[187] One of the characters in the New Inn is Fly, 'the Parasite of the Inn'; and in the Virgin Martyr (ii. 2) we also find the word 'fly' used (like Lat. musca) for an inquisitive person. In the text I suspect we should read 'fly-about' for flye-boat.
[188] 'Blacke gard' was the name given to the lowest drudges who rode amongst the pots and pans in royal processions: vid. Gifford's Jonson, II. 169.
[189] The compositor seems to have been dozing: the word 'Vaw' points to the reading 'Vaward,' and probably the passage ran—'this the Vaward, this the Rearward.'
[190] 'Totter'd' i.e. tatter'd. Cf. Richard II. (iii. 3) 'the castle's totter'd battlements' (the reading of the 4to.; the Folios give 'tatter'd'). In King John (v. 5) I think, with Staunton, that the expression 'tott'ring colours' means 'drooping colours' rather than, as usually explained, 'tattered.'
[191] 'Spurn-point—An old game mentioned in a curious play called Apollo Shroving, 12mo., Lond. 1627, p. 49.' Halliwell.
[192] 'Grandoes'—I find the word so spelt in Heywood's A Challenge for Beauty—'I, and I assure your Ladiship, ally'de to the best Grandoes of Spaine.' (Works, v. 18.)
[193] 4to. Albia.
[194] Cornego is telling the Captain to 'duck'—to make his bow—to Onaelia.
[195] Nares quotes from the Owles Almanacke, 1618, p. 6, an allusion to this worthy,—'Since the German fencer cudgell'd most of our English fencers, now about 5 moneths past.'
[196] It is hardly necessary to remind the reader that 'bastard' was the name of a sweet Spanish wine.