[Footnote 1: Ben Jonson’s ‘Epicoene’,
or the Silent Woman, kept the stage in the Spectator’s
time, and was altered by G. Colman for Drury Lane,
in 1776. Cutbeard in the play is a barber, and
Thomas Otter a Land and Sea Captain.
“Tom Otter’s bull, bear, and
horse is known all over England, ’in
rerum natura.’”
In the fifth act Morose, who has married a Silent
Woman and discovered her tongue after marriage, is
played upon by the introduction of Otter, disguised
as a Divine, and Cutbeard, as a Canon Lawyer, to explain
to him
’for how many causes a man may have
‘divortium legitimum’, a
lawful divorce.’
Cutbeard, in opening with burlesque pedantry a budget
of twelve impediments which make the bond null, is
thus supported by Otter:
‘Cutb.’ The first
is ‘impedimentum erroris’.
‘Otter.’ Of which
there are several species.
‘Cutb.’ Ay, ‘as
error personae’.
’Otter. If you contract
yourself to one person, thinking her
another.’]
[Footnote 2: This is fourth of five stanzas to
‘The Waiting-Maid,’ in the collection
of poems called ‘The Mistress.’]
[Footnote 3: Donne’s Funeral Elegies, on
occasion of the untimely death of Mistress Elizabeth
Drury. ‘Of the Progress of the Soul,’
Second Anniversary. It is the strain not of a
mourning lover, but of a mourning friend. Sir
Robert Drury was so cordial a friend that he gave to
Donne and his wife a lodging rent free in his own
large house in Drury Lane,
‘and was also,’ says Isaac
Walton, ’a cherisher of his studies, and
such a friend as sympathized ’with
him and his, in all their joys and
sorrows.’
The lines quoted by Steele show that the sympathy
was mutual; but the poetry in them is a flash out
of the clouds of a dull context. It is hardly
worth noticing that Steele, quoting from memory, puts
‘would’ for ‘might’ in the
last line. Sir Robert’s daughter Elizabeth,
who, it is said, was to have been the wife of Prince
Henry, eldest son of James I, died at the age of fifteen
in 1610.]
* * * *
A young Gentlewoman
of about Nineteen Years of Age
(bred in the Family of a Person of Quality
lately deceased,)
who Paints the finest Flesh-colour,
wants a Place,
and is to be heard of at the House
of
Minheer Grotesque a Dutch Painter
in Barbican.
N. B. She is also well-skilled
in the Drapery-part,
and puts on Hoods and mixes Ribbons
so as to suit the Colours of the Face
with great Art and Success.
R.
* * * *
No. 42. Wednesday, April 18,
1711. Addison.
Garganum inugire
putes nemus aut mare Thuscum,
Tanto cum strepitu
ludi spectantur; et artes,
Divitiaeque peregrina,
quibus oblitus actor
Cum stetit in
Scena, concurrit dextera laevae.
Dixit adhuc aliquid?
Nil sane. Quid placet ergo?
Lana Tarentino
violas imitata veneno.
