Page 54.—Strewn with rushes. There are many allusions to this in Shakespeare. In The Taming of the Shrew (iv. 1. 48), when Petruchio is coming home, Grumio asks: "Is supper ready, the house trimmed, rushes strewed, cobwebs swept?" Compare Romeo and Juliet, i. 4. 36: "Tickle the senseless rushes with their heels" (that is, in dancing); Cymbeline, ii. 2. 13:—
"Our Tarquin thus
Did softly press the rushes," etc.
Page 55.—Thomas Coryat, born in 1577 and educated at Oxford, was celebrated for his pedestrian journeys on the Continent of Europe. In 1608 he travelled through France, Germany, and Italy, "walking 1975 miles, more than half of which were accomplished in one pair of shoes, which were only once mended, and on his return were hung up in the Church of Odcombe." Of this tour he wrote an account entitled "Coryat's Crudities hastily gobled up in five months' Travels in France," etc. He died at Surat in 1617, after explorations in Greece, Egypt, and India.
Page 56.—Bullein. William Bullein, or Bulleyn, born about 1500, was a learned physician and botanist. His Government of Health was very popular in its day. He wrote several other books of medicine. He died in 1576.
Page 57.—His Anatomy of Melancholy. Of this famous work, written by Robert Burton (1577–1640), Dr. Johnson said that it was "the only book that ever took me out of bed two hours sooner than I wished to rise."
Page 60.—Francis Seager. Of his personal history, as of that of Hugh Rhodes, nothing of importance is known.
Page 61.—He is then to make low curtsy. This form of obeisance was used by both sexes in Shakespeare's day. Cf. 2 Henry IV. ii. 1. 135: "if a man will make courtesy and say nothing, he is virtuous"; and the epilogue to the same play: "First my fear, then my courtesy, last my speech." Curtsy is a modern spelling of the word in this sense.
Page 62.—Caraways. The word occurs once in Shakespeare (2 Henry IV. v. 3. 3: "a dish of caraways"), where it probably has the same meaning as here; but some have thought that the reference is to a variety of apple.