Chapter XCI: Act IV: SCENE 2. Page 139

CADE. ... the _three-hoop'd_ pot shall have ten hoops.

The note here is not sufficiently explanatory. The old drinking pots, being of wood, were bound together, as barrels are, with hoops; whence they were called _hoops_. Cade promises that every can which now had three hoops shall be increased in size so as to require ten. What follows in the notes about "burning of cans," does not appear to relate to the subject.

SCENE 2. Page 140.

SMITH. The clerk of Chatham.

This person is a nonentity in history, and in all probability a character invented by the writer of the play. It is presumed that few will be inclined to agree with Mr. Ritson in supposing him to have been Thomas Bayly, _a necromancer at Whitechapel_, and Cade's bosom friend.

SCENE 7. Page 161.

CADE. Then break into his son in law's house, Sir _James_ Cromer.

Mr. Ritson cites William of Worcester to show that this sheriff's name was _William_. The author of the play, if wrong, may be justified by the examples of Halle, Grafton, Stowe, in his early editions, and Holinshed, who call him _James_. Fabian, as if doubtful, leaves a blank for Crowmer's Christian name. As to the fact itself, the evidence of William of Worcester, a contemporary writer, is entitled to the preference. Fuller's list of the sheriffs of Kent likewise makes the name _William_.

SCENE 10. Page 173.

CADE. I think this word sallet was born to do me good: for many a
time, but for a _sallet_, my brain-pan had been cleft with a brown
bill.

The notes on this occasion may admit of correction as well as curtailment. It is possible that we have borrowed _sallet_ from the French _salade_, in the sense of a helmet: but the original word is the old Teutonic _schale_, which signifies generally _a covering_. Hence _shell_, _scale_, _scull_, _shield_, &c. Wicliffe does not use _brain-pan_ for scull, in Judges ix. 53, as Mr. Whalley supposes, but _brain_, simply.

FOOTNOTES:

[16] One should almost suppose that the historian had recollected Cyrano de Bergerac's dream of a visit to the infernal regions, where he saw the Duke of Clarence, "who," says he, "_voluntarily drowned himself in a barrel of Malmsey_, seeking for Diogenes, in hopes of getting half his tub to lodge in."

KING HENRY VI.