SANDS. New customs, Though they be never so ridiculous, Nay, let them be unmanly, yet are follow'd. CHAM. As far as I see, all the good our English Have got by the late voyage, is but merely A fit or two o'the face; but they are shrewd ones; For when they hold them, you would swear directly, Their very noses had been counsellors To Pepin, or Clotharius, they keep state so. SANDS. They have all new legs, and lame ones; one would take it, That never saw them" pace before, the spavin, CHAM. Death! my lord, "mister artes." Hence the mysteries in Shakspeare signify those fantastick manners and fashions of the French, which had operated as spells or enchantments. HENLEY. 6 A fit or two o'the face;] A fit of the face seems to be what we now term a grimace, an artificial cast of the countenance. JOHNSON. Fletcher has more plainly expressed the same thought in The Elder Brother: 66 "To -learnt new tongues vary his face as seamen do their compass." STEEVENS. 7 That never saw them-] Old copy-see 'em. Corrected by Mr. Pope. MALONE. A springhalt reign'd among them.] The stringhalt, or springhalt, (as the old copy reads,) is a disease incident to horses, which gives them a convulsive motion in their paces. So, in Muleasses the Turk, 1610: "—by reason of a general spring-halt and debility in their hams." Again, in Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair: "Poor soul, she has had a stringhalt." STEEVENS. Mr. Pope and the subsequent editors, without any necessity, I think, for A springhalt, read-And springhalt. MALONE. Their clothes are after such a pagan cut too, That, sure, they have worn out christendom. How now? What news, sir Thomas Lovell? Lov. Enter Sir THOMAS LOVELl. 'Faith, my lord, I hear of none, but the new proclamation CHAM. What is't for? Lov. The reformation of our travell'd gallants, That fill the court with quarrels, talk, and tailors. CHAM. I am glad, 'tis there; now I would pray our monsieurs To think an English courtier may be wise, Lov. They must either (For so run the conditions,) leave these remnants Of fool, and feather,' that they got in France, 9 -cut too,] Old copy-cut to't. Corrected in the fourth folio. MALone. Both the first and second folio read-cut too't, so that for part of this correction we are not indebted to the fourth folio. 1 -leave these remnants. STEEVENS. Of fool, and feather,] This does not allude to the feathers anciently worn in the hats and caps of our countrymen, (a circumstance to which no ridicule could justly belong,) but to an effeminate fashion recorded in Greene's Farewell to Folly, 1617: from whence it appears that even young gentlemen carried fans of feathers in their hands: "we strive to be counted womanish, by keeping of beauty, by curling the hair, by wearing plumes of feathers in our hands, which in wars, our ancestors wore on their heads." Again, in his Quip for an upstart Courtier, 1620: "Then our young courtiers strove to exceed one another in With all their honourable points of ignorance, Out of a foreign wisdom,) renouncing clean vertue, not in bravery; they rode not with fannes to ward their faces from the wind," &c. Again, in Lingua, &c. 1607, Phantastes, who is a male character, is equipped with a fan. STEEVENS. The text may receive illustration from a passage in Nashe's Life of Lacke Wilton, 1594: “At that time [viz. in the court of King Henry VIII.] I was no common squire, no undertroden torch-bearer, I had my feather in my cap as big as a flag in the foretop, my French doublet gelte in the belly, as though (lyke a pig readie to be spitted) all my guts had been pluckt out, a paire of side paned hose that hung down like two scales filled with Holland cheeses, my long stock that sate close to my dock, my rapier pendant like a round sticke, &c. my blacke cloake of black cloth, ouerspreading my backe lyke a thornbacke or an elephantes eare;-and in consummation of my curiositie, handes without gloves, all a more French," &c. RITSON. In Rowley's Match at Midnight, Act I. sc. i. Sim says: "Yes, yes, she that dwells in Blackfryers, next to the sign of The Fool laughing at a Feather." my But Sir Thomas Lovell's is rather an allusion to the feathers which were formerly worn by fools in their caps. See a print on this subject from a painting of Jordaens, engraved by Voert; and again, in the ballad of News and no News: "And feathers wagging in a fool's cap." DOUCE. 2-fireworks;] We learn from a French writer quoted in Montfaucon's Monuments de la Monarchie Françoise, Vol. IV. that some very extraordinary fireworks were played off on the evening of the last day of the royal interview between Guynes and Ardres. Hence, our "travelled gallants," who were present at this exhibition, might have imbibed their fondness for the pyrotechnic art. 3 STEEVENS. -blister'd breeches,] Thus the old copy; i. e. breeches puff'd, swell'd out like blisters. The modern editors readbolster'd breeches, which has the same meaning. STEEVENS. Or pack to their old playfellows: there, I take it, They may, cum privilegio, wear away 4 The lag end of their lewdness, and be laugh'd at. SANDS. 'Tis time to give them physick, their diseases Are grown so catching. CHAM. What a loss our ladies Will have of these trim vanities! Lov. Ay, marry, There will be woe indeed, lords; the sly whoresons Have got a speeding trick to lay down ladies; A French song, and a fiddle, has no fellow. SANDS. The devil fiddle them! I am glad they're going; (For, sure, there's no converting of them;) now An honest country lord, as I am, beaten A long time out of play, may bring his plain-song, And have an hour of hearing; and, by❜r-lady, Held current musick too. CHAM. Your colt's tooth is not cast yet. SANDS. Nor shall not, while I have a stump. CHAM. Well said, lord Sands; No, my lord; Sir Thomas, To the cardinal's; O, 'tis true: Whither were you a going? Lov. Your lordship is a guest too. CHAM This night he makes a supper, and a great one, To many lords and ladies; there will be The beauty of this kingdom, I'll assure you. 4 wear away-] Old copy-wee away. Corrected in the second folio. MALOne. Lov. That churchman bears a bounteous mind indeed, A hand as fruitful as the land that feeds us; CHAM. SANDS. He may, my lord, he has wherewithal; in him, Sparing would show a worse sin than ill doctrine: Men of his way should be most liberal, They are set here for examples. CHAM. True, they are so ; But few now give so great ones. My barge stays;5 Your lordship shall along:-Come, good sir Thomas, We shall be late else: which I would not be, For I was spoke to, with sir Henry Guildford, This night to be comptrollers. SANDS. I am your lordship's. [Exeunt. My barge stays ;] The speaker is now in the King's palace at Bridewell, from which he is proceeding by water to York-place, (Cardinal Wolsey's house,) now Whitehall. MALONE. |