P. [12]: 1-2. half ... Temple-Bar. I.e., Whitefriars.
P. [12]: 26. Being Tragedy, and writ in Rhimes. Dryden abandoned rhyme with All for Love (1677). Cf. Elkanah Settle's complaint in the preface to Ibrahim (licensed 4 May 1676): "Another misfortune the Play had, that it was written in Rhime, a way of writing very much out of Fashion...."
P. [16]: 9. Where Bread and Cheese he said he'ld buy. This detail has some resemblance to a circumstance in Shiels and Cibber's account of the death of Otway, which may derive from a mistaken belief that he was the subject of the passage. See R. G. Ham, Otway and Lee (New Haven, 1931), p. 214.
P. [16]: 14. One who would play at six-pence gleek. The index of extravagance at gleek seems to have advanced alarmingly in the course of the seventeenth century. Jonson in The Devil is an Ass (V, ii, 31) specifies three-pence; however, Shadwell in 1680 was already foreseeing a shilling (Works, ed. M. Summers, IV, 60).
P. [16]: 15. Creswel's. The famous bawdy house, finally closed down in 1681.
P. [16]: 16. Locket's. An ordinary at Charing-Cross mentioned in many Restoration comedies.
P. [16]: 21. the Royal Theatre. Presumably the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, although the term could equally well be meant for the theatre at Whitehall.
P. [17]: 7. the briskest of our Crew. Probably Dryden, although the description has some problematical features. The fact that the poet is a rhymer and connected with the Duke's house rules out most other possibilities.
P. [19]: 1. Will have a Poet at their tail. Possibly Otway. In PC (pp. 2-3), a shorter version of the description is combined with lines from the "Dryden" portrait—the one piece of evidence for the truncation theory:
Then there are mighty Peers o' th' Realm,
Whose conduct helps to steer the Helm:
They're great pretenders unto Wit.
And that they may seem to incourage it
They'll have a Poet at their Tail:
And that to know him they mayn't fail,
He has an old fashion thread-bare Coat,
Foul Linnen, Hat not worth a Groat;
One points and cries, there goes Long-lane,
Another cries, he's Long-and-Lean.
For like one newly fluxt he'l crawl,
And lets the Foot-Boys take the Wall.
But when to th' Tavern they do go,
Their Honours will more freedom show;
There they may Swagger Swear and Lye,
And doe any thing, but Pay:
Damn ye, I din'd with such a Lord to Day,
And such a Lord did like my Play:
And without Vanity it is
The best I writ, my Master-piece.