[Bibl. Harleiana, v. No. 4304.]
FOOTNOTES:
[DY] In the extracts made from the foregoing series of Characters, the original orthography has been most scrupulously attended to, in order to assist in shewing the progress and variation of the English language.
ADDITIONAL NOTES AND CORRECTIONS.
Page [2], line 18, for ports read sports.
Page [4], line 9, "table-book." The custom of writing in table-books, or, as it was then expressed, "in tables," is noticed, and instances given in Reed's Shakspeare, vi, 13. xii, 170. xviii, 88. Dr. Farmer adduces a passage very applicable to the text, from Hall's character of the hypocrite. "He will ever sit where he may be seene best, and in the midst of the sermon pulles out his tables in haste, as if he feared to loose that note," &c. Decker, in his Guls Hornebooke, page 8, speaking to his readers, says, "out with your tables," &c.
Page [6], note 6.—This is also mentioned in Whimzies, 8vo. 1631, p. 57. "Hee must now betake himself to prayer and devotion; remember the founder, benefactors, head, and members of that famous foundation: all which he performes with as much zeale as an actor after the end of a play, when hee prayes for his majestie, the lords of his most honourable privie councell, and all that love the king."
Page [13], note 10.—From a subsequent edition, obligingly pointed out to me by the rev. Mr. arch-deacon Nares, I find that this also is a translation: Regimen Sanitatis Salerni. This booke teachyng all people to gouerne the in health, is translated out of the Latine tongue into Englishe, by Thomas Paynell, whiche booke is amended, augmented, and diligently imprinted. 1575. Colophon. ¶ Jmprynted at London, by Wyllyam How, for Abraham Ueale. The preface says, that it was compiled for the use "of the moste noble and victorious kynge of England, and of Fraunce, by all the doctours in Phisicke of the Uniuersitie of Salerne."
Page [17], line 17, "door-posts."—It was usual for public officers to have painted or gilded posts at their doors, on which proclamations, and other documents of that description, were placed, in order to be read by the populace. See various allusions to this custom, in Reed's Shakspeare, v. 267. Old Plays, iii. 303. The reformation means that they were, in the language of our modern churchwardens, "repaired and beautified," during the reign of our alderman.