"As gentle and as jocund as to jest,"
quotes the above passage from "The Spanish Tragedy" to show that to jest, "in old language, means to play a part in a mask."
[166] [Old copy, my.]
[167] [Old copy, place.]
[168] Ritson has the following note upon this sign: "That is, the inn so called, upon Ludgate Hill. The modern sign, which, however, seems to have been the same 200 years ago, is a bell and a wild man; but the original is supposed to have been a beautiful Indian, and the inscription, La belle Sauvage. Some, indeed, assert that the inn once belonged to a Lady Arabella Sauvage; and others that its name originally, the belle and Sauvage, arose (like the George and Blue Boar) from the junction of two inns with those respective signs. Non nostrum est tantas componere lites." "Robin Hood," I. p. liv.
[169] [Old copy, meant.]
[170] Little John's exit is marked here in the old copy, but it does not take place till afterwards: he first whispers Marian, as we are told immediately, John in the original standing for Little John.
[171] i.e., A collection or company, and not, as we now use the word, a kind "of fawning sycophants."
[172] i.e., Made a Justice of Peace of him, entitling him to the style of Worship.
[173] [Old copy, ran.]