NOTES TO PART I. CANTO III.
134 p First TRULLA stav'd, &c.] Staving and Tailing are terms of art used in the Bear-Garden, and signify there only the parting of dogs and bears: Though they are used metaphorically in several other professions, for moderating; as law, divinity, hectoring, &c.
153 q Or like the late corrected leathern Ears of the Circumcised Brethren. Pryn, Bastwick, and Burton, who laid down their ears as proxies for their profession of the godly party, not long after maintained their right and title to the pillory to be as good and lawful as theirs who first of all took possession of it in their names.
328 r That old, &c.] Pygmalion, king of Tyre, was the son of Margenus, or Mechres, whom he succeeded, and lived 56 years, wherof he reigned 47. Dido, his sister, was to have governed with him, but it was pretended the subjects thought it not convenient. She married Sichaeus, who was the king's uncle, and very rich; wherefore he put him to death; and Dido soon after departed the kingdom. Poets say, Pygmalion was punished for the hatred he bore to women with the love he had to a statue.
925 s And as the FRENCH we conquer'd once, Now give us Laws for PANTALOONS, &c. Pantaloons and Port-Cannons were some of the fantastick fashions wherein we aped the French.
At quisquis Insula satus Britannica
Sic patria insolens fastidiet suam,
Ut more simiae laboret fingere,
Et aemulari Gallicas ineptias,
Et omni Gallo ego hunc opinor ebrium;
Ergo ex Britanno, ut Gallus esse nititur,
Sic Dii jubete, fiat ex Galle Capus.
THOMAS MORE.
Gallus is a river in Phrygia; rising out of the mountains of Celenae, and discharging itself into the river Sanger, the water of which is of that admirable quality, that, being moderately drank, it purges the brain, and cures madness; but largely drank, it makes men frantick. Pliny, Horatius.
1123 t A learned divine in King James's time wrote a polemick work against the Pope, and gave it that unlucky nick-name of The Pope's Bull baited.
1166 u Canonical Cravat, &c.] Smectymnuus was a club of five parlimentary holders-forth; the characters of whose names and talents were by themselves expressed in that senseless and insignificant word. They wore handkerchiefs about their necks for a mark of distinction (as the Officers of the Parliament Army then did) which afterwards degenerated into carnal cravats. About the beginning of the long Parliament, in the year 1641, these five wrote a book against Episcopacy and the Common Prayer, to which they all subscribed their names; being Stephen Marshal, Edmund Calamy, Thomas Young, Matthew Newcomen, and William Spurstow, and from thence they and their followers were called Smectymnians. They are remarkable for another pious book, which they wrote some time after that, intitled, The Kings Cabinet unlocked, wherein all the chaste and endearing expressions, in the letters that passed betwixt his Majesty King Charles I. and his Royal Consort are by these painful labourers in the Devil's vineyard turned into burlesque and ridicule. Their books were answered with as much calmness and genteelness of expression, and as much learning and honesty, b. the Rev. Mr. Symonds, then a deprived clergyman, as theirs was stuffed with malice, spleen, and rascally invectives.