Line 229. The table, etc.—"The table-line, or line of fortune, begins under the mount of Mercury, and ends near the index and middle finger.... When lines come from the mount of Venus, and cut the line of life, it denotes the party unfortunate in love and business, and threatens him with some suddain death" (The True Fortune-teller, or Guide to Knowledge, 1686).
Line 236. Sheppbiter.—A malicious, surly fellow; according to Dyce, "a cant term for a thief." See Twelfth Night, ii. 5, 6, "The niggardly, rascally sheep-biter."
Line 246. What.—MS. has the abbreviation wth, usually denoting with, but evidently substituted here, by a copyist's error, for wt = what.
Line 247. They can but bring, etc.—W. Carew Hazlitt (English Proverbs, p. 28) quotes from Heywood, 1562—"A man maie well bring a horse to the water, but he can not make him drinke without he will." He also mentions that the proverb is ascribed (probably falsely) to Queen Elizabeth, in the Philosopher's Banquet (1614).
Line 261. I = ay.—Both spellings occur in the MS. For the common use of the capital I in this sense, see Juliet's play upon the word—
"Hath Romeo slain himself? Say thou but 'I,'
And that bare vowel 'I' shall poison more
Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice;
I am not I, if there be such an I."
(Romeo and Juliet, iii. 2, 45, etc.)
Line 262. In spight of ... pye.—Alluding to the common belief in the pie, or magpie, as a bird of ill-omen.
Line 266. Phibbus.—The same spelling as in Midsummer Night's Dream, i. 2, 37.
Line 270. Baskett dagger.—Doubtless a weapon resembling the basket-sword, which had a hilt specially designed to protect the hand from injury. Cf. 2 Henry IV. ii. 4, 141.