A Select Collection of Old English Plays
Chapter 300 : [402] Prize. [403] Pretend. [404] Old copy, _heare_. [405] Old copy, _trade_. [406] Bo

[402] Prize.

[403] Pretend.

[404] Old copy, _heare_.

[405] Old copy, _trade_.

[406] Bonds.

[407] A proverbial expression not found in the collections. It may signify the hangman's cord.

[408] Old copy, _desire_.

[409] Old copy, _breeds_.

[410] Old copy, _and return_.

[411] Old copy, _by_.

[412] Old copy, _Will_.

[413] Old copy, _In_.

[414] Old copy, _This gentle news of good Will are_. The gentlewomen referred to are _Recreation_ and _Idleness_.

[415] A line seems to have dropped out here.

[416] i.e., That business is despatched. See Hazlitt's "Proverbs,"

1869, p. 352.

[417] Old copy, _fitly_.

[418] By my faith.

[419] i.e., "It would rejoice my heart to change coats with him."

[420] Old copy, _thy--thy_; but Ignorance is to change clothes with Wit, while the latter sleeps in the lap of Idleness.

[421] Old copy, _is my tryer_. He has indistinct misgivings that his clothes are not all right.

[422] Old copy, _scot_.

[423] Old copy, fish-hosts.

[424] A colloquialism, of which the exact import must be matter of guess. Old copy, _Hope haliday_. Perhaps a corruption of _upon my haliday_.

[425] Old copy, _It is_.

[426] Old copy, _These marks_.

[427] Old copy, _will_.

[428] Old copy, _troble_.

[429] Old copy, _die_. The same appears to be, "That are not driven to behold those wretched cares, which I _am driven_, &c."

[430] Old copy, _your_.

[431] Fellow. The word is frequently used, as we now use the word _chap_, which is in fact the same, being an abbreviation of _chapman_.

[432] _Fet_ (or _feat_) seeing to be here employed in the sense of _play_ or _perform_. _Friscols_ has occurred before in this play.

[433] So old copy; but perhaps we ought to read _this hap_ in the line preceding.

[434] See Halliwell's _Dict_, in _v_.

[435] _Squich_, a word of most uncommon occurrence and of dubious meaning. From the immediate context we should infer that it signified _skip, move lightly and quickly_.

[436] Old copy, _labores_.

[437] Query, _examples_.

[438] _Push_, i.e., do not close.

[439] Old copy, _durte_ (dirt); We still say, _to make a dust_.

[440] A direction to _Tediousness_, that he is to be tripped up by _Will_.

[441] Old copy, _blest_.

[442] Old copy, _O_.

[443] Old copy, _have_.