[95] The second 4o has it the effects of pauses, which, if not nonsense, is very like it.
[96] [i.e., The roaring boys, who are introduced a little later in the play.]
[97] [Old copy, wants, and.]
[98] [Old copy, no.]
[99] Both the old copies read, that carries a double sense, but it is clearly a misprint.
[100] The Widow means that Master Pert walks as if he were made of wires, and gins were usually composed of wire.
[101] So in "The Fatal Dowry," Liladam exclaims, "Uds light! my lord, one of the purls of your band is, without all discipline, fallen out of his rank," act ii. sc. 2. These little phrases may assist in tracing the authorship of different parts of a play by distinct authors.
[102] [Old copy, his.]
[103] [This name, given to one of the roarers, is a corruption of pox. We often meet with the form in the old plays.]
[104] The Fortune Theatre [in Golden Lane] was built in 1599 by Edward Allen, the founder of Dulwich College, at an expense of £520, and in the Prologue of Middleton and Dekker's "Roaring Girl" it is called "a vast theatre." It was eighty feet square, and was consumed by fire in 1621.