Note 521 — ACT V. SCENE I.

O, the clowns, &c.] Nash tells us that, “amongst other cholericke wise Justices he was one that, hauing a play presented before him and his Township, by Tarlton and the rest of his fellows, her Maiesties seruants, as they were now entring into their first merriment (as they call it), the people began exceedingly to laugh, when Tarlton first peept out his head.”—Pierce Pennilesse, sig. D. 2, ed. 1595. And in the Præludium to Goff’s Careless Shepherdes, 1656, Thrift says—

“I never saw Rheade peeping through the Curtain,

But ravishing joy enter’d into my heart.” p. 5.