred.
[11] The Phenomena that follow, and are here supposed to be magic illusions created in Cipriano’s Eyes, are in the original represented by theatrical Machinery.
[12] As this version of Calderon’s drama is not for acting, a higher and wider mountain-scene than practicable may be imagined for Rosaura’s descent in the first Act and the soldiers ascent in the last. The bad watch kept by the sentinels who guarded their state-prisoner, together with much else (not all!) that defies sober sense in this wild drama, I must leave Calderon to answer for: whose audience were not critical of detail and probability, so long as a good story, with strong, rapid, and picturesque action and situation, was set before them.
[13] ‘Some report that they’—(panthers)—‘have one marke on the shoulders resembling the moone, growing and decreasing as she doth, sometimes showing a full compasse, and otherwhiles hollowed and pointed with tips like the hornes.’—Philemon Holland’s Pliny, b. viii. c. 17.
[14] Almander, or almandre, Chaucer’s word for almond-tree, Rom. Rose, 1363.
[15] In Calderon’s drama, the Soldier who liberates Segismund meets with even worse recompense than in the version below. I suppose some such saving clause against prosperous treason was necessary in the days of Philip IV., if not later.
Capt. And what for him, my liege, who made you free
To honour him who held you prisoner?
Seg. By such self-proclamation self-betray’d
Less to your Prince’s service or your King’s