Note 762 — SCENE II.
Reading edition
doctor Lopez, &c.] Lopez, domestic physician to Queen Elizabeth, was executed for having accepted a bribe from Spain to destroy her. Taylor, the water-poet, in the 13th stanza (or sonnet) of The Churches Deliuerances, tells, in his own homely and facetious manner, the story of Lopez, p. 145—Workes, 1630. Dekker introduces him actually making an attempt on the queen’s life, in the following passage of The Whore of Babylon, 1607:
“Titania. Is Lupus here, our Doctor?
Lupus. Gratious Lady.
Titania. You haue a lucky hand since you were ours,
It quickens our tast well; fill vs of that
You last did minister: a draught, no more,
And giue it fire, euen Doctor how thou wilt.
Lupus. I made a new extraction, you shall neuer
Rellish the like.
Titania. Why, shall that be my last?
Lupus. Oh my deere Mistres!
Titania. Go, go, I dare sware thou lou’st my very heart.
. . . . . . . .
Titania. Sure ’tis too hot.
Fideli. Oh roague!
Titania. Set it to coole.
Fideli. Hell and damnation, Diuels.
Florimell. What’s that?
Fideli. The damned’st treason! Dog, you whorsen dog;
O blessed mayd: let not the toad come neere her:
What’s this? If’t be his brewing, touch it not,
For ’tis a drench to kill the strongest Deuill
That’s Druncke all day with brimstone: come sucke, Weezell,
Sucke your owne teat, you—pray.
Thou art preseru’d.
Titania. From what? From whome?
Fideli. Looke to that Glister-pipe:
One crowne doe’s serue thy tourne, but heere’s a theefe,
That must haue 50000 crownes to steale
Thy life: Here ’tis in blacke and white—thy life.
Sirra thou Vrinall, Tynoco, Gama,
Andrada, and Ibarra, names of Diuels,
Or names to fetch vp Diuels: thou knowest these Scar-crowes.
Lupus. Oh mee! O mercy, mercy! I confesse.
Fideli. Well sayd, thou shalt be hang’d then.
Titania. Haue we for this Shee reades the letter.
Heap’d fauours on thee? Enter Gard.
Fideli. Heape halters on him: call the Guard: out polecat:
He smels, thy conscience stincks Doctor, goe purge
Thy soule, for ’tis diseas’d. Away with Lupus.
Omnes. Away with him: foh.
Lupus. Here my tale but out.
Fideli. Ther’s too much out already.
Lupus. Oh me accursed! and most miserable.
Exit with Guard.”
Sigs. G 4, H.
In the above passage the old ed. has, by a misprint, “Ropus” instead of “Lupus:” when he appears in an earlier scene he is called “Lupus,” which a marginal note explains to mean “Lopes.” Sig. F.