Chapter 5

[Footnote 10: EDMUND BRANTHWAITE.--Robert Branthwaite, William Branthwaite _Cant._, and "Thy assured friend" R. B., have each written Commendatory Verses to ALL THE WORKS OF JOHN TAYLOR. London 1630. And Southey in his "Lives and Works of Uneducated Poets," has the following:--"One might have hoped in these parts for a happy meeting between John Taylor and Barnabee, of immortal memory; indeed it is likely that the Water-Poet and the Anti-Water-Poet were acquainted, and that the latter may have introduced him to his connections hereabout, Branthwaite being the same name as Brathwait, and Barnabee's brother having married a daughter of this Sir John Dalston."]

[Footnote 11: PIERCE PENNILESS, by Thomas Nash. London, 1592.]

[Footnote 12: This "ordnance of iron" still exists there, and is historically known as "Mons Meg" and popularly as "Long Meg."]

[Footnote 13: RECEITE.--A receptacle.]

[Footnote 14: VAUSTITY.--Emptiness.]

[Footnote 15: _See_ Anderson's The Cold Spring of Kinghorn Craig, Edinb. 1618.]

[Footnote 16: CORYATIZING.--Thomas Coryate, an English traveller, who called himself the "Odcombian leg-stretcher." He was the son of the rector of Odcombe, and in 1611 published an account of his travels on the Continent with the singular title of "Coryates Crudities. Hastily gobled up in five Moneths travells in France, Savoy, Italy, Rhetia, commonly called the Grisons country, Helvetia, alias Switzerland, some parts of high Germany, and the Netherlands; Newly digested in the hungary aire of Odcombe in the county of Somerset, and now dispersed to the nourishment of the travelling members of this Kingdome, &c. London, printed by W. S., Anno Domini 1611." Taylor had an especial grudge against Coryat, for having had influence enough to procure his "Laugh and be Fat"--directed against the traveller--to be burned; and that he never failed to "feed fat the ancient grudge," may be seen in the many pieces of ridicule levelled at the author of the "Crudities," even after his death.]

[Footnote 17: TOPHET.--The Hebrew name for _Hell_.]

[Footnote 18: CIMMERIAN.--Pertaining to the Cimmerii, or their country; extremely and perpetually dark. The Cimmerii were an ancient people of the land now called the Crimea, and their country being subject to heavy fogs, was fabled to be involved in deep and continual obscurity. Ancient poets also mention a people of this name who dwelt in a valley near Lake Avernus, in Italy, which the sun was said never to visit.]

[Footnote 19: PERTH.]

[Footnote 20: BRAEMAR.]

[Footnote 21: VIRGINAL JACK.--A keyed instrument resembling a spinet.]

[Footnote 22: RED-SHANKS.--A contemptuous appellation for Scottish Highland clansmen and native Irish, with reference to their naked hirsute limbs, and "As lively as a _Red-Shank_" is still a proverbial saying:--"And we came into Ireland, where they would have landed in the north parts. But I would not, because there the inhabitants were all _Red-shanks_."--_Sir Walter Raleigh's_ Speech on the Scaffold.]

[Footnote 23: PUT ME INTO THAT SHAPE.--That is, invested him in Highland attire.]

[Footnote 24: "Probably the district around the skirts of Ben Muicdui."--_Chambers'_ Domestic Annals of Scotland.]

[Footnote 25: BALLOCH CASTLE.--Now called Castle-Grant.]

[Footnote 26: MORAY.]

[Footnote 27: MORAYLAND.]

[Footnote 28: SUGAR-CANDIAN.--_i.e._, Sugar-candy.]

[Footnote 29: A PIECE OF GOLD OF TWO-AND-TWENTY SHILLINGS.--"This was a considerable present; but Jonson's hand and heart were ever open to his acquaintance. All his pleasures were social; and while health and fortune smiled upon him, he was no niggard either of his time or talents to those who needed them. There is something striking in Taylor's concluding sentence, when the result of his (Jonson's) visit to Drummond is considered:--but there is one _evil that walks_, which keener eyes than John's have often failed to discover.--I have only to add, in justice to this honest man (Taylor) that his gratitude outlived the subject of it. He paid the tribute of a verse to his benefactor's memory:--the verse indeed, was mean: but poor Taylor had nothing better to give."--Lt. Col. Francis Cunningham's edition of Gifford's Ben Jonson's Works, p. xli.

"In the summer of 1618 Scotland received a visit from the famous Ben Jonson. The burly Laureate walked all the way, among the motives for a journey then undertaken by few Englishmen, might be curiosity regarding a country from which he knew that his family was derived, his grandfather having been one of the Johnsons of Annandale. He had many friends too, particularly among the connections of the Lennox family, whom he might be glad to see at their own houses. Among those with whom he had amicable intercourse, was William Drummond, the poet, then in the prime of life, and living as a bachelor in his romantic mansion of Hawthornden, on the Esk, seven miles from Edinburgh. It is probable that Drummond and Jonson had met before in London, and indulged together in the "wit-combats" at the Mermaid and similar scenes. Indeed, there is a prevalent belief in Scotland that it was mainly to see Drummond at Hawthornden that Jonson came so far from home, and certain it is, from Drummond's report of his '_Conversations_,' that he designed 'to write a Fisher or Pastoral (Piscatory?) Play--and make the stage of it on the Lomond Lake--he also contemplated writing in prose his 'Foot Pilgrimage to Scotland,' which, with a feeling very natural in one who found so much to admire where so little had been known, he spoke of entitling 'A DISCOVERY.' Unfortunately, this work, as well as a poem in which he called Edinburgh--

'The Heart of Scotland, Britain's other eye,'

has not been preserved to us. We can readily see that the work contemplated must have been of a general character, from Jonson's letters to Drummond on the subject of it. How much to be regretted that we have not the Scotland of that day delineated by so vigorous a pen as that of the author of _Sejanual_"--_Chambers'_ Domestic Annals of Scotland, vol. 1.

Whether Taylor's "Penniless Pilgrimage" really did interfere with, and prevent the publication of Ben Jonson's 'Foot Pilgrimage' would now be difficult to say. It is very evident from Taylor's remarks in his Dedication "To all my loving adventurers, &c.," he had been accused by the critics that he "_did undergo this project, either in malice, or mockage of Master Benjamin Jonson_." It is quite certain that Taylor lost no time in getting his "Pilgrimage" printed "at the charges of the author" immediately on his return to London on the fifteenth of October 1618.]

[Footnote 30: ROUSE.--A full glass, a bumper.]

[Footnote 31: UNFELLOWED.--_i.e._, not matched.]

[Footnote 32: TO ISLINGTON TO THE SIGN OF THE MAINDENHEAD.--This then roadside Public-house, we are informed from recent enquiries, was situate at the corner of Maiden Lane, Battle Bridge, now known as King's Cross, from a statue of George IV.--a most execrable performance taken down 1842. The "Old Pub" is turned into a gin palace, and named the Victoria, while Maiden Lane--an ancient way leading from Battle Bridge to Highgate Hill--is known now as York Road.]

[Footnote 33: GUY OF WARWICK.--There are several versions and editions of this work. In the book of the Stationers' Company, John Trundle--he at the sign of NO-BODY--on the 15th of January, 1619, entered "a play, called the Life and Death of Guy Earl of Warwick, written by John Day and Thomas Dekker." See Baker's Biog. Dram., page 274, vol. 2.--"Well, if he read this with patience I'll be gelt, and troll ballads for Master Trundle yonder, the rest of my mortality."--_Ben Jonson's_ Every Man in his Humour, act i. sc. 2.]

Corrections Made by Transcriber

Page 16, line 16: "hls" changed to "his." Page 36: "forgotton" changed to "forgotten." Page 46: "musquitoes" changed to "mosquitoes." Footnote 6, last line of poem: "he" changed to "be." Page 46: Orphaned right parenthesis removed.