[6] That is, costard, or apple, mongers.
[7] See Appendix to the present chapter, p. [58].
[8] The pentageron, or pentagramma, is a mystic figure produced by prolonging the sides of a regular pentagon till they intersect one another. It can be drawn without a break in the drawing, and, viewed from five sides, exhibits the form of the letter A (pent-alpha), or the figure of the fifth proposition in Euclid’s First Book.
[9] From the Greek φόβος, fear; φόβητρα, bugbears.
[10] Bad puns were evidently common on the stage before the days of Victorian burlesque.
[11] So Shakespeare, ‘1 Hen. IV.,’ iii. Falstaff says: ‘I make as good use of it as many a man doth of a death’s head, or a memento house.’
[12] So in the ‘Passionate Pilgrim’:
‘Save the nightingale alone:
She, poor bird, as all forlorn,
Leaned her breast uptill a thorn.’
[13] A peripatetic, or walking philosopher. Observe the facetiousness in ‘Aristotle’s stamp.’ Aristotle was the founder of the Peripatetics.
[14] Fabius Cunctator, or the Delayer, so called from the policy of delay which he opposed to the vigorous movements of Hannibal. One would suppose that the humour here, such as it is, would hardly be perceptible to a theatrical audience.