P. 2.

The Rubie.—This is the famous and characteristic note of Euphuism—the accumulation of similes from natural history, or what was taken for natural history. It can hardly be necessary to take note of each of these; still less of the abundant classical allusions which any one acquainted with the classics will understand at once, and which could only be explained to others by loading these notes with lumps of LempriÈre. Nor will any one find much difficulty in the language if he remembers that 'then' and 'than,' 'there' and 'their,' 'wayed' and 'weighed,' were written, or at least printed, in those days according to the liberal standard of the taste and fancy of the speller. In case of any difficulty, reading the word aloud will generally solve it. In a few instances, however, it may be well to gloss a little more specially.

M.—I am not sure what this abbreviates. 'Master,' for which it is the commonest sign, would do.

Oftscome = 'off-scum,' 'off-scouring.'

P. 3.

Find faulte is rather a loss: it is better than 'fault-finder.'

Closset.—This refers to the famous copy of Homer called ? ?? t?? ????????, which Alexander carried about with him in a sumptuous narthex—a portable medicine-case.

Bourde = 'jest.'

P. 5.

Parson and 'person,' interchangeably.

Cirpo, rather scirpo.

P. 6.

Denocated.—A mistake for either 'denotated' or 'devocated,' both possible and easily intelligible words.

Werish = 'wersh,' 'weak,' 'sickly.'

P. 7.

Predictam of course should be praeditam.

Presisnes, for 'preciseness,' is a good example of the quaint tricks played by phonetics.

P. 8.

Gale = gall = (in next line) fel.

Player.—Before his 'conversion' Gosson had himself had much to do with the theatre.

P. 11.

Plotinus.—Either Lodge or his printer has made nonsense of this. For 'Plotinus' read 'Plautus.'

P. 12.

Saphier.—Evident misprint for 'Sapphic.'

P. 16.

The quotation has been set right in some obvious matters, though not materially altered. In the second line of the English version 'with' should no doubt be 'which,' 'wh.' being the abbreviation for both.

P. 17.

TyrtÆus may perhaps be hid to some under his disguise of Tirtheus, which on p. 20 becomes Tirthetus.

P. 18.

Quinque for quique is very funny.

P. 19.

Stare = 'star,' 'mole.'

P. 20.

Acuate = 'sharpened,' 'spurred on.'

P. 22.

It is noteworthy that Lodge is much more eloquent and much more urgent in defence of music than of poetry, and indeed the melomania of the Elizabethans is well known.

P. 25.

Buggs = 'bugbears.'

Pavions = 'pavone' or 'pavine,' the well-known stately 'peacock-dance' of the time.

Dump.—Not merely as now used, 'a fit of melancholy,' but 'a melancholy tune,' and even a dance.

P. 33.

Your (Gosson) for exempting.—'Your' may be mere carelessness for 'you,' or Lodge may have at one time meant to write, 'your exempting yourself.'

P. 38.

Last line of quotation of course contemnas and nam.

P. 41.

Probably the printer gave Silius Italicus his v.

P. 44.

Pappe with an hatchet has been much discussed. The sense, which is not unlike 'giving him his gruel,' is clear enough, and any number of explanations of the form occur.

Patch. Cf. Shylock's 'The patch is kindly.'

P. 45.

Huffe, Ruffe, and Snuffe.—Characters in Preston's Cambyses. It cannot be necessary to annotate each of the plays on words of which "grating" for "greeting" is the first, and which occur throughout.

P. 46.

Ale dagger, may refer to the custom of drinking with swords on the table.

P. 47.

Scaddle is unannotated by Mr. Maskell, and does not appear in other dictionaries, even in that of Professor Skeat. But that excellent scholar, with his usual kindness, has given me a note on it. It is the A.S. scadol from 'scathe,' and means 'mischievous,' with a secondary sense of 'thievish,' and a tertiary one of 'timid' or 'skulking.' It is here probably used in a combination of all these.

Dydoppers = 'didappers,' 'dabchicks.'

P. 51.

Bastard senior and junior are polite references to Martin senior and Martin junior, two of the pseudonyms set to the Marprelate pamphlets.

P. 52.

Elderton.—A theatrical manager.

P. 53.

Three a vies.—A 'vie' is a single stake or game at cards, or anything else. 'Three a vies' therefore equals our 'best of three.' 'Passage,' a game with dice. 'Stabbing' was a form of cogging. 'Cater-tray,' four and three. 'Cater-caps,' trencher-caps.

P. 54.

Dicker of leather.—A bundle of ten skins.

Woodsere.—Probably, as Mr. Maskell suggests, the sap that sputters from green faggots.

P. 56.

Lambacke = 'thrash.'

P. 58.

Bull.—Perhaps the hangman.

P. 64.

Aptots = 'Indeclinables.'

P. 65.

NÆme, also 'eme' or 'eame' = 'uncle.'

P. 66.

Kixes or kexes.—Dry stalks of hemlock.

P. 68.

Pistle.—The common shortened form for 'epistle' much used by the Martinists.

P. 71.

Liripoope.—The liripipium, or long academic hood.

Chiuerell = 'doe-leather.'

P. 72.

Comedies.—Anti-Martinist plays are known to have existed, but are quite lost.

P. 76.

Muzroule or musroule.—A nose-band.

Port mouth.—I presume a kind of twitch.

Mubble fubbles = 'dumps,' 'blues.'

P. 77.

Hauncing = 'tipping.'

P. 79.

Celarent and ferio.—This play on the memoria technica of logical mood and figure is ingenious.

Ora whine meg.—Sometimes given as 'Over a whinny meg.' Name of a tune.

P. 80.

Bullen.—A vigorous pamphleteer of the preceding age.

P. 84.

Title. Wit and Will is the first of the 'five discourses.' Below, in the second motto, 'Vires' should of course be 'virus,' being no doubt a mere misprint.

P. 86.

Gods forbod.—Dr. Grosart 'forbobod,' which appears a vox nihili. 'Past all gods forbod' seems to be pretty much = our 'past all praying for.'

P. 88.

Then (as constantly and not to be noticed hereafter) = 'than.'

P. 90.

Byrd. Apparently not in the sense in which 'byrd' or 'burd' is used by the ballad poets, for that is always of a girl, and Will is 'he.'

P. 100.

Buts length.—The ordinary distance between targets.

Flights shotte.—As far as the bow will carry.

P. 102.

Wood = 'mad.'

P. 109.

Will's Latin here and elsewhere is a good deal better than his modern languages.

P. 111.

Corsi[v]e = 'corrosive,' something that frets and worries.

P. 116.

Vir esset, for virescit apparently.

P. 134.

Labra, copies labe; either a mere misprint or a blunder for labea = labia, regardless of the verse. Latin is often very carelessly printed in these tracts.

P. 135.

Gray = 'badger,' from its colour.

P. 136.

Wearied.—'Weary' and 'worry' have no real connection, but the former is close in spelling and sound to 'wirian,' the O.E. form of the latter.

P. 141.

Tables = 'backgammon.'

P. 148.

Nips, etc., cant names for different classes of sharpers and thieves.

P. 149.

Ball.—Said to be a play on the proper name of Greene's mistress and her brother.

P. 150.

Place = 'locus,' text or citation.

P. 155.

The allotment and discussion of the parts in this tirade as belonging to Marlowe and others of the earlier contemporaries of Shakespeare have employed much ink, and need no more.

P. 156.

Young Iuuenall is apparently Lodge: 'thou no lesse deseruing' Peele.

P. 166.

Barnabe Barnes, the author of Parthenophil and Parthenophe, was no despicable minor poet; the others were less known to fame, and a future page (175) tells most that is known about them.

P. 175.

Clarentius = 'Clarencieux.'?

P. 187.

Exitat = 'excitate,' incite.

P. 188.

Ale cunners.—'Conners or kenners,' the official inspectors of Beer.

P. 192.

A reache is an advantage. By 'fiue and a reache,' either card and dice sharping or pocket-picking must be meant.

P. 193.

Pullin = 'poultry.'

P. 194.

Hoffes = 'hof,' house.

P. 195.

Here Nash takes his customary side in the Marprelate business.

P. 196.

Ram Alley, the great locality for cook-shops.

P. 198.

The Old Swanne, still known on the river as a pier and starting-place.

P. 199.

Heart at grasse = 'heart of grace.'

Lambeake. The simple verb 'lam,' surviving in 'lam into him,' had divers compounds—'lambaste,' 'lambeak,' (v. ante) and the like.

P. 202.

A return to the Martinists dunstable—as in 'Downright Dunstable.'

P. 205.

Duke Humfrye habitually entertained his guests in St. Paul's.

P. 208.

Cataphalusie is, I suppose, a coined word with no special meaning.

P. 212.

Full information about Grobianisme may be found in Chapter VII. of Mr. Herford's excellent Literary Relations of England and Germany in the 16th Century. Cambridge: 1886.

P. 215.

Kelly succeeded Dee as an alchemist.

P. 216.

For the Ship of Fooles, as Alexander Barclay Englished Sebastian Brant's Narrenschiff, see Mr. Herford op. cit.

Like Biasse = 'crookedly'?

P. 217.

Tarleton, etc.,—actors.

P. 221.

Bootes.—For the proper and original meaning of 'boot' see the opening chapter of Old Mortality.

P. 223.

Voyder.—The tray for sweeping off crumbs, fragments, etc., from the table.

P. 230.

Vaunt-currers = 'avant-couriers.'

P. 231.

Platoes cocke.—It was rather Diogenes's—his unfeeling jest on the 'unfeathered, two-legged animal' definition of Man.

P. 232.

Babiownes = 'baboon.'

Mandilions.—A kind of monkey.

P. 234.

Strawling = 'straddling.'

P. 242.

The Duke, of course Humfrye.

P. 244.

Cipers = 'cyprus,' crape.

P. 246.

Horse.—Banks's Morocco, frequent in Elizabethan mouths.

P. 273.

Perinado, guessed to = "parasite" "dinner-hunter." Inghle = "crony."

END

Transcriber's note:

The many inconsistencies in this book, are as in the original.