286. This list of characters is not in the old copy, but was made out from the mention of persons in the progress of the piece.--_Collier_. 287. The old copy from which this dramatic piece was first reprinted by Dodsley, and subsequently by Mr Reed, having been damaged, and a part of the leaf lost, it was not possible to ascertain exactly the last word of this line: it was therefore supplied by conjecture, and not very happily: the line has till now stood-- "Without whose knowledge no man to the truth can _come_." But the form of the stanza, and the rhyme in the next line, shows decidedly that this is wrong. In Davenport's "City Night Cap," Act 3, we meet with a not very dissimilar use of the word _fall_. "I have made a modest choice of you, grave sir, To be my ghostly father; and to you I _fall_ for absolution." 288. The commencement of this Act is not marked in the original, although notice is given of its conclusion.--_Collier_. 289. This scriptural expression occurs very frequently in our ancient dramatic writers-- "Never this heart shall have the thoughtful dread _To die the death_ that, by your grace's doom, By just desert shall be pronounc'd to me." --_Ferrex and Porrex_, A. 4, S. 2. "Either _to die the death_, or to abjure For ever the society of men." --_Midsummer Night's Dream_, A. 1, S. 1. "Or else he must not only _die the death_, But thy unkindness shall his death draw out To lingering sufferance." --_Measure for Measure_, A. 2, S. 4. See Dr Johnson and Mr Steevens's notes on the two latter passages. "Wert thou my bosom-love, _thou dyst the death_; Best ease for madness is the loss of breath." --Machin's _Dumb Knight_, A. 2. 290. Stir. Glossary to Mandevile's _Voyage_, 1725. It is a very common form. 291. Acknowledge. 292. Original has _trade_. 293. Chaucer, in his "Canterbury Tales," l. 509, describing the Parson, says-- "He set not his benefice to hire, And laft his sheep _accombred_ in the mire," &c. Dr Morrell spells the word _accumbrit_, and explains it in this manner-- "_Accumbrit_ may be interpreted _to wallow, to lie down_, qu. _accumbere_." But Chaucer sometimes uses it in another sense-- "That they were _acombrit_ in their own distreyt." --_Merchant's Second Tale_, 2910. _i.e_., They were encumbered, brought into great straights. A vet. Gall. _Combre_ or _Comble_. "Trough wine and women there was both _accombred_." --Pierce Plowman's _Vision_. None of these explanations exactly agrees with the text. Bishop Bale certainly means, agreeably to the passage in the Bible to which he alludes, _to destroy_ or _overwhelm_. 294. _Achab_ in original, and Latimer in his First Sermon before King Edward VI., calls him _Hachab_.