Likes the pen. Suits the pen. Compare Hamlet ii. 2. 80: "it likes us well"; Henry V. iii. prol. 32: "The offer likes not," etc.
Particularities. Peculiarities.
Which either cannot understand, etc. The relative is equivalent to who, and refers to the preceding many. This use of which was common in Shakespeare's day. Compare The Tempest, iii. 1. 6: "The mistress which I serve," etc.
Or cannot entend to understand, etc. That is, cannot intend (of which entend is an obsolete form), but the word is here used in a sense which is not recognized in the dictionaries. The meaning seems to be that these "plain people" cannot understand a rule either at sight or after some effort to comprehend it, having neither the time nor the conceit (intellect) to master it. Conceit in this sense is common in Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Compare 2 Henry IV. ii. 4. 263: "He a good wit?... there's no more conceit in him than is in a mallet."
Page 109.—John Brinsley became master of the grammar school at Ashby-de-la-Zouche in 1601, where he remained for sixteen years. The full title of his book is Ludus Literarius, or the Grammar Schoole (1612). He writes much better English than Mulcaster, and young people will find no difficulty in understanding the passage quoted from him.
Proceed in learning. That is, pursue their studies after leaving the grammar school.
Page 110.—Present correction. Immediate correction, or punishment. For this old sense of present, compare 2 Henry IV. iv. 3. 80:—
"Send Colevile with his confederates
To York, to present execution."
Countervail. Counterbalance, make up for.