In Urania's Temple, A Satyr upon the Silent Poets (i.e. those who wrote no threnodies on the death of Mary II), folio, 1695, we have:
Besides Great MARY in the Box, our Wit
Can no more reach-Our Talent lies more fit For little Jenny Cromwell in the Pit.
Loquere, ut te videam. Cf. Le Dépit Amoureux, II, 8, Métaphraste, pédant seul: D'où vient fort à propos cette sentence expresse D'un philosophe: “Parle, a fin qu'on te connaisse."
So Fools. The reverence paid by Orientals to madmen is of primæval origin. Cf. 1 Samuel xxi, 10. Also Love for Love, IV, where old Foresight says: "I am inclining to your Turkish Opinion in this Matter, and do reverence a Man whom the Vulgar think mad." The End of the Firft Volume. No Second Volume was ever published.
Hero and Leander
whuleing. Squalling; crying. Cf. the kindred "whillaluh " =a screaming. At Sir Patrick's wake in Castle Rackrent there was "such a fine whillaluh, you might have heard it to the farthest end of the country." Roman newly ta'ne from Plow. L. Quintius Cincinnatus, who in 458 B.C. was called from the plough to the dictatorship in order to deliver the Roman consul and army from the perilous position in which they had been placed by the Aequians. He saved the Roman forces, defeated the enemy, and, after holding office only sixteen days, returned to his farm. Cittern. Or Cithern, an instrument of the guitar kind, but strung with wire,
and played with a plectrum or quill. It was commonly kept in barbers' shops for the use of customers, and often had a grotesquely carved head. The Tyrolese form of the instrument, which is known of recent years, in England, is generally called the Zither.
copper Spanker. A spanker is obsolete slang for a coin. It is generally used in the plural, as Cowley The Cutler of Coleman Street (1663), II, 5: "Mean Time, thou pretty little Smith o' my good fortune, beat hard upon the Anvil of your plot, I'l go and provide the Spankers." Also Denham's Dialogue (Poems, ed. 1771), circa 1668: "Your cure too costs you but a spanker." The word was common until the late eighteenth century. It occurs in Foote's Minor (1760), and is given by Grose. Magnanos dear. Magnano was Simeon Wait, a tinker, and a hot Independent preacher. One of his favourite blasphemies styled Oliver Cromwell the Archangel giving battle to the Devil. Trulla was the daughter of James Spencer, so called because a tinker's whore was commonly dubbed his trull. See Hudibras, Part I, 11:
Next these the brave Magnano came, Magnano, great in martial fame,
He Trulla lov'd, Trulla, more bright Than burnish'd armour of her knight; A bold Virago, stout and tall,
As Joan of France, or English Moll.
Greeks. A merry Greek or a merry Greek were long very common terms for a jovial fellow; a roysterer. In Ralph Roister Doister we have Matthew Merygreke, who is the parasite of the Greek New Comedy and its Latin reproductions. Pergraecari, in Plautus, is to spend the hours in wine, mirth, and banquets. Dick Litchfield, the Trinity barber, to whom Nashe dedicates Have with you to Saffron Waldon, is there described as "a rare ingenuous olde merry Greeke" (Nashe's Works, ed. Grosart, III, 47). Cf. Twelfth Night, IV, where Sebastian says to the Clown: "I prethee foolish greeke depart from me."
Nicker. One who nicks it, i.e. hits the mark; is an expert at anything. Cf. the Prologue to Vanbrugh's The Confederacy, produced at the Haymarket 30 October, 1705:
He 'as thank'd you, first, for all his decent Plays, Where he so nick'd it, when he writ for Praise.
'gan to peel. To make off, to begone. Apparently now only surviving in American slang. Cf. Bartlett, American Dictionary, 1860. To run at full speed.' "Come boys, peel it now, or you'll be late." mump'd. Deceived; tricked. Dutch mompen to cheat.
Ramp. A virago; a romp. Cf. Middleton and Dekker's The Roaring Girle (4to, 1611), V, where Trapdoor says:
Your son and that bold masculine ramp my mistress
Are landed now at Tower.
the fly Roman. The allusion is to the story of the battle between the Horatii, three Roman brothers, who fought with the Curiatii, three Alban brothers. Two of the Horatii fell; but the Curiatii, though alive, were severely hurt. Seeing this, the surviving Horatius, who was still untouched, pre- tended to fly and vanquished his wounded opponents by encountering them severally. See Livy, I, 25. ". . . duo Romani super alium alius vulneratis tribus Albanis exspirantes corruerunt. . . ergo ut [integer] segregant pugnam eorum, capessit fugam, ita ratus secturos, ut quemque uulnere adfectum corpus sineret. iam aliquantum spatii ex eo loco, ubi pugnatum est, aufugerat, cum respiciens uidet magnis interuallis sequentes, unum haud procul ab sese abesse. in eum magno impetu rediit, iam Horatius caeso hoste uictor secundam pugnam petebat. and Tartar-like. Hudibras, I, 11, 23 sqq.
So a wilde Tartar when he spies
A man that's handsom, valiant, wise, If he can kill him, thinks to inherit
His Wit, his Beauty, and his Spirit;
As if just so much he enjoy'd,
As in another is destroy'd.
p. 83. Rosemary Pofies. In his translation of Horace, Odes, II, 14, Congreve turns
neque harum quas colis arborum
te praeter inuisas cupressos
ulla breuem dominum sequetur,
Of all thy pleasant Gardens, Grots and Bow'rs,
Thy costly Fruits, thy far-fetch'd Plants and Flow'rs,
Nought shalt thou save;
Unless a sprig of Rosemary thou have,
To wither with thee in the Grave.
Rosemary was used indifferently at funerals as well as at weddings, but the former custom persisted far longer than the latter. In Plate VI of Hogarth's The Harlot's Progress the clergyman who presides at the harlot's obsequies has in his left hand a sprig of rosemary, and there are some branches of this herb in a platter upon the floor. Ireland says that sprigs of rosemary were always distributed on these sad occasions to the mourners, "and, to appear at a funeral without one, was as great an indecorum as to be without a white handkerchief." "It is still," writes Clerk in 1810, "frequently put into coffins of the dead." Henry Kirke White has a pleasing, if melancholic, poem To the Herb Rosemary, which he addresses as:
funeral flow'r! who lov'st to dwell With the pale corse in lonely tomb.
(Like Shock...). The allusion here is to the dogs, sculptured in stone, which so commonly rest at the feet of knight and dame upon old tombs. A shock is more particularly a rough-haired dog, in especial a spaniel. Arachnes bawdy Sampler. Arachne was a Lydian maiden, daughter of Idmon of Colophon, a famous dyer in purple. Arachne, who excelled in the art of weaving, proudly challenged Athene to compete with her. The goddess accepted, and wove an embroidery which depicted the Olympians in all their dignity. The tapestry of Arachne showed the amours of the gods-Jupiter who as a bull enjoyed Europa; as an eagle Asterie, daughter of Caeus; as a swan Leda; as a satyr Antiope; as a shower of gold Danae; as a bright flame of fire Ægina, daughter of King Asopus; as a shepherd Mnemosyne; as a speckled serpent Deois. She also wove the story of Canace, whom Neptune seduced under the form of a bull, and of Iphimedeia, with whom the same god lay when he had assumed the shape of Thessalian Enipeus. There too was Theophane, transformed to a ewe, upon whom Neptune, as a sheep, begot the Ram with the Fleece of Gold. Nor were the strange loves of Mother Ceres with the sea-king forgotten; nor yet his pleasaunce with Medusa; and his rape, disguised as a dolphin, of fair Melantho. Phoebus Apollo, also, she shewed, and how vestured as a shepherd lad he won the favour of Isse; and Bacchus, crouching beneath the enchanted grapes to have his will of Erigone; and old Saturn, who as a neighing horse became the sire of wise Chiron. But Athene, angered at the scandal, yet unable to find fault with the work, tore the web asunder, whereupon Arachne in despair hanged herself. The goddess immediately changed the halter into a tiny filament, and the maiden became a spinning spider ever weaving her thread. See Ovid, Metamorphoseon, VI, 1–145. Fawns Scut. Scut is the technical term for the short tail of any animal (especially a hare), still in country use. Cf. Ravenscroft's The London Cuckolds, 4to, 1682, I, 2: “Thou art always coursing 'em about, and when you are at the very scut of them, thou loosest 'em." Also The Way of the World, III, 1, where Sir Wilfull cries: "And a Hare's Foot, and a Hare's Scut for your Service, Sir; an you be so cold and so courtly!"
Frizlanders Montier. A montero was a hunting-cap with two flaps for the ears. Tuesday, 20 March, 1660, Pepys saw "two monteeres for me to take my choice of, and I chose the saddest colour." So in an old Pro- logue, which was afterwards prefixed to the second edition of Mrs. Behn's Abdelazer; or, The Moor's Revenge, we have:
You, like good Husbands, in the Country stay, There frugally wear out your Summer Suit, And in Frize Jerkin after Beagles toot;
Or, in Montero-Caps, at Feldfares shoot.
Afteria. Daughter of the Titan Coeus and Phoebe, sister of Latona, wife of Perses, and (in some authors) mother of Hecate. In order to escape the embraces of Jupiter she is said to have taken the form of a quail (ortyx), and to have cast herself down from heaven into the sea, where she was metamorphosed into the island Asteria (the isle which had fallen from the sky like a star), or Ortygia, afterwards called Delos. Cicero makes her the mother of the Tyrian Hercules, for when discussing the various forms under which this hero was worshipped he writes: "Quartus est Jouis et Asteriae, Latonae sororis, qui Tyri maxime colitur; cuius Carthaginem filiam ferunt." De Natura Deorum, III, xvi, 42. Springes. A trap or snare to catch animals or birds. Hamlet, I, 3: “Ay, springes to catch woodcocks."
(As Francion). The allusion is to an incident in Charles Sorel's picaresque romance La vraie Histoire Comique de Francion (1662), Book VII, where a misadventure befalls the amorous count during his wooing of the doctor's daughter: "De fortune il y avoit avec lui un gentil homme qui touchoit fort bien un luth, il le prie d'en prendre un, et le fit cacher derrière lui, pour jouer quelques pièces dessus, tandis qu'il entiendrait un autre avec lequel on croirait que ce fût lui qui jouât, ayant opinion qu'il enterolt d'autant plus aux bonnes grâces de sa maîtresse s'il la faisoit paroître qu'ii était donné de cette gentile perfection. Mais le grand malheur pour lui fût qu'il y avoit une des compagnons de la fille du médecin qui sçavait bien jouer de cet instrument, et voyant qu'il ne faisoit que couler les doigts sur les touches du sien elle reconnut que n'étoit pas lui qui faisoit produire l'harmonie. Même elle en fut plus certaine après avoir monté un étage plus haut d'où elle aperçut l'autre qui jouoit." Excellent use has been made of this slight incident by Dryden in Act V of Sir Martin Mar-all, produced at Lincoln's Inn Fields, Thursday, 1st August, 1668. The blunderer attempts to serenade his mistress, and whilst he fumbles at his lute, Warner, his man, who is concealed, plays and sings for him. The trick is discovered by the foolish knight grimacing and thrumming his instrument long after the music has ceased.
Eolian maidenhead. Canace, or Arne, the daughter of Æolus, was enjoyed by Neptune under the form of a bull.
Tu quoque mutatum toruo, Neptune, iuuenco Uirgine in Æolia posuit.
Ovid. Metamorphoseon, VI, 115-6.
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