SIR AND. But it becomes me well enough, does't not? SIR TO. Excellent; it hangs like flax on a distaff; and I hope to fee a housewife take thee between her legs, and fpin it off. SIR AND. 'Faith, I'll home to-morrow, Sir Toby your niece will not be feen; or, if fhe be, it's four to one fhe'll none of me: the count himself, here hard by, wooes her. SIR TO. She'll none o'the count; fhe'll not match above her degree, neither in eftate, years, nor wit; I have heard her fwear it. Tut, there's life in't, man. SIR AND. I'll stay a month longer. I am a fellow o'the ftrangeft mind i'the world; I delight in mafques and revels fometimes altogether. SIR TO. Art thou good at thefe kick-fhaws, knight? SIR AND. As any man in Illyria, whatsoever he be, under the degree of my betters; and yet I will not compare with an old man. * SIR TO. What is thy excellence in a galliard, knight? SIR AND. 'Faith, I can cut a caper. SIR TO. And I can cut the mutton to't. and yet I will not compare with an old man.] This is intended as a fatire on that common vanity of old men, in preferring their own times, and the paft generation, to the present. WARBURTON. This ftroke of pretended fatire but ill accords with the cha racter of the foolish knight. Ague-cheek, though willing enough to arrogate to himfelf fuch experience as is commonly the acquifition of age, is yet careful to exempt his perfon from being compared with its bodily weaknefs. In fhort, he would fay with Falftaff:-"I am old in nothing but my understanding." STEEVENS. SIR AND. And, I think, I have the back-trick, fimply as ftrong as any man in Illyria. SIR TO. Wherefore are these things hid? wherefore have these gifts a curtain before them? are they like to take duft, like mistress Mall's picture?' The real name of the woman S - mistress Mall's picture?] whom I fuppofe to have been meant by Sir Toby, was Mary Frith. The appellation by which she was generally known, was Mall Cutpurse. She was at once an hermaphrodite, prostitute, a bawd, a bully, a thief, a receiver of stolen goods, &c. &c. On the books of the Stationers' Company, Auguft 1610, is entered—“ A Booke called the Madde Prancks of Merry Mall of the Bankfide, with her walks in man's apparel, and to what purpose. Written by John Day." Middleton and Decker wrote a comedy, of which fhe is the heroine. In this, they have given a very flattering reprefentation of her, as they obferve in their preface, that "it is the excellency of a writer, to leave things better than he finds them.” The title of this piece is―The Roaring Girl, or Moll Cut-purfe; as it hath been lately acted on the Fortune Stage, by the Prince his Players, 1611. The frontispiece to it contains a full length of her in man's clothes, fmoaking tobacco. Nathaniel Field, in his Amends for Ladies, (another comedy, 1618,) gives the following character of her: 66 -Hence lewd impudent, “I know not what to term thee, man or woman; "Others, a man: to many thou art both "Woman and man; but I think rather neither; "Or, man, or horfe, as Centaurs old were feign'd.” A life of this woman was likewife published, 12mo. in 1662, with her portrait before it in a male habit; an ape, a lion, and an eagle by her. As this extraordinary perfonage appears to have partook of both fexes, the curtain which Sir Toby mentions, would not have been unneceffarily drawn before fuch a picture of her as might have been exhibited in an age, of which neither too much delicacy or decency was the characteristick. STEEVENS. In our author's time, I believe, curtains were frequently hung before pictures of any value. So, in Vittoria Corombona, a tragedy, by Webster, 1612: "I yet but draw the curtain;-now to your picture." MALONE. why doft thou not go to church in a galliard, and come home in a coranto? My very walk fhould be a jig; I would not fo much as make water, but in a fink-a-pace." What doft thou mean? is it a world to hide virtues in? I did think, by the excellent conftitution of thy leg, it was form'd under the ftar of a galliard. SIR AND. Ay, 'tis ftrong, and it does indifferent well in a flame-colour'd ftock. Shall we fet about fome revels? See a further account of this woman in DodЛley's Collection of Old Plays, edition, 1780, Vol. VI. p. 1. Vol. XII. p. 398. REED. Mary Frith was born in 1584, and died in 1659. In a MS. letter in the British Mufeum, from John Chamberlain to Mr. Carleton, dated Feb. 11, 1611-12, the following account is given of this woman's doing penance: "This laft Sunday Moll Curpurje, a notorious baggage that ufed to go in man's apparel, and challenged the field of diverfe gallants, was brought to the fame place [St. Paul's Crofs], where he wept bitterly, and feemed very penitent; but it is fince doubted fhe was maudlin drunk, being difcovered to have tippel'd of three quarts of fack, before the came to her penance. She had the daintieft preacher or ghoftly father that ever I faw in the pulpit, one Radcliffe of Brazen-Nofe College in Oxford, a likelier man to have led the revels in fome inn of court, than to be where he was. But the beft is, he did extreme badly, and fo wearied the audience that the beft part went away, and the reft tarried rather to hear Moll Cutpurfe than him." MALONE. It is for the fake of correcting a mistake of Dr. Grey, that I obferve this is the character alluded to in the fecond of the following lines; and not Mary Carleton, the German Princess, as he has very erroneously and unaccountably imagined: "A bold virago ftout and tall, "As Joan of France, or English Mall." Hudibras, P. I. c. iii. The latter of thefe lines is borrowed by Swift in his Baucis and Philemon. RITSON. a fink-a-pace.] i. e. a cinque-pace; the name of a dance, the measures whereof are regulated by the number five. The word occurs elsewhere in our author. SIR J. HAWKINS. 7 -flame-colour'd stock.] The old copy reads a dam'd SIR TO. What fhall we do elfe? were we not born under Taurus? SIR AND. Taurus? that's fides and heart. SIR TO. No, fir; it is legs and thighs. Let me fee thee caper: ha! higher: ha, ha!-excellent! [Exeunt. SCENE IV. A Room in the Duke's Palace. Enter VALENTINE, and VIOLA in man's attire. VAL. If the duke continue thefe favours towards you, Cefario, you are like to be much advanced; he hath known you but three days, and already you are no ftranger. V10. You either fear his humour, or my negligence, that you call in queftion the continuance of his love: Is he inconftant, fir, in his favours? VAL. No, believe me. colour'd flock. Stockings were in Shakspeare's time, called fucks. So, in Jack Drum's Entertainment, 1601: "Or would my filk flock fhould lose his gloss else.” Again, in one of Heywood's Epigrams, 1562: 66 Thy upper flocks, be they ftuft with filke or flocks, "Never become thee like a nether paire of stacks.” The fame folicitude concerning the furniture of the legs, makes part of mafter Stephen's character in Every Man in his Humour: "I think my leg would fhow well in a filk hofe." STEEVENS. The emendation was made by Mr. Pope. MALONE. 8 Taurus? that's fides and heart.] Alluding to the medical aftrology ftill preferved in Almanacks, which refers the affections of particular parts of the body, to the predominance of particular contellations. JOHNSON. Enter DUKE, CURIO, and Attendants. V10. I thank you. Here comes the count. DUKE. Who faw Cefario, ho? Vio. On your attendance, my lord; here. Be not deny'd access, stand at her doors, V10. Sure, my noble lord, If fhe be fo abandon'd to her forrow As it is fpoke, fhe never will admit me. DUKE. Be clamorous, and leap all civil bounds, Rather than make unprofited return. V10. Say, I do fpeak with her, my lord; What then? DUKE. O, then unfold the paffion of my love, Surprize her with difcourfe of my dear faith: It fhall become thee well to act my woes ; She will attend it better in thy youth, Than in a nuncio of more grave aspéct. V10. I think not fo, my lord. Dear lad, believe it; DUKE. That fay, thou art a man: Diana's lip Is not more smooth, and rubious; thy fmall pipe I have unclafp'd To thee the book even of my fecret foul:] So, in the First Part of K. Henry IV: "And now I will unclasp a fecret book." STEEVENS. |