[338] [Edits., pugges.]
[339] [Edits, read—
"They are sovereigns, cordials that preserve our lives."
[340] See Mr Steevens's note on "Othello," act ii. sc. 1. [But compare Middleton's "Blurt, Master Constable," 1602 ("Works," by Dyce, i. 280).]
[341] [Edits., his. Even the passage is now obscure and unsatisfactory.]
[342] [Separate.] This is obviously quoted from the marriage ceremony: as Mr Todd has shown, the Dissenters in 1661 did not understand depart in the sense of separate, which led to the alteration of the Liturgy, "till death us do part." In the "Salisbury Manual" of 1555 it stands thus: "I, N, take thee, M, to my wedded wyf, to have and to holde fro this day forwarde, for better for wors, for richer for poorer, in sicknesse and in hele, tyl deth us departe."—Collier.
So in "Every Woman in her Humour," 1609: "And the little God of love, he shall be her captain: sheele sewe under him 'till death us depart, and thereto I plight thee my troth." And Heywood, in his "Wise Woman of Hogsdon," iii., makes Chastley also quote from the marriage ceremony: "If every new moone a man might have a new wife, that's every year a dozen; but this 'till death us depart is tedious."
[343] [Edits., two sentinels.]
[344] Edits., them one.
[345] [Edits., lives.]