Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 10.djvu/85

 12 S.X.JAN. 28, 1922.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 63 Dutch fashion) occurs several times in his works, e.g., ' Gull's Hornbook ' (Grosart, vol. i., p. 206), ' Northward Hoe,' II. i. It is not to be found in Massinger's plays. 2. Hircius : Thy last shall serve my foot. References to the shoemaker's trade are noticeably frequent in Dekker. He again uses this expression in ' Westward Hoe,' II. iii. : That last shall serve all our feet. It must be rare, for I have found it in no other Elizabethan play. 3. Spungius : . . . as I am a demi-pagan, I sold the victuals, &c. ; and twice again, a few lines below : Hircius : As I am a total pagan. Spungius : As I am a pagan, &c. Such phrases " as I am a gentleman," " as I'm a Christian," " as I'm a sinner," &c. are typical of Dekker. 4. Spungius : The peaking chitface hit me in the teeth with it. The expression "to hit one in the teeth," although not generally common, is also one constantly used by Dekker. It is in III. iii., ' Gull's Hornbook ' (Grosart, i, 158), ' Patient Grissil ' (Sh. Soc. Reprint, 37), 'The Roaring Girl,' IV. ii. and V. i., &c. It is not used in any of Massinger's numerous independent plays. The speeches of Angelo and Dorothea are essentially Dekkerian in style and .spirit. Angelo's vigorous outburst on hear- ing that the money entrusted to Hircius for the relief of prisoners has been " paid away " : What way ? the devil's way, the way of sin, The way of hot damnation, way of lust ? is particularly characteristic, with its em- phatic repetitions. And for such lines as these : I could weary stars, And force the wakeful moon to lose her eyes, By my late watching. one might, as Mr. Arthur Symons has re- marked, search from end to end of Mas- singer's plays in vain. Scene ii. All in metre. The hands of both authors are apparent here. Metrical considerations .seem to point to Dekker as the principal author ; the scene Was probably written by him and afterwards touched up by Massinger. Two clear indications of Dekker are to be noted. The first is in a speech of, Harpax : 1. This Macrinus, The line is, upon which love-errands run 'Twixt Antoninus and. . . Dorothea. The allusion here, to fireworks running upon lines, is indubitably Dekker's. It is to be found in ' The Whore of Babylon ' (Pearson, ii. 230), " Northward Hoe,' IV. iv., ' Jests to Make You Merrie ' (Grosart. ii. 343), and doubless elsewhere. Dekker again applies it figuratively, as in the text, to a person employed to carry messages from one person to another. Compare ' The Roaring Girl,' V. i. (one of Dekker's scenes) : A justice in this town . . . used that rogue like a firework, to run upon a line betwixt him and me. And again in The Honest Whore,' Pt. 2. II. i., we have : The fireworks that ran from me upon lines against my good old master, &c. The other is in Theophilus's speech at the end of the scene. 2. I will not lose thee then, her to confound. I doubt if a single instance of an inver- sion of this kind is to be found in the whole collection of Massinger's plays, whereas there are several such in Dekker. So far as I have noticed, they occur always in tragic passages. The following may be given as examples : Have we not all it tasted ? (' Whore of Babylon,' Pearson, ii. 256.) Nothing but your mercy me can save. (Ibid., ii. 267). Mine own shame me confounds. (' Roaring Girl,' IV. ii.) Massinger's hand is to be recognized in the following passages : 1. Theophilus : I'm turned a marble statue at thy language. Compare : almost turns me into a senseless statue. (' Emperor of the East,' V. i.) Are we all turned statues ? Have his strange words charmed us ? (' City Madam,' III. ii.) 2. Antoninus Plays the Endymion to this pale-faced moon. This is part of the speech of Harpax containing the fireworks allusion to which reference is made above. For the allusion to Endymion, compare : . . . he's a man, For whose embraces, though Endymion Lay sleeping by, Cynthia would leave her orb. (' Guardian,' II. ii.) Though Dekker also has allusions to Endymion (see ' Match Me in London,' Pearson, iv. 211), "pale-faced moon" stamps this reference as Massinger's. We
 * Satiromastix,' I. ii., " Westward Hoe,'