P. 149 a. Here's channel water, as our charge is given. Channel water is water from the kennel.-See Notes 120 b, 142 a. The word occurs again at 151 a. Cast-i.e., contrived.-See Notes 115 a, 147 b. P. 150 4. P. 1526. And hast thou cast how to accomplish it. O let me not die; yet stay, oh stay a while. So the quartos of 1598 and 1612. Mr. Dyce prefers the reading of the quarto of 1622. The Massacre at Paris. THE only early edition of this Play is without a date and in 8vo. The following is a copy of the title : The Massacre at Paris: with the Death of the Duke of Guise. As it was plaide by the right honourable the Lord High Admirall his Servants. Written by Christopher Marlow. At London Printed by E. A. for Edward White, dwelling neere the little North doore of St. Paule's Church, at the signe of the Gun. P. 157 a. Ecu, Fr. a crown. P. 157 a. Keep i.e., dwell. keep close. P. 157 a. Sends Indian gold to coin me French ecus. It is properly petit ecu, little shield. And more, of my knowledge, in one cloister keep. It is seldom used in this sense without an adjective after it, as All this, and more, if more may be comprised, Do bring the will of our desires to end. Mr. Dyce's, and other editions, read To bring. The change seems necessary for the sense. P. 158 a. We are betrayed! come my lords, and let us Go tell the King of this. I have ventured to alter the arrangement of these two lines. In former editions they are printed 158 b. We are betray'd! Come my lords And let us go tell the King of this. Shall wear white crosses on their burgonets. A kind of helmet, from the Fr. bourguignote; a Spanish morion, or steel head-piece. Shall in the entrance of this massacre. P. 159 a. Entrance here means-opening, beginning. The same image is preserved in the common phrase "on the threshold.' Mr. Dyce quotes a passage in illustration from Heywood's Four Prentises of London. 1615. P. 159 b. "Take them to guard: this entrance to our warres Unto Montfaucon will we drag his corse. The old editions print this Mount Faucon; and Mr. Dyce quotes "Odcombe's odd cock" to show that a form still more Anglified was sometimes used. "A little on this side Paris, even at the towns end, there is the fayrest Gallowes that ever I saw, built upon a little hillocke called Mount Falcon, which consisteth of fourteene faire pillars of free-stone: this gallowes was made in the time of the Guisian massacre, to hang the Admiral of France, Chatillion, who was a Protestant, A.D. 1572. Coryat's Crudities. 1611. A curious paper might be written on the peculiarities in our spelling and pronunciation of the names of foreign places. We long ago abandoned Bullen for Boulogne, and quite recently we have dropped the # out of Bourdeanx, but we still, both in writing and speaking, obstinately adhere to the s at the end of Marseille. These forms were, I suppose, originally imported by our soldiers and camp followers during the long wars of our Edwards and Henrys, and kept up by the garrison of Calais, an English town, which only thirty years before Marlowe wrote had contributed its two M. P.s to the House of Commons. P. 159 b and 160 a. That they which have already set the street May know their watchword; then go toll the bell. In the first line set is used for beset, and it is so employed even so late as the time of Addison, who says that some particular measure of his opponents "shows how hard they are set." Johnson gives no less than seventy-one meanings of the verb active set! The monosyllable in Roman in the second line is of my insertion. It seems required by the metre, and Guise had just before said "Go shoot the ordnance off." Dichotomy is a "division, or distribution of ideas in pairs." The Botanists appear to have borrowed and all but monopolized the term. Р. 161 4. Argumentum testimonii est inartificiale. This was first corrected by Mr. Mitford from the old reading. P. 161 a. Argumentum testimonis est in arte fetialis. Ne'er was there collier's son so full of pride. The father of Ramus is described as a Carbonarius, what we should now call a charcoal-burner. The sea-coal of our ancestors has seized the word collier as its exclusive property. P. 161 b. And now stay that bell, That to the devil's [midnight] matins rings. This has hitherto been printed And now stay That bell that to the devil's matins rings. Something was evidently wanting here, and, having the authority of Dryden for 'midnight matins" I have ventured to insert the word. This is always hitherto been printed Muscovites, but the word princes two lines below proves that like "the Turk" it should be in the singular number. P. 163 4. Yet is there patience of another sort God grant my dearest friends may prove no worse. When this play was passing through the press I gave this passage up in despair, as I suppose my predecessors did when they allowed it to pass without a note explanatory of its meaning. But subsequent reflection has convinced me that it can be restored to sense without the alteration of a single word, except to the eye. All that is necessary is to change there in the first line to their. The full sense then is-there are persons (you yourself, and my Protestant subjects, for instance) from whom I have deserved a scourge, but their feelings would never lead them to poison their king; God grant that my dearest relations may prove to have been no worse than those who ought to be my enemies, &c. [The change has been made in the stereotype plate.] But to defend their strange inventions. P. 165 a. Defend here means to hinder, to prohibit. Milton calls the forbidden fruit the defended fruit. Inventions may be pronounced as a word of four syllables, although Massinger, on the other the doing so is quite contrary to Marlowe's practice. hand, almost invariably spreads out words of this class. P. 165 a. And Guise for Spain hath now incensed the King. Incensed is here incited. Shakspeare has "He is attended with a desperate train, And what they may incense him to, being apt The meaning is quite different from that of the same word in the speech of Guise in the next column. P. 165 b. So kindly, cousin Guise, you and your wife, &c. This passage has been so mutilated that it would be vain to try to patch it up. At its best it must have been unworthy the Marlowe of Doctor Faustus and Edward II. 'Tis more than kingly or emperious P. 165 b. i.e., going beyond the privilege of king or emperor. There is great spirit in this speech of the Guise, and it is one of many passages in Marlowe which convince me that Sir Walter Scott was familiar with his writings. P. 166 b. Enter a soldier. Any edition of this play would be incomplete which did not include the following long extract from that most important of all works on the stage, Mr. Collier's History of Dramatic Poetry. With regard to this play I am in possession of a singular proof, if any were wanted, of the imperfect state in which it appears in the old printed copy, published perhaps from what could be taken down in short hand or otherwise during the representation. I have a single leaf of an original contemporary MS. of the play, possibly as it came from the hands of Marlow, which shows how much was omitted, and how injuriously the rest was garbled. Even the names of the characters were mistaken, and he who is called Mugeron in the old edition was, in fact, called Minion, consistently with his situation and habits. I will copy the MS. literatim, and the reader will be able to compare it with part of the play, as it is republished in Marlow's works. Enter a soldier with a muskett. Soldier. Now, Sir, to you that dares make a duke a cuckolde and use a counterfeyt key to his privye chamber, though you take out none but your owne treasure, yett you put in that displeases him, and fill up his rome that he shold occupye. Herein, sir, you forestall the markett, and set up your standinge where you shold not. But you will saye you leave him rome enoghe besides. That's no answere: he's to have the choyce of his owne free land, yf it be not too free; there's the questione. Now, for where he is your landlorde, you take upon you to be his and will needs enter by defaulte: whatt thoughe you were once in possession, yett comminge upon you once unawares, he frayde you out againe; therefore your entrye is mere intrusione. This is against the law, sir; and though I come not to keepe possessione, as I wold I might, yet I come to keepe you out, sir. You are well-come, sir. Have at you. [He kills him. Enter Minion. Minion. Trayterouse Guise! ah, thou hast morthered me! Enter Guise. Hold the [e], tall soldier take the [e] this and flye. [Exit Which our great sonn of Fraunce cold not effecte ; Lye there, the kinge's delyght and Guise's scorne! I did it onely in dispight of thee. Fondly hast thou incenste the Guise's sowle, And when thou think'st I have forgotten this, Then will I wake thee from thy foolishe dreame, [Exeunt. "It is rarely, indeed, that an opportunity can be thus obtained, of comparing an old printed copy of a play, with a contemporary MS. in order to show what was omitted. Here much of what falls from the soldier is not printed, and only four lines of the speech by Guise, which is at least as good as any other part of the play." -History of Dramatic Poetry, 1831, iii. 133. In reference to the above, Mr. Dyce points out that the names Mugeron and Minion are both right, as the historians particularly mention Maugeron as one of the king's minions. He was not, however, the gallant of the Duchess of Guise, nor was he assassinated, but fell in a duel. St. Mégrin was the name of the real culprit and victim. P. 166 b. Hold thee, tall soldier, take thou this and fly. Johnson defines tall in this sense as sturdy, lusty, but he was thinking of it as used in his favourite jingle about "the prentises all, living in London both proper and tall." He should rather have said, bold, brave. P. 167 a. Thou able to maintain an host in pay That livest by foreign exhibition. Exhibition meant any allowance or pension. It is now confined to sums of money bestowed, on the ground of superior merit, upon students at the universities. The second line should, I think, be printed P. 167. That liv'st thyself by foreign exhibition.. To overthrow those factious Puritans. The word factious was substituted, on the suggestion of Mr. Collier, for the unmeaning sexious of old editions. It may however have been sections. P. 169 a. As pale as ashes! nay then 'tis time to look about. Mr. Dyce has attempted to reduce this to verse. He has succeeded better in his suggestion that Guise must have seen himself in a mirror when he made this exclamation. It is an historical fact that he was looking pale when he entered. P. 169 b. P. 169 b. Did he not draw a sort of English priests. "A sort of lusty shepherds strive." And will him, in my name, to kill the duke. He quotes Johnson defines will in this sense to be-to command, to direct. Hooker as an authority. "St. Paul did will them of Corinth, every man to lay up somewhat on the Sunday." P. 171 b. Search, surgeon, and resolve me what thou see'st. Resolve means here inform. It was used in this sense by Dryden. "Resolve me strangers whence and what you are.' |