[340] [Old copy, warres.]

[341] [Escutcheon.]

[342] [Abided.]

[343] [Old copy, prepare.]

[344] This word is found in “Henry VI., Part II.” act v. sc. 1, where young Clifford applies it to Richard.  Malone observes in a note, that, according to Bullokar’s “English Expositor,” 1616, stugmatick originally and properly signified “a person who has been branded with a hot iron for some crime.”  The name of the man to whom Hubert here applies the word, is Brand.

Webster, in his “Vittoria Corombona,” applies the term metaphorically:—­

    “The god of melancholy turn thy gall to poison,
    And let the stigmatic wrinkles in thy face. 
    Like to the boisterous wares in a rough tide,
    One still overtake another.”

[345] [Are faulty.]

[346] [Old copy, seld.]

[347] [The printer has made havoc with the sense here, which can only be guessed at from the context.  Perhaps for go we should read God, in allusion to the woman’s protestations.  Yet even then the passage reads but lamely.]

[348] [These may be right; but perhaps the author wrote his.  By his—­i.e., God’s—­nails, is a very common oath.]

[349] [i.e., Mete or measure out a reward to her.]

[350] [To swear by the fingers, or the ten commandments, as they were often called, was a frequent oath.]

[351] [Old copy, lamback’d.]

[352] The 4to says, between the monk and the nun.

[353] [Query, mother Bawd; or is some celebrated procuress of the time when this play was written and acted meant here?]

[354] To swear by the cross of the sword was a very common practice, and many instances are to be found in D.O.P.  See also notes to “Hamlet,” act i. sc. 5.

[355] i.e., Secretly, a very common application of the word in our old writers.

[356] [In allusion to the proverb, “Maids say nay, and take.”]

[357] Here, according to what follows, Brand steps forward and addresses Matilda.  Hitherto he has spoken aside.

[358] See Mr Gilford’s note on the words rouse and carouse in his Massinger, i. 239.  It would perhaps be difficult, and certainly needless, to add anything to it.

[359] “Nor I to stir before I see the end,”

belongs to the queen, unquestionably, but the 4to gives it to the Abbess, who has already gone out.

[360] [Labour, pain.]

[361] The reading of the old copy is—­

    “Oh pity, mourning sight! age pitiless!”

Pity-moving in a common epithet, and we find it afterwards in this play used by young Bruce—­

    “My tears, my prayers, my pity-moving moans.”

[362] [Old copy, wrath.]

[363] This servant entered probably just before Oxford’s question, but his entrance is not marked.