[120] [Alluding to the “Grobianus et Grobiana” of Dedekindus.]

[121] Ovid’s lines are these—­

    “Discite, qui sapitis, non quae nos scimus inertes,
    Sed trepidas acies, et fera castra sequi.”

—­“Amorum,” lib. iii. el. 8.

[122] The author of “The World’s Folly,” 1615, uses squitter-wit in the same sense that Nash employs squitter-book:  “The primum mobile, which gives motion to these over-turning wheels of wickedness, are those mercenary squitter-wits, miscalled poets.”

In “The Two Italian Gentlemen,” the word squitterbe-book, or squitter-book, is found, and with precisely the same signification which Nash gives it—­

    “I would mete with the scalde squitterbe-booke for this geare.”

[123] His nown, instead of his own, was not an uncommon corruption.  So Udall—­“Holde by his yea and nay, be his nowne white sonne.”

[124] [Old copy, Fuilmerodach.]

[125] Regiment has been so frequently used in the course of these volumes, in the sense of government or rule, that it is hardly worth a note.

[126] This is, of course, spoken ironically, and of old, the expression good fellow bore a double signification, which answered the purpose of Will Summer.  Thus, in Lord Brooke’s “Caelica,” sonnet 30—­

    “Good fellows, whom men commonly doe call. 
    Those that do live at warre with truth and shame.”

Again, in Heywood’s “Edward IV.  Part I.,” sig.  E 4—­

    “KING EDWARD.  Why, dost thou not love a good fellow?

    “HOBS.  No, good fellows be thieves.”

[127] Henry Baker was therefore the name of the actor who performed the part of Vertumnus.

[128] The joke here consists in the similarity of sound between despatch and batch, Will Summers mistaking, or pretending to mistake, in consequence.

[129] [Old copy, Sybalites.]

[130] This is still, as it was formerly, the mode of describing the awkward bowing of the lower class.  In the “Death of Robert Earl of Huntington,” 1601, when Will Brand, a vulgar assassin, is introduced to the king, the stage direction to the actor in the margin is, “Make Legs.”

[131] A proverb in [Heywood’s “Epigrams,” 1562.  See Hazlitt’s “Proverbs,” 1869, p. 270.  Old copy, love me a little.]

[132] [Old copy, deny.]

[133] The meaning of the word snudge is easily guessed in this place, but it is completely explained by T. Wilson, in his “Rhetoric,” 1553, when he is speaking of a figure he calls diminution, or moderating the censure applied to vices by assimilating them to the nearest virtues:  thus he would call “a snudge or pynche-penny a good husband, a thrifty man” (fo. 67).  Elsewhere he remarks:  “Some riche snudges,