[556] An allusion to the closing lines of Barnabe Barnes’ sixty-third sonnet.
[557] Donne has some verses On a Flea on his Mistress’ Bosom, beginning:—
“Madam, that flea which crept between your breast
I envied that there he should make his rest.”
Whether these verses of Donne had been written (and circulated in MS.) so early, I do not know; but the conceit was certainly out of the common.
[558] A deformed person; literally, one who has been branded with a hot iron. The very words “misshapen stigmatic” occur in 3 Henry VI., ii. 2. (The Greek satirist Hipponax was an ill-looking fellow.)
[559] Old eds. “Metim.”
[560] When Jupiter discovered that he had got Metis with child, he swallowed her; for it had been foretold that he would be dethroned if Metis had a son.—Apollod. Bibl. i. 6.
[561] Old eds. “foole.”
[563] So ed. 1598.—Ed. 1599 “adorning.”—The confusion between “adore” and “adorn” is common.
[564] Commonly called “push-pin,” a childish game described by Strutt.