Note 30 — W. CAREW HAZLITT.

A proverbial expression often found in ancient writers. Heywood has it: “Happy man, happy dole.” See Dyce’s Glossary to his second edition of Shakespeare, p. 201. Dole, Mr Steevens observes (Notes to “The Taming of the Shrew,” act i., sc. 1), is any thing dealt out or distributed, though its original meaning was the provision given away at the doors of great men’s houses. It is generally written be his dole, though Ray, p. 116, gives it as in the second 4to by his dole. Shakespeare also uses the phrase in “The Merry Wives of Windsor.”

Again, in “Hudibras,” p. 1, c. 3, l. 637—