Enter the Lord Chamberlain. CHAM. Mercy o'me, what a multitude are here! They grow still too, from all parts they are coming, As if we kept a fair here! Where are these porters, These lazy knaves?-Ye have made a fine hand, fellows. I can easily conceive that the turbulence of the most clamorous theatre, has been exceeded by the bellowings of puritanism against surplices and farthingales; and that our upper gallery, during Christmas week, is a sober consistory, compared with the vehemence of fanatick harangues against Bel and the Dragon, that idol Starch, the anti-christian Hierarchy, and the Whore of Babylon. Neither do I see with what propriety the limbs of Limehouse could be called "young citizens," according to Mr. Malone's supposition. Were the inhabitants of this place (almost two miles distant from the capital) ever collectively entitled citizens? The phrase, dear brothers, is very plainly used to point out some fraternity of canters allied to the Tribulation both in pursuits and manners, by tempestuous zeal and consummate ignorance. STEEVENS. 1 in Limbo Patrum,] He means, in confinement. In limbo continues to be a cant phrase, in the same sense, at this day. MALONE. The Limbus Patrum is, properly, the place where the old Fathers and Patriarchs are supposed to be waiting for the resurrection. See note on Titus Andronicus, Act III. sc. i. REED. -running banquet of two beadles,] A publick whipping. JOHNSON. 2 1 This phrase, otherwise applied, has already occurred, p. 51:. some of these 66 "Should find a running banquet ere they rested." A banquet, in ancient language, did not signify either dinner or supper, but the desert after each of them. So, in Thomas Newton's Herbal to the Bible, 8vo. 1587: " and are used to be served at the end of meales for a junket or banquetting dish, as sucket and other daintie conceits likewise are." To the confinement, therefore, of these rioters, a whipping was to be the desert. VOL. XV. STEEVENS. P There's a trim rabble let in: Are all these Your faithful friends o'the suburbs? We shall have Great store of room, no doubt, left for the ladies, When they pass back from the christening. PORT. An't please your honour, We are but men; and what so many may do, Not being torn a pieces, we have done: An army cannot rule them. CHAM. As I live, By the heels, and suddenly; and on your heads A Marshalsea, shall hold you play these two months. MAN. You great fellow, stand close up, or I'll make your head ake. PORT. You i'the camblet, get up o'the rail;* I'll pick you o'er the pales else. 3 [Exeunt. here ye lie baiting of bumbards,] A bumbard is an ale-barrel; to bait bumbards is to tipple, to lie at the spigot. JOHNSON. It appears from a passage already quoted in a note on The Tempest, Act II. sc. ii. out of Shirley's Martyr'd Soldier, 1638, that bumbards were the large vessels in which the beer was carried to soldiers upon duty. They resembled black jacks of leather. So, in Woman's a Weathercock, 1612: "She looks like a black bombard with a pint pot waiting upon it." STEEVENS. get up o'the rail;] We must rather read-get up off the rail,—or,—get off the rail. M. MASON. 4 5 I'll pick you o'er the pales else.] To pick is to pitch. "To pick a dart," Cole renders, jaculor. DICT. 1679. See a SCENE IV. The Palace. Enter Trumpets, sounding; then two Aldermen, Lord Mayor, Garter, CRANMER, Duke of NORFOLK, with his Marshal's Staff, Duke of SUFFOLK, two Noblemen bearing great standingbowls for the christening gifts; then four Noblemen bearing a canopy, under which the Duchess of NORFOLK, godmother, bearing the child richly habited in a mantle, &c. Train borne by a Lady: then follows the Marchioness of DORSET, the other godmother, and Ladies. The Troop pass once about the stage, and Garter speaks. 8 GART. Heaven, from thy endless goodness, send prosperous life, long, and ever happy, to the high and mighty princess of England, Elizabeth! note on Coriolanus, Act I. sc. i. where the word is, as I conceive, rightly spelt. Here the spelling in the old copy is peck. MALONE. To pick and to pitch were anciently synonymous. So, in Stubbes's Anatomy of Abuses, 1595, p. 138: “ on the hip, and to picke him on his necke." to catch him Again, ibid: "to picke him on his nose," &c. STEEVENS. 6 The Palace.] At Greenwich, where, as we learn from Hall, fo. 217, this procession was made from the church of the Friars. REED. 7-standing-bowls-] i. e. bowls elevated on feet or pedestals. So, in Chapman's version of the 23d Iliad: 66 a great new standing-bowl, "To set downe both ways.' 99 STEEVENS. Heaven, from thy endless goodness, &c.] These words are Flourish. Enter King, and Train. CRAN. [Kneeling.] And to your royal grace, and the good queen, My noble partners, and myself, thus pray;- K. HEN. Thank you, good lord archbishop; What is her name? CRAN. K. HEN. Elizabeth. Stand up, lord.[The King kisses the Child. With this kiss take my blessing: God protect thee! Into whose hands I give thy life. CRAN. Amen. K. HEN. My noble gossips, ye have been too prodigal : I thank ye heartily; so shall this lady, CRAN. not the invention of the poet, having been pronounced at the christening of Elizabeth. See Hall's Chronicle, Henry VIII. fol. 218. MALONE. Thank you, good lord archbishop;] I suppose the word archbishop should be omitted, as it only serves to spoil the meaBe it remembered also that árchbishop, throughout this play, is accented on the first syllable. STEEVENS. sure. (But few now living can behold that goodness,) Her foes shake like a field of beaten corn, In her days, every man shall eat in safety every man shall eat in safety Under his own vine,] This part of the prophecy seems to have been burlesqued by Beaumont and Fletcher in The Beggar's Bush, where orator Higgin is making his congratulatory speech to the new king of the beggars: "Each man shall eat his stolen eggs, and butter, "In his own shade, or sunshine," &c. The original thought, however, is borrowed from the 4th chapter of the first Book of Kings: "Every man dwelt safely under his vine." STEEVENS. A similar expression is in Micah, iv. 4: "But they shall sit every man under his vine, and under his fig tree, and none shall make them afraid." REED. 2 From her shall read the perfect ways of honour,] The old copy reads way. The slight emendation now made is fully justified by the subsequent line, and by the scriptural expression which our author probably had in his thoughts: "Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace." MALONE. |