... of late, when I cried ‘Ho!’
Like boys unto a muss, Kings would start forth,
And cry ‘Your will?’
Act I: Scene i
[p. 226] a Cogue of Brandy. ‘Cogue’ is a Kentish word. Kent Glossary (1887), has ‘cogue; a dram of brandy’; and Wright, Eng. Dial. Dic., who gives ‘cogue’ as exclusively Kentish, assigns precisely the same meaning. D’Urfey, however, Pills to Purge Melancholy (1719), vi, p. 351, has ‘a cogue of good ale’.
[p. 227] Groom Porter’s. The Groom Porter was an officer of the Royal Household. This post was abolished in the reign of George III. From the sixteenth century he regulated all matters connected with card playing, gambling, and dicing within the precincts of the court. He even furnished cards and dice, and settled disputes concerning the game.
[p. 227] high and low Flats and Bars. i.e. Doctored dice. cf. Chamber’s Cycl. Supp. (1753), ‘Barr Dice, a species of false dice so formed that they will not easily lie on certain sides.’ This cant term is found as early as 1545. cf. Ascham’s Toxophilus. Flats are also cards. —(Grose, and J. H. Vaux, Flash Dic.)
[p. 231] shier. Schire = clear; pure. A Gaelic word. cf. Herd, Scotch Songs (2nd ed. 1776), 11, Gloss.—‘We call clear liquor shire’.
[p. 231] paulter. Mean; worthless. This rare form is perhaps found only here. The N.E.D. does not give it. But we have ‘paltering’ and ‘palterly’. [ Text note]
[p. 232] Hoggerds. A rare word, being obsolete for Hogherd. cf. De Parc’s Francion, iv, 3 (tr. 1655): ‘Our Regent (who had in him no more humanity than a Hoggard).’