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2
Plays
Dedication
Sir Francis Stuart, second son to James Stuart, husband of Elizabeth,
Countess of Moray, made Knight of the Bath on 2 June 1610 (Stow,
ed. Howes, 1614, p. 907). 'He was a sea-captaine, and (I thmke) he
was one summer a vice or rere-admirall. He was a learned gentleman
and one of the club at the Mermayd, in Fryday street, with Sir Walter
Ralegh, etc., of that sodahtie heroes and wits of that time. 1 Aubrey,
Brief Lives, ed. Clark, n, p. 239. Aubrey quotes from this dedication.
3. by cause, the earlier form of 'because', in the forms 'by cause
that', 'by cause why', and 'by cause of.
5. makes, causes. So For. xiii. 59, Und. xxiv. 9. O.E.D. s.v. 'make',
52. 10. Vndertaker, a guarantor. Cf. Cat. 111. 18, D. is A. n. i. 36, Disc.
2111.
11. censure, judge.
The Persons of the Play
i. Morose. The character in Libamus on whom he is modelled is
the Latin morosus.
4. Truewit. Dryden twice refers to this character: 'it appears that
this one character of Wit was more difficult to the Author, than all the
images of Humor in the Play • For those he could describe and manage
from his observation of Men, this he has taken, at least a part of it, from
Books witness the Speeches in the First Act, translated verbatim out
of Ovid de Arte Amandi' (An Evening's Love, 1671, B2). 'That the wit
of this Age is much more Courtly, may easily be prov'd by viewing the
Characters of Gentlemen which were written in the last. First, for
Jonson, True-Wit in the Silent Woman, was his Master-piece, and Truewit
was a Scholar-like kind of man, a Gentleman with an allay of
Pedantry: a man who seems mortifi'd to the world, by much reading.
The best of his discourse is drawn, not from the knowledge of the Town,
but Books, and, in short, he would be a fine Gentleman, in an University'
(The Conquest of Granada, n, 1672, 'Defence of the Epilogue',
p. 172).
5. Epicoene, Jonson's only clue to the real sex of the supposed heroine.
Jonson made this the main title of the play, but it has been popularly
superseded by the more picturesque 'Silent Woman'.
7. Amorous La Foole. Cf. Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, ed. 5,
1625, pp. 478-9, of a deformed old dotard 'If he be rich, he is the man,
a fine man & a proper man, she'le goe to lackatres or Tidore with him,
Gelasimus de monte aureo, S r Giles Goosecap, S r Amorous La-Foole shall
have her.'
8. Thorn Otter Pepys has a story of Charles II saying of his brother
James, then Duke of York, who was under the control of his wife, 'he
would go no more abroad with this Tom Otter and his wife'. Kilhgrew,
who was standing by, answered, ' Sir, pray which is the best for a man,
to be Tom Otter to his wife or to his mistress ?' a reference to the