Note 558 — SCENE III.

He cries it hither: I must disease you straight, sir.

For the maid-servants and the girls o’ th’ house,

I spic’d them lately with a drowsy posset]

Cries i. e. snores—disease, i. e. disturb, waken. It was formerly a general custom to eat possets just before bed-time.—Steevens compares this passage with the following one of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, act ii. sc. 2;

“the surfeited grooms

Do mock their charge with snores: I have drugg’d their possets,” &c.

and observes, that Macbeth’s expression, act ii. sc. 1, “There’s no such thing,” is likewise used by Francisca (see p. 317), when she undeceives her brother.