[182] Winstanley has asserted that Oliver Cromwell performed the part of Tactus at Cambridge:  and some who have written the life of that great man have fixed upon this speech as what first gave him ideas of sovereignty.  The notion is too vague to be depended upon, and too ridiculous either to establish or refute.  It may, however, not be unnecessary to mention that Cromwell was born in 1599, and the first edition of this play [was printed in 1607, and the play itself written much earlier].  If, therefore, the Protector ever did represent this character, it is more probable to have been at Huntingdon School.

[183] [Old copies, scarve, and so the edit. of 1780.  Mr Collier substituted change as the reading of the old copies, which it is not.  See Mr Brae’s paper read before the Royal Society of Literature, Jan. 1871, 8vo edit. 1873, p. 23, et seq.]

[184] Edits., deeds.  Pegge thought that by deeds was intended Tactus himself; but it is hard to say how this could be made out, as Tactus cannot be translated deeds, though Auditus might be rendered by metonymy ears.

[185] [Edit., fear’d.]

[186] In Surphlet’s “Discourses on the Diseases of Melancholy,” 4to, 1599, p. 102, the case alluded to is set down:  “There was also of late a great lord, which thought himselfe to be a glasse, and had not his imagination troubled, otherwise then in this onely thing, for he could speake mervailouslie well of any other thing:  he used commonly to sit, and tooke great delight that his friends should come and see him, but so as that he would desire them, that they would not come neere unto him.”

[187] Hitherto misprinted conclaves.—­Collier. [First 4to, correctly, concaves.]

[188] See Surphlet, p. 102.

[189] [An allusion to the myth of the werewolf.]

[190] [This proverb is cited by Heywood.  See Hazlitt’s “Proverbs,” 1869, p. 392.]

[191] [All the editions except 1657, bidden, and all have arms for harms.]

[192] Presently, forthwith.

[193] [Edits., wax.]

[194] Some of the old copies [including that of 1607] read—­

    “Here lies the sense that lying gull’d them all.”

—­Collier.

[195] Auditus is here called Ears, as Tactus is before called Deed.—­Pegge. [But see note at p. 349.]

[196] Circles.  So in Milton—­

    “Throws his steep flight in many an airy wheel.”

—­Steevens.

[197] [It is Mendacio who speaks.]

[198] Old copies, Egyptian knights.  Dr Pegge’s correction.

[199] [Edits., I.]

[200] [Edits., safe.]

[201] A pun; for he means Male aeger.—­Pegge.

[202] The [first edit.] gives the passage thus:  brandish no swords but sweards of bacon, which is intended for a pun, and though bad enough, need not be lost.—­Collier.