[102] [Old copy, _lights_, and in the line before, _Sons--fights_.]
[108] Michaelmas term now has but four returns. By the Statute 16 Car. I. c. vi. it was abridged of two; and again, by 24 Geo. II. c. xlviii. of the like number.
[109] In secret. This uncouth expression occurs in "Hamlet," act iv. sc. 5, which many modern editors have altered to the more modern phrase of _in private_; but as Dr Johnson observes, "if phraseology is to be changed as words grow uncouth by disuse, or gross by vulgarity, the history of every language will be lost; we shall no longer have the words of any author; and as these alterations will often be unskilfully made, we shall in time have very little of his meaning." Mr Steevens, by several instances, has shown that the terms were in common use, and conveyed no low or vulgar ideas, and several others might be added: as in Ascham's "Toxophilus," 1571: "If shootinge fault at anye time, it hydes it not, it lurkes not in corners and _budder mother_."
[110] The 4o reads _breast_.--_Steevens._
[112] _i.e._, unsheathe them, let them be _naked_ swords.--_Steevens._
[114] The 4o reads, _Well, have the fairest mark_.--_Collier._
[115] [A MS. note in one of the former edits., suggests, _to other times leave words_].
[119] The 4o reads, _I cannot be express'd_.--_Collier._
[121] ["Mark this--it was his intention from the first to die when his revenge had been consummated."--_MS. note in former edition._]
[122] _Clos'd_ for _disclos'd_.--_Gilchrist._
_The dumbe Knight. A historicall Comedy, acted sundry times by the children of his Maiesties Reuels. London, Printed by Nicholas Okes, for Iohn Bache, and are to be sold at his shop in Popes-head Palace, neere to the Royall Exchange._ 1608. 4o.[123]
_The Dumbe Knight. An Historicall Comedy, acted sundry times by the children of his Majesties Revells. London, Printed by A.M. for William Sheares, and are to be sold at his shoppe in Chancery Lane, near Seriants Inne._ 1633. 4o.
Lewes Machin was assisted, as he states, in writing this play, by one "whose worth hath been often approved," and it is singular that until very recently the name of his coadjutor should have remained unknown, when in the Garrick Collection, always accessible in the British Museum, is a copy of "The Dumb Knight," edition of 1608, with the name of his "partner in the wrong" on the title-page, viz., Jervis or Gervase Markham. Another copy, with the same distinction, was sold in Mr Rhodes' collection. Why it was afterwards altered cannot now be ascertained; perhaps Markham wished to avoid the consequences of the "strange constructions" on the play to which Machin in his epistle refers, and therefore withdrew his name. Nevertheless the address of Machin "to the understanding reader" is prefixed to the copies with and without the name of his assistant.