3622 Mantuan] There is a similar reference in Il Insonio, ll. 365-6.
3627 'Quinque literae' is said to be used of Hebrew roots. But whether anybody preceded Whiting's restless and fantastic ingenuity in making a half English half Latin femina quinque literarum to match the homo trium I do not know. The word itself is obvious enough.
3676 'Tenter' = stretch on tenter-hooks, rack.
3685 pague] Lat. pagus, anglicized and transferred from 'district' to 'village'. [Return]
3704 'Lugget' is said to be still dialectic for 'a small load of corn', and there are numerous senses of 'lug' meaning 'protuberances'. So I suppose 'ludgets' are knobs or lumps of bread. But to tell the truth the description of this meal requires nearly as strong a stomach to read as the meal itself to eat, and I shall say little more of it. Naughtiness is sometimes (though by no means so necessarily as appears to some authors and critics) amusing: nastiness never is. I shall therefore take the liberty of not annotating for a page or two.
3796 This line would be a good text for a discourse on the type of writing. 'Blur the holier entries of Albino's page with the recording Angel' is its equivalent, and there have been times when that would have been approved as 'wery pretty'. But 'roule' in orig. may be a misprint for 'soule'.
3797 'Venice' and 'Venus' have been played upon before by the writer: they are probably, but not quite necessarily, interchanged here by the printer. It may perhaps be noted that in the original the printer, weary of mere misspelling and misprinting, has taken to mispaging. The text goes on straight, but the pages after 129 are numbered 26, 12, 132, 133, 130, 131, 136, 137, 134, 135, 140, 141, and so on. [Return]
3806-7 It is odd what good lines and phrases this poetaster can sometimes turn out.
Into his thoughts did throng
His house of penance, hunger, cold, and sweat,