[308] The copy of this play in the British Museum has here "Scinthin maide;" but another, belonging to the Rev. A. Dyce, "Scythia maide," a reading we have followed, and, no doubt, introduced by the old printer as the sheets went through the press.
[309] "Counterfeit" was a very common term for the resemblance of a person: in "Hamlet," act iii. sc. 4, we have "counterfeit presentment;" and in the "Merchant of Venice," act iii. sc. 2, "Fair Portia's counterfeit." In Beaumont and Fletcher's "Wife for a Month," act iv. sc. 5, we meet-with "counterfeits in Arras" for portraits, or figures in tapestry.
[310] [i.e., from or after.]
[311] [i.e., The shoemaker. There is a jest turning upon this in one of the early collections of facetiae.]
[312] [Vulcan.]
[313] By "carminger" the cobbler means harbinger, an officer; who preceded the monarch during progresses, to give notice and make preparation.
[314] We print it precisely as in the old copy, but we may presume that here a couplet was intended, as the cobbler's speech begins in rhyme:—
"And we are come to you alone
To deliver our petition,"
[315] Roquefort in his "Glossary," i. 196, states that bysse is a sort d'étoffe de soie, and the Rev. A. Dyce, "Middleton's Works," v. 558, says that it means "fine linen," while others contend that it is "a delicate blue colour," but sometimes "black or dark grey." The truth may be that it was fine silk of a blue colour, and we now and then meet it coupled with purple—"purple and bis."
[316] [Old copy, Indian.]