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12 Plays
I. iv. 3. honested, honoured (Lat. honestare). M. of Q. 608, and 'dishonest',
E.H. ii. i. 121.
10. wait vpon. That the phrase might convey a slight is evident from
Beaumont's The Triumph of Honour, I. i (Four Plays, Folio 1647, p. 26 n.),
where Sophocles, Duke of Athens, is brought in prisoner by the Roman
general Martius:
Mar. What means proud Sophocles ? Soph. To go even with Martius,
And not to follow him like his Officer •
I never waited yet on any man.
And Beaumont and Fletcher, Loue's Cure, n. m (ibid , p. 133), where
Piorato, a professional swordsman, says to the steward Bobadilla:
To say sir, I wil wait upon your Lord,
Were not to understand my selfe. ... He meet him
Some halfe houre hence.
17. the terrible boyes, the 'angry boys' of The Alchemist (in. hi. 82,
iv. 22 n.). A. Wilson, The History of Great Britain, 1653, p. 28, 'many
riotous demeanours crept into the Kingdom, . . . divers Sects of vitious
Persons, going under the Title of Roaring Boys, Bravadoes, Roysters, &c.
commit many insolencies; the Streets swarm night and day with bloody
quarrels, private Duels fomented'. Val. Cultmg, a roarer, is one of the
characters in Bartholomew Fair.
26. animal amphibium. So of Broker, secretary and usher,' a creature
of two natures', S. of N. ii. iv. 128-33.
32. the mother side. Euphonic to avoid the clash of s's: we still say
'river side'. So 'for health sake', 'for safety sake', 'for God sake'.
34-41. With this family history compare Sir Gyles Goosecappe, 1606,
i. i: 'Will. Sir Gyles Goosecappe, what's he, a gentleman? Bul. I, that
he is, at least if he be not a nobleman, and his chiefe house is in Essex.
la. In Essex ? did not his Auncestors come out of London ? Bul. Yes,
that they did Sir, the best Gosecappes in England comes out of London,
I assure you.' In Marmion's A Fine Companion, 1623, ii. vi, Lackwit
finds that 'the Lackwits are a very ancient name, and of large extent,
and come of as good a Pedegree, as any in the Citie, . . . and can boast
their descent to be as generous, as any of the Lafooles, or the lohn
Dawes whatsoever'.
48. godwits. 'A marsh-bird in great repute, when fattened, for the
table and formerly abundant in the fens of Norfolk, the Isle of Ely,
and Lincolnshire. In Turner's days (1544) it was worth three times as
much as the Snipe' (A. Newton, Dictionary of Birds). Casaubon, who
latinized its name as Dei ingenium (Ephemendes, 19 September 1611),
was told by the ' ormthotrophceus' he visited at Wisbech that in London
it fetched twenty pence. Jonson, inviting a friend to supper m Epigram
ci. 19, promises him 'godwit, if we can' get it. It was m Sir Epicure
Mammon's menu for his footboy (Alch. ii. ii. 81).
60. got mee knighted in Ireland. As if this were a backstairs approach
to the title. Essex had made Irish knighthoods cheap. He landed in