Volume Iv Part 97 (1/2)

p. 233 _they bear the Bob._ i.e. They join in the chorus or refrain.

+ACT I: Scene iii+

p. 240 _shoveing the Tumbler._ 'Thieves' cant for being whipped at the cart's tail.' --(Grose). Tumbler, perhaps = tumbril.

p. 240 _lifting._ Filching. This slang term is very old and common.

p. 240 _filing the Cly._ 'Thieves' cant for picking a pocket.'

--(Grose). 'Cly,' a pocket.

p. 240 _Regalio._ An obsolete and, indeed, erroneous form of 'regalo', an elegant repast; choice food or drink. The word is very common, and the spelling, 'Regalio', is frequent in the second half of the seventeenth century.

+ACT II: Scene i+

p. 246 _Anticks._ Quaint fantastic measures. A favourite word with Mrs. Behn.

p. 248 _to knip._ To clip. (Dutch 'knippen', to cut, snip.) _N.E.D._ neglecting this pa.s.sage, only gives the meaning as to bite or crop (gra.s.s) of cattle. It appends two quotations having this sense--the one from Dunbar's _Poems_ (1500-20), the second from Douglas, _Aeneis_ (1513).

+ACT II: Scene ii+

p. 252 _Mundungus._ s.h.a.g, or rank tobacco. cf. Sir R. Howard, _The Committee_ (folio, 1665), ii: 'A Pipe of the worst Mundungus.'

Shadwell, _The Humourists_ (1671), iii, speaks with contempt of 'bottle ale ... and a pipe of Mundungus.' Johnson in his _Dictionary_ (1755) has: 'Mundungus. Stinking tobacco. A cant word.'

+ACT II: Scene iv+

p. 261 _a Bob._ cf. Prologue, _The False Count_ (Vol. III, p. 100), 'dry bobs,' and note on that pa.s.sage, pp. 479-80.

p. 263 _barbicu._ Better 'barbecu'. An Americanism meaning to broil over live coals. Beverley, _Virginia_, III, xii (1705), thus explains it: 'Broyling ... at some distance above the live coals [the Indians]

& we from them call Barbecuing.' cf. Pope, _Imitations of Horace_, Sat. ii, 25, 26:--

_Oldfield_ with more than Harpy throat endued Cries, 'Send me, G.o.ds, a whole hog barbecued!'

+ACT III: Scene i+

p. 264 _De-Wit._ 'To De-Wit' = to lynch. The word often occurs; it is derived from the deaths of John and Cornelius De Wit, opponents of William III (when stadt-holder). They were murdered by a mob in 1672.

cf. 'to G.o.dfrey' = to strangle, from the alleged murder of Sir Edmond Bury G.o.dfrey[1] in 1678. Crowne, _Sir Courtly Nice_ (1685), II, ii, has: 'Don't throttle me, don't _G.o.dfrey_ me.' The _N.E.D._ fails to include 'to G.o.dfrey'.

[Footnote 1: It is now pretty certainly established that this melancholist committed suicide.]

p. 265 _Dalton's Country-Justice._ A well-known work by the celebrated lawyer Michael Dalton (1554-1620). It was long held in great repute and regarded as supremely authoritative. On a page of advertis.e.m.e.nts (Some Books printed this Year 1677. For _John Amery_, at the _Peac.o.c.k_, against St. _Dunstan's Church_ in _Fleet-street_) in the _Rover I_ (4to 1677), occurs '_The Country Justice_, Containing the practice of the Justices of the Peace, in and out of their Sessions, with an Abridgment of all Statutes relating thereunto to this present Year 1677. By _Michael Dalton_ Esq; _Fol._ price bound 12s.' cf. _The Plain Dealer_ (4to 1676), III, i:

_Widow Blackacre._ Let's see Dalton, Hughs, Shepherd, Wingate.

_Bookseller's Boy._ We have no law books.

p. 266 _a Cagg._ Now corrupted to 'Keg', a small cask. cf. _Cotgrave_ (1611), 'Encacquer' to put in to a little barrell or cag. _N.E.D._ quotes this present pa.s.sage.

+ACT IV: Scene i+

p. 279 _Agah Yerkin._ The various dictionaries and vocabularies of the Indian languages I have had resource to give none of these words.