[37] White was a term of endearment,—as in the common expression white boy.
[38] 4to. "ease-dropping."
[39] Dwell.
[40] Deformed, ugly (lit. branded with an iron).
[41] Cf. Middleton's Trick to Catch the Old One, V. 2:—
"And ne'er start
To be let blood though sign be at heart;"
on which passage Dyce remarks that "according to the directions for bleeding in old almanacs blood was to be taken from particular parts under particular planets."
[42] Is admitted to "benefit of clergy." Harrison, in his Description of England, tells us that those who "are saved by their bookes and cleargie, are burned in the left hand, vpon the brawne of the thombe with an hot iron, so that if they be apprehended againe, that marke bewraieth them to have beene arraigned of fellonie before, whereby they are sure at that time to have no mercie. I doo not read that this custome of saving by the booke is vsed anie where else then in England; neither doo I find (after much diligent inquirie) what Saxon prince ordeined that lawe" (Book II. cap. xi.). See the article Clergie in Cowell's Interpreter (1637).
[43] Brand.
[44] Therefore acted by the Queen of Bohemia's Company who at that time occupied the Cockpit.—F.G. Fleay.