Note 128 — ACT II. SCENE I.

cheese-trenchers] “Before the general introduction of books, our ancestors were careful to dole out instruction in many ways: hangings, pictures, trenchers, knives, wearing apparel, every thing, in a word, that was capable of containing a short sentence, was turned to account.... Saltonstall observes of one of his characters, that ‘for talke hee commonly uses some proverbial verses, gathered perhaps from cheese-trenchers.’ Pictures, by W. S.”—Id. See also my edition of Webster’s Works, III. 191, and note there.