[130] “The battaile.  The Combattantes Sir Ambrose Vaux, knight, and Glascott the Bayley of Southwarke:  the place the Rule of the Kings Bench.”

[131] In some copies the name “John Kirke” is given in full.

[132] Bottom = a ball of worsted.  George Herbert in a letter to his mother says:  “Happy is he whose bottom is wound up, and laid ready for work in the New Jerusalem.”  So in the Virgin Martyr (v. 1),—­“I, before the Destinies my bottom did wind up, would flesh myself once more upon some one remarkable above all these.”

[133] 4to. your.

[134] Cf. the catalogue of torments in the Virgin Martyr (v. 1).

[135] The 4to prints the passage thus:—­

    “I have now livd my full time;
    Tell me, my Henricke, thy brave successe,
    That my departing soule
    May with thy story,” &c.

Several times further on I shall have to alter the irregular arrangement of the 4to in order to restore the blank verse; but I shall not think it necessary to note the alteration.

[136] 4to, Horne.

[137] 4to, Aloft.

[138] The 4to gives ‘The further,’ and in the next line ‘Or further.’

[139] The whole of this scene is printed as verse in the 4to.  I have printed the early part as prose, that the reader’s eye may not be vexed by metrical monstrosities.

[140] Sharpe i.e. sword.  Vid.  Halliwell’s Dictionary.

[141] 4to. field.

[142] Sir Thomas Browne in Vulgar Errors (Book 2, cap. 5) discusses this curious superstition at length:—­’And first we hear it in every mouth, and in many good authors read it, that a diamond, which is the hardest of stones, not yielding unto steel, emery, or any thing but its own powder, is yet made soft, or broke by the blood of a goat.  Thus much is affirmed by Pliny, Solinus, Albertus, Cyprian, Austin, Isidore, and many Christian writers:  alluding herein unto the heart of man, and the precious blood of our Saviour, who was typified by the goat that was slain, and the scape goat in the wilderness:  and at the effusion of whose blood, not only the hard hearts of his enemies relented, but the stony rocks and veil of the temple were shattered,’ &c.

[143] The expression, to ‘carry coals’ (i.e. to put up with insults) is too common to need illustration.

[144] 4to. deaths prey.  The change restores the metre.

[145] ‘Owe’ for ‘own’ is very common in Shakespeare.

[146] The 4to. prints this scene throughout as verse.

[147] ‘Larroones,’ from Fr. larron (a thief).  Cf.  Nabbes’ Bride, iii. 3.  ’Remercie, Monsieur.  Voe call a me Cooke now! de greasie Larone!’

[148] Quy. rogues.

[149] Quy. had.  There seems to be a reference to Stephen’s martyrdom described in The Acts.

[150] “Black Jack” and “bombard” were names given to wide leathern drinking-vessels.