Note 334 — ACT V.

The meaning is that in The Malcontent, which had been originally acted at Blackfriars Theatre, the practice of wearing feathers had been so ridiculed that the feather-makers of Blackfriars had suffered injury in their business. In v. 4 occurs the passage in which the use of feathers is ridiculed:—“For as now-a-days no courtier but has his mistress, no captain but has his cockatrice, no cuckold but has his horns, and no fool but has his feather.” &c. Blackfriars was noted as being the residence of Puritans, many of whom followed the trade of feather-makers. There is some amusing ridicule of the Puritan feather-makers in Ben Jonson’s Bartholomew Fair, Randolph’s Muses’ Looking-Glass, &c.