Note 17 — PROLOGUE,

The ancient game of shovel-board was played by sliding pieces of money along a smooth table, something on the principle of billiards. The allusion seems to be the same as if a modern poet had said, that a feeble player at billiards runs no risk of pocketing his own ball. The reader will find a variety of passages concerning this pastime in the notes of the various commentators upon a passage in the "Merry Wives of Windsor," where Slender enumerates among the contents of his pocket, when picked by Pistol, "two Edward shovel-boards," that is, two broad shillings of Edward VI. used for playing at this game. In some old halls the shovel-board table is still preserved, and sometimes used.