[Line: 1 'pence apiece' _1651_, which makes doubtful sense. _1653_, _1677_, and all others before me, have 'pence a piece', which I believe to be careless printing for the text above. The 'piece' is the same as the 'beast', and the brackets which follow in the originals are a printer's error. 'Piece', in this sense of 'rare object', is not uncommon. Cf. Prospero's 'Thy mother was a _piece_ of _virtue_.' 'Pence apiece' (about the same as the Scotch fishwife's 'pennies each'), if not, as Mr. Berdan says, 'proverbial', is certainly a perfectly common expression, still I think existing, but it is difficult to see how what follows can thus suit it. 'Which' must have an antecedent.] [Line: 4 'Bartlemew' _1651_, _1653_: 'Bartholmew' _1654_. The word was, of course, pronounced 'Bartlemy,' and almost dissyllabically.] [Line: 5 that outvies] _1651_, _1653_ 'one that outvies', perhaps rightly.] [Line: 6 Tredeskin _1651_, _1653_: Tredescant _1677_.] [Line: 11 The reference to the animal between two burdens to whom Issachar is biblically compared (Gen. xlix. 14) is perhaps meant to be additionally pointed by 'Sir _Martin_', the latter being one of the story-names of the much-enduring beast.] [Line: 16 voider] The servant who clears the table; also, but here less probably, the tray or basket used for the purpose.] [Line: 18 The 'Poor Knights of Windsor' having fallen, like other institutions, into the maw of plebeian and Puritan plunder.] [Line: 19 The hyphen at 'Pair-royal', which Mr. Berdan has dropped, is important, the term being technical in certain card-games and meaning _three_ cards of the same value--kings, &c.] [Line: 21 trumped on thee = turned thee up like a trump.] [Line: 22 'Smec'--of course--'tymnuus', and used both for the sake of contempt and as denoting a plurality of person.] [Line: 24 The principle of this line is of course part of the A B C of the more modern and dogmatic heraldry: the application will lie either on sword or spur, the two characteristic insignia of knighthood and both metallic. _1677_ changed 'ill armory' to 'false heraldry', and Scott was probably thinking of this line when he made Prince John and Wamba between them use the phrase in _Ivanhoe_.] [Line: 25 Godfrey's arms as King of Jerusalem--five golden crosses on a silver shield--were commonly quoted, as Cleveland quotes them, in special exception to the rule. But my friend Mr. F. P. Barnard, Professor of Mediaeval Archaeology in the University of Liverpool, to whom I owe the materials of this note, tells me that he has collected many other cases, English and foreign. The objection, however, was originally a practical one, metal on metal and colour on colour being difficult to distinguish _in the field_. It passed into a technical rule later.]