[98] On the upper stage, a balcony raised a few feet from the ground. Cf. stage-direction in Day's Humour out of Breath, iv. 3. "Enter Aspero, like Hortensio, Florimell, and Assistance on the upper stage." Later in the same scene: "They renew Blind mans Buff on the Lower stage." See also Dyce's note on Middleton's Family of Love, i. 3.
[99] A correction in the MS. for Musquett.
[100] In the Appendix to Vol. II. I printed "misse"; and so one would naturally read the word before becoming thoroughly acquainted with the handwriting.
[101] The words "so begett" are repeated in the MS.
[102] i.e. prisons.
[103] MS. good.
[104] The expression "Fool's paradise" was common long before Milton used it. A writer in Notes and Queries (Jan. 7, 1882) gives instances of its occurrence in Udall's "Apophthegmes of Erasmus," 1542. I have met it in Bullein's "Dialogue against the Fever Pestilence," 1564.
[105] For the spelling cf., Vol. ii. pp. 139 (l. 14), 179 (l. 12). "Diety" for "deity" is not uncommon in print as well as MS.; cf., Saltonstall's translation of Ovid's "Ars Amoris," 1639, p. 14:—
"Oft pray'd she to the gods, but all in vaine,
To appease their Dieties with blood of beasts thus slaine."
[106] In the MS. these lines are scored through.