The Mother Goose rhyme ‘Hark, hark, the dogs do bark' is not as well known today as it was in the 1880s. Although the fourth line ‘some in velvet gowns’ (which first appeared in print in 1784) does not occur in the play, Shakespeare would have expected that his audience would recognize the phrase and mentally fill in the missing lines and, as such, the reference functions as an implied stage direction.