art thou not ashamed to be called-captain? If сарtains were of my mind, they would truncheon you out, for taking their names upon you before you have earned them. You a captain, you flave! for what? for tearing a poor whore's ruff in a bawdyhoufe?-He a captain! Hang him, rogue! He lives upon mouldy ftewed prunes, and dried cakes.4 A captain! these villains will make the word captain as odious as the word occupy; 5 which was an "Fright'ft the poor whore, and terribly doft exact MALONE. He lives upon mouldy ftewed prunes, and dried cakes.] That is, he lives on the refufe provifions of bawdy-houses and paftry-cooks' fhops. Stewed prunes, when mouldy, were perhaps formerly fold at a cheap rate, as ftale pies and cakes are at prefent. The allufion to stewed prunes, and all that is neceffary to be known on that fubject, has been already explained in the First Part of this historical play, p. 361, n. 4. STEEVENS. 5 as odious as the word occupy ;] So Ben Jonfon, in his Difcoveries: "Many, out of their own obfcene apprehenfions, refuse proper and fit words; as, occupy, nature," &c. STEEVENS. This word is ufed with different fenfes in the following jeft, from Wits, Fits, and Fancies, 1614: "One threw ftones at an yll-fauor'd old womans Owle, and the olde woman said: Faith (fir knaue) you are well occupy'd, to throw stones at my poore Qwle, that doth you no harme. Yea marie (answered the wag) fo would you be better occupy'd too (I wiffe) if you were young againe, and had a better face." RITSON. Occupant feems to have been formerly a term for a woman of the town, as occupier was for a wencher. So, in Marston's Satires, 1599: 66 He with his occupant "Are cling'd fo close, like dew-worms in the morne, "That he'll not stir." Again, in a Song by Sir T. Overbury, 1616: "Here's water to quench maiden's fires, "Here's fpirits for old occupiers." MALONE. excellent good word before it was ill forted: therefore captains had need look to it. BARD. Pray thee, go down, good ancient. PIST. Not I: tell thee what, corporal Bardolph;I could tear her :-I'll be revenged on her. PAGE. Pray thee, go down. PIST. I'll fee her damned firft;-to Pluto's damned lake, to the infernal deep, with Erebus and tortures vile also. Hold hook and line, fay I. Again, in Promos and Caffandra, bl. 1. 1578: "Miftreffe, you must shut up your fhop, and leave your occupying." This is faid to a bawd. HENDERSON. I'll fee her damned firft ;—to Pluto's damned lake, to the infernal deep, with Erebus and tortures vile alfo.] Thefe words, I believe, were intended to allude to the following paffage in an old play called The Battel of Alcazar, 1594, from which Pistol afterwards quotes a line (fee p. 94, n. 6): "You daftards of the night and Erebus, "Fiends, fairies, hags, that fight in beds of steel, "Damn'd let him be, damn'd and condemn'd to bear 7 Hold hook and line,] These words are introduced in ridicule, by Ben Jonfon, in The Cafe is alter'd, 1609. Of abfurd and fuftian paffages from many plays, in which Shakspeare had been a performer, I have always fuppofed no fmall part of Piftol's character to be composed: and the pieces themselves being now irretrievably loft, the humour of his allufion is not a little obfcured. Let me add, however, that in the frontispiece to an ancient bl. 1. ballad, entitled The Royal Recreation of Joviall Anglers, one of the figures has the following couplet proceeding from his mouth : Down! down, dogs! down faitors! Have we not Hiren here? 9 "Hold hooke and line, "Then all is mine." STEEVENS. In Tuffer's Husbandry, bl. 1. 1580, it is faid: "Out trudgeth Hew Makefhift, with hook and with Down! down, dogs! down faitors!] A burlesque on a play already quoted; The Battle of Alcazar: "Ye proud malicious dogs of Italy, "Strike on, ftrike down, this body to the earth." MALONE. Faitours, fays Mintheu's Dictionary, is a corruption of the French word faifeurs, i. e. factores, doers; and it is used in the ftatute 7 Rich. II. c. 5, for evil doers, or rather for idle livers; from the French, faitard, which in Cotgrave's Dictionary fignifies flothful, idle, &c. TOLLET. down faitors!] i. e. traitors, rafcals. So, Spenfer: "By this falfe faitour." The word often occurs in The Chefter Myfteries. STEEVENS. 9 Have we not Hiren here?] In an old comedy, 1608, called Law Tricks; or, Who would have thought it? the fame quotation is likewise introduced, and on a fimilar occafion. The Prince Polymetes fays: "What ominous news can Polymetes daunt? "Have we not Hiren here ?" Again, in Maflinger's Old Law: "Clown. No dancing for me, we have Siren here. Again, in Decker's Satiromaftix: 66 - have Hiren here, speak my little dish-washers." Again, in Love's Mistress, a mafque, by T. Heywood, 1636: -fay fhe is a foul beaft in your eyes, yet fhe is my Hyren." Mr. Tollet obferves, that in Adams's Spiritual Navigator, &e. 1615, there is the following paffage : "There be firens in the fea of the world. Syrens? Hirens, as they are now called. What a number of these firens, Hirens, cockatrices, courteghians,-in plain English, harlots,-fwimme amongst us?"Pistol may therefore mean,-Have we not a strumpet here? and why am I thus ufed by her? STEEVENS. HOST. Good captain Peefel, be quiet; it is very late, i'faith: I befeek you now, aggravate your choler. PIST. These be good humours, indeed! Shall packhorses, - From The merie conceited Jefts of George Peele, Gentleman, fometime Student in Oxford, quarto, 1657, it appears that Peele was the author of a play called The Turkish Mahomet, and Hyren the fair Greek, which is now loft. One of these jefts, or rather stories, is entitled, How George read a Play-book to a Gentleman. "There was a gentleman (fays the tale) whom God had endued with good living, to maintain his small wit,one that took great delight to have the first hearing of any work that George had done, himself being a writer.-This felf-conceited brock had George invited to half a score sheets of paper; whofe Chriftianly pen had writ Finis to the famous play of The Turkish Mahomet and Hyren the fair Greek ;-in Italian called a curtezan; in Spaine, a margarite; in French, un curtain; in English, among the barbarous, a whore; among the gentles, their usual affociates, a punk.-This fantastick, whose brain was made of nought but cork and fpunge, came to the cold lodging of Monfieur Peel.-George bids him welcome;told him he would gladly have his opinion of his book.—He willingly condefcended, and George begins to read, and between every Scene he would make pauses, and demand his opinion how he liked the carriage of it," &c. Have we not Hiren here? was, without doubt, a quotation from this play of Peele's, and, from the explanation of the word Hiren above given, is put with peculiar propriety on the present occafion into the mouth of Piftol. In Eastward Hoe, a comedy, by Jonfon, Chapman, and Marston, 1605, Quickfilver comes in drunk, and repeats this, and many other verses, from dramatick performances of that time: "Holla, ye pamper'd jades of Afia!" [Tamburlaine.] "Haft thou not Hiren here?" [Probably The Turkish Mahomet.] "Who cries on murther? lady, was it you?" [A Parody on The Spanish Tragedy.] All these lines are printed as quotations, in Italicks. In John Day's Law Tricks,_ quoted by Mr. Steevens, in the preceding note, the Prince Polymetes, when he says, "Have we not Hiren here?" alludes to a lady then prefent, whom he imagines to be a harlot. MALONE. And hollow pamper'd jades of Afia,' I hollow pamper'd jades of Afia, &c.] Thefe lines are in part a quotation out of an old abfurd fuftian play, entitled, Tamburlaine's Conquefts; or, The Scythian Shepherds, 1590, [by C. Marlow.] THEOBALD. These lines are addreffed by Tamburlaine to the captive princes who draw his chariot : "Holla, you pamper'd jades of Asia, "What! can you draw but twenty miles a day?" The fame paffage is burlesqued by Beaumont and Fletcher, in The Coxcomb. Young, however, has borrowed the idea for the ufe of his Bufiris: "Have we not seen him thake his filver reins "O'er harness'd monarchs, to his chariot yok'd?" I was furprised to find a fimile, much and juftly celebrated by the admirers of Spenfer's Fairy Queen, inferted almoft word for word in the fecond part of this tragedy. The earliest edition of those books of The Fairy Queen, in one of which it is to be found, was published in 1590, and Tamburlaine had been represented in or before the year 1588, as appears from the preface to Perimedes the Blacksmith, by Robert Greene. The firft copy, however, that I have met with, is in 1590, and the next in 1593. In the year 1590 both parts of it were entered on the books of the Stationers' Company: "Like to an almond-tree ymounted high "On top of green Selinis, all alone, "With bloffoms brave bedecked daintily, "Whofe tender locks do tremble every one "At every little breath that under heaven is blown." 2 "Of ever-green Selinis, quaintly deck'd "With bloom more bright than Erycina's brows "At every little breath from heaven is blown." Cannibals,] Tamburlaine. Cannibal is used by a blunder for Han nibal. This was afterwards copied by Congreve's Bluff and |