Act 5 — FOOTNOTES: (continued 2)

It may be worth remark that it is also found in "Damon and Pithias," from which the character of Grim is taken.

[465] [Old copy, reake.]

[466] Sometimes called Pucke, alias Hobgoblin. In the creed of ancient superstition he was a kind of merry sprite, whose character and achievements are recorded in a ballad printed in Dr Percy's "Reliques of Ancient Poetry." [See "Popular Antiquities of Great Britain," iii. 39, et seq.]

[467] Pretty or clever. So in Warner's "Albion's England," b. vi. c. 31, edit. 1601—

"There was a tricksie girl, I wot, albeit clad in gray."

The word is also used in Shakespeare's "Tempest," act v. sc. 1. See Mr Steevens's note thereon.

[468] This is one of the most common, and one of the oldest, proverbs in English. Ulpian Fulwell['s play upon it has been printed in our third volume.] It is often met with in our old writers, and among others, in a translation from the French, printed in 1595, called, "A pleasant Satyre or Poesie, wherein is discovered the Catholicon of Spain," &c., the running title being "A Satyre Menippized." It is to be found on pp. 54 and 185. Having mentioned this tract, we may quote, as a curiosity, the following lines, which probably are the original of a passage for which "Hudibras" is usually cited as the authority—

"Oft he that doth abide Is cause of his own paine; But he that flieth in good tide Perhaps may fight againe."

—Collier.

[469] [A word unnoticed by Nares and Halliwell. The latter cites haust, high, doubtless from the French haut. So hauster may be the comparative, and signify higher.]

[470] Till now printed Puzzles as if because it had puzzled Dodsley and Reed to make out the true word. In the old copy it stands Puriles; and although it may seem a little out of character for Grim to quote Latin, yet he does so in common with the farmer in Peele's "Edward I.," and from the very same great authority. "'Tis an old saying, I remember I read it in Cato's 'Pueriles' that Cantabit vacuus coram latrone viator," &c.—Collier. [The work referred to in the text was called "Pueriles Confabulatiunculae; or, Children's Talke," of which no early edition is at present known. But it is mentioned in "Pappe with an Hatchet" (1589), and in the inventory of the stock of John Foster, the York bookseller (1616).]

[471] Head. See note to "Gammer Gurton's Needle" [iii. 242].

[472] Shall never cease, stop, or leave of. So in Ben Jonson's "Staple of News," Intermean after 4th act—

"He'll never lin till he be a gallop."

Mr Whalley proposes to read blin. "The word," says he, "is Saxon, and the substantive blin, derived from blinnan, occurs in the 'Sad Shepherd.' Yet the word occurs in Drayton in the sense of stopping or staying, as it is used here by our poet—

"'Quoth Puck, my liege, I'll never lin, Hut I will thorough thick and thin.'

"—'Court of Fairy.' So that an emendation may be unnecessary, and lin, the same as leave, might have been in common use."

The latter conjecture is certainly right, many instances maybe produced. As in "The Return from Parnassus," act iv. sc. 3—

"Fond world, that ne'er think'st on that aged man, That Ariosto's old swift-paced man, Whose name is Time, who never lins to run, Loaden with bundles of decayed names."

In "A Chast Mayd in Cheapside," by Middleton: "You'll never lin 'till I make your tutor whip you; you know how I serv'd you once at the free schoole in Paul's Church Yard." And in, "More Dissemblers besides Women," by the same, act iii. sc. I: "You nev'r lin railing on me, from one week's end to another." [Lin is common enough in the old romances.]

[473] See [Dyce's "Middleton," iii. 97, and] Note 20 to the "Match at Midnight."—Collier.

[474] This must have been addressed to the audience, and may be adduced as some slight evidence of the antiquity of the play, as in later times dramatists were not guilty of this impropriety. The old morality of "The Disobedient Child" has several instances of the kind; thus, the son says to the spectators—

"See ye not, my maysters, my fathers advyse? Have you the lyke at any time harde?"

Again, the Man-cook—

"Maysters, this woman did take such assaye, And then in those dayes so applyed her booke."

—Collier [ii. 276, 284].

[475] See Note 25 to "Ram Alley."—Collier. [In "Romeo and Juliet," i. 3, the Nurse says, "Nay, I do bear a brain," i.e., I do bear in mind, or recollect (Dyce's edit. 1868, vi. 398). Reed's explanation, adopted by Dyce, seems hardly satisfactory.]

[476] See note to "Gammer Gorton's Needle," iii. 205. Query, if the passages there quoted may not refer to this very character of Akercock and his dress, as described in act i. sc. 1.—Collier. [Probably not, as this play can hardly have been in existence go early, and the character and costume of Robin Goodfellow were well understood, even before "Gammer Gurton's Needle" was written.]

[477] So in "The Return from Parnassus," act v. sc. 4—

"I'll make thee run this lousy case, I wis."

And again in Massinger's "City Madam," act iv. sc. 4—

"Tis more comely, I wis, than their other whim-whams."

[478] "He had need of a long spoon that eats with the devil," is a proverbial phrase. See [Hazlitt's "Proverbs," 1869, p. 176.] So Stephano, in the "Tempest," act ii. sc. 2, alluding to this proverb, says, "This is a devil, and no monster: I will leave him; I have no long spoon." See also "Comedy of Errors," act iv. sc. 3, and Chaucer's "Squier's Tale," v. 10916—

"Therefore behoveth him a ful long spone, That shall ete with a fiend."

[479] [To vomit. One of the jests of Scogin relates how that celebrated individual "told his wife he had parbraked a crow"—a story which occurs in the "Knight of the Tour-Landry" (Wright's edit., p. 96). See also Fry's "Bibl. Memoranda," 1816, p. 337. A note in edition 1825 says:] This is a word which I apprehend is very seldom found in writers subsequent to the year 1600. It is used by Skelton, and sometimes by Spenser. See Todd's "Johnson's Dict."

[480] [Old copy, He falls; but Akercock evidently disappears simultaneously.]

[481] [Old copy, names.]

[482] [Old copy, song.]