to blow us." There was a haberdafher's wife of fmall wit' near him, that rail'd upon me till her pink'd porringer fell off her head, for kindling fuch a combuftion in the ftate. Imifs'd the meteor once, and hit that woman, who cry'd out, clubs! " when I might fee from far fome forty truncheoneers 6 to blow us.] Read-to blow us up. M. MASON. I believe the old reading is the true one. So, in Othello: the cannon, "When it hath blown his ranks into the air-." In another of our author's plays (if my memory does not deceive me) we have "and blow them to the moon." STEEVENS. 7 There was a haberdafher's wife of fmall wit-] Ben Jonfon, whofe hand Dr. Farmer thinks may be traced in different parts of this play, ufes this expreffion in his Induction to The Magnetick Lady: "And all haberdashers of small wit, I prefume." MALONE. 8 till her pink porringer fell off her bead,] Her pink'd porringer is her pink'd cap, which looked as if it had been moulded on a porringer. So, in The Taming of the Shrew: "Hab. Here is the cap your worship did befpeak. "Pet. Why this was moulded on a porringer.' 2 " MALONE. The fire-drake, the brafier. JOHNSON. clubs!] who cry'd out, Clubs! was the affiftance, upon any quarrel or tumult in the streets. Renegado: if he were "In London among the clubs, up went his heels Again, in Greene's Tu Quoque : Go, y'are a prating jack ; "Nor is't your hopes of crying out for clubs, outcry for So, in The "Can fave you from my chastisement." WHALLEY. So, in the third act of The Puritan, when Oath and Skirmish are going to fight, Simon cries, "Clubs, clubs!" and Aaron does the like in Titus Andronicus, when Chiron and Demetrius are about to quarrel. Nor did this practice obtain merely amongst the lower clafs of people for in the First Part of Henry VI. when the Mayor of London endeavours to interpofe between the factions of the Duke of Glocefter, and the Cardinal of Winchester, he says: "I'll call for clubs, if you will not away." M. MASON, draw to her fuccour, which were the hope of the Strand, where fhe was quarter'd. They fell on; I made good my place; at length they came to the broomstaff with me,' I defy'd them ftill; when fuddenly a file of boys behind them, loose shot,' deliver'd fuch a shower of pebbles, that I was fain to draw mine honour in, and let them win the work:^ The devil was amongst them, I think, furely. PORT. These are the youths that thunder at a play-house, and fight for bitten apples; that no 9 the hope of the Strand,] Sir T. Hanmer reads-the forlorn hope. JOHNSON. 2 to the broomstaff with me,] The old copy has to me. Corrected by Mr. Pope. MALONE. 3 loofe fhot,] i. e. loose or random shooters. See Vol. IX. p. 139, n. 4. MALONE. 4 the work:] A term of fortification. STEEVENS. that thunder at a play-houfe, and fight for bitten apples ;] The prices of feats for the vulgar in our ancient theatres were fo very low, that we cannot wonder if they were filled with the tumultuous company defcribed by Shakspeare in this fcene. So, in The Gul's Hornbook, by Decker, 1609: "Your groundling and gallery commoner buys his fport by the penny." In Wit without Money, by Beaumont and Fletcher, is the following mention of them: " break in at plays like prentices, for shree a groat, and crack nuts with the scholars in penny rooms again." Again, in The Black Book, 1604, fixpenny rooms in playhouses are fpoken of. Again, in The Bellman's Night Walks, by Decker, 1616: "Pay thy twopence to a player in this gallery, thou may'ft fit by a harlot." Again, in the Prologue to Beaumont and Fletcher's Mad Lover: "How many twopences you've ftow'd to-day!” The prices of the boxes indeed were greater. "At a new So, in The Gul's Hornbook, by Decker, 1609: playe you take up the twelvepenny room next the itage, because the lords and you may feeme to be haile fellow well met," &c. Again, in Wit without Money: "And who extoll'd you in the half-crown boxes, "Where you might fit and mufter all the beauties." And lastly, it appears from the Induction to Bartholomew Fair, by Ben Jonfon, that tobacco was smoked in the fame place : "He audience, but the Tribulation of Tower-hill, or the limbs of Limehouse," their dear brothers, are able looks like a fellow that I have feen accommodate gentlemen with tobacco at our theatres." And from Beaumont and Fletcher's Woman Hater, 1607, it fhould feem that beer was fold there: There is no poet acquainted with more fhakings and quakings towards the latter end of his new play, when he's in that cafe that he ftands peeping between the curtains fo fearfully, that a bottle of ale cannot be opened, but he thinks fomebody hiffes." STEEVENS. See the Account of our old Theaires, Vol. II. MALONE. 6 the Tribulation of Tower-hill, or the limbs of Limehouse,] I fufpect the Tribulation to have been a puritanical meeting-house. The limbs of Limehouse, I do not understand. JOHNSON. Dr. Johnfon's conjecture may be countenanced by the following paffage in, "Magnificence, a goodly interlude and a mery, devised and made by mayfter Skelton, poete laureate, lately deceasyd." Printed by John Raftell, fol. no date: "Some fall to foly them felfe for to spyll, "And fome fall prechynge on toure hyll." STEEVENS. Alliteration has given rife to many cant expreffions, confifting of words paired together. Here we have cant names for the inhabitants of thofe places, who were notorious puritans, coined for the humour of the alliteration. In the mean time it muft not be forgotten, that "precious limbs" was a common phrase of contempt for the puritans. T. WARTON. Limehoufe was before the time of Shakspeare, and has continued to be ever fince, the refidence of those who furnish ftores, fails, &c. for fhipping. A great number of foreigners having been conftantly employed in thefe manufactures (many of which were introduced from other countries) they affembled themselves under their several paftors, and a number of places of different worship were built in confequence of their refpective affociations. As they clashed in principles, they had frequent quarrels, and the place has ever fince been famous for the variety of its fects, and the turbulence of its inhabitants. It is not improbable that Shakspeare wrote-the lambs of Limehouse. A limb of the devil, is, however, a common vulgarifm; and in A New Trick to cheat the Devil, 1639, the fame kind of expreffion occurs: "I am a puritan; one that will eat no pork, to endure. I have some of them in Limbo Patrum, and there they are like to dance these three days; Again, in Every Man out of his Humour : "I cannot abide these limbs of fattin, or rather Satan," &c. STEEVENS. The word limb, in the sense of an impudently vicious perfon, is not uncommon in London at this day. In the north it is pronounced limp, and means a mischievous boy. The alteration fuggested by Mr. Steevens is, however, fufficiently countenanced by the word tribulation, if in fact the allufion be to the puritans. ŔITSON. It appears from Stowe's Survey that the inhabitants of Towerhill were remarkably turbulent. It may however be doubted, whether this paffage was levelled at the fpectators affembled in any of the theatres in our author's time. It may have been pointed at fome apprentices and inferior citizens, who used occafionally to appear on the ftage, in his time, for their amufement. The Palgrave, or Hector of Germany, was acted in 1615, by a company of citizens at the Red Bull; and, The Hog bath left his Pearle, a comedy, 1614, is faid, in the title-page, to have been publickly acted by certain London 'prentices. The fighting for bitten apples, which were then, as at prefent, thrown on the stage, [See the Induction to Bartholomew Fair: "Your judgment, rafcal; for what?-Sweeping the stage? or, gathering up the broken apples ?"-] and the words-" which no audience can endure," might lead us to fuppofe that these thunderers at the play-houfe, were actors, and not fpectators. The limbs of Limehoufe, their dear brothers, were, perhaps, young citizens, who went to fee their friends wear the bufkin. A paffage in The Staple of News, by Ben Jonfon, Act III. fc. laft, may throw fome light on that now before us: Why, I had it from my maid Joan Hearfay, and the had it from a limb of the school, the fays, a little limb of nine years old.-An there were no wiser than I, I would have ne'er a cunning fchool-matter in England.— They make all their scholars play-boys. Is't not a fine fight, to fee all our children made interluders? Do we pay our money for this? We fend them to learn their grammar and their Terence, and they learn their play-books."-School-boys, apprentices, the ftudents in the inns of court, and the members of the universities, all, at this time, wore occafionally the fock or the bufkin. However, I am by no means confident that this is the true interpretation of the paffage before us. MALONE. It is evident that The Tribulation, from its fituation, must have 8 befides the running banquet of two beadles, that is to come. · been a place of entertainment for the rabble of its precincts, and the limbs of Limehouse such performers as furnished out the show. HENLEY. The Tribulation does not found in my ears like the name of any place of entertainment, unless it were particularly defigned for the ufe of Religion's prudes, the Puritans. Mercutio or Truewit would not have been attracted by fuch an appellation, though it might operate forcibly on the faint-like organs of Ebenezer or Ananias. Shakspeare, I believe, meant to defcribe an audience familiarized to excefs of noife; and why fhould we fuppofe the Tribulation was not a puritanical meeting-houfe because it was noify? I can eafily conceive that the turbulence of the most clamorous theatre, has been exceeded by the bellowings of puritanifm against furplices and farthingales; and that our upper gallery, during Chriftmas week, is a fober confiftory compared with the vehemence of fanatick harangues against Bel and the Dragon, that idol Starch, the antichriftian Hierarchy, and the Whore of Babylon. Neither do I fee with what propriety the limbs of Limehoufe could be called "young citizens," according to Mr. Malone's fuppofition. Were the inhabitants of this place (almost two miles diftant from the capital) ever collectively entitled citizens ?-The phrase, dear brothers, is very plainly used to point out fome fraternity of canters allied to the Tribulation both in purfuits and manners, by tempestuous zeal and confummate ignorance. STEEVENS. 7 — in Limbo Patrum,] He means, in confinement. In limbo continues to be a cant phrafe in the same sense, at this day. MALONE. See The Limbus Patrum is properly the place where the old Fathers and Patriarchs are fuppofed to be waiting for the refurrection. note on Titus Andronicus, Act III. fc. i. REED. 8 running banquet of two beadles,] A publick whipping. JOHNSON. This phrafe, otherwife applied, has already occurred, p. 49. fome of these "Should find a running banquet ere they rested." A banquet in ancient language did not fignify either dinner or fupper, but the defert after each of them. So, in Tho. Newton's Herbal to the Bible, 8vo. 1587: and are used to be ferved at the end of meales for a junket or banquetting dish, as fucket and other daintie conceits likewife are." To the confinement therefore of these rioters, a whipping was to be the defert. STEEVENS. |