Volume Iv Part 34 (2/2)

p. 22 _Beginning at Eight._ The idea of this little speech is, of course, from Bonnecorse's _La Montre_, Mrs. Behn's translation of which will be found with an introduction in Vol. VI, p. 1.

p. 22 _the Bergere._ cf. _The Feign'd Curtezans_ (Vol. II, p. 346): 'The hour of the Berjere'; and the note on that pa.s.sage (p. 441).

+ACT II: Scene i+

p. 32 _Ay and No Man._ cf. Prologue to _The False Count_ (Vol. III, p. 100): 'By Yea and Nay'; and note on that pa.s.sage (p. 480).

+ACT III: Scene i+

p. 44 _Within a Mile of an Oak._ A proverbial saw. cf. D'Urfey's _Don Quixote_ (1696), III, Act V, i, where Teresa cries: 'The a.s.s was lost yesterday, and Master _Carasco_ tells us your Wors.h.i.+p can tell within a mile of an Oak where he is.'

p. 44 _Rustick Antick._ A quaint country dance.

+ACT IV: Scene i+

p. 62 _Hypallages._ A figure of speech by which attributes are transferred from their proper subjects to others.

p. 62 _Belli fugaces._ Ovid, _Amorum_, I, 9, has 'Militat omnis amans et habet sua castra Cupido', and the idea is common. I have made no attempt to correct the tags of Latinity in this play. Mrs. Behn openly confessed she knew no Latin, and she was ill supplied here.

I do not conceive that the words are intentionally faulty and grotesque. Lady Knowell is a pedant, but not ignorant.

p. 65 _Madame Brenvilliers._ Marie-Marguerite d'Aubray, Marquise de Brinvilliers, was executed at Paris 16 July, 1676.

p. 66 _Bilbo-Blades!_ Or oftener 'bilbo-lords', = swash-bucklers, cf. _The Pilgrim_ (folio, 1647), V, vi, where Juletta calls the old angry Alphonso 'My Bilbo Master'.

p. 70 _whip slap-dash._ These nonsensical bywords, which were very popular, are continually in the mouth of Sir Samuel Harty, a silly c.o.xcomb in Shadwell's _The Virtuoso_ (1676). Nokes, who was acting Sir Credulous, had created Sir Samuel Harty.

p. 71 _The Bell in Friday-street._ The Bell was an inn of note in Friday Street, Cheapside. cf. _Cal. State Papers_ (1603-10, p. 455): 'Sir Thomas Estcourt ... to Thomas Wilson. Is about to leave London and proffers his services. If he has occasion to write to him he may have weekly messengers ... at the Bell, Friday Street.'

+ACT IV: Scene ii+

p. 79 _th' Exercise._ The puritanical term for private wors.h.i.+p, cf.

1663 _Flagellum; or, O. Cromwell_ (1672), 21. 'The Family was called together to prayers; at which Exercise ... they continued long.' cf.

_The Roundheads_ (Vol. I), Act II, i: 'his Prayers; from which long-winded Exercise I have of late withdrawn my self.'

+ACT IV: Scene iv+

p. 83 _Mirabilis._ Aqua mirabilis, a well-known invigorating cordial, cf. Dryden's _Marriage a la Mode_ (1672), III, i: 'The country gentlewoman ... who ... opens her dear bottle of Mirabilis beside, for a gill gla.s.s of it at parting.'

p. 84 _Tranghams._ Nick-nacks, toys, trinkets, cf. Arbuthnot, _History of John Ball_ (1712-3), Pt. II, c. vi: 'What's the meaning of all these trangrams and gimcracks?'

+ACT V: Scene i+

p. 92 _to souse._ cf. _Florio_ (ed. 1611): 'to leape or seaze greedily upon, to souze downe as a hauke.'

p. 93 _this Balatroon._ A rogue. The word is very rare. cf. c.o.c.keram (1623): '_Ballatron_, a rascally base knave.'

p. 95 _Rotat omne fatum._ This would be an exceptionally rare use of rotare = rotari, intransitive. But Mrs. Behn, as Dryden tells us in his preface to the translation of Ovid's _Heroides_ (1680) 'by many hands', insisted upon the fact that she knew no Latin.

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