1 Flea-bitten] As of a horse—the laymen appearing like specks on the body of clergy.
2 ana] Usually interpreted in the apothecary's sense, 'in equal quantities', written so in prescriptions and said to be from the Greek—ἀνά being thus used.
6, 7 'Church and State's, Most divine' MS.
19 In a fable a Royston crow (the town being on the way to Cambridge had probably a bad reputation for fleecing the guileless undergraduate) advised an innocent of his kind to drop a shellfish from a height on rocks where the Royston bird was waiting and secured the meat.
28 1677 changes 'But' to 'That'.
29 1677 inserts 'go' before 'stroke'. But Cleveland probably scanned 'I-sa-ac'. The reference is to Isaac Pennington: cf. The Rebel Scot, l. 79.
30 The phrase is of course Homeric (sc. δόμους) and with its companion combines the idea of an ecclesiastical condemnation ('delivering over to Satan') and a civil execution, a writ of elegit.
32 faun] All old editions, I think, and Mr. Berdan, 'fawn'. But the animal (always now indicated by that spelling) is not of a 'twisted nature', the half-god is.
40 One of those that taught Dryden something.
41 Cleveland, like most Royalists and their master, was evidently sound on Shakespeare. A copy of 1677 in my possession has a manuscript list of references on the fly-leaf.