[116] The Declaration concerning "The Book of Sports," set forth some time before. This was a matter very disgusting to the Puritans, who had an equal dislike to the Book of Common Prayer.

[117] This phrase signifies take courage, or summon up resolution. It is at present always written in this manner; formerly it used, [very erroneously,] to be, take heart at grass; as in "Euphues," p. 18: "Rise, therefore, Euphues, and take heart at grasse, younger thou shalt never bee: plucke up thy stomacke, if love have stong thee, it shall not stifle thee."

Again, in Tarlton's "Newes out of Purgatory," p. 4: "Therefore taking heart at grasse, drawing more neere him," &c.

And Ibid., p. 24: "Seeing she would take no warning: on a day tooke heart at grasse, and belabour'd her well with a cudgel."

[118] Well-appointed is completely accoutred. So in "The Miseries of Queen Margaret," by Drayton—

and in the "Second Part of Henry IV." act iv. sc. 1—

—Mr Steevens's note on the last passage.

[119] [Old copy, not born.]

[120] See Wolfii "Opera," 1672, ii. 592.

Johannes Trithemius, abbè of the order of St Benedict, and one of the most learned men of the fifteenth century, was born at Tritenheim, in the diocese of Treves, the 1st of February 1462. After having studied for some time, he became a Benedictine friar, and abbot of Spanheim, in the diocese of Mayence, in 1483. He governed the abbey until the year 1506, when he joined the abbey of St James, at Wurtzburgh. He was learned in all sciences, divine and human, and died the 13th of December 1516.

Thevet calls him a subtle philosopher, an ingenious mathematician, a famous poet, an accomplished historian, a very eloquent orator, and eminent divine. Naudius says that those who would make him a magician ground their right on a little book of three or four sheets, printed in 1612, entitled, "Veterum Sophorum sigilla et imagines magicæ, sive sculptura lapidum aut gemmarum ex nomine Tetragrammaton cum signatura planetarum authoribus Zoroastre, Salomone Raphaele, Chaele Hermete Thelete, ex Joan Kithemii manuscripto erutæ." Secondly, his speaking so pertinently of magic, and giving himself the title of magician in some of his epistles. Thirdly, his writing the book of Steganography, a treatise stuffed with the names of devils, and full of invocations, and as very pernicious condemned by Boville as worse than Agrippa. To these Naudius answers that the pamphlet of making images and characters upon stones, under certain constellations, is a pure imposture and cheat of booksellers, it being printed above 120 years before by Camillus Lienard, as the third book of his "Mirror of Precious Stones, De Unguento Armario." From a letter then to a Carmelite of Gaunt, Arnoldus Bostius, the suspicion of his being a magician must be collected, wherein he specified many miraculous and extraordinary effects performed in his treatise of Steganography. This, however, is defended by several writers only as the means to decipher.—Naudius's "History of Magick," translated by Davies, p. 237, &c.

[121] See note on the "Spanish Tragedy," [v. 115]

[122] "Join with me," would suit the sense better, as she is asking Shape to unite his solicitations with hers. The old copy reads as it is reprinted.—Collier.

[123] [Old copy, a.]

[124] [A lecture, probably, was delivered on the phenomenon.]

[125] [The "Book of the Acts and Monuments," &c., 1563, &c. The woodcuts have the dying words of the martyrs printed on labels out of their mouths, in the way mentioned in the text.]

[126] Strabo, a philosopher of Crete and a geographer in the time of Augustus.

[127] Born at Pelusium, flourished about the year 140, and died 162, aged 78.

[128] Robert Stafford, born at Dublin, was of Exeter College, Oxford, and published "A Geographical and Anthological description of all the Empires and Kingdoms, both of Continent and Islands, in this terrestial Globe," &c., 1607. Wood says it was reported that John Prideaux, who was Stafford's tutor, had the chief hand in this work.

[129] [Naked, i.e., unarmed.] William Lithgow, a Scotsman, whose sufferings by imprisonment and torture at Malaga, and whose travels on foot over Europe, Asia, and Africa, seem to raise him almost to the rank of a martyr and a hero, published an account of his peregrinations and adventures, 1614; reprinted in 1616, &c., with additions. At the conclusion of this work he says, "Here is the just relation of nineteene yeares travells, perfited in three deare bought voyages: the generall computation of which dimmensions spaces in my goings, traversings, and returnings through kingdomes, continents, and ilands, which my payneful feet traced over (besides my passages of seas and rivers) amounteth to thirty-six thousand and odde miles; which draweth neare to twice the circumference of the whole earth." [A list of his other works may be found in Hazlitt's "Handbook," 1867, in v.]

[130] The celebrated Thomas Coriat who, except Lithgow, is supposed to have travelled more miles on foot than any person of his times, or indeed in any period since. From his writings, and many parts of his conduct, he cannot be supposed to have been in his perfect senses. He was, notwithstanding, a man of considerable learning, and rendered himself ridiculous, chiefly by dwelling with too much attention on the trifling accidents which happened to him during his journey. In the year 1608 he left England and went to Venice and back again; a journey performed on foot in five months. On his return, he published an account of it in a large quarto volume, 1611, containing 655 pages, besides more than 100 filled with commendatory verses by Ben Jonson and other wits of the age, who both laughed at and flattered him at the same time. He afterwards travelled into Persia, and from thence into the East Indies (still on foot), and died at Surat in the year 1617.

[131] Sir John Mandevile, Knight, born at St Albans. He was a traveller for the space of thirty-four years, visiting in that time Scythia, Armenia the Greater and Less, Egypt, both Libyas, Arabia, Syria, Media, Mesopotamia, Persia, Chaldæa, Greece, Illyrium, Tartary, and divers other kingdoms. He died at Liege, November 17, 1371. An edition of his travels was printed in 8^o, 1725, from a MS. in the Cotton Library.

[132] ["The leavings of what has been drawn for others"—Gifford (edit. of Ben Jonson, vii. 433).] So in Jonson's "Masque of Augurs:" "The poor cattle yonder are passing away the time with a cheat loaf and a bumbard of broken beer."

Again, in the "Masque of Gypsies:" "He were very carefully carried at his mother's back, rocked in a cradle of Welsh cheese, like a maggot, and there fed with broken beer and blown wine of the best daily."

And in Scot's "Belgicke Pismire," 1622, p. 76: "Having before fed themselves full with the sweat of other mens browes, even to gluttonie, drunkenesse, and surfetting, may releeve with their scraps, crummes, bones and broken beere, the necessities of such as they or their predecessors have before undone and made beggers."

[133] [Old copy, paguim.]

[134] Qy. breadth, i.e., stopped a breach by his person.—Collier.

[135] [Reasons or policies of state.]

[136] German clocks were about this time much in use. They are frequently mentioned by Ben Jonson and other writers.—See "Epicæne," act iv. sc. 2.