Note 223 — ACT IV.[188]
Reading edition
To burn daylight was a proverbial phrase for doing anything in waste or with no advantage. See "Merry Wives of Windsor," ii. 1, and "Romeo and Juliet," i. 4. So in Churchyard's "Worthiness of Wales," p. 96, edit. 1776—
"Tyme rouleth on: I doe but daylight burne."
And in the "Curtain-Drawer of the World," 1612—"How dost thou burne out thy daylight to these thy regardless children."