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n5241   4.1 The first scene of Act 4 returns us to the farcical interplay between Nehemiah, Lady Nestlecock, Ephraim, Whimlby, and Blith Tripshort. All continues to go badly in these marriage negotiations, with new disputes erupting between different characters every few lines. [go to text]

n5038   [In LADY NESTLECOCK’s house] No location is printed in the original. [go to text]

n5085   Ephraim, thou hast made me a man Nehemiah begins the scene performing his newly-acquired adult masculinity, dressed with a sword, the accoutrement of the young gallant, and a book. However, this masculinity is closely connected with militant Christianity and draws on the character’s Old Testament name. In the Book of Nehemiah, the eponymous prophet rallies the Israelites to restore the walls of Jerusalem and urges each and every one of them to wear his sword and be ready to run to the place of battle immediately: 'As for the builders, each wore his sword girded at his side as he built, while the trumpeter stood near me. And I said to the nobles, the officials, and the rest of the people, "The work is great and extensive, and we are separated on the wall far from one another. At whatever place you hear the sound of the trumpet, rally to us there. Our God will fight for us." So we carried on the work with half of them holding spears from dawn until the stars appeared' (4:18-21).
Nehemiah's diction appears to be that of the miles Christi, the soldier of Christ, representing a heroic, militant Protestant Christianity. The iconography of sword and book is most notably associated with St Paul (drawing on the allegory of the Epistle to the Ephesians, where 'the sword of the spirit is the word of God'; the repetition of witness carries clear religious connotations; and Nehemiah is carrying 'this precious book, which I have gotten almost by heart already'. Inevitably, the audience thinks it must be the Bible, 'this precious book', and it seems clear that Nehemiah has undergone some sort of conversion, again of a Pauline character: 'When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things' (1 Corinthians 13.11). However, a few moments later, he reveals that the 'delicious book' is one of jests. This may not be the Bible; but Nehemiah treats it as gospel, failing to realize it is a jokebook and taking its contents as reliable information. [go to text]

n8925   both without, witness this sword, and within, witness this precious book Nehemiah comes on with accoutrements that would remind the audience of many symbolic figures carrying a sword and a book, not least the hieratic images of various godly monarchs since the Reformation in England. The reference to the book being 'precious' particularly encourages the audience to think it is, perhaps, the Bible or some other edifying text. [go to text]

n4781   non progredi id est regredi St Bernard of Clairvaux's phrase, 'In via vitae non progredi regredi est' (Sermon 2 on the Feast of the Purification) had become proverbial: unless one is going forward, one is going backwards. This may seem a casual application, but later in the act Gabriella appears to refer to Bernard's famous work on the progress to self-knowledge and wisdom, De gradibus humilitatis et superbiae. [go to text]

n4806   her bum Throughout this scene various characters, but especially Nehemiah, use phrases easily interpreted as bawdy or obscene. In particular, there appear to be veiled allusions to oral sex, which was particularly associated with the French. [go to text]

n4807   you The hierarchical relationship between Nehemiah and his family's servant is represented here by the fact that Nehemiah addresses Ephraim as 'thou', whereas the servant replies with 'you'. [go to text]

n4807   Thou The hierarchical relationship between Nehemiah and his family's servant is represented here by the fact that Nehemiah addresses Ephraim as 'thou', whereas the servant replies with 'you'. [go to text]

n5544   Bartholomew Fairs Nehemiah says that he had so many ballads, now destroyed, that he could have supplied three Bartholomew Fairs. But his reference to the Fair alerts the audience to his descent from Ben Jonson's similar character in the play Bartholomew Fair, Bartholomew Cokes. [go to text]

n4808   tops, gigs, balls, cat and catsticks, pot guns, key guns, trunks, tillers, All of these are popular 'games with things' in the period. The most informative text is Iona and Peter Opie, Children's Games with Things (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997). For tops (and gigs, another term for a top, as in 'whirligig') and games such as 'cat' and 'catsticks', see Chapter 10, 'Tops and Tipcat'; for balls, see Chapter 8, 'Ball-Bouncing'.
'Pot guns', 'key guns', 'trunks', 'tillers', are all forms of pea-shooters or catapults. [go to text]

n5086   there comes not a mouth into the world, but there’s meat for’t Nehemiah's new-found godliness (and what will subsequently be recognised as a parody of Puritan conversion rhetoric) continues with this proverb, trusting in divine providence. It is frequently found in English sources from Langland onwards. [go to text]

n4809   their mother will find friends that shall, for them and herself Nehemiah's meaning is innocent, but the audience knows that the 'friends' his putative wife will make will be lovers. [go to text]

gg3414   truck to exchange [go to text]

n4810   dancing frog The fascination of the image - here a toy - of a dancing frog seems to stretch back in time and persists to the present day (for a modern example, see Quentin Blake's children's book, The Story of the Dancing Frog [1996]); no doubt this is to do with the frog's motion and long legs. But French people were popularly described as 'Frogs' by the 1630s, and the audience probably recognises the connection between dancing and Frenchness. [go to text]

n4811   a ballad of burning the false prophets before they be tried No ballad that is an exact match has been found [go to text]

n4812   another fearful one of the new Antichrist No ballad that is an exact match has been found [go to text]

n4813   Collected by an A. S. Gent. Nehemiah is reading The Booke of bulls, baited with two centuries of bold jests, and nimble-lies, or, A Combat betweene sence and non-sence, being at strife who shall infuse most myrth into the gentle-reader a treatise in variety of pleasure second to none ever yet printed in the English-tongue : wherein is contained nothing alreadie published / collected by A.S. Gent. (1636), probably by Robert Chamberlain.
This reference helps date the play, as Lucy Munro points out ('Richard Brome and The Book of Bulls: Situating The New Academy, or The New Exchange'). The reference makes sense only after the publication of the jestbook in 1636: 'The Book of Bulls [was] entered in the Stationers' Register to Frances Smith on 6 April 1636 and assigned to Daniel Frere, its eventual publisher, on 11 April 1636' (p. 127).
The cheesecake joke is number 216 (p. 96); the lobster joke is 217 (pp. 96-97).
There is probably an in-joke here. The likely author of the jest-book, Robert Chamberlain, is one of those who contributed commendatory verses to the 1640 edition of Brome's The Antipodes. Munro details other connections between Brome and Chamberlain (pp. 132-4). [go to text]

n4814   A countess was no blusher, Ephraim refers to a recent scandal, the rapid remarriage of Francis Bacon's widow to her gentleman-usher, Sir John Underhill, less than two weeks after Bacon's death. The relationship between the two is probably the reason for the abrupt disinheriting of his wife at the end of Bacon's last will and testament: ‘Whatsoever I have given, granted, confirmed, or appointed to my wife, in the former part of this will, I do now, for just and great causes, utterly revoke and make void, and leave her to her right only’ (Works, 14.545). [go to text]

n4815   A lady took her horse- Keeper in wedlock. Ephraim’s verse probably refers to the scandalous marriage of Frances Brandon (1517-1559), dowager duchess of Suffolk, to her Master of Horse, Adrian Stokes (1533-1581). [go to text]

n5200   Inferior men best could their work below. There is an obvious pun on 'inferior' and 'below', and an equally bawdy reference. [go to text]

n5087   up and ride A variant of the phrase commonly found in early modern texts, 'Nothing but up and ride' (Tilley N284), meaning sexual activity. [go to text]

n4816   I must out too, then, mother, I am afraid, oh Nehemiah threatens to imitate his cousin Joyce: if his friend Ephraim is banished, he will leave in sympathy. [go to text]

n4817   Lethe In classical mythology, drinking from the river Lethe, one of the rivers of Hades, led to forgetting. The Greek root means 'forgetfulness'. [go to text]

n4818   hang poetry: I study profit now Like Nehemiah, Whimlby has undergone a conversion, from being a man of sentiment, enveloped in grief and longing for his dead wife, expressing his melancholy in poetry, to being a man with an eye on the future and profit, speaking in prose. [go to text]

n5545   here is a draft of my marriage instrument to your lap Whimlby clearly means that he has drawn up the legal document establishing the terms of the marriage. However, the fact that he places a copy in her lap is sexually suggestive and probably he means it to be so, to communicate his vigour and sexual dynamism, despite his age. [go to text]

n4819   His instrument being drawn, I must put up my pipe Ephraim means that if Whimlby has progressed as far as to draw up a marriage agreement, the legal instrument, then he may as well accept defeat and drop his poetic pose ('put up my pipe', meaning the instrument associated with pastoral). But, as ever in this scene, there is the hint of euphemism, and bawdy references to genitalia. [go to text]

n5546   WHIMLBY gives a marriage contract to NEHEMIAH Alternatively, Whimlby may give the second marriage contract to Lady Nestlecock, dramatising the lack of expectation that Nehemiah will participate in adult decision making. [go to text]

n5123   A cross marriage Neh. A crosse marriage An unnecessary, duplicate Speech Prefix has been removed. The ms. annotators of Folger Shakespeare Library B4872, National Art Library Dyce 25.E.45, and Newberry Library Y135.B779 delete this Speech Prefix. [go to text]

n5088   Behind his back, I may do much to please you Blith's phrase, as with so much else in this scene, is capable of a sexual construction. She may be implying that she could easily deceive a foolish husband such as Nehemiah. Later she says that the prospect of committing herself knowingly to a lifetime of such deceit fills her with despair. [go to text]

n4820   a fool A milk or cream-based dessert, often incorporating pureed fruit. Here, the audience recognises the applicability of both meanings of 'fool'. [go to text]

gg3369   gip an intensitive; an exclamation of anger or remonstrance addressed to a horse; an expression of surprise, derision, or contempt addressed to a person; the equivalent of 'get out', 'go along with you' (OED) [go to text]

n4821   And sucked as sweet milk as ever the good cow your mother gave. Lady Nestlecock picks up on Blith's joke about Nehemiah being a fool made with sour milk, probably rightly recognises the aspersion thrown on her as the cow that gave the sour milk, and throws it back again at Blith. Most striking is the speed with which an apparently superior Lady Nestlecock has descended to such crude and tasteless insults. She disdains her brother Matchil's new bride as speaking still in the style of the kitchen, but it is clear here that she is no stranger to vulgarity. It raises again the question of just how 'gentle' Lady Nestlecock's origins are. [go to text]

n5124   [Enter EPHRAIM] There is no stage direction for Ephraim's re-entry in 1659; he has left the stage a few lines earlier. But he not only speaks this line but is appealed to for help by Lady Nestlecock moments later. [go to text]

gg3415   flirt out to propel or throw with a jerk or sudden movement; often, to propel by a blow from the finger-nail released from the thumb; used in conjunction with away, off, out (OED flirt v, 1 trans[itive]) [go to text]

n4822   unsavoury Lady Nestlecock is probably using 'unsavoury' figuratively, but the audience cannot help but remember the fool made of sour milk and subsequent insults. [go to text]

gg3416   milk-sop an effeminate or immature boy [go to text]

n4823   snotty nose Blith insults Nehemiah by saying he has mucus dripping unwiped from his nose, like a child. She threatens to 'flirt' him under the nose, meaning to flick him sharply with her finger. [go to text]

n5089   out and in Nehemiah means that he and Blith quarrelled and made up, but the audience, as usual, perceives a potential sexual reference. [go to text]

n4824   As I am to you, I think, Sir Swithin. Lady Nestlecock, reassured by Whimlby that he will render his niece compliant, continues from her previous line: 'O me! He is bewitched to her'. That, however, was an exclamation of fear and hostility. Now Lady Nestlecock, thinking that perhaps the cross marriages, and hence access to the wealth of Whimlby and his niece, can be recovered, suggests a benign form of enchantment, pulling the conversation back into the realm of love discourse. [go to text]

n4825   he shall wear her Whimlby uses part of the phrase 'to win and wear', meaning to have as a wife. [go to text]

n4826   make her stick to’t before my face, As frequently the case in this scene, Nehemiah's phrasing is capable of bawdy interpretation. [go to text]

n5090   back-play Again, Nehemiah is only referring to Blith's conduct 'behind his back', but the audience hears sexual suggestions in phrases such as 'back-play' (compare Othello 1.1.118, 'making the beast with two backs', drawing on the familiar French and Italian proverb). [go to text]

n4827   I’ll play at nothing but backgammon with her. Again, Nehemiah speaks of games but the audience, conscious of the prominent use of 'back' as a popular word for sexual potency and even, as a verb, for sexual intercourse, hears a different intention. [go to text]

n4828   too good for him, Blith draws on ambiguities about being good - or, more so, too good for someone. Lady Nestlecock meant that Blith scarcely deserved her son, he was so virtuous. But 'being too good' means that one party will triumph over the other, and this is what Blith implies, despite her uncle's admonition to 'speak gently'. Whimlby has to re-interpret his niece's scarcely-veiled antagonism and threat in order to keep the peace. [go to text]

n4829   you shall be no way so good to him, but I will be as good to you. Barely mollified, Lady Nestlecock responds with a compliment that veils a threat: if you behave badly to my son, I will respond in kind. [go to text]

n4830   turns and keeps cut like my sparrow. Blith has turned away, which Nehemiah interprets as coyness. See OED cut n2: VIII. 35. Phrase. to keep one's cut, keep cut: a phrase of obscure origin, meaning something like: 'To keep one's distance, be coy or reserved'. Most of the later occurrences appear to refer to Skelton's Phyllyp Sparrowe, or at least to have the same origin. Obscure.
'Cut' is also a common term for vagina or 'cunt'. See Williams, Dictionary of Sexual Language and Imagery, p. 358. Nehemiah says that Blith will 'love me behind', and his meaning is surely innocent; but the audience recognises that Blith, in turning away, has offered herself like a bird (his 'sparrow') for penetration from behind. [go to text]

gs694   cut vagina, genitals, 'cunt' (see Williams, A Dictionary of Sexual Language and Imagery in Shakespearean and Stuart Literature, p. 358) [go to text]

gg3417   raw unripened, unready, in a natural state not yet fashioned into something more sophisticated [go to text]

n5091   but soft, I warrant you Lady Nestlecock seems to want to delay Nehemiah's encounter with the Academy and, especially, with the French language ('tongue'), but the implication is that she fears his sexual corruption there. The jokes on the 'French tongue' continue into Nehemiah's next speech. [go to text]

n5092   But he shall not, mother, if you love me, for I mean to perfect my dancing there, and to learn French there, for I mean when I am married to travel into France. But I will first be perfect in the tongue. I shall learn it the sooner when I am there, you know. Everything Nehemiah says here literally applies to the desire for language acquisition, but it can be understood - by the audience if not the character - in sexual terms. The French were identified in this period with oral sex, so the desire to 'learn French' at the Academy, to become 'perfect in the tongue', and 'when I am married to travel into France' have obvious bawdy meanings. [go to text]

n5201   Acomedy, Nehemiah's mispronunciation of an unfamiliar word draws attention to the resemblances between the new social venue of the Academy and the theatre in which the play is being performed, and also to the rule-based nature of both social interactions and comedy as a mode. [go to text]

n5242   4.2 In this scene the play returns to the New Academy. Strigood's intentions have been discovered by the young people who have agreed to frustrate him. Joyce and Gabriela begin the scene with a curious dialogue in which they are certainly furious with Joyce's uncle but also revealing to each other the degree to which the young men's attentions were not unwelcome. Joined by Cash, and then by Strigood and the young men, the couples continue to negotiate while Strigood remains ignorant that Cash is betraying him.
The scene is then transformed by the arrival of Lady Nestlecock, Whimlby, Nehemiah, and Blith, who have come to see the Academy and perhaps enroll Nehemiah and Blith for lessons in sophistication. Performance is again emphasised, with different characters deploying sophisticated utterance and conduct in order to impress but also communicate underlying tensions. As usual this results in eruptions of anger from Lady Nestlecock. Much of the humour derives from double entendres, particularly Nehemiah's, and awareness of the potential sexual meanings of words and phrases.
In the middle of this Rachel, Valentine, and Erasmus join the party, resulting in hostility between Lady Nestlecock and her new sister-in-law. This is exacerbated by Valentine's realisation that Lady Nestlecock may be a marital prize for him, with the result that he begins to abandon Rachel, to her dismay. [go to text]

n6995   Enter JOYCE and GABRIELLA [carrying masks] Video This brief scene in which the two young women discuss their predicament and the young Frenchmen they have just met, converted from illicit lust, and agreed to marry, raises fascinating questions concerning its purpose and the choices to be made by the actors.
As Richard Cave noted, it could be dominated by exposition and thus be an impediment to the onward movement of the play, all the more regrettable since most of the information conveyed is already known to the audience. Exploring the scene with actors, however, revealed that by varying the degree to which the characters addressed each other and the audience considerable energy was conveyed.
This is not the only occasion when Brome has characters recapitulate information, for themselves but more importantly for the audience. As in The Weeding of Covent Garden, when two other young women, Katherine and Lucy, explain the plot to that point in the play [CG 3.2.speeches621-662], the purpose is less exposition than enabling the audience to set information in order and correct proportion, and to guide the audience in interpretation and emotional tone.
All agreed that there was a powerful point of transition, after which a fearful memory of their peril gave way to a more optimistic account of the forthcoming resolution in a double marriage.
The actors and director explored the scene in the workshop, settling ultimately on a staging that emphasised the young women's genuine fear at the outset but then traced the journey by which they turned away from the memory of their peril towards the prospect of marriage and a comedic resolution.
The young women will be commanded to wear masks later in the scene and so arrived carrying them. The actors explored the use of the masks with the director, Brian Woolland. Playing with concealment and revelation allowed the actors to shift between different tones: at times conveying shock and horror at Strigood's perfidy, then a subtle enjoyment of their slightly exaggerated terror, at times an almost roguish complicity. [go to text]

n6994   [carrying masks] Later in this scene, Strigood will command the young women to put on masks, to avoid detection by Lady Nestlecock, Joyce's aunt, who would otherwise recognise them. [go to text]

n4831   How near were we both fallen Into the gulf of ruin? Video Joyce and Gabriella burst on to the stage at the beginning of this scene using somewhat elevated, figurative, and rather clichéd language: 'gulf of ruin', 'main destruction'. The actors must choose whether to play their exchanges as innocently full of the apprehension of danger or, given the slightly melodramatic tone, as having an element of playfulness . [go to text]

n4832   Thanks for our delivery! We were upon the brink of main destruction. Joyce and Gabriella burst on to the stage at the beginning of this scene using somewhat elevated, figurative, and rather clichéd language: 'gulf of ruin', 'main destruction'. The actors must choose whether to play their exchanges as innocently full of the apprehension of danger or, given the slightly melodramatic tone, as playful. [go to text]

gs612   main overwhelming, complete, total [go to text]

n7360   Was ever such a friend as this mine uncle? Video Again, the actors must choose here how horrified the characters are at the corruption and perfidy of Strigood. Are they somewhat amused, knowing they have escaped his machinations? Or are they genuinely horrified? [go to text]

n4833   And had the monsieurs been as capable Of our virginities, as he was of Their moneys, how had we then resisted? Joyce means that, if the young men had been as immoral and without scruple as her uncle Strigood, who had already received money from Galliard and Papillion for the opportunity to be first to fornicate with the two women, or if the young men had been morally capable of rape, how could Joyce and Gabriella have resisted. See OED capable a. 1 and 5 b [go to text]

n6996   But did you note the virtue of the gentlemen? Video In exploring the scene with actors and editors, this was recognised as the turning point of the exchange. The characters turn from horror to appreciation of their future husbands' nobleness; the actors turned from speaking only to each other and now addressed the audience directly, drawing the audience into what constitutes the first glimpse of the play's comedic conclusion. At this point the scene becomes (in Brian Woolland's phrase) 'a real journey'. [go to text]

n4834   Provided that Our births and fortunes might no way disparage Theirs, being free and generous. The condition for the offers of marriage is that Joyce and Gabriella are socially and financially of the right status for two young men who are free to marry and of gentle rank. [go to text]

n5093   free and generous That they are as yet uncontracted in marriage and of noble birth (French: genereux, sense derived from the Latin, generosus, from genus, 'race', specifically here '[noble] race'). [go to text]

n5135   As they pretend they are – not (As they pretend they are not) As the Newberry Library Y135.B779 ms. annotator notices, the closing parenthesis mark must be misplaced here. Actors cannot speak parentheses and so the sense of insertion has been indicated with dashes; the terminal dash has been moved. [go to text]

n6997   I would take either of ’em. Video At least to the modern ear, the young women's willingness to take either of the young men as a husband (and they report that the young men feel the same) is disconcerting. It is, however, essential to the play's conclusion, in that this breeziness enables incestuous unions to be avoided. This is probably a moment at which the lack of realism in the comedy is thoroughly evident to the audience; we are complicit with Brome in suspending disbelief for the sake of an amusing plot. [go to text]

n4835   Jane and Frances? The two names Joyce and Gabriella have taken are often associated with prostitutes in this period. [go to text]

n4836   Lightfoot Strigood's assumed name is clearly appropriate to a dancing master, but it has a hint of the Satanic: Lucifer, the carrier of light. Gabriella has labelled his conduct 'damnable practice' earlier in the scene. [go to text]

n4837   Outlash Cash's assumed name is a form of the verb, to outlash. See OED outlash v: out lashing n. rare (a) extravagance, excess (obs[cure]); (b) an act of lashing or striking out, citing Randle Cotgrave, A Dictionary of the French & English tongues (1611): 'Desreiglemént [sic], ... immoderatenesse, immodestie, lavishnesse, outlashing'; 'Irregularité, unrulinesse, disorder, outlashing'. [go to text]

n4838   inlash Joyce modifies the name, warning that her father will whip Cash home when he finds him. [go to text]

n4839   But after you, fair mistress. Cash points out that Joyce's position is not much better, since her father is likely to whip her home too as a run-away. [go to text]

n4840   squires squares. It is hard to make sense of the sentence with the reading as printed in 1659, but emendation to 'squires within' enables Cash to refer to the young men. The annotator of Folger Shakespeare Library B4872 also proposes this emendation. [go to text]

n6167   Aye I [go to text]

n5094   drawn match made The failure to bring things to a conclusion means that there was no 'winner' and Strigood has therefore lost his fee for providing the young French gallants with English virgins to deflower. See OED drawn, ppl. a 3: Of a battle or match: Undecided. The origin of this usage is said to be uncertain, but here the possibility suggested of derivation from 'withdrawn' is appropriate. Finding the young women to be trapped and without intention of becoming prostitutes, the gallants withdraw. [go to text]

gg1034   coil fuss, noisy row [go to text]

gg3418   wrangle an angry and noisy dispute [go to text]

gg1446   stir active or energetic bustle of a number of persons (or animals); commotion, excitement (OED n. 1, 2 and 3) [go to text]

n4841   perplexed you more Confused, a meaning close to the etymology, Latin per=thoroughly, Latin plectere=to plait or interweave [go to text]

n4842   You cannot tell that. Gabriella's cryptic response alludes to the real temptation both young women admitted to at the opening of the scene. [go to text]

n4843   you would offer Would dare to, had the temerity to (OED offer v 5b) [go to text]

n4844   They knew, they said, some parents in their country, After their children were turned whores, would share To live upon the profits, but to sell Their souls before they were damned, fie, fie, fie, fie––– children of some friends of his deceased, Left to his care for breeding; which he had Plenteously given, and thought it might seem reasonable To raise his money out of you again. The shocking point made by the young men is that French parents are much more virtuous and honourable: they might agree to share the proceeds of their daughters' prostitution, but they would not initiate the transaction, selling their daughters' virginities. [go to text]

n4844   They knew, they said, some parents in their country, After their children were turned whores, would share To live upon the profits, but to sell Their souls before they were damned, fie, fie, fie, fie––– children of some friends of his deceased, Left to his care for breeding; which he had Plenteously given, and thought it might seem reasonable To raise his money out of you again. The shocking point made by the young men is that French parents are much more virtuous and honourable: they might agree to share the proceeds of their daughters' prostitution, but they would not initiate the transaction, selling their daughters' virginities. [go to text]

n4844   They knew, they said, some parents in their country, After their children were turned whores, would share To live upon the profits, but to sell Their souls before they were damned, fie, fie, fie, fie––– children of some friends of his deceased, Left to his care for breeding; which he had Plenteously given, and thought it might seem reasonable To raise his money out of you again. The shocking point made by the young men is that French parents are much more virtuous and honourable: they might agree to share the proceeds of their daughters' prostitution, but they would not initiate the transaction, selling their daughters' virginities. [go to text]

n4844   They knew, they said, some parents in their country, After their children were turned whores, would share To live upon the profits, but to sell Their souls before they were damned, fie, fie, fie, fie––– children of some friends of his deceased, Left to his care for breeding; which he had Plenteously given, and thought it might seem reasonable To raise his money out of you again. The shocking point made by the young men is that French parents are much more virtuous and honourable: they might agree to share the proceeds of their daughters' prostitution, but they would not initiate the transaction, selling their daughters' virginities. [go to text]

n4844   They knew, they said, some parents in their country, After their children were turned whores, would share To live upon the profits, but to sell Their souls before they were damned, fie, fie, fie, fie––– children of some friends of his deceased, Left to his care for breeding; which he had Plenteously given, and thought it might seem reasonable To raise his money out of you again. The shocking point made by the young men is that French parents are much more virtuous and honourable: they might agree to share the proceeds of their daughters' prostitution, but they would not initiate the transaction, selling their daughters' virginities. [go to text]

n5136   [Cash] Gab. As several ms. annotators note, this speech is misassigned. [go to text]

n4717   run their country Go into exile; fly abroad [go to text]

n4847   And some, you know, at home For cozening their masters. Again, Joyce challenges Cash by reminding him that he too is on the run, even though he is still in London, for having stolen from his master Matchil. His argument against Papillion fatally undermines that for himself as an alternative husband. [go to text]

gg3419   cozening cheating, fooling [go to text]

n4848   You are pleased. Defeated, Cash responds by saying that Joyce has made an effective joke at his expense. He responds with an appeal that, from its jokiness, reveals that he recognises the hopelessness of his position, though he still holds out hope when he meets his master again at the beginning of Act 5. [go to text]

n5095   O rogue! Throughout the scene the actor playing Joyce must decide how to play the relationship with Cash. Is she censorious? Coquettish? Indulgent? [go to text]

n4849   Tresmont Trimount in the 1659 printing. Galliard refers to the dance, the 'Tresmont', punning on the 'tres' and 'try'. As well as referring to a dance, however, the term suggests sexual 'mounting', as becomes clear later in the speech. [go to text]

n5547   moshe This spelling represents Galliard's French accented pronunciation of 'much'. [go to text]

gg3420   pusillages thing of no consequence or value, (derived from French) [go to text]

n4850   scrash Scratch. This edition keeps the typographical indications of Galliard's heavily-accented English. [go to text]

n6168   for your pastime profess art and science Strigood confirms that the two young Frenchmen will retain their gentry status: they undertake the teaching tasks for pastime, not as professionals. [go to text]

n4851   We are planted to our wish. Having found their intended brides and expecting to make money gambling with the soon-to-arrive guests, Papillion and Galliard have all they wish. [go to text]

n5096   All very good; but I would see thee first Galliard's meaning is clear: before making money by playing cards with inexperienced gamblers, he would like to see the women who come to the Academy. But as written his phrase does not make complete sense. Is this a representation of his rather weak command of English or an error in the text? [go to text]

n4852   Monsieur Papillion here flies over ’em. Punning on Papillion's name (butterfly), Strigood checks Galliard by pointing out that his friend's concentration has moved on from their female companions to the upcoming exploitation of the Academy's customers. [go to text]

n5097   Ha, ha, ha, what will this world come to? Hannah, along with Erasmus, is the closest the play comes to a trustworthy moral touchstone, but her role in running the Academy is dubious at best. Here she enters laughing at the follies of humankind, as she prepares to welcome fools to be exploited by Strigood. [go to text]

n5125   Enter CASH Enter Hannah, Cash. Hannah is already onstage and has just been speaking. [go to text]

n5098   He cannot know thee. Ephraim will not be able to recognise Cash in his disguise. [go to text]

n6169   [CASH] looks out [of a window] [He looks out [go to text]

n5099   his not return to them may keep ’em Ephraim's failure to return may so disturb Lady Nestlecock and her party that they do not enter the Academy. The logic of this may not bear close attention. [go to text]

n4853   keep ’em Strigood hopes that Ephraim's disappearance may so trouble Lady Nestlecock and her party that they will not enter the Academy, thus avoiding the risk of discovery. [go to text]

n5137   [Strigood] There is no speech prefix before this line, but it is clearly not a continuation of Hannah's preceding speech; it is Strigood's response, as several ms. annotators notice. [go to text]

n4854   good fellow Camelion will act as a jovial host [go to text]

n4855   spice his cup, Strigood quickly specifies which cup is to be tampered with: Ephraim's. But his need to specify suggests that Cash might think this refers to the cup of that 'good fellow', Camelion, who is in any case to be plied with alcohol. All this suggests that there are designs on Hannah. [go to text]

n4856   know no-ting Once more, an auditory pun on 'nothing'/'noting' may be operative here in Galliard's pronunciation. The options are several, ranging from 'know nothing' to 'no noting'. [go to text]

gg3450   blush to make known by blushing (OED blush 3c) [go to text]

gg1621   starting getting away from, moving from [go to text]

n4857   regent The head of an educational institution. OED only cites one previous English use (Philip Stubbes, Anatomy of Abuses [1583]) before this instance. Significantly, this is the title used for the head of his new academy by Francis Kynaston. See The Constitutions of the Museum Minervae (1636), passim. [go to text]

n5100   are those of your assistants? Are those some of your assistants? [go to text]

n4858   court-discipline Manners, primarily associated with the royal court, but of value in all forms of human assemblies and courts, enabling the smooth and harmonious conduct of interpersonal relations, whether these are to do with the law (law courts), power negotiations, or negotiations between lovers.
'Court' is a word of rich and wide meaning. Etymologically, it means enclosure, a word related to 'hortus', a space enclosed as a garden and therefore for cultivation, and 'cohort', a defined group. [go to text]

n5101   For us old ones, We know and could have done things in our youth, Which still we have a mind to; but we leave, The practice to our young ones. Here’s a pair Would fain be at it. We’ll pay their admittance. Whimlby's speech is shot through with doubles entendres, culminating in his endorsement of Nehemiah and Blith as eager learners: 'Here's a pair / Would fain be at it'. [go to text]

n5548   Pray, observe there Strigood tells not only the onstage audience but also that in the theatre to pay attention to a performance of approved manners, of the latest French fashion, but also of the pan-European transformation of polite conduct that had been ititiated by Desiderius Erasmus in his De civilitate morum puerilium (1530). Brome represents the paradoxical nature of the interchanges exemplified in the New Academy: they are laughable because so obviously stylised and unnatural; and yet they are successful in achieving the smoothing-over of potential disturbances in social interactions. For the growing intensity of early modern attention to polite conduct and language, see Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process; for a sophisticated exploration of this in England, see Anna Bryson, From Courtesy to Civility: Changing Codes of Conduct in Early Modern England (1998). Anthony Fletcher applies this specifically to the creation of gender identities in Gender, Sex, and Subordination in England, 1500-1800 (1995). [go to text]

n5102   is not this French? Nehemiah is thoroughly impressed by Papillion's speech, elaborate to the point of incomprehensibility. [go to text]

n5103   Has he married my sister Strigood misinterprets Whimlby's paean to his dead wife and memory of their sweet wooing as referring to his sister, Lady Nestlecock. This aside may be incredulous: can he speak so affectionately when he has married that foolish shrew, my sister? [go to text]

n4859   preventing and preoccupying Papillion's romance diction is using 'prevent' and 'preoccupy' in etymologically precise ways: he has been defeated by Joyce in this battle of wits because she is always ahead of him (the stress on 'pre'). [go to text]

n4860   That goes like English Nehemiah characteristically misses the point: the verbal sparring of Papillion and Joyce has been anything but 'like English'. [go to text]

n5104   rejoice Blith has not yet met Matchil's daughter Joyce, so this irony cannot be intended by her. But the audience realises that there is a contrast here between the cousins Nehemiah and Joyce. [go to text]

n4861   pass upon The phrase 'pass upon' [GLOSS gg3128] is drawn immediately from discourses on fencing: Nehemiah is to try his skill in a contest of wits with Gabriella. But the phrase has many connotations that may shade the meaning here. It is used for the giving of verdicts in law courts of different kinds and it is associated with deception and conning. In the 'court' of the Academy, a series of judgements will be made and verdicts given; most characters involved are, in some way, seeking to dupe others. [go to text]

gg3128   pass upon in fencing, a lunge or thrust made with a sword or rapier (OED n4. 10a) [go to text]

n5105   Lady, you are most suspiciously accoutred Though Nehemiah is mangling the phrase suggested by Whimlby, he is, ironically, speaking the truth: Gabriella is dressed suspiciously in that she is masked, and he would be right to be wary of the motives behind the masking. [go to text]

n5106   scaling-ladder of resolution The progress to perfection or the attainment of a particular objective is frequently imaged as the ascent of a ladder, most particularly in the 'scala d'amore', the ladder of love. This is the rhetoric of Neoplatonic love, in fashion at the court under the influence of Henrietta Maria and Charles I. Gabriella says that the frank acknowledgement of weakness is the first rung on the ladder to success in learning the courtly arts; these will include the art of loving. But Act 4 began with a version of the Latin phrase, 'non progredi id est regredi', adapted from St Bernard of Clairvaux. Bernard's first text, and one of his best-known works, uses the image of the ladder, De gradibus humilitatis et superbiae, in which gaining true wisdom is a process of humbly coming to know oneself. Gabriella says that Nehemiah is cheerfully surrendering to the knowledge of his own ignorance, and that that is the essential first step to wisdom. [go to text]

n5107   can you teach me a compliment to offer you sugar-plums, and eat ’em myself, to save my manners and my plums too? Once more, Nehemiah's words, though crass, puncture the balloon of courtly euphemism. His naiveté draws the veil concealing the purposes of inflated diction, saying that he wants to know how to formulate speeches that appear to offer something while ensuring that the thing of value does not get taken away from him. [go to text]

n5108   flapse A woman of loose character. OED, citing only this instance, offers 'an impudent fellow' for the distinct word 'flapse', but it is more likely that Lady Nestlecock's use is a variant of 'flap'. See OED flap n. 9. dial[ect]. or slang. A woman or girl of light or loose character, citing James Mabbe's translation of the semi-anonymous Spanish text from 1499, The Tragicomedy of Calisto and Melibea, best known as the Celestina; Mabbe's translation was printed in 1631 as The Spanish bawd, represented in Celestina: or, The tragicke-comedy of Calisto and Melibea Wherein is contained, besides the pleasantnesse and sweetnesse of the stile, many philosophicall sentences, and profitable instructions necessary for the younger sort: shewing the deceits and subtilties housed in the bosomes of false seruants, and cunny-catching bawds: 'Fall to your flap, my Masters, kisse and clip' (9. 110); and 'Come hither, you foule flappes' (9. 112). [go to text]

n5109   school-play Given the similarity to William Hawkins's Apollo Shroving (see Introduction), one wonders whether the knowledgable part of Brome's audience is supposed to laugh at an in-joke here: it is indeed a school play, written for Hawkins's students. [go to text]

n9168   not 'no only' in 1659 printing [go to text]

n4862   Billingsgate Billingsgate Market in Lower Thames Street was the home until 1982 of London's principal fish market. It was notorious for foul and abusive language and the name became shorthand in the seventeenth century for aggressive and profane vituperation. [go to text]

n4863   to find a fescue, sir, among the rushes The rhythm, alliteration, and pithy punch of this phrase make it likely to be well-known phrase or proverb, but no other instances of its use have been found. [go to text]

gg3756   fescue a straw, rush, twig; a small piece of straw (OED) [go to text]

n4864   There was a thread drawn out. Blith's ironic praise draws attention to the tendency to elaborate circumlocution in the courtly phrases traded by Joyce and Gabriella. She implies that this has been stretched - drawn out - to the point of breaking. Her metaphor of cloth and weaving is used in a contemporary work by William Hawkins, Apollo Shroving, a play written for his school pupils and printed in 1627, in which Lala, 'a woman spectator', complains about excessive latinate and romance diction: 'Here's linsey-woolsy fustian, where every English thread is overcast with a thick woollen woof of strange words, which have so deep a nap, that the plain ground cannot be seen' (p. 8). [go to text]

n4865   privy door Blith's mocking response again uses the difference between a literal meaning of privy (private) and the colloquial and specific meaning, a lavatory or place for excretion, and hence smelly: 'Fagh'. [go to text]

n4865   Fagh, shut that privy door. Blith's mocking response again uses the difference between a literal meaning of privy (private) and the colloquial and specific meaning, a lavatory or place for excretion, and hence smelly: 'Fagh'. [go to text]

n4867   exact postures and dimensions Strigood's description of the skills taught in his Academy includes the artful arrangement of the body and the length of time ('dimensions') the requisite postures should be maintained for most pleasing effect. [go to text]

gg3421   turn tail to turn away, run away, a term drawn from falconry [go to text]

gg3757   broadside the discharge of all the armaments on one side of a ship [go to text]

n5138   Well said, we’ll make our party good, I warrant you. It is conceivable that this line should be spoken by someone other than Valentine - Rachel, perhaps. No ms. annotator makes the change, however. [go to text]

n4868   I may get good by doing much good upon you. Valentine seizes his chance to attract the widow Lady Nestlecock, seeking to marry her fortune. Throughout, his speech suggests physical, sexual meanings, barely remaining acceptable in public: 'How likes your lap, my compliment?' [go to text]

n4869   How likes your lap, my compliment? Valentine deploys exaggerated, sexualised phrasing, flattering Lady Nestlecock with the attentions of a younger man. [go to text]

n4870   [Rachel] These two sentences are set as part of Lady Nestlecock's preceding speech, but the reference to cinders seems to be what provokes Valentine's succeeding comment, 'Still in the kitchen dialect', which must be spoken to someone other than Rachel, about her phraseology. [go to text]

n5550   You stir up your cinders before they be caked This must be a proverbial phrase, though no other instances have been found. Rachel means that Lady Nestlecock is making assumptions, counting her chickens before they are hatched. [go to text]

n4871   Some heads of sciences, The chief points of the subjects to be taught. [go to text]

gg3227   collation light meal [go to text]

n6941   carriage of the body Video The first line of Galliard's speech alerts the audience to the fact that this is to be a tour de force display of the body itself as a chief accessory of the man of fashion.
Discourses of instruction on contemporary courtly culture frequently treat dancing and deportment together. The principal example is François de Lauze, Apologie de la danse (1623), which is dedicated to George Villiers, at that time Marquess (later duke) of Buckingham. Before giving physical instructions, Lauze outlines his philosophy of the dance, making grand claims for the importance of bodily deportment in the creation of a civil society: 'Seneque dict, que si la nature nous a donne l'estre nou sommes redeuables a l'estude de la vertu du bien estre, & i'ose sans rougir enchirer la dessus que le seul exercice de la danse peut non seulment arracher les mauuaises actions qu'vne negligente nourriture auroit enracinee, mais donner encore vn maintien & vne grace que nous disons entregent, & que ie peux appeller proprement le bel estre, chose tout a faict necessaire a quiconque veut rendre son port & son abort agreable dans le monde' (Seneca said that, since Nature has given us our Being, we owe to her the study of the science of Well-Being, and I dare, without blushing, to elaborate thereupon. For the sole exercise of the dance is able, not only to eradicate the bad actions which a negligent upbringing has ingrained, but gives a decorum and a grace which we call Civility, and which I am able to call properly le bel estre (elegant presence), a thing absolutely necessary to whosoever wishes to render his deportment and his approach agreeable in society' (Apologie de la danse ed. and tr. Joan Wildeblood [London: Frederick Muller, 1952], pp. 67-69). As well as instructing in dancing, Lauze gives directions for bows, reverences, and obeisances, like Galliard drawing precise attention to the placement of the hand and carriage of the body.
Brome's character takes his place in a long tradition of foreigners represented on the English stage with greater and lesser degrees of criticism. Many of the terms Galliard uses in this speech ('reverence', 'obeisance') are to be found in books of instruction on dance and deportment, such de Lauze's Apologie de la danse (1623) and satirised in a work like the earl of Newcastle's The Variety (1649; possibly performed in 1641).
Exploring the speech with actors, the speech was tried in two substantially different ways: with one actor speaking the lines while another demonstrated the postures ; and again with a single actor both speaking and displaying . The presence of an onstage audience was crucial, but so equally was direct acknowledgement of the audience in the theatre.
Even without the actors' memorising the lines and in the conditions of a first reading, it was clear in exploring the scene that the speech offers the actor the opportunity to dominate the conclusion of Act Four with a bravura display. Actor or actors occupied the centre of attention, archly toying with an implicit sexuality that becomes more explicit by the line. The onstage audience, suitably furnished, provides the actor with each successive property mentioned in the speech: coat, callet, black-bag, perrule, girdle-glass, and black patches. The physical fluency of the display matches the verbal energy of the speech, driven forward by lists, repetitions, and the confident structure of a practised 'spiel'.
Involvement of the audience in the theatre allowed the actors to emphasise the degree to which this speech is a highpoint of the play's commentary on the underlying purposes of the cultivation of fashionable manners and clothing. The actors could play with the implication that members of the audience, ostensibly there for innocent entertainment, might themselves be engaging in display, not least with sexual intent. [go to text]

n4872   garbe, in congee, cringe, or shrug, Garbe = graceful and stylish bearing
Congee = ceremonious leave taking
Cringe = a deferential obeisance. In William Hawkins's Apollo Shroving Gingle says, 'No man can be a compleat Gentleman till he have learnt their [the French] cringes and crinkling i' th' hams' (p. 59).
Shrug = a movement of one or more shoulders. In William Hawkins's Apollo Shroving Gingle is told by his master Complement that 'you have not got [your shrug] perfect yet', and he explains: 'A hundred to one you shrugged with but one shoulder' and recommends that he buy a second mirror, so that 'you may at once see your motion in your shrug both before and behind' (p. 71). He explains, 'there are diverse kinds of shrugs, there is the Miser's shrug ...; there is the Beggar's shrug .... There is a winter shrug .... There is a drowsy shrug .... And lastly, there is a gentle Italian shrug. ... The last and only gentle shrug, is the Italian shrug. ... That shrug is performed by lifting up both shoulders exactly together with one uniform motion, somewhat swift, and holding them a while in suspense, with the neck somewhat couching, and the chin thrust out, then the shoulders are to be let down again, as it were by a double pulley, with a slow motion, which by degrees vanished. And if you will accomplish it with a grace, you must all the while cast your eyes into a leering posture' (pp. 71-72). This is a fine description of a motion well known still (as a Gallic shrug); it is doubtless this Galliard will be teaching. [go to text]

gs941   honours obeisance; bows or curtsies (OED honour n, 5b; obsolete) [go to text]

gs942   reverence a gesture indicative of respect; an obeisance; a bow or curtsy (OED reverence n, 2) [go to text]

gg4394   obeisances an act or gesture expressing submission or deferential respect, usually a bending or prostration of the body; a respectful salutation; a bow or curtsy (OED obeisance n, 3) [go to text]

n5110   reasons for tunes The exact meaning of this phrase is elusive. 'Tune' may be being used figuratively, with the sense of 'holding a tune' or being 'in' or 'out of tune'. Galliard moves from the fashions of outward dress -- the mysteries of why clothes look well on some people but awkward on others -- to something more obviously critical, the 'reasons for ... marriages'. Perhaps the reasons for marriage are as mysterious, even arbitrary, as those for various fashions, including the reasons why certain tunes or songs suddenly become popular.
'For tunes' is set as two words in the original. But does the audience also hear 'fortunes'? In this play, most of the marriages are based on the need to marry money. [go to text]

gg3422   callet a variant of 'calotte', meaning a small decorative cap (though Brome perhaps intends us to hear a feint pun on 'callet', a scold or lewd woman) [go to text]

n4873   Black-bag No contemporary definition of the 'black bag' has been found, but the term appears frequently in contemporary literary texts (I am grateful to Lucy Munro for adding numerous instances to the few I had collected). It appears to be the term for a woman's black head covering, as seen in a number of representations, serious and satirical, of women's fashions [IMAGE DM_3_1]. From the references in this play, the fashion seems to be French in origin. As well as Dr. Munro, I am grateful to Susan North of the Victoria and Albert Museum for her attempts to trace the 'black bag' in early seventeenth-century clothing and for her advice on further research; and to Jenny Tiramani. [go to text]

n5111   came on together The rapid repetition of 'came' seems emphatic and Galliard's instances all seem close to synecdoche, bringing the attributes of men and women together in order to suggest sexual union, often illicit: 'his walking in the streets without a cloak / And her without a man came up together'. [go to text]

gg3423   girdle-glass a portable mirror attached to a woman’s girdle [go to text]

gg3424   pashes probably a variant spelling of 'patch' or 'pache': a small piece of black velvet attached to the skin as an ornament or to cover an unsightly blemish; these pashes or patches were becoming popular and fashionable in England in the early seventeenth century [go to text]

n5202   SONG. No song text is given in the original. The singers are offstage, singing from above, and the plot gives reasons for this: Joyce and Gabriella might be recognised by Joyce's father, Matchil, even though they would be masked.
Brome may, however, be making use of the structure of the playhouse and the sensory experience of sound coming from different parts of the playing area, as he sometimes does in other plays. This scene is one in which a wide variety of different kinds of performance experiences is offered to the audience, both onstage and in the auditorium: dialogue, music, and dance. Having the song heard but the singers not seen at stage level may help Brome to highlight the variety. [go to text]

n5112   like nuns Strigood has already been said to be suspected of popery. [go to text]

n4874   Not always, sir. Strigood hints that the women may sometimes be available, clearly for sexual liaisons. [go to text]

n4875   My mouth to handle the French tongue As before, Nehemiah's wish to learn to speak French is expressed in ways that make his desire seem more sexual. [go to text]

n4876   a leetel too wide To be wide-mouthed is to be a boaster, a loud-mouth, impolite and unsophisticated. [go to text]

n4877   de water dat de woman use for anoder ting Galliard seems to suggest that forcing Nehemiah to drink some water used by women to wash their genitalia would force him to purse his lips, thus getting him to pronounce French better. [go to text]

n8923   he shall speak like de Fransh Lady Galliard's whole speech has been leading up to this moment, when he insults Nehemiah by likening him to a woman. [go to text]

n6590   like the lady’s daughter of Paris, properly. Nehemiah's innocent enthusiasm is comedic in that he ignores the seeming suggestion of prostitution and the implicit insult to his masculinity in suggesting that he will speak like a Parisian woman. [go to text]

n5113   thou knowest the way Erasmus agrees with Cash's earlier statement that the way to manipulate Lady Nestlecock is by gross flattery of her idiot son Nehemiah. He urges Valentine to seize the opportunity to ingratiate himself. [go to text]

n5126   [Galliard] Gab The compositor has misread Gal., assigning this speech to Gabriella; it should be Galliard's, as he begins to react to Valentine's aggression. The National Art Library Dyce 25.E.45 ms. annotator makes this emendation. [go to text]

n5127   What you mean? The phrase continues Galliard's broken English and so is unamended. [go to text]

n4878   Y –. It is not clear what is meant here by the typographical symbol 'Y'. It could represent an in instruction to the actor to make a wide-mouthed face; it could suggest that the actor say 'why ...?'. Or it could be the beginning of 'yourself', which would explain Galliard's response. [go to text]

n5552   your great bullbeef and mustard English looks Galliard here deploys a stereotype, used particularly by the French, of the English as 'les Rosbifs', drawing on their presumed diet of roast beef. This stereotype is adopted by the English enthusiastically in the early eighteenth century, as in Henry Fielding's song 'The Roast Beef of Old England', from The Grub Street Opera (1731) and William Hogarth's satiric print contrasting the fat and vigorous English with the scrawny and malnourished French, The Gate of Calais (1748), which used the first line of Fielding's song as its popular title. Most accounts of the stereotype reach no further back than the turn of the eighteenth century, but Galliard's insult demonstrates its currency considerably earlier. [go to text]

n4879   except To take exception to, to object to [go to text]

n8924   They told me I was like him, when I was younger There may be a theatrical joke here: both Lady Nestlecock and Nehemiah are being played by boys, probably of much the same age. [go to text]

n4880   Come, servant, come away. Rachel has realised that Valentine is abandoning her for Lady Nestlecock, a better and likelier prize. She tries to control him using the 'mistress / servant' rhetoric of courtly love, without success. [go to text]

gg3211   jeer (v) to treat with scorn (OED 2) [go to text]

n5556   If you out-stay her not, you lose your honour. She’ll brag she has out-looked you, if you start. Valentine goads Rachel into staying to continue the argument by telling her that whoever leaves first in effect concedes defeat. Rachel is determined not to lose status in the confrontation with her new sister-in-law. [go to text]

n5114   Yet more whispering Whimlby, like Rachel, has realized that Valentine and Lady Nestlecock are engaging in sexual negotiation and that he is losing the attention of his prospective bride. [go to text]

n4881   horn ague the disease of being in fear of a wife's infidelity. The association of cuckoldry and horns was such that Cuckold's Point (or Haven), a few miles downriver from the City of London, was marked with a pole topped by animal horns, a frequent reference in literature of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. See [go to text]

n4882   Euphoniœ gratia. For the sake of euphony or pleasantness of sound [go to text]

n6170   Enter HANNAH Hannah's entry has been moved. In the 1659 edition she enters before the stage direction for the dance. [go to text]

n6960   [Joyce, Gabriella, Cash, Papillion, Galliard, Whimlby, Lady Nestlecock, Nehemiah, Blith, Erasmus, Valentine, and Rachel] 1659: 'Omn.' [go to text]

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