PART III-CANTO I. 6. render = give up. 16. Caligula, born A.D. 12 and reigned as Emperor 37–41. After eight months of beneficent rule he seems to have gone mad in consequence of an illness. He claimed for himself a place amongst the gods, and boasted to have been a lover of the moon. He was murdered after three years of unspeakable horrors, which a complete overthrow of his intellect can alone account for or excuse. 20. those they made her kindred. Their mistresses, whom they have flattered by comparing them to goddesses, till they have as it were made them kindred to the moon. 55. read one verse. Cf. II. iii. 1171 and note. 85. fitters. This is undeniably the correct reading, though some editions have 'fritters.' The word is identical with the Italian fetta, fragment,' and an allied word appears in ‘fyt,' a division of a poem. 108. jiggumbobs. The root of this word is gig or gag; hence something 'jiggled' to attract a child's attention, a baby's rattle; hence any fancy knick-knack. 109. hook or crook. This phrase probably means 'by foul or fair means,' but its origin is not now certainly known. It may allude to hook as an instrument of footpads, and crook, the bishop's crozier. 115. he thought it. It is remarked in Grey's edition that Butler here sets the squire reflecting on matters of which he could have no knowledge, as the encounter and rifling of the pockets did not take place till after Ralpho's departure. Cf. II. iii. 1047. 137. pawn his inward ears. Pledge his conscience. 152. stale. Cf. "Thou didst drink The stale of horses and the gilded puddle Which beasts would cough at.' SHAKSPEARE, Antony & Cleopatra, I. iv. 61. 154. of love. board her. A nautical term transferred to the affairs As thunder when the clouds in autumn crack.' SHAKSPEARE, Taming of the Shrew, I. ii. 95. 'You mistake, knight, "accost" is front her, board her, woo her, resail her.'-Id. Twelfth Night, I. iii. 60. 159. longees, the 'lunges' of a fencer. 164. shoe-tie. This rhyme had been used before by Crashaw in his Wishes ('Delights of the Muses') : 190. 238. 'I wish her beauty That owes not all its duty To gaudy tire or glistering shoe-tye.' to th' good. Var. lec. 'to 'ts good.' not true nor false. 'A proposition must be either true or false, provided that the predicate be one which can in any intelligible sense be attributed to the subject (and as this is always assumed to be the case in treatises on logic, the axiom is always laid down there as of absolute truth). Abracadabra is a second intention" is neither true nor false. Between the true and the false there is a third possibility, the Unmeaning.'J. S. MILL, System of Logic, vol. I. p. 321. 252. Stentrophonic. Cf. note on Sidrophel, 1. 21. 264. time is, time was. The saying of the Brazen Head. Cf. I. ii. 346, and note. 278. bardashing. Boys before their beards are grown are called by the Turks bardasses. 282. Caliban. The Caliban of Shakspeare's Tempest. 310. caprich. Fix. Ital. capriccio. 319. cow itch, or cowage, is a plant bearing a pod covered with very fine hairs, resembling the 'sting' of the nettle, only on a larger scale. If rubbed on the skin they cause intense irritation. 323. hermetic-men. Alchymists. Cf. I. ii. 225. 324. manicon. Supposed to have been the name of some species of nightshade. It is the insane root' of Shakspeare, and was supposed to cause madness. Cf. Were such things here as we do speak about? Or have we eaten on the insane root That takes the reason prisoner?' Macbeth, I. iii. 83. 326. mountains in Potosi. The mountains of Potosi in Peru are rich in silver. The belief ridiculed by Butler is therefore that the mechanic virtuosi can transmute metals and so raise mountains of silver.' 327. antic fools. This seems to mean the fools by profession, though it is commonly explained to mean simply antique. Cf.— For within the hollow crown That rounds the mortal temples of a king SHAKSPEARE, Richard II., III. ii. 160. 'Thou antic Death, which laugh'st us here to scorn.' Id. I Henry VI., IV. 7, 18. 329. signatures. Outward signs of the alchymical qualities of a thing. The extract from Agrippa's De Ccculta Philosophia, given in the note to I. i. 539, is really an investigation into these signatures. 340. hemp. Cf. note on II. iii. 370. 352. make a leg = make a bow. Dr. Brewer (Dictionary of Phrase and Fable) quotes— 384. 'The pursuivant smiled at their simplicitye, The King and the Miller of Mansfield. in Lancashire. This further identifies Sidrophel with Lilly, as this is practically the same account that Lilly gives of himself. Lancashire was famous for the number of its witches; and the fame has survived in a very different sense. A lady whom nature has endowed with black hair and blue eyes -a complexion common in Lancashire, is still known as a 'Lancashire Witch,' though the witchery thus attributed to her is of a kind no lady would over-strenuously deny. 392. Pharaoh's wizards. The contest between Aaron and Pharaoh's magicians here alluded to.-Exodus, chap. vii. 422. Proserpine. Proserpina or Persephone was the daughter of Zeus and Demeter, and was carried off by Pluto, ruler of the nether world, to be his wife. Her mother sought her, and by the aid of Zeus and Hermes recovered her for a part of each year. The interpretation of the myth is obvious, Proserpina being the seed-corn. 432. talismanique louse. The talisman is an image of anything made in order to destroy the thing of which it is the effigy. 437. morpion and punaise. French terms for vermin. 450, pendulums to watches. Allusion to the spring pendulum for watches, then comparatively of recent invention by Dr. Robert Hooke, one of the members of that Royal Society which Butler seems never weary of satirizing."Bringing them to serve for pendulums,' is of course bringing them to the gallows. 485. affidavit hand. The Covenanters refused to kiss the book in form of oath, and substituted the holding up of the right hand. 500. jump with. Cf. I. i. 626, and I. iii. 1365. 520. juries. The jury of matrons is here alluded to. Such a jury is still empannelled in any case where a female being condemned to death pleads pregnancy as a reason why the sentence should not be carried out. Its survival is a striking proof of our English ignorance of physiological science. Cf. I. 884. 560. flies away. This idea has been used both before and after the time of Butler. Cf. 66 'Love wol nought ben constreyned by maistre. CHAUCER, Frankeleynes Tale. 'Love free as air at sight of human ties POPE, Elvisa to Abelard, 1. 75. 565. Roman gaolers. Butler probably derived his knowledge of this custom from the following note of Lipsius on a passage in Tacitus, Annals, Bk. III. ch. 22. Tacitus has said, Idemque servos Lepidae, cum militari custodia haberentur, transtulit ad consules,' on which the commentator'Custodia militaris frequentissima, et Romae et in Provinciis, ejusque modus, ut is qui in noxa esset, catenam manui dextrae alligatam haberet, quae eadem militis sinistram vinciret, custodiae ejus praefecti.' (Tacitus, Annals, Edit. Lugduni Batavor, 1589, p. 60; note on Book III. ch. 22.) Juvenal alludes to the same custom when he says 'Inde fides arti, sonuit si dextera ferro Laevaque, si longo castrorum in carcere mansit.' 575. to have and to hold. There is a play here on the two well-known meanings of this phrase-in the marriage service, to take and to keep; in deeds of conveyance of real property, to part with utterly to another. 582. It laid. Some editions read is laid, of which reading the meaning is most obscure. 591-2. Condensation has in these lines been carried to the point of obscurity. It really means that these idiots beg one another to be guardians before the children are born. 595. implicit in its proper sense of 'complicated,' 'confused.' 616. John a Stiles and John a Nokes, are fictitious names used by lawyers in stating cases, and by law students in solving legal exercises. The Spectator, No. 577, contains the following humorous fancy respecting them : "The humble Petition of John a Nokes and John a Stiles, 'Sheweth, 'That your Petitioners have had causes depending in Westminster Hall above five hundred years and that we despair of ever seeing them brought to an issue; that your Petitioners have not been involved in these law suits out of any litigious temper of their own, but by the instigation of contentious persons; that the young lawyers in our Inns of Court are continually setting us together by the ears, and think they do us no hurt because they plead for us without a fee; that many of the gentlemen of the robe have no other clients in the world besides us two; that when they have nothing else to do they make us plaintiffs and defendants, though they were never retained by either of us; that they traduce, condemn, or acquit us without any manner of regard to our reputations and good names in the world. Your Petitioners therefore (being thereunto encouraged by the favourable reception which you lately gave to our kinsman Blank) do humbly pray that you will put an end to the controversies which have been so long depending between us your said Petitioners, and that our enmity may not endure from generation to generation; it being our resolution to live hereafter as it becometh men of peaceable dispositions. 'And your Petitioners (as in duty bound) shall ever pray.' Butler has altered John of Nokes into Joan of Nokes to suit his own purpose. Cf. 637. depart. The present reading of the marriage service 'till death us do part,' was originally 'till death us depart.' 'Hudibras to his Lady,' 252. 639. Indian widows. Alluding to the custom of Suttee, now happily put down by British rule in India. 645. Set. The game. Since the invention of lawn tennis this word is much better known than it was a few years ago. But it is a word of very respectable age. Cf. 'We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us, SHAKSPEARE, Henry V. I. ii. 259. |