Beggars Bush: A Perambulation through the Disciplines of History, Geography, Archaeology, Literature, Philology, Natural History, Botany, Biography & Beggary

John Taylor The Praise, Antiquity and Commodity of Beggary, Beggars & begging, etc. 1621

“I have here made bold to present to your illiterate protection, a beggarly Pamphlet of my threed-bare invention . . . I thought to have dedicated it to Beggars Bush, neere Andever, or to his Hawthorne brother within a mile of Huntingdon; but I considered at last, that the laps of your long Coate could shelter me as well [o]r better than any beggarly Thorne-bush.”

The Fool

Taylor’s mock dedication from the introduction to his pamphlet was directed towards Archy Armstrong, King James’s Fool, and refers to his coat of motley, the symbol of the Fool. Taylor despised Armstrong, who was renowned for his illiteracy and venality. He refers elsewhere to Armstrong’s “nimble tongue, to make other mens money runne into your purse” and called him “the bright eye-dazeling mirrour of mirth, adelantado of alacrity, the pump of pastime, spout of sport and Regent of ridiculous Confabulations”.
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Posted: March 19th, 2011 | Filed under: Writers, The Play | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | No Comments »


James Mabbe The Rogue by Mateo Aleman 1623

” . . . almost brought to beggars bush . . .”

Usage

The usage is consistent with the literary use. We know the phrase was in use in Oxford before 1623 from the Twyne Correspondence. It seems likely to have to originated with Mabbe, who was a faithful but not literal translator. The phrase does not appear in an edition of 1706 described as being newly “done into English”. In Mabbe’s translation of La Celestina (as The Spanish Bawd) by Fernando de Rojas he uses the similar phrase, “She was as well known to them all, as the begger knows his dish”.
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Posted: March 1st, 2011 | Filed under: Writers | Tags: , , , , , , | No Comments »