The deuyll in a brake]

For “stare,” which is the reading of all the eds., I have substituted “stale”—i. e. lure, decoy. “Stale of fowlys takinge.” Prompt. Parv. ed. 1499. So in Marmyon’s Hollands Leaguer, 1632;

“And if my skill not failes me, her I’ll make

A Stale, to take this Courtier in a brake.”

Act ii. sc. 1. sig. D 3.

Compare too an epigram by Heywood;

“Take time when time commeth: are we set time to take?

Beware time, in meane time, take not vs in brake.”

Workes, sig. Q 3. ed. 1598.