NOTES.

PROLOGUE.

1,2.
which imagines several heavens one above the other, the last and
highest of which was one of fire. This is possible, for Shake-
speare abounds with allusions to the astronomical beliefs of his
day. The whole subject is well illustrated by Mr. lurnivall in
his paper on the "moon's sphere," M. N. Z)., ii. 1. 7, printed in
the Transactions of the N. 8. & for 1877-9, pp. 431-50. Op. Key-
wood, prologue to the Royal King and Loyal Subject, 1L 13-17 :—
"Nay, 'tis knowne
That when our chronicles have barren growne
Of story, we hf ve all invention stretcht
Div'd low as to'the center, and then reacht
Unto the Primum Mobile above,"
For invention, cp. also N. M.9 ii. 4. 3.
4. swelling scene, " gradually increasing in interest and
grandeur. Cp. Macb. I 3. 128 " (Wright).
5. lifce himself, as he was wont to show himself when in the
flefeh. Delius compares the stage direction in i. 2, of Timon of
Athens, "Then comes, dropping after all, Apemantus, discon-
tentedly, like himself."
6. port, lofty carriage, dignity of appearance. Cp. A, C, iv.
14. 52.
7. Leash'd in. On the words leash and Ij/m or lyam, a writer
in the Id. Renew for October 1872 quotes from the old 'Art of
Venerie *: " We finde some difference of termes betwene hounds
and greyhounds. As of greyhounds two make a brase, and of
hounds a couple. Of greyhounds three make a lease, and of
hounds a couple and a halfe. We let slippe a greyhound, and
we cast off a hound. The string wherewith we leade a greyhound
is called a lease, and for a hound a lyame." Lea>sh then came to
be used in a more general sense for three things taken together,
especially for three birds, a brace and a half. Though Middleton,
Master Constable, I 2. 31, uses it as equivalent to two.