[1019] Alamort, mortally sick; and then, dispirited.
[1020] "A gay, reckless fellow."
[1021] Below 'Neptune,' Sig. A iii.
[1022] B. refers to Ebbsworth, Roxburghe Ballads, IV. 365, 468. See also Nash, Four Letters Confuted (Grosart, II. 190), who says of Harvey's "barefoote rimes" that "they would have trowld off bravely to the tune of O man in desperation, and, like Marenzos Madrigals, the mourneful note naturally have affected the miserable Dittie."
[1023] Chappell gives the song in Popular Music of the Olden Time, p. 216. Three Merry Men is quoted in Westward Hoe, and in Barry's Ram Alley (sung by Smallshanks: see note, Hazlitt-Dodsley, X. 298), as well as in Twelfth Night; and it is parodied by the musical cook in The Bloody Brother. Chappell is somewhat daring when he takes these words from the Old Wives' Tale as the original; lines 3 and 4 look like a parody.
[1024] Dy. points out the pun in 'wooden' (= mad).
[1025] Long wide breeches or trousers; Dy. See Looking-Glass for London and England, near end: "This right slop is my pantry, behold a manchet [Draws it out]" ...
[1026] A bit of nonsense like the talk of Macbeth's porter. The speech is a sort of parody on the appeal of wandering knights or travellers in romances, and Clunch, with his 'territories,' may take the place of enchanter, giant, or the like.
[1027] This use of the third person is common in dramas of the time. See Ward, Old English Drama, Select Plays, etc., Introd., p. xi., notes. So in Greene: "Which Brandamart (i.e. I)" ...; "For Sacripant must have Angelica." It served to identify the actor.
[1028] They are now supposed to be at the cottage.