[315] [The proverb is: "There are more maids than Malkin." See Hazlitt's "Proverbs," p. 392.]
[316] [Old copy, Had.]
[317] This line will remind the reader of Shakespeare's "multitudinous seas incarnardine," in "Macbeth," act ii. sc. 1.
[318] This answer unquestionably belongs to the king, and is not, as the 4to gives it, a part of what Leicester says. It opens with an allusion to the crest of Leicester, similar to that noticed in the "Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntington."
[319] [Old copy, by God's.]
[320] [Old copy, armed men.]
[321] [Old copy, shall.]
[322] [An allusion to the proverb.]
[323] This and other passages refer probably to the old play of "King John," printed in 1591, [or to Shakespeare's own play which, though not printed till 1623, must have been familiar to the public, and more especially to dramatic authors.]
[324] In this line; in the old copy, Salisbury is made to call himself Oxford.