"The Bristow sparkles are as diamond."
The meaning is evident.
[87] In reference to her female sex and male attire.
[88] These words contain an allusion to Blackfriars as a common residence of the Puritans. The Widow subsequently refers to the same circumstance, when in [act iii.] she asks Bold: "Precise and learned Princox, dost thou not go to Blackfriars." That Blackfriars, although the play-house was there, was crowded with Puritans may be proved by many authorities.
[89] Two celebrated English heroines. The achievements of Mary Ambree at the siege of Ghent, in 1584, are celebrated in a ballad which goes by her name in Percy's "Reliques," ii. 239, edit. 1812. She is mentioned by Fletcher, Ben Jonson, and many other dramatists; some of whom were her contemporaries. Dr Percy conjectured that the "English Mall" of Butler was the same female soldier, but he probably alluded to Mall or Moll Cutpurse who forms a character in this play. Long Meg is Long Meg of Westminster, also a masculine lady of great notoriety, and after whom a cannon in Dover Castle, and a large flagstone in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey are still called. Her life and "merry pranks" were detailed in a pamphlet dated in [1582], and reprinted [from a later edition] in 1816. It is conjectured that she was dead in 1594, but she is often spoken of in our old writers. It will be seen by a subsequent note that Long Meg was the heroine of a play which has not survived.
[90] It is tolerably evident that two plays (one called "Long Meg," and the other "The Ship"), and not one with a double title, are here intended to be spoken of. This may seem to disprove Malone's assertion ("Shakespeare" by Boswell, iii. 304), that only one piece was represented on one day. By Henslowe's Diary it appears that "Longe Mege of Westminster" was performed at Newington in February 1594, and, according to Field, it must have continued for some time popular. Nothing is known of a dramatic piece of that date called "The Ship." It may have been only a jig, often given at the conclusion of plays. [Compare [p. 136.]]
[91] The second edition misprints this stage direction, Enter Lord.
[92] A noted and often-mentioned purlieu, the resort and residence of prostitutes, &c. See "Merry Wives of Windsor," act i. sc. 2, where enough, and more than enough, is said upon the subject. Turnbull Street has been already mentioned.
[93] [i.e., Worldly.]
[94] It seems to have been the custom to employ the Irish as lackeys or footmen at this period. R. Brathwaite, in his "Time's Curtaine Drawne," 1621, speaking of the attendants of a courtier, mentions "two Irish lacquies" as among them. The dart which, according to this play, and Middleton and Rowley's "Faire Quarrel" (edit. 1622), they carried, was perhaps intended as an indication of the country from which they came, as being part of the accoutrements of the native Irish: thus, in the description of the dumb show preceding act ii. of "The Misfortunes of Arthur," we find the following passage: "After which there came a man bareheaded with long black shagged hair down to his shoulders, apparaled with an Irish jacket and shirt, having an Irish dagger by his side and a dart in his hand" [iv. 279]. The shirt in our day seldom forms part of the dress of the resident Irish. [George Richardson] wrote a tract called "The Irish Footman ['s Poetry," 1641, in defence of Taylor the Water-poet.]