15 steeple] By synecdoche for 'church' or 'parish'.
16 donative] A play on words, as also in 'cure'.
19 Theban wittol] Amphitryon.
22 Hans-in-kelder] = 'unborn'.
28 She'th] 1667 changes to 'Th'hast'. barbary] 'Barbs' or Spanish horses were imported for the stud as early as Anglo-Saxon times; but before Cleveland's day actual Arabs had been tried.
34 compurgators] persons who swear in a court of law to the innocence or the veracity of some other person.
35 I was unable to say why the King of Bashan comes in here, except that the comparison of the Dialogue on the &c., 'Og the great commissary', and the put case about 'penance', suggest some church lawyer of portly presence. But Mr. Simpson and Mr. Thorn-Drury have traced the thing from this point as follows:
Cf. A Dialogue upon the &c., l. 47 'Og the great commissary', where the copy in Rawlinson MS. Poet. 26, fol. 94 b, has a marginal note 'Roan'. This was Dr. William Roan, of whom an account is given in the Catalogue of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum, Division 1, 'Political and Personal Satires', p. 156: 'Dr. Roane was one of the most eminent doctors who acted in Laud's Ecclesiastical Courts; he fled from the indignation of the House of Commons, and is frequently alluded to in pamphlets and broadsides of the time (see Times Alteration, Jan. 8, 1641,... Old News newly Revived, Dec. 21, 1640,...and The Spirituall Courts Epitomised, June 26, 1641).' The pamphlet illustrated in this note is A Letter front Rhoan in France Written by Doctor Roane one of the Doctors of the late Sicke Commons, to his Fellow Doctor of the Civill Law. Dated 28, of Iune last past. With an Ellegy written by his oune hand upon the death and buriall of the said Doctors Commons. Printed in this happy yeare, 1641. (Thomason's copy dated June 28.)
Mr. Thorn-Drury supplies the following references bearing directly on the nickname, and not noticed in the B.M. Catalogue: Foure fugitives meeting Or, The Discourse amongst my Lord Finch, Sir Frances Windebank, Sir John Sucklin, and Doctor Roane, as they accidentally met in France, with a detection of their severall pranks in England. Printed In the Yeare, 1641. 4o.
Suckling says to Roane, 'Hold there good Doctor Roane, and take me with you, you are to be blamed too, for not bidding farewell to Sir Paul Pinder, (at whose beauteous house, you have devoured the carkasse of many a cram'd Capon) before you fled, but I wonder more, why you came hither so unprovided; methinks some English dyet would have bin good for a weake stomack: the Church-Wardens of Northhamptonshire promised to give you a good fee, if you will goe to 'em, and resolve 'em whether they may lawfully take the oath &c. or no.