ARM. Pretty, and apt. MOTH. How mean you, sir? I pretty, and my saying apt? or I apt, and my saying pretty? ARM. Thou pretty, because little. MOTH. Little pretty, because little: Wherefore apt? ARM. And therefore apt, because quick. MOTH. Speak you this in my praise, master? MOTH. I will praise an eel with the same praise. ARM. I do say, thou art quick in answers: Thou heatest my blood. MOTH. I am answered, sir. ARM. I love not to be crossed. MOTH. He speaks the mere contrary, crosses love not him?? [Aside. ARM. I have promised to study three years with the duke. MOTH. You may do it in an hour, sir. MOTH. How many is one thrice told? ARM. I am ill at reckoning, it fitteth the sp rit of a tapster 8 MOTH. You are a gentleman, and a gamester, sir. ARM. I confess both; they are both the varnish of a complete man. MOTH. Then, I am sure, you know how much the gross sum of deuce-ace amounts to. * First folio, ingenuous. 66 - If I should 7 CROSSES love not him?] By crosses he means money. So, in As You Like It, the Clown says to Celia: bear you, I should bear no cross." JOHNSON. 66 8 I am ill at RECKONING, it fitteth the spirit of a TAPSTER.] Again, in Troilus and Cressida : 'A tapster's arithmetick may soon bring his particulars therein to a total." STEEVENS. ARM. It doth amount to one more than two. MOTH. Why, sir, is this such a piece of study? Now here is three studied, ere you'll thrice wink: and how easy it is to put years to the word three, and study three years in two words, the dancing horse will tell you 9. 9 And how easy it is to put years to the word three, and study three years in two words, the DANCING HORSE will tell you.] Bankes's horse, which play'd many remarkable pranks. Sir Walter Raleigh (History of the World, First Part, p. 178,) says, “If Banks had lived in older times, he would have shamed all the inchanters in the world: for whosoever was most famous among them, could never master, or instruct any beast as he did his horse." And Sir Kenelm Digby (A Treatise on Bodies, ch. xxxviii. p. 393,) observes: "That his horse would restore a glove to the due owner, after the master had whispered the man's name in his ear; would tell the just number of pence in any piece of silver coin, newly showed him by his master; and even obey presently his command, in discharging himself of his excrements, whensoever he had bade him." DR. GREY. Bankes's horse is alluded to by many writers contemporary with Shakspeare; among the rest, by Ben Jonson, in Every Man out of his Humour : He keeps more ado with this monster, than ever Bankes did with his horse." 66 Again, in Hall's Satires, lib. iv. sat. 2: "More than who vies his pence to view some tricke Again, in Ben Jonson's 134th Epigram: "Old Banks the jugler, our Pythagoras, "Grave tutor to the learned horse," &c. The fate of this man and his very docile animal, is not exactly known, and, perhaps, deserves not to be remembered. From the next lines, however, to those last quoted, it should seem as if they had died abroad: 66 66 Both which Being, beyond sea, burned for one witch, "Their spirits transmigrated to a cat." Among the entries at Stationer's Hall is the following; Nov. 14, 1595: A ballad shewing the strange qualities of a young nagg called Morocco." Among other exploits of this celebrated beast, it is said that he went up to the top of St. Paul's; and the same circumstance is ARM. A most fine figure! MOTH. To prove you a cypher. [Aside. 66 likewise mentioned in The Guls Horn-booke, a satirical pamphlet by Decker, 1609: - From hence you may descend to talk about the horse that went up, and strive, if you can, to know his keeper; take the day of the month, and the number of the steppes, and suffer yourself to believe verily that it was not a horse, but something else in the likeness of one." Again, in Chrestoloros, or Seven Bookes of Epigrames, written by T. B. [Thomas Bastard] 1598, lib. iii. ep. 17: Of Bankes's Horse. 66 "Bankes hath a horse of wondrous qualitie, "For he can fight, and pisse, and dance, and lie, In 1595, was published a pamphlet entitled, Maroccus Extaticus, or Bankes's Bay Horse in a Trance: A Discourse set downe in a merry Dialogue between Bankes and his Beast: anatomizing some Abuses and bad Trickes of this Age, 4to.: prefixed to which, was a print of the horse standing on his hind legs with a stick in his mouth, his master with a stick in his hand and a pair of dice on the ground. Ben Jonson [in his 134th Epigram] hints at the unfortunate catastrophe of both man and horse, which I find happened at Rome, where to the disgrace of the age, of the country, and of humanity, they were burnt by order of the pope, for magicians. See Don Zara del Fogo, 12mo. 1660, p. 114. REED. Bankes narrowly escaped in France, as we learn from Bishop Morton's answer to Theophilus Higgins: "Which bringeth into my remembrance a storie which Banks told me at Frankeford, from his own experience in France among the Capuchins, by whom he was brought into suspition of magicke, because of the strange feates which his horse Morocco plaied (as I take it) at Orleance; where he to redeem his credit, promised to manifest to the world that his horse was nothing lesse than a divell. To this end he commanded his horse to seek out one in the preasse of the people, who had a crucifixe on his hat; which done, he bad him kneele downe unto it; and not this only, but also to rise up againe and to kisse it. And now, gentlemen, (quoth he) I think my horse hath acquitted both me and himself; and so his adversaries rested satisfied: conceiving (as it might seeme) that the divell had no power to come neare the crosse.” The best account of Bankes and his horse is to be found (as Mr. Douce observes) in the notes to a French translation of Apuleius's Golden Ass, by Jean De Montlyard Sieur de Milleray, 1602. Boswell, ARM. I will hereupon confess, I am in love: and, as it is base for a soldier to love, so am I in love with a base wench. If drawing my sword against the humour of affection would deliver me from the reprobate thought of it, I would take Desire prisoner, and ransom him to any French courtier for a new devised courtesy. I think scorn to sigh; methinks, I should out-swear Cupid. Comfort me, boy: What great men have been in love? MOTH. Hercules, master. The following representation of Bankes and his Horse, is a facsimile from a rude wooden frontispiece to the pamphlet mentioned by Mr. Reed. ARM. Most sweet Hercules !-More authority, dear boy, name more; and, sweet my child, let them be men of good repute and carriage. MOTH. Sampson, master: he was a man of good carriage, great carriage; for he carried the towngates on his back, like a porter: and he was in love. ARM. O well-knit Sampson! strong-jointed Sampson! I do excel thee in my rapier, as much as thou did'st me in carrying gates. I am in love too,-Who was Sampson's love, my dear Moth? MOTH. A woman, master. ARM. Of what complexion? MOTH. Of all the four, or the three, or the two; or one of the four. ARM. Tell me precisely of what complexion? ARM. Is that one of the four complexions? MOTH. As I have read, sir; and the best of them too. ARM. Green, indeed, is the colour of lovers 2: but to have a love of that colour, methinks, Sampson had small reason for it. He, surely, affected her for her wit. MOTH. It was so, sir; for she had a green wit. ARM. My love is most immaculate white and red. 2 GREEN, indeed, is the colour of LOVERS:] I do not know whether our author alludes to "the rare green eye," which in his time seems to have been thought a beauty, or to that frequent attendant on love, jealousy, to which, in The Merchant of Venice, and in Othello, he has applied the epithet green-ey'd. MALONE. Perhaps Armado neither alludes to green eyes, nor to jealousy ; but to the willow, the supposed ornament of unsuccessful lovers : 66 Sing, all a green willow shall be my garland," is the burden of an ancient ditty preserved in The Gallery of gorgious Inventions, &c. 4to. 1578. STEEVENS. |