Page 69.—Taylor the Water Poet. John Taylor (1580–1654), a waterman who afterwards became a collector of wine duties in London. He wrote much in prose and verse, and was very popular in his day.
Page 70.—Dr. John Jones. A physician, who practised at Bath and Buxton, England, and wrote a number of medical works between 1556 and 1579.
Page 71.—No other clear allusion to the game, etc. Some critics have thought there may be a punning allusion to the stale-mate of chess in The Taming of the Shrew, i. 1. 58: "To make a stale of me among these mates"; but this is doubtful.
Page 73.—She was pinch'd. The she is used in a demonstrative sense, referring to one of the company (this maid), as he (that man) is in the next line. The Friar is the Friar Rush of the fairy mythology, whom Milton seems here to identify with Jack-o'-the-Lantern, or Will-o'-the-Wisp, the luminous appearance sometimes seen in marshy places; but Friar Rush, according to Keightley, "haunted houses, not fields, and was never the same with Jack-o'-the-Lantern."
Page 74.—The drudging goblin. Robin Goodfellow, the Puck of Shakespeare. Cf. A Midsummer-Night's Dream, ii, 1. 40:—
"They that Hobgoblin call you and sweet Puck,
You do their work, and they shall have good luck."
To bed they creep. Somewhat reluctantly and timidly after the stories of fairies and goblins.
Charles Knight. An English publisher and author (1791–1873), one of the leading editors and biographers of Shakespeare.