Note 8 — ACT I. SCENE I.

Hobson’s porters] Hobson was the celebrated Cambridge-carrier, on whose death, in Jan. 1630-1, Milton, while a student at that university, composed a copy of verses. There are three epitaphs on Hobson in Wit’s Recreations, p. 249, reprint 1817; and his will, dated Dec. 1630, is printed in the Coll. of Pieces appended to Peck’s Memoirs of Cromwell, p. 44. A tract, published in 1617, 4to, is called, from him, Hobson’s Horse-load of Letters, or a President for Epistles; and he is said (see The Spectator, No. 509,) to have given rise to the expression Hobson’s choice.