[48] Our poet alludes here to the methods which are still frequently practised amongst beggars, of making artificial sores. The reader will find many of these mentioned by Prigg in act ii. sc. 1 of the "Beggar's Bush" of Beaumont and Fletcher. In the quarto this speech is in horrible metre; and the same may be observed of nearly the whole remainder of this scene, and until the clown quits the stage in the next.
[49] [Old copy and Dilke, heap on.]
[50] "'Sfoot I hate," [i.e., ha't] is the reading of the 4o.
[51] Caps of maintenance are said to be carried in state on occasions of great solemnity before the mayors of several cities in England. Stephen had before imagined himself arrayed with the gown and chain of an alderman; he is now describing his consequence as the future Lord Mayor of London.
[52] The dice.
[53] It is to be remembered that the doctor here introduced is a divine, and not a physician.
[54] [See "Popular Antiquities of Great Britain," ii., 293-5.]
[55] [Full of wit] So in "Hamlet"—
"How pregnant sometimes his replies are."
[56] [If.]