NOTES ON POEMS
369
PAGE
| See Brand, Popular Antiquities, i. 121, 122. Cf. among many instances, Much Ado about Nothing, II., i. 194-199; the song in Othello, IV., iii. 41 ff., and Percy, Reliques, ser. i., lib. ii., No. 8; Fletcher, Night-Walker, c. 1638, I., i.; Herrick, Hesperides, 263; and the pun on the subject in G. Meredith, The Egoist, 1879, ch. xxxiv. | ||
| 27. | ll. 27, 28. | gipsies' knots . . . fast and loose] Cf. Antony and Cleopatra, IV., xii. 29; Jonson, Gipsies Metamorphosed, 1621: 'I'll shew you the slight of our Ptolemy's knot, It is, and 'tis not.' The game of 'fast and loose' was a favourite with dishonest vagabonds. The cheat tied up a leathern belt or thong into a number of deceptive folds; and the gull was given a knife, and asked to pierce the folded belt in the centre, which he usually failed to do. There is an allusion to the thong and knife in Merry Wives of Windsor, II., ii. 19. New Eng. Dict. quotes Donne, Sermon lxxxv.: 'Never ask wrangling Controverters that make Gypsie-knots of Mariages;—ask thy Conscience, and that will tell thee that thou wast married till death should depart you.' Mr. Ivor B. John has an elaborate note on 'fast and loose,' with reference to King John, III., i. 242 (Arden ed. 1907). |
| l. 36. | hearts] harts 1658. | |
| 'Whether these lines,' etc.] This epistle is addressed to John Hales, Fellow of Eton: see note on A Session of the Poets, l. 91. The mention of Socinus here corroborates the Socinian tradition associated with Hales' name. It is known, however, that the Socinian tracts with which Hales has been credited were the work of Continental writers. | ||
| 28. | ll. 21, 22. | The sweat of learned Jonson's brain] The likeness to Milton, L'Allegro, 131-34, need not be designed, although, if the date of most of these poems be taken into account, Milton's poem preceded these lines by some years. |
| l. 23. | hackney-coach] John Taylor, Old Parr, 1635, quoted by New Eng. Dict., gives a notice of hackney-coaches in the reigns of the first two Stewarts. Coaches 'have increased . . . by the multitudes of Hackney or hired Coaches; but they never | |
