Note 902 — ACT IV. SCENE I.

carpet] i. e. table-cover.—Gifford (Ben Jonson’s Works, vol. v. p. 182) explains it “embroidered rug:” but why “rug?” the finest Turkey carpets were formerly used for covering tables, as many old pictures testify.—That carpet also meant sometimes a bed-cover appears from the following passage of Brathwaite:

“Downe goes the silken carpet all the while,

Showing those sheets,” &c.

Strappado for the Diuell, 1615, p. 43.