Square-Cap (1647) is one of the pleasantest of all Cleveland's poems. Its prosodic puzzle and profit have been indicated in the Introduction, and it might sometimes run more easily. But the thorough good-fellowship and esprit de corps carry it off more than sufficiently. It would be pleasant to think that Mr. Samuel Pepys sang it on the famous occasion when he was 'scandalously over-served with drink' as an undergraduate. It had been printed only three years when he went up, though no doubt written earlier.
2 Cleveland has got the fount right here.
7 she is] she's 1653.
9 Monmouth-cap] A soldier.
13, 14 A most singular blunder in 1677 (and the editions that follow it) shows that Cleveland's 'Vindicators' were by no means always attentive to his sense. It reads 'her grannam' and 'She shall have'—the exact effect of which, as an inducement to marry him, one would like to hear.
15 la-bee] = 'let-a-be', 'let me alone'.
17 One or two editions (but not very good ones) 'Thin Calot'. Calot of course = 'calotte', the lawyer's cap or coif.
18 This is a signal instance of the way in which these early anapaestic lines break down into heroics. 1677 and others read 'his pedigree'—not so well.
22 S. Thomas his leas] A decree of Oct. 29, 1632, ordains that scholars and students of Corpus and Pembroke shall play football only 'upon St. Thomas Layes', the site of Downing College later. This decree and the 'S.' of 1651, 1653, would seem to show that 1677 is wrong in expanding to 'Sir', though two Cambridge editors ought to have known the right name. It was also called 'Swinecroft'. (Information obtained from the late Mr. J. W. Clark's Memories and Customs, Cambridge, 1909, through the kindness of Mr. A. J. Bartholomew.)
33 Satin-cap] Clerical: cf. Strode's poem on The Caps (Works, ed. Dobell, p. 106):