=Page 15.=--_The most beautiful in the kingdom._ There is a familiar story of two Englishmen who laid a wager as to which was the finest walk in England. After the money was put up, one named the walk from Stratford to Coventry, and the other that from Coventry to Stratford. How the umpire decided the case is not recorded. =Page 16.=--_The Cappers._ The makers of caps. =Page 17.=--_King Herod._ Longfellow, in his _Golden Legend_, introduces a miracle-play, _The Nativity_, which is supposed to be acted at Strasburg. Herod figures in it after the blustering fashion of the ancient dramas. Young readers will get a good idea of these plays from this imitation of them. =Page 18.=--_Other allusions to these old plays._ See, for instance, _Twelfth Night_, iv. 2. 134, _2 Henry IV._ iii. 2. 343, _Richard III._ iii. 1. 82, _Hamlet_, iii. 4. 98, etc., and the notes in my edition. =Page 19.=--_The legend of Godiva._ See Tennyson's _Godiva_. =Page 22.=--_Dr. Forman._ Simon Forman (1552-1611), a noted astrologer and quack, who wrote several books, and left a diary, in which he describes at considerable length the plot of Shakespeare's _Macbeth_, which he saw performed "at the Globe, 1610, the 20th of April, Saturday." See my edition of _Macbeth_, p. 9. =Page 23.=--The head of Sir Thomas Lucy is from his monument in Charlecote church. =Page 24.=--_A willow grows aslant a brook._ See _Hamlet_, iv. 7. 165. Some editions of Shakespeare follow the reading of the early quartos, "ascaunt the brook," which means the same. This willow (the _Salix alba_) grows on the banks of the Avon, and from the looseness of the soil the trees often partly lose their hold, and bend "aslant" the stream. =Page 26.=--_The banished Duke in As You Like It, etc._ See the play, ii. 1. 1-18. _His maidens ever sing of "blue-veined violets," etc._ The "blue-vein'd violets" are mentioned in _Venus and Adonis_, 125; the "daisies pied" (variegated), and the "lady-smocks all silver-white," in _Love's Labour's Lost_, v. 2. 904, 905; and the "pansies" in _Hamlet_, iv. 5. 176. =Page 27.=--_A manor of the Bishop of Worcester._ Under the feudal system, a _manor_ was a landed estate, with a village or villages upon it the inhabitants of which were generally _villeins_, or serfs of the owner or lord. These _villeins_ were either _regardant_ or _in gross_. The former "belonged to the manor as fixtures, passing with it when it was conveyed or inherited, and they could not be sold or transferred as persons separate from the land"; the latter "belonged personally to their lord, who could sell or transfer them at will." The _bordarii_, _bordars_, or _cottagers_, "seem to have been distinguished from the _villeins_ simply by their smaller holdings." For the menial services rendered by the villeins, and their condition generally, see the following pages.