having great wealth, go with their hose out at heels, their shoes out at toes, and their cotes out at both elbowes; for who can tell if such men are worth a grote when their apparel is so homely, and all their behavior so base?” (fo. 86.) The word is found in Todd’s Johnson, where Coles is cited to show that snudge means “one who hides himself in a house to do mischief.”  No examples of the employment of the word by any of our writers are subjoined.

[134] Mr Steevens, in a note to “Hamlet,” act iv. sc. 5, says that he thinks Shakespeare took the expression of hugger-mugger there used from North’s Plutarch, but it was in such common use at the time that twenty authors could be easily quoted who employ it:  it is found in Ascham, Sir J. Harington, Greene, Nash, Dekker, Tourneur, Ford, &c.  In “The Merry Devil of Edmonton” also is the following line—­

    “But you will to this gear in hugger-mugger.”

[135] It is not easy to guess why Nash employed this Italian word instead of an English one. Lento means lazy, and though an adjective, it is used here substantively; the meaning, of course, is that the idle fellow who has no lands begs.

[136] i.e., Hates.  See note to “Merchant of Venice,” act v. sc. 1.

[137] [Old copy, Hipporlatos.  The emendation was suggested by Collier.]

[138] The reader is referred to “Romeo and Juliet,” act i. sc. 4, respecting the strewing of rushes on floors instead of carpets.  Though nothing be said upon the subject, it is evident that Back-winter makes a resistance before he is forced out, and falls down in the struggle.

[139] [Soiling:  a common word in our early writers.  Old copy, wraying.]

[140] I pray you, hold the book well, was doubtless addressed to the prompter, or as he is called in the following passage, from the Induction to Ben Jonson’s “Cynthia’s Revels,” 1601, the book-holder:  one of the children of Queen Elizabeth’s chapel is speaking of the poet.  “We are not so officiously befriended by him as to have his presence in the ’tiring house to prompt us aloud, stampe at the booke-holder, sweare for our properties, curse the poor tire-man, raile the musicke out of tune, and sweat for every veniall trespasse we commit, as some author would.”

[141] [Old copy, cares.  The word murmuring is, by an apparent error, repeated in the 4to from the preceding line.]

[142] [Old copy, ears.]

[143] Ready.

[144] This line fixes the date when “Summer’s Last Will and Testament” was performed very exactly—­viz., during Michaelmas Term, 1593; for Camden informs us in his “Annals,” that in consequence of the plague, Michaelmas Term, instead of being held in London, as usual, was held at St Albans.

[145] “Deus, Deus, ille, Menalca! 
    Sis bonus o felixque tuis.” 
                 —­Virgil “Ecl.” v. 64.