[Footnote 15: A change to the singular.]
[Footnote l6: 'be his virtues besides as pure &c.']
[Footnote 17: walk under; carry.]
[Footnote 18: the judgment of the many.]
[Footnote 19: 'Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savour: so doth a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom and honour.' Eccles. x. 1.]
[Footnote 20: Compare Quarto reading, page 112:
The spirit that I haue scene
May be a deale, and the deale hath power &c.
If deale here stand for devil, then eale may in the same edition be taken to stand for evil. It is hardly necessary to suspect a Scotch printer; evil is often used as a monosyllable, and eale may have been a pronunciation of it half-way towards ill, which is its contraction.]
[Footnote 21: I do not believe there is any corruption in the rest of the passage. 'Doth it of a doubt:' affects it with a doubt, brings it into doubt. The following from Measure for Measure, is like, though not the same.
I have on Angelo imposed the office,
Who may, in the ambush of my name, strike home
And yet my nature never in the fight
To do in slander.