A Select Collection of Old English Plays Volume I Part 82

105. The proverb. This is the earliest use of it which has occurred.

106. Thrust.

107. Every each one.

108. The colophon in one of Skot's editions is at the end; in his other there is only his mark. But see Hazlitt's "Handbook," p. 463-4.

109. The only one known. There is a later edition in the Bodleian, printed by John Waley, and also apparently unique.

110. [This is an odd remark, the woodcuts being all common cuts of the time, turned to an extraordinary variety of uses. They are very ineffectively given by Hawkins, whoever his _masterly hand_ may have been.]

111. Holt sometimes signifies a wood, grove, or forest: so Chaucer:--

"When Zephyrus eke, with his sweet breath Inspired hath, in every holt and heath The tender croppis;"

it sometimes signifies a hill: so in the old Scotish song of "Robin and Makin"--

"Makyne went home blyth anneuche, Attour the holttis hair."

--_Henryson's Works_, by Laing, p. 7.

112. Wilderness.

113. Property or money.

114. Thrive.

115. Apparently the prison cell, divided into two parts, so as to hold two persons.

116. Prisoners in chains.

117. An allusion I do not understand.

118. i.e., steal. So Shakespeare:--

[_Nim_. The good humour is to steal at a minim's rest.

_Pist_. Convey, the wise it call: steal? foh; a fico for the phrase.

--_Merry Wives of Windsor_.

i. 3, Dyce's second edition, i. 353.]

119. [A proverb. See Hazlitt's "English Proverbs," 1869, p. 395.]

120. Lying or falsehood.

121. Heel.

122. Apulia.

123. Arragon.

124. The Cape of Good Hope.

125. Newfoundland.

126. Genoa.

127. See "Halliwell'a Dictionary," in v. The exact origin and meaning of the word, which seems to be a mere fantastic phrase, is apparently unknown.

128. Egypt.

129. Shaped, contrived.

130. Original reads _said_.

131. Favour or favouritism.

132. Pledge.

133. _At nale_, at the alehouse. So Chaucer in the "Frere's Tale":--

"And thay were glad to fille wel his purs, And make him grete festis atte nale."

--_Bell's Chaucer_, ii. 91.

134. i.e., The dagger.

135. Old copy, _hyz_.

136. Original, _away_.

137. Compare "A Treatise of a Galaunt," printed about this time, and reprinted in "Hazlitt's Popular Poetry," iii. 151 et seq.; also the ballad called "The Manner of the World Now-a-days," in Collier's "Old Ballads," 1840.

138. Original reads _with_.

139. Adultery.

140. Since.

141. Perhaps Freewill was intended to speak incorrect French.

142. Soiled.

143. A proverb.

144. A medicinal gum.

145. _Quick brimstone_, gunpowder.

146. Cast.