Qui hic assemblati estis;
Et vos, altri messiores,
Sententiarum facultatis. [ Text Note]
[p. 101] Vanderbergen. A well-known empiric of the day.
[p. 102] Haly the Moore, and Rabbi Isaac. Ali Bey (Bobrowski), a Polish scholar, died at Constantinople 1675. He wrote, amongst other treatises, De Circumcisione; De Aegrotorum Visitatione. These were published at Oxford in 1691. Isaac Levita or Jean Isaac Levi was a celebrated rabbi of the sixteenth century. A professor at Cologne, he practised medicine and astrology.
[p. 104] Stetin. Stettin, the capital of Pomerania, was one of the chief towns of the Hanseatic league. Occupied by Sweden 1637-1713, it was the centre of continual military operations.
[p. 105] A Dutch Butter-ferkin, a Kilderkin. These terms are common abuse as applied to a corpulent person. A firkin (Mid. Dut., vierdekijn) = a small cask for holding liquids or butter; originally half-a-kilderkin. Dictionary of the Canting Crew (1700) has ‘Firkin of foul Stuff; a ... Coarse, Corpulent Woman’. cf. Dryden’s Mac Flecknoe (1682):—
A Tun of Man in thy large Bulk is writ,
But sure thou’rt but a Kilderkin of wit.
Shadwell was extremely gross in habit and of an unwieldy size.