Note 15 — NEW CUSTOM.
Reading edition
So in Hamlet: "The king is a thing of nothing." See the Notes of Dr Johnson, Dr Farmer, and Mr Steevens on that passage, edition of Shakspeare, 1778, vol. 10, p. 336. This play on the words was very common.
Again, in "The Humorous Lieutenant," A. iv. S. 6—
"Shall, then, that thing that honours thee How miserable a thing soever, yet a thing still, And, tho' a thing of nothing, thy thing ever."
[Dyce's edit. vi. 516.]