[89] Lodovico,] i. e. Lodovico Hippolito.
[90] States,] i. e. statesmen, men of power. A common acceptation of the word.
[91] So constantly,] i. e. with such constancy.
[92] Censure.] It has been already observed, that this word is used by our old writers, where we should now use judge, and with the same latitude of meaning through its various acceptations.—Gifford.
[93] The state,] i. e. the raised platform on which the chairs were placed.
[94] The prince, in care to have you keep your vows
Made unto Heaven, vouchsafed to love my daughter.] This attempt to impose upon the great duke is more deplorable than the former. It has falsehood and improbability written on its face. The duke, indeed, is not deceived by it; but surely the author showed a strange want of judgment in this gratuitous degradation of three of his most estimable characters.—Gifford.
Surely Massinger intended that his characters should here be understood as speaking the truth. The contrivance by which he exculpates Giovanni is a clumsy one; but he was anxious to conclude his play, and took the first that suggested itself. Awkward as it may appear to the reader, it has, perhaps, quite enough dramatic probability to satisfy an audience.
[95] Practice,] i. e. artifice, or insidious combination.
[96] If, for their pomp and ease, &c.] Mr. Gilchrist thinks (and I believe rightly) that Massinger, who evidently regarded the Duke of Buckingham with no favourable eye, here reflects on the use of sedan-chairs, which his grace first introduced, from Spain, about this period. They were carried, as Massinger says, "on men's shoulders," and the novelty provoked no small displeasure against the favourite, who, in thus employing his servants, was charged, by the writers of those times, with "degrading Englishmen into slaves and beasts of burden, to gratify his inordinate vanity."—Gifford.
[97] Fan.] The fan of our ancestors was not at all in the shape of the implement now used under the same name, but more like a hand-skreen. It had a roundish handle, and was frequently composed of feathers.