A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 10

Part II., Queen Elizabeth, when she christened the Royal Exchange,

Chapter 20273 wordsPublic domain

after it had been built by Sir T. Gresham, changed its name from the _Burse_, which it had been previously called--

"Proclaim through every high street of this city, This place be no longer called a Burse, But since the building's stately, fair, and strange, Be it for ever call'd the Royal Exchange."

Sig. H 2. The terms were afterwards often used indifferently, and Pisaro, just before, calls the _Exchange_ the _Burse_.

[496] _Away_ is omitted in the two last impressions.

[497] [A quibble on _antique_ and _antic_.]

[498] This word seems to have puzzled our dictionary-makers very needlessly. Mr Todd quotes Skinner, who derives it from _top and turf_: the etymology is very simple, and will be acknowledged the instant it is stated: _topsy-turvy_ is only an abbreviation of _topside t'other way_, or the upper end of anything turned downwards--_i.e._, bottom upwards. Archdeacon Nares got as far as _top side_, but _turvy_, he acknowledged, set his ingenuity at defiance.

[499] A proverbial expression. _Mowing_ is a corruption of mouthing.

[500] A common term of abuse at that period, derived from the clowns or fools, and in reference to their dress.

[501] _i.e._, By our Ladykin.

[502] Walgrave, abstracted, does not perceive that Pisaro has gone out, for which Harvey laughs at him, _Many Pisaros here_! In the same sense, in act v., Laurentia says, _Many Balsaros I_.

[503] Meaning Mathea.

[504] Gibberish is no doubt derived from _gibber_, and it means idle nonsense. Whether _gibber_ comes from _geber_, as Dr Johnson contends, must remain in doubt.

[505] [Old copies, _we_.]

[506] "The blind eats many a fly," was proverbial, and, according to Henslowe's Diary, formed the title of a play by Thomas Heywood, under date of November 1602. [See Hazlitt's "Proverbs," 1869, p. 359.]