e poetic element out of heaven,
earth, and humanity: he would have his uncle's spies attribute his
condition to mere melancholy.]

[Footnote 2: --said angrily, I think.]

[Footnote 3: --a ready-witted subterfuge.]

[Footnote 4: came alongside of them; got up with them; apparently rather
from Fr. _cote_ than _coter_; like _accost_. Compare 71. But I suspect
it only means _noted_, _observed_, and is from _coter_.]

[Footnote 5: --_with humorous imitation, perhaps, of each of the
characters_.]

[Footnote 6: --the man with a whim.]

[Footnote 7: This part of the speech--from [7] to [8], is not in the
_Quarto_.]

[Footnote 8: Halliwell gives a quotation in which the touch-hole of a
pistol is called the _sere_: the _sere_, then, of the lungs would mean
the opening of the lungs--the part with which we laugh: those 'whose
lungs are tickled a' th' sere,' are such as are ready to laugh on the
least provocation: _tickled_--_irritable, ticklish_--ready to laugh, as
another might be to cough. 'Tickled o' the sere' was a common phrase,
signifying, thus, _propense_.

_1st Q._ The clowne shall make them laugh
That are tickled in the lungs,]

[Footnote 9: Does this refer to the pause that expresses the
unutterable? or to the ruin of the measure of the verse by an
incompetent heroine?]

[Footnote 10: Does this mean, 'I think their prohibition comes through
the late innovation,'--of the children's acting; or, 'I think they are
prevented from staying at home by the late new measures,'--such, namely,
as came of the puritan opposition to stage-plays? This had grown so
strong, that, in 1600, the Privy Council issued an order restricting the
number of theatres in London to two: by such an _innovation_ a number of
players might well be driven to the country.]

[Page 96]

_Ham_. Doe they hold the same estimation they
did when I was in the City? Are they so follow'd?

_Rosin_. No indeed, they are not. [Sidenote: are they not.]

[1]_Ham_. How comes it? doe they grow rusty?

_Rosin_. Nay, their indeauour keepes in the
wonted pace; But there is Sir an ayrie of Children,[2]
little Yases,[3] that crye out[4] on the top of question;[5]
and are most tyrannically clap't for't: these are
now the fashion, and so be-ratled the common
Stages[6] (so they call them) that many wearing
Rapiers,[7] are affraide of Goose-quils, and dare
scarse come thither.[8]

_Ham_. What are they Children? Who maintains
'em? How are