The Persons in the Comedy.

GILBERT [Goldwiren7153] WALTER [Chamletn7154]	}	young gentlemen and friends.
[Samson] TOUCHWOODn5624 [William] STRIKER	}	old adversaries and Justices.
SAMUEL,		son to Touchwood.
[Sir Hugh] MONEYLACKS,		a needy knight, that lives by shiftsgg1020.
[John] BRITTLEWARE,		confederate with Moneylacks.
Tim[othy] HOYDENgg3964,		the new made gentleman.
COULTER,		his man.
Thomas [TOM] Hoydengg3964,		Tim[othy] Hoyden’s [half] brother.
Sir Arnold CAUTIOUS,		a stalegg4083 bachelor and a ridiculous lover of women.
A GARDENER.n7155
[Ambodextern7156] TRAMPLER,		a lawyer.
[Master Pancridgen7157,		the] CURATE
[Two LITTERMEN or Sedan carriers]
Three COURTIERS.
ANNABEL,		daughter to Moneylacks and grandchild to Striker.
[Fid] FRISWOOD,		her nurse, and housekeeper to Striker [and also aunt to Rebecca Brittleware].
REBECCA,		wife to Brittleware [and Friswood’s niece].
MARTHA,		the gardener’s [Dutch] wife.
Three LADIES.
[BOY.]
[SPRING.]
[A CITY WIFE.]
[A GENTLEMAN.]
[A SERVANT]

The Prologue to the Play.

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n7153   Goldwire Gilbert's surname associates him with the high fashion of young city gallants, where gold wire's visible presence in textiles and on clothing was a mark of status and wealth. [go to text]

n7154   Chamlet Walter's surname is intriguing - an obvious play, especially in its pronunciation, on Shakespeare's eponymous protagonist in Hamlet. There are other allusions to that play in the course of The Sparagus Garden, most noticeably in Sam Touchwood's Act One claims to feel suicidal. This tallies with other published and manuscript drama of the 1630s, where Hamlet appears in several knowing allusions and intertextual gestures. One intriguing example is a manuscript play held in the Osborne collection at the University of Calgary, sometimes known by the title of its Arbury Hall ms counterpart, The Humorous Magistrate, which dates from the 1630s and has possible links to Brome. Certainly this play alludes at length to A Jovial Crew as well. All of this is a key to the resonance of Shakespeare's play in 1630s theatrical culture but it may go deeper in revealing to us the reading practices of particular groups and networks in which Brome played a significant role. My thanks to the research team at the University of Calgary working on the Osborne ms, in particular Mary Polito and Susan Bennett for the opportunity of a Visiting Fellowship in 2008 to work on this manuscript along with the Canadian Research Council funded team. [go to text]

n5624   TOUCHWOOD Touchwood is the type of wood that easily catches light and is therefore traditionally used as kindling to start fires. In the case of the character Brome is appositely suggesting his volatile temper and nature and there are many punning references to the connection throughout the play. [go to text]

gg1020   shifts clever ploys or expedients, impromptu experiments or displays (in acting) [go to text]

gg3964   HOYDEN a rude, ignorant or awkward fellow; a clown, boor (OED, n; obsolete) [go to text]

gg3964   Hoyden a rude, ignorant or awkward fellow; a clown, boor (OED, n; obsolete) [go to text]

gg4083   stale old, past a marriageable age; no longer fresh [go to text]

n7155   A GARDENER. The gardener is never given a name in the play, whereas his wife Martha is. It is possible that Brome did this to indicate a power dynamic in the relationship that accords all the agency to Martha - certainly it is she who drives the scenes in the Asparagus Garden in Act 3 in terms of transactions and negotiations with the paying guests. [go to text]

n7156   Ambodexter With a pun on the idea of being ambidextrous - in several references, Ambodexter as a lawyer is described as taking money from all sides in an argument. [go to text]

n7157   Pancridge The curate's name seems to refer the area on the edges of London that fell within the parish of St Pancras (or Pancridge). In the 1620s and 1630s it had something of a reputation for marital elopments and for religious leaders who were willing to turn a blind eye to the legality of matches they were being asked to bless. Ben Jonson plays on these associations in his 1633 play A Tale of a Tub which is partly set in this area. [go to text]

gg2663   wonted accustomed [go to text]

n7158   I’th midst o’the journey i.e. in the central act [go to text]

n7159   ACT ONE Scene One: The play opens with Gilbert Goldwire and Walter Chamlet discussing an as yet unnamed character who clearly they have a job to persuade of something. The subject of their discussion turns out to be Samson Touchwood, a choleric, angry old man and Justice of the Peace, who soon enters onstage (the 'least spark kindles him' says Gilbert, referring to Touchwood's suggestive surname). The two young men have come to Touchwood's residence and while a series of formal welcomes and greetings ensue it becomes clear that their topic will inflame Touchwood's volatile temper all too soon. They seek to persuade him that he should allow his son Samuel to marry Annabel Moneylacks-Striker (she is Moneylacks's actual daughter but has been notionally adopted by her grandfather). Striker, however, is Touchwood's old adversary - the two men have been embroiled in a feud that has lasted for some thirty years. Gilbert and Walter's own parents were also similarly at war but were reconciled by Gilbert's marriage to Walter's sister and the two men hope that Samuel and Annabel's relationship might effect a similar entente cordiale between Striker and Touchwood. Furious at their suggestions, Touchwood dismisses them summarily from his house, but as they leave they run into Samuel himself. He is in a deep melancholy at his seemingly impossible romance. Troubled by the need to go against parental law Samuel seems almost suicidal (his lines at this point subtly echoing those of Shakespeare's Hamlet to reinforce this reading). Gilbert and Walter try to calm him down and devise a plot to save the day that will become the basis of the play as it progresses.

Scene Two: We now meet Touchwood's adversary, Striker, another elderly Justice of the Peace. He is in his home conducting a less-than-friendly conversation with Sir Hugh Moneylacks, a destitute knight who we learn is Striker's son-in-law. Striker's daughter is dead, her fortune, it seems having been frittered away by Moneylacks and therefore Striker has taken the daughter of that marriage, Annabel, his grandaughter into his home and is treating her as if she were his daughter (this makes for some confused kinship references in the play). Proving his complete lack of filial care, Sir Hugh is planning to reveal Annabel's secret love affair with Samuel Touchwood in the hope of financial reward. Striker's housekeeper Friswood saves the day, however, in that, having overheard Moneylacks's indiscretions, she claims the whole thing is a plot of her making. In the process of the exchange between Striker and Friswood (another of Brome's striking older female parts, directly comparable to Trainwell in The Northern Lass) the fact that they have a long term sexual relationship is revealed. That Striker addresses Friswood in the aggressive misogynist terms he does seems all the more appalling as a result. The scene ends on a high-pitched emotional note with an onstage encounter between the two young lovers, Samuel and Annabel. [go to text]

n5622   WALTER and GILBERT [enter]. Massed entry in Q: 'Walter, Gilbert, Touchwood.' In practice, Touchwood enters partway through the scene so I have altered and added stage directions accordingly. [go to text]

gg3788   ward watch or guard [go to text]

n7160   he is a most subtle and dangerous fencer to deal withal. Gilbert's lines here, a metaphorical description of Touchwood, nevertheless prefigure later scenes in the play when verbal fencing takes place when Sir Hugh Moneylacks 'trains' Tim Hoyden to be a gentleman by learning to participate in the thrust and parry of verbal banter and insult that was part of everyday practice at the court. [go to text]

n5624   He has not his name for nothing, old Touchwood! Touchwood is the type of wood that easily catches light and is therefore traditionally used as kindling to start fires. In the case of the character Brome is appositely suggesting his volatile temper and nature and there are many punning references to the connection throughout the play. [go to text]

n7161   a few neighbourly and friendly words The context of the neighbourhood as a concept and social force in this play is discussed at further length in the introductory essay. [go to text]

n9776   Gilbert and Walter [together] Ambo (Q). I have indicated that Gilbert and Walter speak this line together since there is precedent for Brome's use of the latin Ambo in this way elsewhere (for example, in A Mad Couple Well Matched). He also uses the term again in Act 3 to indicate a joint exit by characters. The suggestion that Ambo could have referred to the character Ambodexter Trampler in the play was rejected; there is no evidence for his entry into the play this early and although speech prefixes in the quarto edition are erratic, in his case he is consistently identified by the speech prefix Tram. [go to text]

n7163   good neighbours Again the concept of neighbourliness and the social construct of the neighbourhood is brought into the frame of the audience's consideration. [go to text]

n5625   that may be read upon the hospital walls and gates In the early modern period donators and benefactors to good works such as hospitals had their names recorded on the signs or in the name of the building much as in the present day. Both Goldwire and Chamlet's fathers were clearly social philanthropists. [go to text]

n7162   Samson Touchwood's first name may be a way of indicating the parental relationship to Samuel in the play, or a comic allusion to his ageing masculinity. [go to text]

gg1007   wranglers quarrelsome arguers (in the context: highly litigious individuals) [go to text]

n5626   they were at law loggerheads This back-story of the Chamlet-Goldwire legal tussles that lasted nine years and served only to lose the defendants money is a forerunner of Dickens's notorious Jarndyce vs Jarndyce dispute in Bleak House. [go to text]

gg3850   loggerheads to be contending about differences of opinion (OED 8) [go to text]

gg3851   coursed chased (as a hare would be by a greyhound) [go to text]

n5708   held one another play i.e. made one another stay in the legal game or process [go to text]

n5709   Are you there with me? = Is that what you have come to discuss? [go to text]

gg4099   wagers bet [go to text]

gg1494   atonement forgiveness; restoration of friendly relations between persons who have been at variance; reconciliation (OED 2a) [go to text]

n5628   [SAMUEL enters, deep in contemplation.] In all the references to Samuel's contemplative mood here and in the passionate encounter between him and Annabel in the following scene of the first act, there appear to be a series of self-conscious intertheatrical allusions to the archetypal early modern lovers Romeo and Juliet and to the parental strife they suffered at the hands of. [go to text]

gg3852   crabbed of a disagreeably forward or fractious nature [go to text]

n5627   green wood fresh untreated wood, often left to season before use. Interestingly the early modern theatres were themselves constructed from green oak timbers seasoned in forests. [go to text]

gg3365   sere dried up and withered [go to text]

n5629   To disobey a father is a crime Samuel's register is in verse which differentiates him from the prose of his friends. There is another deliberate recalling of Romeo's first entrance in Shakespeare's tragedy Romeo and Juliet when he converses in Petrarchan poetics distinct from the idiomatic prose of his friends. [go to text]

n5630   Love himself i.e. Cupid [go to text]

gg4202   forgo give up, relinquish, deny oneself [go to text]

gg1526   conceit conception, fancy, whim, clever trick [go to text]

gg58   casting devising, contriving (OED cast, 43b); rolling of dice [go to text]

gg508   piece a woman, usually with the connotation of being a sexual object (OED II 9b) [go to text]

gg300   desperate driven to despair or reckless action [go to text]

gg4823   loud manifest, palpable [go to text]

gg3285   lets obstacles, hindrances [go to text]

n5631   The ballet taught you that. This is one of several references in the play to the newly fashionable art-form of ballet which was enjoying particular prominence at the Caroline court due to the French Queen consort Henrietta Maria's patronage. The French court's predeliction for extravagant spectacular ballets, often with romantic or moral themes, also influenced the English court masque at this time (see Britland, 2006). [go to text]

gg3164   shift an expedient, an ingenious device for effecting some purpose (OED n. III 3a) [go to text]

n5711   SAMUEL and WALTER shake hands This entire scene has been an exploration of the various forms and codes of etiquette that governed male society at this time. [go to text]

gg4824   lay allay, put down [go to text]

gg2965   spent exhausted, worn out [go to text]

n7410   1.2 Scene Two: We are now in Striker's household. Striker is Touchwood's phlegmatic rival (each man to a certain extent embodies a 'humour' or an extreme emotion in a reference back to the humours comedy of Brome's great dramatic mentor, Ben Jonson). Striker's phlegm will quite literally surface on the stage when he is provoked by Touchwood's insults into violent bouts of coughing. In this scene, however, Striker's duologue is with Sir Hugh Moneylacks, his erstwhile son-in-law. Through their somewhat tetchy exchanges the audience receives a considerable amount of information and back-story (a form of embedded exposition that allows for increased dramatic flow compared to some expository beginnings to early modern plays). Sir Hugh's wife, Striker's daughter, died young, but not before Sir Hugh had frittered away her personal fortune of £5,000 a year. Striker has disowned his son-in-law who has apparently become known as the 'mourning knight' because he still wears his mourning black clothes (presumably because he cannot afford to replace them). Striker has also assumed parental guardianship of his granddaughter Annabel (the object of Samuel Touchwood's affection). We also learn in passing of several of Sir Hugh's moneymaking schemes or 'projects' - a very loaded term in the context of Caroline society - sedan chairs among them. These are not only referred to on several occasions in the play but in the fifth act will becomes an important stage property. Sir Hugh is also employed part-time by the tenant managers of the Asparagus Garden after which the play is named. He acts as a 'gather-guest' for the gardener and his wife, Martha, bringing guests and therefore profit to the gardens and taking a cut of proceeds accordingly. Moneylacks has come to Striker's residence to warn him of Samuel and Annabel's liaison in hope of a reward (he demonstrates a calculating lack of loyalty to his daughter in this way). This firmly establishes him as a reprobate with audiences and presumably delimits any sympathy for his position now and later in the play's proceedings. This is very much a play where we as an audience are 'in the know' and invited to make judgements. Friswood, the housekeeper, has been listening in to this whole conversation between Striker and Moneylacks just offstage and by the time she appears onstage is already improvising a plot to protect her young mistress's love interests (she too is not averse to finanacial gain, since we learn Samuel has partly bribed her with gifts of wine). Friswood and Striker, we learn here, have their own backstory. There has been an ongoing sexual relationship between master and mistress for many years. As Friswood herself puts it, 'Sir, I have been your creature this thirty years, down lying and uprising . . .'. This makes their relationship of the same duration as Striker's feud with Touchwood. That 30-year time period will become key to the recollections of this play, to the memories of past actions that are eventually revealed and articulated on the stage and their visible consequences. We then see Annabel and Friswood alone together discussing Samuel and too Annabel's deep love for him. The couple are archetypal thwarted young lovers, even deliberately clichéd in the play's self-conscious allusions to Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet in their brief scenes together. Their verbal exchanges which take place here when Samuel enters onstage also enable the physical exchange of a key stage property and plot catalyst - a letter, which reveals to Annabel the plot devised by Sam's friends and which will now unfold over the following four acts. [go to text]

n5712   in mine own house A typical line to help the audience locate the new location of the scene in Striker's house. [go to text]

n5632   glossed Q (glosled) [go to text]

n5714   Stand and deliver The traditional catchphrase of highwaymen when intending to rob a coach or travellers on horseback. Striker is comparing Moneylacks to a common criminal in this regard. [go to text]

n5713   I think I was wi’ye = I think I understood (or deceiphered) you correctly. This is Striker's tag line throughout this scene. Brome was fond of giving characters linguistic markers in this way; compare Sir Paul Squelch's fondness for the term 'directly' in The Northern Lass. [go to text]

gg3855   ladified i.e. made into a lady (usually by marriage) [go to text]

n7164   fetch her again i.e. bring her back to life [go to text]

n5633   Nor mourned more justly: it is your only wearing The implication is that Sir Hugh appears onstage in mourning attire. This would be highly unusual seven years after his the death of his wife. Mourning clothing was usually worn for a year. Striker suggests that this is less out of intense grief for his late wife than for the fact that Moneylacks cannot afford to replace his wardrobe due to his state of indebtedness. [go to text]

n5634   my house shall be no enchanted castle to detain your knight-errantship from your adventures Striker plays with images and ideas from medieval romance here in order to indicate how far from the ideal of chivalry a knight such as Sir Hugh has fallen. [go to text]

n5636   I have made her mine. I will adopt her into mine own name Striker announces his decision here to adopt Annabel as his formal daughter which explains the confusion of terms in the play. Annabel is both his grand-daughter and his daughter in this respect. Brome seems to make comic capital of the confusion this creates. [go to text]

gg1143   portion dowry (monies, goods or lands brought by the wife to augment her husband’s estate on their marriage) [go to text]

n5637   You have a wit, Sir Hugh, and a projective one Striker refers to the financial projects many courtiers became involved in during the early Stuart period, some of them more realistic and successful than others, such as fen-drainage. [go to text]

n5638   some new project afoot now to outgo that of the handbarrows – what call you ’em, the sedans Sedan chairs had recently become a very fashionable mode of transport in the streets with London. Henry Peacham refers to the phenomenon in his pamphlet Coach and Sedan (London, 1637). See also Act 4 of The Antipodes. [go to text]

gg3544   project plan or design a scheme for (OED v1. 1a) (often used by Brome to suggest a scam or cheat of some kind) [go to text]

n7165   handbarrows one of several phrases for sedan chairs in the play; they are also referred to as 'hand-litters' at one point and the men who carry them are described as 'littermen' in the persons of the play. Sedan chairs were a new phenomenon in London in the 1630s and the subject of many references in plays and pamhplets. including Henry Peacham's 1635 pamphlet playlet, Coach and Sedan. [go to text]

n5635   Asparagus Garden This is the first mention of the central setting of the play. We will not actually enter the Asparagus Garden until the third act. The Prologue to the play as published makes a knowing reference to this withholding of the title location until the middle of the play. [go to text]

gg4825   pension regular payment, fee [go to text]

n7166   gather-guest i.e. Sir Hugh brings new custom (he quite literally gathers guests for the gardener and his wife who are its tenant managers) to the Asparagus Garden and presumably gets commission or a share of the profits as a result. [go to text]

n5639   play the Fly of The New Inn Fly is a character in Ben Jonson's 1629 play The New Inn who is at the centre of operations in the inn that forms the setting for the action. He is variously described as having been signed over to the Host in the inventory of the building and as a gypsy but the comparison would ensure that audiences saw Moneylacks as a kind of servant to the owners of The Asparagus Garden. [go to text]

gg3856   advertise warn [go to text]

gg2873   piece coin, usually gold, and at this date the equal of twenty-two shillings (the spending worth in today's currency would be £94.38p.) [go to text]

n7167   match-broker i.e. an arranger of marriages [go to text]

n5640   [Aside] It is interesting that Friswood's first line in the play is an aside (possibly delivered to the audience) indicating that she has overheard the previous scene and will think on her feet to protect Sam and Annabel from the consequences. This immediately positions her somewhat within our sympathies and Brome's decision to give asides and soliloquies to female characters in this way is present in other plays such as The Northern Lass, where it is the female characters alone who speak (albeit brief) soliloquies. Friswood has a direct counterpart in that play in the role of Trainwell, Sir Paul Squelch's housekeeper who has also been in his employ since the days of his late wife. [go to text]

n5641   the devil’s dam herself, your old mistress This is Striker's less than flattering reference to his late wife. [go to text]

n5642   Flibber de Jibb A play on the term flibbertigibit, meaning a gossip or a frivolous woman. [go to text]

gs710   fly-flap headwear or hood [go to text]

n5643   your old white-leather hide Striker's implication is that Friswood has very leathery old skin. This leads into a whole series of ageist references. [go to text]

gg733   lewd vile, evil; worthless; lascivious [go to text]

n7168   in love-league together i.e. conducting an illicit romance [go to text]

gg2480   gullery trickery [go to text]

n5716   ha, ha, ha This phrase or the act of laughing effectively punctuates Friswood's speech enabling her to improvise and think on her feet. It's a form of buying of mental time to process what needs to be done in the situation. [go to text]

n5644   I have been your creature this thirty years, down lying and uprising Friswood implies that there has been a sexual relationship between herself and her employer. [go to text]

gg40   creature one ready to do another's bidding, puppet (through patronage or devotion) (OED 5) [go to text]

n5645   to be sung in a ballet This is one of several references in the play to the newly fashionable art-form of ballet which was enjoying particular prominence at the Caroline court due to the French Queen consort Henrietta Maria's patronage. The French court's predeliction for extravagant spectacular ballets, often with romantic or moral themes, also influenced the English court masque at this time. (See Britland, 2006.) [go to text]

n5646   to have crept into Eve’s bed, as I did into my mistress’s As at other points in the play Friswood implies that she has had a sexual relationship with her employer. [go to text]

gg3794   shift movement (sometimes with a sexual meaning) [go to text]

n5717   as your abilities will serve you There are numerous implications of Striker's impotency or fading sexual prowess in the course of this exchange with Friswood, with whom he appears to have sexual relations of a sort. [go to text]

n5718   I mean your daughter that was mother to this daughter which now you have made your daughter This is an example of a moment where Brome draws comic attention to his own convoluted plotline. [go to text]

n5719   the sheath to your steel A proverbial expression for loyalty although in context there are clearly also bawdy sexual undertones to the phrase. [go to text]

n5648   Fid Possibly Striker's familiar shortening of Friswood's surname (Annabel, however, calls her Fris); possibly an indicator of her first name, perhaps Fidelity, which would certainly describe her loyal thirty years service to her employer. [go to text]

n5648   Fid Possibly Striker's familiar shortening of Friswood's surname (Annabel, however, calls her Fris); possibly an indicator of her first name, perhaps Fidelity, which would certainly describe her loyal thirty years service to her employer. [go to text]

gg2873   piece coin, usually gold, and at this date the equal of twenty-two shillings (the spending worth in today's currency would be £94.38p.) [go to text]

gg4826   miscreant reprobate [go to text]

n5720   for all the good neighbourhood in the parish The importance of parish politics and the ideas of a neighbourhood are palpable in this play. [go to text]

gg4827   infidel an unbeliever (usually in the context of a dominant religion) [go to text]

gg3728   runlet cask or vessel of varying capacity; or the quantity of liquor contained therein [go to text]

gg2803   muscadine a sweet wine made from the muscat grape [go to text]

n5722   SAMUEL enters Placed before Friswood's speech in Q, but in view of her startled response to Samuel's appearance I have relocated the SD as better positioned at this point. [go to text]

gg4828   prattling talking foolishly (OED v.) [go to text]

gg3795   pistolling action of shooting with a pistol [go to text]

n5723   come short of the man he was to be further connotations of Striker's fading sexual prowess in his old age [go to text]

n5650   the danger of my neck i.e. the risk of hanging for the attempted murder of Striker. [go to text]

n5651   making a bonfire in Smithfield i.e. being burned as a witch in the market square (Friswood is being partly hyperbolic here in that witch-burnings had not taken place in London in recent times). [go to text]

n7169   Unsavoury, loathsome medicines we will take There are numerous ways in which this play appears to engage with current medical debates around herbalism, the College of Physicians and the role of the barber-surgeons in London. This is discussed in more detail in the introductory essay to this play. [go to text]

gg3796   ague acute fever [go to text]

gg3797   corsives = corrosive (obsolete seventeenth-century usage) [go to text]

gg4829   dissevered i.e. severed [go to text]

gg4830   gangrene necrosis or mortification (or dying off) of a part of the body [go to text]

gg4831   bear i.e. as in 'bear a burden' [go to text]

n7170   bear me out i.e. prove me right (Sam is punning on his previous use of the term 'bear' in the same speech to mean a 'burden'). [go to text]

n5652   As I live my master ―― Friswood seems to hear noises offstage that would imply Striker is returning to the room. [go to text]

gg4832   whip move briskly [go to text]

gg2018   Whoop an exclamation indicating surprise [go to text]

n5724   We leave for truce at raising of the siege This is yet further example of Samuel's hyperbolic discourse and his sub-Petrarchan idiom throughout the first act. The phrase in full refers to the exchange of pledges to promise loyalty to terms between combatants involved in a siege situation as part of the complex negotations carried out in a truce. In truth they are tokens of love not war that Samuel and Annabel are exchanging and the reference serves to remind the audience once again about the all-important letter that has been handed over during the course of the scene. [go to text]

n6719   Epilogue Indication is not given as to who speaks this Epilogue, which directly addresses the audience. [go to text]

gg409   gamesters one who gambles (OED 3); lewd person of either sex (OED 5) [go to text]

n6717   ’Tis only in your hands to crown a play i.e. by applause. [go to text]

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