William Browne (1591–1643?) published book i. of Britannia's Pastorals in 1613. He also wrote The Shepherd's Pipe (1614) and other poems.
Page 184.—A carved hook, that is, a shepherd's crook (called a "sheep-hook" in The Winter's Tale, iv. 4. 431), as the scrip is his pouch or wallet. Compare As You Like It (iii. 2. 171), where Touchstone says to Corin: "Come, shepherd, let us make an honourable retreat; though not with bag and baggage, yet with scrip and scrippage."
John Aubrey (1626–1697), besides assisting Anthony Wood in his Antiquities of Oxford (1674), wrote Miscellanies, a collection of short stories and other tales of the supernatural.
Page 185.—The Puritan Stubbes. Concerning this Philip Stubbes little appears to be known except that he was educated at Oxford and Cambridge, but became a rigid Puritan, and wrote several books besides the famous Anatomie of Abuses.
Richard Carew (1555–1620) was a poet and antiquarian, and for a time high sheriff of Cornwall.
Page 186.—Pageants. The word in Shakespeare's day was generally applied to theatrical entertainments.
Play the woman's part. Female parts were played by boys or young men until after the middle of the 17th century. Samuel Pepys, in his Diary, under date of January 3, 1660, writes: "To the Theatre, where was acted 'Beggar's Brush,' it being very well done; and here the first time that ever I saw women come upon the stage." Again, under February 12, 1660, he records a performance of The Scornful Lady, adding: "now done by a woman, which makes the play appear much better than ever it did to me."
Made her weep a-good. That is, heartily.
Passioning. Grieving, lamenting. Compare Venus and Adonis, 1059: "Dumbly she passions," etc.
Page 190.—Steevens. George Steevens (1736–1800) was an eccentric but accomplished editor and critic. "He was often wantonly mischievous, and delighted to stumble for the mere gratification of dragging unsuspicious innocents into the mire with him. He was, in short, the very Puck of commentators."