Hi 
 
 Tr^r"°iT'iim 
 
 MAGKAY 
 New Light on Son» Obscure Words and 
 Phrases in the Works of Shakespeare
 
 NEW LIGHT 
 
 ON 
 
 SOME OBSCURE WORDS AND PHRASES IN 
 
 THE WORKS OF SHAKSPEARE AND 
 
 HIS CONTEMPORARIES. 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES MACKAY, LL.D. 
 
 AUTHOR OF "the GAELIC (ANCIENT BRITISH) ETYMOLOGY OF THE 
 
 LANGUAGES OF WESTERN EUROPE, AND MORE ESPECIALLY OF 
 
 THE ENGLISH AND LOWLAND SCOTCH." 
 
 $011^ on : 
 REEVES & TURNER, 196, STRAND, W.C 
 
 1884.
 
 LIBRARY 
 UWVERSITY OF CALIFORIS 
 SANTA BARBARA 
 
 Subscribers' Names^ already received. 
 
 H.R.H. The Prince Leopold (Duke of Albany). 
 
 The Duke of Devonshire. 
 
 The Marquis of Hartington. 
 
 The Earl of Derby. 
 
 The Earl of Southesk. 
 
 Lord Wolverton. 
 
 The Baroness Burdett Coutts {2 Copies^. 
 
 Lord Waveney. 
 
 Lord Reay (2 Copies). 
 
 Lord Tennyson. 
 
 Sir John Lubbock, Bart, M.P. 
 
 Sir Arthur J. Otway, Bart, M.P. 
 
 Sir Erasmus Wilson, F.R.S. 
 
 Sir James Cairo, K.C.B. 
 
 Henry Irving, Esq. 
 
 John Payne Collier, F.S.A. {deceased). 
 
 Sir John Gilbert, R.A. (2 Copies). 
 
 Alfred Morrison, Esq. (6 Copies). 
 
 B. Leigh Smith, Esq. (5 Copies). 
 
 Wm. Hazlitt, Esq. (Registrar in Bankruptcy). 
 
 Sir Theodore Martin (2 Copies). 
 
 John Walter, Esq., M.P. 
 
 S. MoRLEY, Esq., M.P. 
 
 J. O. Halliwell-Phillips, Esq. 
 
 P. H. MuNTZ, Esq., M.P. 
 
 Justin McCarthy, Esq., M.P. 
 
 Samuel Timmins, Esq., F.S.A. (Birmingham). 
 
 J. Pym Yeatman, Esq. 
 
 Colin Rae Brown, Esq. 
 
 Henry Russell, Esq. 
 
 Mrs. Mounsey Bartholomew.
 
 Sul'S.ril'^ri' \ii/»^, already rfceivdi. 
 
 Or. Campuki I, MoRrn. 
 
 Miss Morfit. 
 
 Bernard QuARiirn, Escj. 
 
 Chari-ks H. RussEi.i^ Ksq. 
 
 CoNDE Dt Casa Gonzalez. 
 
 George Hawkes, Esq. 
 
 \Vm. Black, Esq. 
 
 James Smith, Escj. (Glasgow). 
 
 George Ure, Esq. (Glasgow). 
 
 The Mitchell Liiirary (Glasgow). 
 
 P. CoMYN Macgreoor, Esq. (Paisley) 
 
 Charles de la Prymf, Esq. 
 
 Dr. Tanner. 
 
 C. E. Flower, Esq., Stratford-upon-Avon. 
 
 Messrs. Truhner & Co. (4 Copies). 
 
 Public Library, Boston, Massachusetts. 
 
 Alfred Ru.ssell S.mith (2 Copies). 
 
 S. C. Hall, Esq., F.S.A. 
 
 J. C. Magrath, Esq. 
 
 G. W. Nicholls, Esq. (Glamorgan). 
 
 G. W. Petter, Esq. (Messrs. Cassell & Co.). 
 
 Adam Holden, Esq. (Liverpool). 
 
 Messrs. Blackwood & Co. Edinburgh (2 Copies). 
 
 James B. Brown, Esq. (Selkirk). 
 
 James Rae, Esq. 
 
 Reform Club Library. 
 
 Archibald Hood, Esq. (Cardiff). 
 
 Cluny Macpherson, of Cluny, Esq. 
 
 A. L. Elder, Esq. 
 
 John Mackay, Esq. (Swansea). 
 
 John Mackay, Esq. (Ben Reay). 
 
 Edwin Arnold, Esq. 
 
 George Routledge, Esq. 
 
 Robert Hepburn, Esq. 
 
 Lachlan' MacKinnon, Esq. (Skye). 
 
 James Heddekwick, Esq. LL.D. (Glasgow). 
 
 Rev. James Stor.month (deceased). 
 
 T. L OxLEY, Esq. {deceased).
 
 Subscribers' Names, already received. 
 
 W. W. Tucker (Boston, Massachusetts). 
 
 F. DE M. Leathes, Esq. 
 
 G. Maude Allen, Esq. 
 G. J. Gray, Esq. 
 
 The Rev. Aldis Wright (Cambridge). 
 
 Richard'^Gibbs, Esq. 
 
 A. L. Elder, Esq. 
 
 A. Vigors o' Dwyer, Esq. 
 
 J. T. Maybank, Esq. (Dorking). 
 
 Mrs. Robert Reece. 
 
 Miss Bertha de Vyver. 
 
 Subscribers'' Navies will be received by the Aut/ior, Fern Dell, 
 
 Dorking ; and by Messrs. Reeves &= Turner, 196, Strand^ 
 
 London, JF.C.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 -<i<Ti'J)K6V>a- 
 
 All Students and lovers of Shakspeare are aware that there are 
 many obscure and unintelligible words and phrases in his Plays 
 and Poems, as well as in those of his most eminent contemporaries, 
 which his editors and commentators have hitherto been unable to 
 explain. Critical examination proves that a large proportion of 
 these are traceable to the Keltic, Gaelic, or Gallic spoken by the 
 Britons who possessed the country before the irruption of the 
 Danes and Saxons, or the formation of the actual English lan- 
 guage. This ancient, but long unwritten speech, though Dr. 
 Samuel Johnson and others, who spoke without knowledge, were 
 of a contrary opinion, was not wholly superseded by the Anglo- 
 Saxon, but remained to a very considerable extent in use among 
 the labouring classes and the unliterary population, until long after 
 the time of Shakspeare, and exists to the present day in many 
 slang and unliterary words and the colloquial lanquage of the 
 uneducated or semi-educated vulgar. By the lights derived from 
 these hitherto-neglected sources, the Author has been enabled to 
 explain many passages in these immortal works, which have been 
 puzzles and stumbling-blocks to English scholars for nearly three 
 centuries. 
 
 The work, of which the following pages are offered as a 
 specimen, appeals to all admirers of the poet, and to such 
 students of philology as are ready to receive the truth whence- 
 soever it may come, and however much it may run counter to the 
 preconceived opinion that the English language is wholly of 
 Saxon or Anglo-Saxon derivation ; and that it is in no way 
 indebted to the original speech of the British people.
 
 s 
 
 h.itulsoincly printed on fine paper, small quarto 
 
 y liinilct.1 Id '1 wo Huiuin-d and I'ijty Copies^ each 
 
 of w h will be nunihcrcfl and certified by the signature of the 
 
 Author, and of which the price to the oric;ina' subscribers will be 
 
 ( ».,,. r.Minca, and to non-subscribers Owo. (Guinea and a-Hali.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 -c<o5X(»>>;>- 
 
 There are many words and phrases in the works of 
 Shakspeare, and in those of the poets and dramatists of the 
 Elizabethan era that are obsolete or unintelligible, or have 
 changed their primitive meaning. Some of the obscurities 
 that have long puzzled commentators are evident errors of 
 the press, for Shakspeare seems never to have corrected his 
 proof-sheets, like the authors of our time, and was so sin- 
 gularly careless of his literary fame, except in the instance 
 of his early and very beautiful poems, Venus and Adonis 
 and the Rape of LiLcrece, as to allow printers and publishers 
 to attribute to him many works, unworthy of his reputa- 
 tion, which he never wrote, and to publish his undoubted 
 works without his sanction. This circumstance accounts 
 for many errors that have crept into the text, but leaves 
 unexplained a great number of words that must have been 
 current in his time, or he would not have used them, but 
 which dropped out of literary fashion in the courtly and 
 corrupt time of Charles II., and in that of Dryden and Pope 
 when classicism all but killed romanticism in the current 
 literature of the upper classes. 
 
 It is very clear that Shakspeare did not derive all his 
 words from the dictionaries, but that he made a free use of 
 the vernacular and unliterary speech of the people of his 
 time and of the midland districts of England, to which 
 London did not wholly give the literary law, as it did a
 
 to 
 
 IN IROl'l ( IK >\ 
 
 ccnturv later. The dictionaries tif his time were few and 
 of small value, and not one of them recoj^nizcd the fact 
 that the Kn.^dish lani:juage was not wholly drawn from 
 the Flemish, the h'rcnch, or the Latin. No account was 
 made of the Keltic element in the common speech of 
 the labourinj^f classes. It was generally and implicitly 
 bclieveil that the earl)- inhabitants of Britain who spoke 
 Keltic, though spared In- the Romans during nearly 
 five centuries of occupation, were exterminated after the 
 Romans left by the Saxons and Danes, with the excep- 
 tion of a few who fled to Normandy and Brittany or 
 took refuge in Wales and Cornwall, or fled across the Clyde 
 to the mountains of Scotland. This erroneous idea, that 
 rested solely upon the authority of Gildas, possibly a good 
 monk, but certainly an untrustworthy historian, prevailed 
 until Dr. Johnson compiled his pretentious and often erro- 
 neous Dictionary in the eighteenth century, and has more 
 or less coloured every dictionary that has been subsequently 
 published. It is beginning, however, to be understood that 
 though many thousands, it may be hundreds of thousands, 
 of the Britons were slain, and dispossessed of their lands, 
 and reduced to feudal servitude by the Danes and the 
 Saxons, they were not exterminated ; that their extermina- 
 tion was not so much as attempted or advocated ; that the 
 invaders who came to the country without women inter- 
 married with the British, and that the ancient language of 
 the mothers of the new and mixed race remained partially 
 existent in the new generation. It was this British or 
 Gaelic, and partially Kymric, element of the language, 
 scarcely understood and wholly despised by the governing 
 classes, that in after years became known as " slang " or 
 " cant," all the words of which were declared by Johnson 
 and his equally ignorant predecessors and successors to be
 
 INTRODUCTION. ii 
 
 " without etymology." But, as has been said in our day by 
 the Duke of Somerset, " every word in every language has 
 its pedigree." There is not a slang or cant word in English 
 — or in any of the languages of Europe — that has not its 
 etymology as clearly traceable as the more classic words 
 that have been admitted to the honours of literature. Mid- 
 England, where Shakspeare was born and bred, was not so 
 thoroughly Saxonized, either in speech or blood, as the 
 southern and eastern shores of the island. The forest of 
 Arden, where he chased the deer, means in Keltic the 
 "high" forest. His mother's name was Keltic, if not 
 his father's ; for it is possible that Shakspeare is but a 
 Saxonized corruption of the Keltic Schacspeir, or Chaksper, 
 as his father's name was written, which signifies, — sJiac or 
 seac, dry, and speiv shank ; as we have in our day the 
 Saxon names of Sheepshank and Cruikshank, suggested 
 by a personal malformation or deformity in days when 
 surnames were not common, and applied as a nickname 
 to some early ancestor of the family. Not alone Shak- 
 speare, but Spencer, Ben Jonson, Marlow, Massinger, Beau- 
 mont and Fletcher, and other writers of that time, employed 
 British words, which were then well understood, but which 
 have not been explained by modern commentators, for the 
 sufficient reason that they have never looked for the ex- 
 planations in the only place where it is possible to find 
 them — the language of the Saxon and Flemish Britons, 
 and of the sons of British mothers, who retained in after- 
 life the homely words of the nursery and the workshop. 
 And the very name of Anglo-Saxon — long erroneously 
 supposed to be compounded of Angle in Jutland, and 
 Saxon from the German principality of Saxony — unknown 
 in that early day, — is a proof of the fusion of tlic British 
 with the Germanic race. Angle is in all probability but a
 
 ,j IN IKODUri ION'. 
 
 Teutonic corruplion of the Keltic Ati-^iw/—" the Gael " or 
 Kelts— so that the very name of Enyjland^or Aiig/c-Uv\(\ 
 —is the lainl of the Gael, and not the land of the Teutons 
 or Saxons. Scholars \vh(j have taken the pains to investi- 
 gate the truth of traditionary opinions and derivations, and 
 who have been, moreover, led astray by the erroneous his- 
 tory of Gildas, and his successors who accepted his state- 
 ments without imiuir)', all agreed to ignore the British 
 element in the language, or to confine it to Wales, Cornwall, 
 the Highlands of Scotland, and portions of Ireland. But 
 the language never wholly died out of England proper, 
 though it was to a large extent superseded by the use, 
 among the literary and educated classes, first of the so- 
 called Saxon or Teutonic substratum brought in by the 
 invaders, and by the second French stratum, itself of Keltic 
 origin, superadded by the Normans. 
 
 That the Keltic and Gallic, or Gaelic, language was at 
 one period spoken all over the West and South of Europe 
 is evident from the fact that all the great rivers and moun- 
 tains in those ranges of the Continent derived their names 
 from the Gauls : or the primitive people who spoke Gallic, 
 or Gaelic, and who, swarming out of Asia, first overran and 
 colonized Greece, Italy, Spain, France, a part of Germany, 
 and the whole of the British Islands. There were two 
 branches of the Keltic people : first the Gauls, who spoke 
 the Keltic, Gallic, or Gaelic, language still living, though 
 with impaired and perishing vitality, in the Highlands of 
 Scotland and the West of Ireland ; second, the Kymri, 
 whose language is yet vigorous in Wales and in Brittany, 
 and which has but lately and within living memory died out 
 of Cornwall. The Kymric branch of the Keltic has been 
 thought by many scholars, who were ignorant of the Gallic, 
 or Gaelic, branch, to have named the rivers of Europe ; but
 
 INTRODUCTION. 13 
 
 that this is an error will become evident to every scholar who, 
 without the prejudice of preconception, will conscientiously 
 endeavour to trace such names as the Danube, the Rhine, 
 the Rhone, the Thames, the Severn, and the countless Avons 
 in England, Scotland, and Ireland, to their original language; 
 and such names of mountain ranges as the Ural, the Alps, 
 the Appennines, the Carpathians, and the Pyrenees to their 
 roots. These are invariably Gallic, and not Kymric. 
 
 " It cannot be doubted," says the late eminent " Anglo- 
 Saxon scholar," Mr. J. M. Kemble, in the preface to the 
 third volume of his Codex Diplomaticiis ^vi Saxonici, pub- 
 lished by the English Historical Society, " that local names, 
 and those devoted to distinguish the natural features of a 
 country, possess an inherent vitality which even the urgency 
 of conquest is frequently unable to destroy. A race is 
 rarely so entirely removed as not to form an integral, 
 though subordinate, part of the new State based upon its 
 ruins ; and in the case where the cultivator continues to be 
 occupied with the soil, a change of master will not neces- 
 sarily lead to the abandonment of the names by which the 
 land itself, and the instruments or processes of labour, are 
 designated. On the contrary, the conquering race are apt 
 to adopt these names from the conquered ; and thus, after 
 the lapse of twelve centuries and innumerable civil convul- 
 sions, the principal words of the class described'yet prevail 
 in the language of our (the English) people, and partially 
 in our literature. Many, then, of the words which we seek 
 in vain in the 'Anglo-Saxon' dictionaries are, in fact, to be 
 sought in those of the Kymri, — from whose practice they 
 were adopted by the victorious Saxons in all parts of the 
 country. They are not 'Anglo-Saxon,' but Welsh, very 
 frequently unmodified either in meaning or pronunciation." 
 
 The argument in this passage is irrefutable — the only
 
 14 
 
 ixTKonrcrioN. 
 
 error of Mr. Kcmbic boiiiL; llial lie uUribiitcs lo the K}'inric 
 that which bclonj^s lo the Gallic, or Gaelic, branch of the 
 Keltic language : an error of which the accomplished writer 
 himself would have been convinced, if he had endeavoured 
 to trace any of the names of the mountains and rivers of 
 the pAiropean continent to the lanj^uaL^c of Wales. The 
 Kymri, it is true, have t///r and ti/o// for river, as the Gael 
 have <////' and abliuiii. These words enter into the name 
 of man)- European rivers, as the Do/no in P()rtuc,^'d, the 
 Duf7\x\CQ in h'rancc, and Ahcrdoiir, the confluence of the 
 Diir with the Firth of I'^orth, in Fifeshire. The Kjmric 
 and the Gaelic abJniin (Avuin) give names to the countless 
 Avons (beginning with Shakspeare's Avon, Stratford- 
 upon-Avon) that arc to be found in England, Scotland, 
 and Ireland, as well as to the "havens" in e\ery part of 
 the Coast ; but such names as the Usk, the Esk, the Ouse, 
 the Ose, the Isis — which are all traceable to tlie Gallic or 
 Gaelic uisque (water), but not to the Welsh or Kymric. 
 The Kymri undoubtedly gave names to tlie most prominent 
 natural objects and features of the scenery in Wales and 
 Cornwall, a portion of the South-West of England, and of the 
 opposite coast of Brittany; but the Kymric was confined to 
 one corner of Europe and of England, and. unlike the 
 Gallic, or Gaelic, was not spoken in Gaul, Italy, Spain, 
 and the greater portion of the British Isles, It was mainly 
 the Gallic, or Gaelic, element, and in a smaller degree the 
 Kymric, that remained in England to permeate the speecli 
 introduced by the invading Danes and Saxons, and which, 
 in intimate, though unrecognised, union with the Teutonic, 
 formed the Afiglo-Saxon, and afterwards the English lan- 
 guage as it was spoken, though not always written, in the 
 age of Shakspcare. English Lexicographers, buiding solely 
 on the Saxon foundation, ignored the previous and not 
 
 J
 
 INTRODUCTION. 15 
 
 annihilated language of the British or Keltic people, and al- 
 lowed prejudice to stand in lieu of investigation. " The 
 weak point in all the learned," says the Introduction to 
 " Spoon and Sparrow," by the Rev. Oswald Cockayne, " is 
 their ignorance. The laity do not assume to know any- 
 thing; yet in an Englishman's mother tongue, few clowns but 
 could puzzle a doctor." It was this which puzzled the 
 learned Dr. Johnson, and which has puzzled his successors 
 in the industry of compiling Dictionaries, from the days of 
 that ponderous pundit to our own. All these laborious 
 followers in a beaten track have agreed to ignore the 
 language of their British ancestors, and have sought every- 
 where for the origin of obscure English words, except in 
 the fountain-head. 
 
 " I," says Nares in the Preface to his valuable Glossary, 
 " have particularly avoided deriving common English words 
 from languages of which the people who employed them 
 must have been entirely ignorant : a method which some 
 etymologists have pursued to a very ridiculous extent." 
 But Nares did not rigorously practise what he preached, 
 and looked to every imaginable source for the explanation 
 of an obsolete or archaic English word, rather than to the 
 English of the common or unlearned English people, who 
 had Keltic blood in their veins and Keltic words on their 
 tongues. It is my object to prove, from Shakspeare and 
 the writers of his time, that this Gaelic, or Keltic, clement 
 formed a considerable portion of the vernacular speech of 
 that day, as it does of this, and to illumine by this new 
 light many of the obscure words and passages in the great 
 poet's works, which none of his editors and commentators 
 (all of whom have been ignorant of Kymric and Gaelic) 
 have hitherto been able to explain. 
 
 Charles Mackay.
 
 
 ALE DRAPER. 
 
 " A humorous term," sa3^s Nares, " for the keeper of an 
 ale-house." 
 
 I came up to London, to be some tapster, hostler, or chamberlaine 
 in an inn. Well, I get me a wife, with her a littlij money ; when we 
 are married, seek a house we must : no occupation have I, but to be 
 an a/e draper. 
 
 — Chettle, Kind Harfs Dream (1592). 
 
 Because 'thou hast not so much charity in thee as to go to the ale 
 with a Christian : — Wilt thou go ? 
 
 — Ttvo Gentlemen of Verona^ Act II. Sc. 5. 
 
 The word Ale is pecuHar to the English language — and 
 has long been erroneously supposed to have originated in 
 the Saxon aelan, to kindle, to inflame, because of the in- 
 toxicating qualities of the liquor so called. But ale has not 
 this quality in excess of other liquors, and in its origin 
 simply meant drink, from the Keltic 0/, drink or to drink ; 
 and ol, olardJi, the act of drinking ; olar, drunken, addicted 
 to drink ; and o/arac/id, ha.h\tua.\ drunkenness. Draper, z.^ 
 used in the passage in Kind Hart's Dream, is the Keltic 
 druapair, one who pours out or retails liquor in small quan-
 
 Ohsiun- ]\\^r(is <vi(i P/imsts in 
 
 iitic-^. also a tippler, whence A/c Draper, would sijrnify one 
 who sold drink b\- retail, whether it were wine, beer, ale, or 
 
 spirit ■> 
 
 Nares, i;^niM.iiil of the tlerivation, cites " yi/c, the name 
 of a rural festival," and adds, " where, of f^//rj-^, much ale 
 was consumed." 
 
 There were bride alfs, church ales, clerk ales, give ales, lamb ales, 
 lect ahs, Midsummer ales, scot ales, Whitsun ales, and severnl more. 
 
 — Brande's Popular Antiquities. 
 
 As will have been seen, the word Ale is used in The Tzvo 
 Gentlemen of Verona for " Ale-house." Bearing in mind the 
 real etymology of Ale, it does not follow that in the church 
 ales, bride ales, and others cited by Brande, that much or 
 any ale was consumed, but only that some kind of drink 
 was provided for the guests. 
 
 ARM -GAUNT. 
 
 This word is employed by Alexas when announcing to 
 Cleopatra the approaching arrival of Antony : — 
 
 He nodded 
 And soberly did mount an arni-gatint steed 
 Who neighed so high, that what I would have spoke 
 Was beastly dumb'd by him. 
 
 — Antony and Cleopatra, Act I. Sc. 5. 
 
 When Antony mounted the ^'arm-gaunt steed," it neighed so 
 loud in tJie pride of bearing such a noble burden that Alexas 
 would not have heard his own voice if he had attempted to 
 speak. The word has not been traced to any author but 
 Shakspeare, and is usually considered a misprint. Hanmer 
 suggested arm-girt; Wz.'=>ox\, termagant ; Boaden, arrogant. 
 Nares asserts that " some will have it to mean lean shoulder; 
 some lean with poverty ; others slender as o?ie's ai'in ; while
 
 Shakspcarc and the Elizabctlian Dramatists. 19 
 
 Warburton suggests, 7oor>i by military service. But these 
 conjectures are all wide of the mark, for the idea of the 
 poet was evidently to describe a gallant cavalier mounting 
 a noble steed in triumph, and not bestriding a miserable 
 hack ; and, as Nares adds, the explanations " are inconsis- 
 tent with the speech which he made to display the gallantry 
 of a lover to his mistress." 
 
 Boaden's conjecture of arrogant, would meet the sense, 
 if the word as it stands is a misprint. But if it be 
 printed as Shakspeare must be supposed to have written it, 
 there is a Keltic etymology which would explain its mean- 
 ing in arm, armour, and gaunte, bare or scanty ; so that 
 ^/7;^-;^'vr//;// would signify a horse without all or any of its 
 martial trappings, on whose bare back Antony mounted 
 in the pride of his strength and manhood, to present him- 
 self before the lady of his heart — exercising the completest 
 mastery over his war-horse to gain favour in her eyes for 
 his daring. 
 
 BILBOES. 
 
 Bilbo, a name for a sword supposed to have been manu- 
 factured at Bilboa in Spain, and to have derived its name 
 from that city. The plural, Bilboes, appears to have been 
 the original designation of the implement, whatever it 
 may have been, and to have been corrupted into Bilbo, 
 when the first meaning had become obscure, in order to 
 mark a distinction between the singular and the plural. The 
 word has another and different signification in the shape of 
 Bilbo, a place of confinement for cattle, to prevent them 
 from straying. Bilbo, as a sword, or warlike weapon, has 
 become wholly obsolete, but " in the bilboes " is still a 
 recognized phrase for imprisonment or captivity ; the words, 
 though identical in sound, are not from the same source. 
 
 Shakspeare uses the word in both senses. In the Merry 
 Wives of Windsor, Act. III. Sc. 5, Falstaff, wlu) narrates
 
 20 (V>si///y ]\\ri/s iiiit/ P/intSis in 
 
 his misadventure in the biickhaskct, compares liimsclf to a 
 " yood />///;<•, in the circumference of a peck, hilt to point," 
 that is, Ukc a sword in its sheath. In Hamlet, Act V. 
 Sc. 2, Hamlet sa)s to Horatio : — 
 
 Mc thought I lay 
 Worse than the mutineers in the bilboes. 
 
 Billh\ in the sense of a sword or rapier'; has been too 
 easily accepted by etymologists as taking its name from 
 Bilboa. Tlio first syllable, spelled usually bill, gives its 
 name to many sharp instruments, among others to a kind 
 of axe, halbert, or pike formerly carried by the English 
 infantry, and afterwards b}- watchmen. 
 
 Lo I with a band of bowmen and of pikes, 
 Brown bills and tar^^eteers four hundred strong, 
 I come. 
 
 —Edward II. (Old Play). 
 
 A /'/// is also a kind of crooked hatchet, used b}' 
 gardeners ; a hand-/;///, a /"///-hook, and a hedging-/'/// 
 are similar instruments. A sword and a battle-axe were 
 both called bills, so that the word may be considered a 
 generic name for a sharp-cutting implement, whether 
 employed for warlike or peaceful purposes. It is derived 
 from the Keltic bnail, to strike, to smite, to thrust, to stab. 
 The second syllable, bo, abbreviated from bos, is from bos, 
 the hand ; whence Bilbo a rapier, or small sword to be 
 carried in the hand. It has been considered by Shak- 
 spearean commentators, that the Bilboes (supposed to come 
 from Bilboa) were famous for their fine tempered blades. 
 In a note on the passage when Pistol in the first act of the 
 Merry Wives of Windsor called Slender " a latten bilbo',' 
 Mr. Staunton explains that latten was a mixed metal akin 
 to brass, and that the phrase means a sword wanting both 
 edge and temper." As it is extremely unlikely that a sword 
 blade was ever made of brass, it is most probable that
 
 Shakspeare and the Etirjabethan Dramatists. 2 1 
 
 latten was a misprint for latheii, or of /at/ie, referring to such 
 a mock sword as that wielded by the harlequin of a 
 pantomime. 
 
 Bilboes, as used by Hamlet, in the sense of an instru- 
 ment or place of punishment, is a word of totally difTerent 
 origin. It is still in use among sailors, as in the lines 
 of Charles Dibdin : — 
 
 When in the Bilboes I was penn'd 
 For serving of a worthless friend, 
 And every creature from me ran, 
 No ship performing quarantine 
 Was ever so deserted seen ; 
 None hailed me, woman, child, or man. 
 
 Mr. Halliwell says, " the Bilboes were a kind of stocks 
 used at sea for the punishment of offenders " ; adding that 
 " a wooden piece of machinery for confining the heads of 
 sheep or cattle was formerly so called." 
 
 Here, again, the Keltic language supplies the etymology 
 in biiaile, a fold, a pen, a stall ; and bo, a cow ; whence 
 biiaile bo, or Bilbo, a cow-stall. The same language has 
 buaile-each, a stable or stall for horses. 
 
 B R A B E . 
 
 In Cynibeline, Act III. Sc. 3, Belarius, contrasting the 
 meanness and the slavery of courts with the freedom and 
 enjoyment of the country, says : — 
 
 Oh ! this life 
 Is nobler than attending for a check. 
 Richer than doing nothing for a babe, 
 Prouder then rustling in unpaid-for silk. 
 
 Johnson suggested that in this puzzling ])assagc babe 
 should be brabe, and Mr. Collier's annotalor, bub. Hannier 
 reads it bribe, and Warburton bauble, which in old s[)elling
 
 22 (V'\< ;/;•(■ \Vor,ls iiiii/ P/iiiist-s i)i 
 
 w.is lhu'>/i: Mr. G. Chalmers propcvscil /hra'/ur, tlic norllicni 
 term for a half-penny, and, accordini; to Narcs, spoke vei)' 
 conttMnptuously of the commentators for not adoi)tin^- //. 
 Mr. Staunton said that of all these emendations, the orii^inai 
 /ui/'t beinjj of course wroni^, he preferred Ilanmcr's ^>r/7h; 
 " thoui^h he had very little confidence e\cn in tiiat." 
 
 Johnson suggested the right word, though he either did 
 not know or omitted to state its meaning. It does not 
 occur in his own, or in any previous or subsequent 
 Dictionary, not even in Halliwell's " Archaic," or Wright's 
 " Provincial Glossary." Brabe is unquestionably the Keltic 
 ami Gaelic brcal\ a kick, a scornful repulse, a spurning ; 
 brcabadli, kicking, from brcabach, to kick ; brebadair, a 
 kicker. That this is the true meaning is evident from the 
 context. It exactly fits the sense of the passage, "attending 
 for a check" or a rebuff for doing nothing, only to receive a 
 kicky or a repulse for attendance on the great. In what 
 manner Johnson chanced upon the right word, does not 
 appear. 
 
 CALEX O CUSTURE ME. 
 
 In Hairy V., Act IV. Sc. 4, Pistol, who has taken a prisoner 
 from the French, exclaims tohim "Yield, cur!" The prisoner, 
 deprecating his wrath, says, in French, " I think you are a 
 gentleman of good quality"; to which Pistol replies, "Quality, 
 cality, construe me. Art ///c// a gentleman?" In the first 
 l-'olio the words appeared as Calmie ciistiire me, w hich \\cre 
 afterwards reprinted as Call nie, ciisture me. This apparent 
 jargon strongly puzzled all the commentators until Malone 
 pointed out that he had met with an old Irish song (Gaelic) 
 of which the burden and chorus \\as Calen custnre mc. 
 This was a clue to the enigma. Boswell afterwards found 
 the tunc in Playford's Collection, under the title of 
 Catena, which has been reprinted by Mr. Chappell in his 
 Popular Music of the Olden Time; and at greater length,
 
 SJiakspeare and t/ie ElizabctJian Dramatists. 23 
 
 including the words, by Mr. Samuel Lover, in the Lyrics of 
 Ireland (1858). The full chorus is: " Callino, Callino, 
 castore me. Eva ee, Eva ee, loo ! loo ! loo ! " Boswell 
 stated, on the authority of an Irish schoolmaster in London, 
 that Callino castore me, signified in Gaelic, ''Little girl of 
 my heart, for ever and ever," This, however, is not the 
 exact meaning. The words are a corrupt, but more or 
 less phonetic, rendering of the Keltic Caileno (Irish-Gaelic, 
 Cailiii), a little girl ; ogh, young (whence callin 0), and a stor 
 mi, my treasure ; or, " little young, girl, my treasure." A 
 song, with a similar burden, is still known in the Highlands 
 of Scotland, and has lately been republished in Sinclair's 
 Oranaiche, or Book of Songs. The chorus ends : Cliailin 
 og nacJi stinr thit mi, which may possibly be the original ; 
 and would serve to prove that it was a boat-song, or ramJi- 
 ■rann {refrain^, from the words, Stinr tint mi, or, " Little 
 young girl, steer me ! "' The words : " Eva ee, eva ee, loo ! 
 loo! loo! " as quoted by Mr. Lover, and not preserved in 
 Shakspeare, are a corruption of Aibhe i InaidJi, " Hail 
 to her ! the beloved one ! " 
 
 The play of Henry V. was first performed in 1600, the 
 year after the expedition of the Earl of Essex to Ireland, 
 as appears from the evidence of the chorus to the fifth 
 act : — 
 
 Were now the general of our famous Empress 
 (As in good time he may) from Ireland coming, 
 Bringing rebellion broached on his sword. 
 How many would the peaceful city quit 
 To welcome him ! 
 
 After their service in Ireland the disbanded soldiers of the 
 army of Essex, who had caught the air and the words (;f 
 the chorus from the Irish, brought the song into vogue 
 among the populace of London, with whom Essex was as 
 much a favourite as he was with the Ouccn (or Jmu press, as 
 Shakspeare, as well as Spenser, called her). A further
 
 pro..! that Keltic, <>r (iaclic, s()ni;;s, nr snatches of tlieir 
 clioruscs. were siini^ in the streets of London in the later 
 years of the rei^n of l^^li/abcth, is afforded by Boswell, who 
 recoriis a con\ersati(ni with l)i'. Johnson and Mr. Macqueen 
 on the siil)icct, when in the Hebrides. The passage is 
 extracted from the Appendix to the Gaelic Etymology of 
 the Languages of Western Europe, and more especially of the 
 Etiglish ami Lowland Scotc/i {l.nndon, 1877). "He (John- 
 son) said to Mr. Macqueen that he never could get the 
 meaning of an Krse Gaelic) song explained to him. They 
 told him the chorus was generally unmeaning. I take it," 
 he added, " that Erse songs are generally like a song which 
 I remember. It was composed in Queen Elizabeth's time, 
 on the Earl of Essex, and the burthen was Radarato, 
 Radaratce, radara, tadara, tandoreeT — " But, surely," said 
 Mr. IMacqueen, " there were words to it which had a 
 meaning ? " — Johnson : "Why, yes, sir, I recollect a stanza, 
 and you shall have it " : — 
 
 Out then bespoke the "prentices all 
 Living in London, both proper and tall, 
 For Essex's sake they would fight all 
 Radaratoo, radaraiee, 7-adara, iadara, tandoree. 
 
 In this chorus the initial letter, G, has been dropped, and 
 the words ought to read : — 
 
 Grad orra an diugh, 
 Grad orra an de, 
 Grad orra, teth orra, 
 Tean do righe ! 
 
 meanmcT : — 
 
 Quick on them to-day ! 
 Quick on them as yesterday I 
 Quick on them ! hot on them 
 Stretch forth thine arm ! 
 
 This rendering has been adopted by Gaelic scholars ; and 
 the circumstance that such a ballad was sung in London
 
 Shakspeare and the E/isahethaii Draviatists. 2 5 
 
 streets in the time of Elizabeth, throws Hght on the real 
 origin of Pistol's fag-end of a chorus, as quoted by Shak- 
 speare. Mr. Staunton says that the Gaelic solution of the 
 difficulty is curious and captivating; but that to him the 
 idea of Pistol taking a Frenchman by the throat, and 
 quoting the fag-end of a ballad at the same moment, is too 
 preposterous. He, therefore, rejected the Gaelic interpreta- 
 tion, and adopted the reading of Warburton : " Quality, 
 cality, construe me, Art thou a gentleman ? " Mr. Staunton 
 was a judicious Editor, but he was wholly ignorant of the 
 Keltic sources of the English language. 
 
 CALF. 
 
 When the jealous Leontes in A Winters Tale addresses 
 his little child Mamillius as a calf, it is not in derision, or 
 in depreciation either of himself or of the innocent boy of 
 whose paternity he is doubtful. " Art thou myr^//".^"he 
 asks, and Mamillius answers, " Yes, if you will, my Lord." 
 It is, perhaps, useless to enquire, after the lapse of three 
 centuries, whether CalfwA.'-, a term of endearment to a child 
 among the English people ; but it is worthy of remark that 
 to the present day among the Keltic people of the High- 
 lands of Scotland, and of the Gaelic-speaking population of 
 Ireland, laogh, which means a calf, or a fawn, is the very 
 fondest epithet that a mother can apply to her boy baby. 
 Mo laoghgeal (My white calf) is synonymous with My white, 
 my darling boy ; Laogh mo a'idhe, Calf of my heart, is the 
 same as Darling of my heart. " WooVi-calfl' in old English, 
 was a phrase applied to a stupid child, and is used by Shak- 
 speare in the Tempest m reference to "Caliban." "Moon " is 
 derived from iiiewian, to gape, to yawn in a stupid manner ; 
 whence " xnoon-calf" came to .signify a stupid or silly child. 
 " Moon-raker," a word in the Slang Dictionaries, is from the 
 same root, with a derivation of " raker," from the Keltic
 
 ji, Ol'Siiiir W'oii/s mid r/irnst's in 
 
 rn(^, obstinate ; /'.<•., an obstinate fool, a jawninLT, uncon- 
 vinciblc fool. The vulj;ar slani; kid, a child, still in use, 
 is probably a remnant of the old vernacular which Shak- 
 spearc puts into the mouth of Lcontcs. — "Art thou ni)- 
 calf?" or " Art thou m)- kid?" from the Kymric. Gid and 
 goat are synonj-mous expressions. 
 
 C A R R Y CO A L S . 
 
 This phrase according- to Narcs signifies " to put up with 
 insults, to submit to any degradation." He asserts that 
 " the original meaning is, that in every famil)' the scullions, 
 the turnspits, the carriers of wood and coals, were esteemed 
 the very lowest of menials. The latter in particular were 
 the send seri'onti/i, the drudges of all the rest." 
 
 Gregory ! o' my word we'll not carry coals. 
 
 — Rotnco and yidici, Act I. Sc. i. 
 
 See, here comes one that will carry coals; ergo, will hold my dog. 
 — Ben Jonson, Every Man Otit of Humour. 
 
 Saxon philologists make a mistake in the meaning of 
 the word Coals. The common fuel for household use in 
 the days of Shakspeare and Ben Jonson was wood ; and 
 though coal was partially known in England in the days of 
 James I., it was by no means in common use. Stowe the 
 annalist, writing in 1605, notices a peculiarity of the Scotch, 
 " that wood being scant and geason (scarce), they dug a 
 black stone out of the earth, which they burnt as fuel." If 
 Stowe had been familiar with the use of coal, and it had 
 been commonly known in England, he would not have 
 made such a remark as this in an historical work, that 
 treated of the manners and customs of his own time as well 
 as of previous ages. The word which in Shakspeare was 
 printed Coal, was probably the Keltic ciial, from cul, the
 
 SJiak spear e and tJic Elizabethan Dramatists. 27 
 
 back ; and aial, a heavy load of any material borne upon 
 the back ; whence cualach, heavy laden, and cualag, a small 
 load or burthen. The French have preserved the Keltic 
 word in colis, a portmanteau or travelling trunk, and col- 
 porteur, a pedlar carrying his goods upon his back. 
 
 In Arden of FeversJiani, sometimes, and perhaps correctly, 
 attributed to Shakspeare, appears the word colestaff, or 
 coltstaff, which Nares says " is a strong pole or staff on 
 which men carried a bnrden between them ; " adding, with 
 the idea of coals still running in his mind, " that the burden 
 was perhaps of that commodity." Burton, in his Anatomic 
 of Melancholy, speaks of witches who " ride in the ayre 
 upon a coulstaffer 
 
 CATAIAN. 
 
 This word, which Shakspeare uses twice, is, according to 
 Mr. Staunton, one of reproach, of which the precise mean- 
 ning is unknown. Mr. Halliwell and Mr. Wright say it 
 signifies a sharper, Nares defines it : "A Chinese, Cathaia 
 or Cathay being the name given to China by old travellers. 
 It was used for a sharper, from the desperate thieving of 
 those people, the Chinese." 
 
 I will not believe such a Catalan, though the priest of the town com- 
 mended him for a true man. 
 
 — Merry Wives of Windsor. 
 
 " The opposition, in this passage," says Nares, " between 
 Catalan and true, or honest man, is a proof that it means 
 thief, or sharper, and Pistol is the person deservedly so 
 called." 
 
 It is possible, however, that all the commentators who 
 liaye tried to explain the mysterious word have been in error 
 in considering it to be a term of opprobrium or reproach; 
 aiid that Catalan is no other than the old Keltic cadain, a 
 Irue friend from {cad a friend, and ain, honourable, just, true)
 
 Oharuff W'onfs ninl Phrases in 
 
 — a V\ .u'kw icksliiic word, known to Shaksi)carc, though it 
 appears to have been imknown to the h'tcrary and courtly 
 circles of I.oiulon. This sense of the word suits tlic inten- 
 tion of the speakers who use it. In the Merry Wives of 
 Wiiuisor, Tistol, Act II. Sc. i, gives friendly information to 
 ]M)ril that Falstaff is in love with his wife ; and Nym gives 
 similar information to Page. Hence ensues the colloquy: — 
 
 Pa^c. Here's a fellow (Nym) frights humour out of his wits. 
 Ford. I will seek out Falstaff. 
 
 Piigi-. I never heard such a drawling, affecting rogue. 
 Ford. If I do find it, well. 
 
 Pagi. I do not believe such a Caiaian, though the priest of the 
 town commended him for a true man. 
 
 In this scene Ford inclines to believe that there may be 
 truth in the friendly information given by Pistol, and after- 
 wards by Nym, but Page is incredulous, and will not 
 believe in the truth of such a friend, even though the priest 
 of the town should vouch for and commend him. In like 
 manner in Tije/fth Night, Act II. Sc. 3, when Sir Toby 
 Belch, Sir Andrew Ague-Cheek, and the Clown, are indulg- 
 ing in riotous merriment, and singing snatches of old songs 
 and choruses in the Lady Olivia's house, the pert serving- 
 maid Maria suddenly enters the room, exclaiming: — 
 
 What a caterwauling do you keep here ! If my lady have not 
 called up her steward, Malvolio, and bid liiin turn yuu out of doors, 
 never trust me. 
 
 Sir Toby replies : — 
 
 My lady's a Catalan. Am I not consanguineous? am I not of her 
 blood .•■ that is to say, my lady will not do so. She is a good friend, 
 and will not so behave to a blood relation. 
 
 Sir Toby Belch would not have used the word Caiaian 
 in reference to a lady of the high rank and importance of 
 Olivia, if it really meant a thief or sharper. Possibly it was
 
 S/ial-spfare and the Elir^abctJuDi Dramatists. 29 
 
 the application of the epithet to such a notoriously bad 
 character as Pistol that led the commentators and etymo- 
 logists astray as to the real meaning and origin of the 
 word, 
 
 COLLOP. 
 
 Usually interpreted as a lump of flesh for cooking : a 
 steak, a rasher of bacon, and sometimes minced meat, as 
 in the dish called Scotch Col/ops. The word is derived by 
 many philologists from the calf of the leg, as if a Collop 
 were a piece of flesh taken from that part of the animal 
 frame. Dr. Johnson adopts the derivation of Minshew 
 from coal, and up or upon, i.e., flesh cooked upon the 
 coal. Richardson traces it to colloiv, the smut of coal — on 
 the principle apparently of Inais a non Inccndo, — on the 
 supposition that a lump of flesh cooked over the fire is 
 sometimes blackened by the soot. Nares is somewhat 
 scandalized at its use by tlie jealous Leontes, when he 
 dubiously addresses his little child Mamillius in the 
 Winters Tale: — 
 
 Come, Sir page ! 
 Look on me with thy welkin eye, sweet villain ! 
 Most dearest, my collop .' 
 
 He remarks on this passage that " the metaphorical use of 
 Collop by a father to his child as being part of his flesh, 
 seems rather harsh and coarse." Shakspearc uses the word 
 in the same sense in Henry Vlth : — 
 
 God Iniows thou art a collop of my flesh. 
 
 Nares, as if he doubted his previous interpretation, and 
 
 would almost justify Shakspeare for his use of the word, 
 
 remarks that Lyly certainly intended to be pathetic in the 
 
 following passage : — 
 
 The collops of thine own bowels to be the tortures of thine own soul. 
 
 — Mother Bombie, Act I., Sc. i.
 
 OKuitn' IVon/s ivt(f /^/irasrs in 
 
 The purely Keltic derivation o{ the word from Co/bh, 
 (pronounced col-pph or coi-o/>), removes it from tlie vuli^ar 
 interpretation of N'arcs antl others, and places it in the 
 poetic rci^ion to which it ri;^htly belongs. Co/bh si^mifies 
 an offshoot, a sprout, a branch, a twig, a scion. The 
 epithet was truly tender and pathetic in tlic mouth of 
 Leontes, and not coarse, as Naves supposes. Its aj^plica- 
 tion to cooker)', as in the phrase " a dish of- collops" arose 
 from a Saxon misapprehension of its meaning. A dish of 
 sprouts or young sprouts of cabbage was afterwards applied 
 to the more substantial fare of the flesh-eating Saxons, 
 when butcher's-meat was mingled with the vegetables. 
 
 COSIER. 
 
 Malvolio says in Tivdfth Night, " Do you make an ale- 
 house out of my lady's house, that ye squeak out your 
 cozicvs catches without any mitigation or remorse of voice?" 
 What is a Cozier, or Cosier, as it is sometimes written } Dr. 
 Johnson thought it meant a tailor, from coiidre to sew. Nares 
 and Halliwell considered it to mean a cobbler ; while Harsnct, 
 afterwards iVrchbishop of York, alludes to the catches or 
 rounds sung by working people in ale-houses, and songs 
 " sung b)' tinkers as they sit by the fire with a pot of good 
 ale between their leg.s." The Keltic etymology of the word 
 refers it neither to tinker, tailor, nor cobbler ; but to cos, a 
 foot, and cosaire, a traveller on foot, a walker, a pedestrian, 
 a tramp ; cosan, a footpath. It would thus appear that in 
 Shakspeare's time, the working men of England, when on 
 the tramp, or travelling from place to place in search of 
 employment, were in the habit of assembling in the evening 
 at the wayside public-houses, and to sing " rounds and 
 catches" together. On this subject see Mr. Chappell's 
 Popular Music of the Olden Time, Vol. I., pages 109, iio. 
 The musical taste of the people was not confined to tailors,
 
 Shakspeare and the Elirjabctaaii Dramatists. 3 1 
 
 cobblers, or tinkers, as might be supposed by those who 
 narrow the meaning of Cosier, to anj-one handicraft, but 
 prevailed generally among the working classes. 
 
 In the introduction to Boswell's Journal of a Tour to 
 the Hebrides with Dr. Johnson, the editor (the late Dr. 
 Carruthers of Inverness) says that at that time the last 
 gleams of romance in Highland life had been extinguished, 
 and that the chiefs no longer boasted of their coshir, or 
 retinue, i.e., their footmen, or men on foot, who followed 
 them on grand occasions. 
 
 CRACK. 
 
 A small boy, a lively boy, a term of fondness. 
 
 Volinnnia. One of his father's moods. 
 Valeria. Indeed ! la' 'tis a noble child. 
 Virgilia. A crack, Madam. 
 
 — Co7'iolanus, Act I. Sc. 4. 
 
 I saw him crack Skogan's head (talk ungrammatically) at 
 the court-gate when he was a crack, not thus high. 
 
 — ind Part of Henry IV., Act III. Sc. 2. 
 
 Since we are turned cracks, let us study to be like cracks : practise 
 their language and behaviour ; act freely, carelessly, aud capriciously, 
 as if one's veins ran quicksilver. 
 
 — Ben Jonson, CynthUis Revels, Act III. Sc. i. 
 
 Mr. Staunton glosses Crack as a mannikin. 
 
 Nares is of opinion that the word signifies " one who 
 cracks or boasts, a pert boy." Wright's " Dictionary of 
 Obsolete and Provincial English " contains fifteen different 
 meanings of Crack, o{ which the definition by Nares is one. 
 It has, however, no relation to any one of the other fourteen, 
 and is probably, as a term of endearment, a corru[)ti. )n of 
 the Keltic gradhach (pronounced crac or grac), a beloved 
 object, a little darling, a fondling boy. When used of a girl^ 
 the word is s^^&W&d gradhag, of almost identical sound.
 
 OlKuinr Wonts niid f/z/tisrs in 
 
 cu'i" r 1. 1'.. 
 
 In tlic sccoml part of Ilciiry //'., DdU Tcar-shcct 
 threatens Pistol, on his assuming- airs of undue familiarit)- 
 with her: — 
 
 I'll tlirust my knife inlo your mouldy cliai)s, if you play the saucy 
 cuttle with mc. 
 
 Nares is of opinion that Cuttle is a corrupted form of 
 cutter, a bull}-, a swaggerer, a sharper. Mr. HalliwcU seems 
 to think that Cuttle is derived from the r/zZ/A'-fish, because 
 in the same scene Doll Tear-sheet says: " Hang yourself, 
 you mould}' conger {c.e\), hang yourself!" Nares rejects this 
 derivation as too "refined" for Doll Tear-sheet. Cuttle, 
 according to the "Archaic Dictionary" of Mr. T. Wright, 
 was the knife used by thieves for cutting purses. But this 
 explanation scarcely meets the sense of Doll's objurgation : 
 " I'll thrust my knife into your chaps, if you play the saucy 
 knife {cuttle) with me." The true derivation seems to be a 
 corruption of the Keltic cjitalaiche, a comrade, a bedfellow. 
 This is a relationship to Pistol of which Doll Tear-sheet 
 expresses her loathing and detestation, and is evidently the 
 meaning if read by the light of her previous denunciation 
 of his impudence in offering to charge or pay her for lier 
 fa\ours. "Charge me! I scorn you, scurvy companion, 
 you poor, base, rascally, cheating, lack-linen mate ! Away, 
 you mouldy rogue I I am meat for your master." This 
 at once explains Doll Tear-sheet's meaning and repug- 
 nance.
 
 Shakspeare and the Elisabethan Dramatists. 33 
 
 DISCANDY. 
 
 In Antony and Cleopatra (Act IV. Sc. 10), Antony, sus- 
 pecting that Cleopatra has betrayed his fleet to Csesar, 
 and finding that his former friends and adherents are all 
 abandoning him in his reverse of fortune, exclaims : — 
 
 The hearts 
 That spanieVd me at heels, to whom I gave 
 Their wishes, do dtscandy, melt their sweets 
 On blossoming Ccesar. 
 
 On this extremely obscure and evidently corrupt passage, 
 Nares remarks that " ' hearts that spanieVd Antony at heels, 
 melting their sweets upon Caesar,' is a masterpiece of 
 incongruity." And such it undoubtedly is ; but it would 
 have been less obscure had not Hanmcr first, and other 
 commentators afterwards, — not understanding the words 
 "pannel'd me at heels," as the phrase originally stood — 
 altered panneVd to spanieVd. The Keltic word panncl or 
 ba)inal, means a band, a troop, a company, an assemblage 
 of men ; whence the modern English to empanel (or collect) 
 a jury. The obvious meaning is " The hearts (men) that 
 followed in troops, or crowds, at my heels have forsaken 
 me to bestow their attentions upon Csesar." 
 
 Cleopatra herself uses the word Discandy in the passion- 
 ate imprecation to Heaven to turn her heart's blood to hail, 
 if she have been cold-hearted to Antony, and let the first 
 hail-storm fall upon her neck and kill her : — 
 
 Ant. Cold-hearted towards me ? 
 
 Cleo. Ah, dear, if I be so, 
 From my cold heart let heaven engender hail, 
 And poison it in the source ; and the first stone 
 Drop in my neck : as it determines, so 
 Dissolve my life ! The next Crcsarion smite ! 
 Till, by degrees, the memory of my woml), 
 Together with my brave Egyptians all. 
 By the discandying of this pelleted storm. 
 Lie graveless,— till the flies and gnats of Nile 
 Have buried them for prey !
 
 : ! (V>sr/iri- ll'cri/s' niuf P/irnsi's in 
 
 The old copies read (iisidiidcri/i^q;, " from which corruption," 
 Thct)bakl sa\-s, he reformed the text to discandy. The 
 final s\-llables, caudy — signifying crystallized sugar, as in the 
 modern sugar-candy, which could not possibly apply to the 
 "hearts that /<?////r/V/ him " — led the commentators to 
 imagine that discandy meant to wwcandy, to liquefy, to melt 
 away or cause to melt away, like sugar-candy. " The 
 idea," says Nares, " is that as the stones of the hail melted, 
 or disciindicd, a person should die for each." What seems 
 to have strengthened this conjecture, are the words used by 
 Antony after complaining that the "hearts" me/led tJicir 
 s'i.ct'cts on blossoming Ccesar. 
 
 It would seem, however, on critical examination of these 
 very obscure and confused passages, that neither spanieVd 
 nor discandy was used by Shakspeare, and that he meant 
 and wrote panelled and discander, as the words stood in the 
 earliest editions. 
 
 PanneVd has been already explained. Discander seems 
 to have been a popular expression in Shakspcare's time, 
 like skedaddle in ours, formed from the Keltic dith {di), to 
 crowd or press together, and sgannradh, dispersion, a panic 
 flight, a rout ; corrupted by the London compositors into 
 discander, and allowed to pass unquestioned by the 
 correctors of the press, and this gloss suits the exact sense 
 of Antony's complaint of his followers ; and also of Cleo- 
 patra's allusion to the dispersing or passing away of the 
 hail-storm ; the hardness, not the liquefaction of whose 
 drops was to do the mischief Perhaps in Antony's speech, 
 " melt their siveets " should be read " melt their stiits" i.e., 
 pour out their supplications, suits, and pleas for favour and 
 advancement on the new potentate coming into power — 
 the blossoming Caesar; i.e., "the crowds that followed at 
 my heels disperse in order to carry their suits to Caesar 
 the new dispenser of favour."
 
 Shakspeare and the ElirjabctJia)i Dramatists. 35 
 
 DUC DA ME. 
 
 This word, or phrase, occurs as a h'ne in a stanza added 
 by Jacques to a song sung by Amiens in As You Like It : — 
 
 If it do come to pass 
 That any man turn ass, 
 Leaving his wealth and ease 
 A stubborn will to please, 
 
 Due da me, Due da inr, 
 
 Here shall he see 
 
 Gross fools as he. 
 
 Amiens, puzzled by the phrase Due da int\ asks Jacques 
 what it means. Jacques repHes, " 'Tis a Greek invocation, 
 to call fools into a circle." By " Greek " he appears to have 
 meant " Pedlar s Greek " — the popular name for slang or 
 for the cant language of the beggars and gipsies of his day, 
 which is not wholly disused in our own. In a note on this 
 passage, Mr. Staunton says, "After all that has been written 
 in elucidation of the word, we are disposed to believe that 
 it is mere unmeaning babble coined for the occasion." Sir 
 Thomas Hanmer and others thought it was once a call 
 of farm-wives and farm servants when summoning the 
 ducks to be fed ! 
 
 No one has discovered, or even hinted at, the " circle " to 
 which Jacques alludes. Perhaps the old game of Tom 
 Tidler's Ground may throw some light on the matter. 
 One of the most ancient of the rhymes still sung by 
 British children is — 
 
 Here I am on Tom Tidler's ground, 
 Picking up gold and silver. 
 
 The origin and meaning of the name Tout Tidier have 
 given rise to much controversy. The Rev. E. Cobham 
 Brewer, in his " Dictionary of Phrase and Fable," maintains 
 it to be a corruption of "Tom th' Idler." " Tom," he says,
 
 36 Ol'scKtr W'onfs and J^/iyasis ill 
 
 " in the t^amc stands on a heap or mound of stones, gravel, 
 &c." Other boys rush on the heap, crying, " Here I am on 
 7'<>w 7'i(//t-f's Ground," &c. " 'few/ bestirs himself to keep 
 the invaders off." This has hitherto passed muster, but the 
 true derivation is from the Keltic, or Gaelic, proving the 
 game to have been known to British children before the 
 Saxon and Danish irruption and conquest. V^ow signifies 
 " iiill " or mound, a word that enters into the composition 
 of the names of many places in the British Isles ; and h'od- 
 lach, gift, offering, treasure : so that Tom-tiodlach — corrupted 
 by the Danes and Saxons into Tom-tiddler — signifies " the 
 hill of gifts or treasure," of which the players seek to hold 
 or to regain possession. It was the custom for the boy who 
 temporarily held the hill or toni to assert that the ground 
 or circle belonged to him of right, and dare the invaders 
 to dispossess him, by the exclamation of Due da me. This 
 phrase has puzzled commentators quite as much as the 
 name of Tom Tidier has done. The word, however, resolves 
 itself into the Keltic, or Gaelic, DutJiaicJi, the / silent before 
 the aspirate (pronounced du-Jiaic), and signif\-ing a countr}', 
 an estate, a territory, a piece of land ; do signifying to, and 
 mi me — i.e., this territory or ground is to me ; it is my land 
 or estate. This old British phrase continued to be used 
 by children and illiterate people long after the British 
 language had given way to the Saxon English, and was 
 repeated by boys and girls in the game now called Tom 
 Tidier s Ground so lately as forty years ago, when I heard 
 it used by children on the Links of Leith and the Inchs 
 of my native city of Perth. 
 
 Tom, in the Scottish Highlands and in the Irish Gaelic 
 still spoken in the West of Ireland, signifies either a hill or 
 a thicket ; and tiodJdac a gratuity, a largess, a boon ; and 
 dii-aic land, possession, estate, country.
 
 Shakspeare and the Elizabethan Dramatists. ^y 
 
 FINCH EGG. 
 
 The meaning of this epithet, applied by Thersites, the 
 filthy railer, to Patroclus in Troilus and Cressida, is, as 
 Nares remarks, "by no means clear, though evidently meant 
 as a term of reproach." 
 
 Patroclus. You indistinguishable cur ! 
 
 Thersites. Why art thou, then, exasperate, thou idle immaterial skein 
 of sleyd silk, thou green sarsnet flap for a sore eye ! thou tassel of a 
 prodigal's purse, thou ? Ah, how the poor world is pestered with such 
 waterflies ! 
 
 Patroclus. Out ! gall ! 
 
 Thersites. Finch Egg. 
 
 Steevens says that " A_/f«r/^'j- egg is remarkably gaudy, 
 and that the word may thus be equivalent to a coxcomb." 
 "But," remarks Nares, " the chaffinch, bulfinch, and goldfinch 
 have all eggs of a bluish-white, with purplish spots or 
 stripes." And he thence implies that these eggs are not 
 gaudy, and that the simile is inappropriate. It may perhaps 
 throw some light on the subject, if we consider that the 
 Keltic fineag or fionag signifies a mite, an animalcule, a 
 maggot, a contemptible insect, and that FincJi is probably a 
 corruption of that word. Thus, Thersites after having ex- 
 hausted all the abusive epithets at his immediate command, 
 wound up by calling Patroclus a maggot's c^gg, than which 
 nothing could be smaller or more contemptible. 
 
 GONER I L, REGAN, AND CORDELIA. 
 
 The story of King Lear and his three daughters belongs 
 to the Keltic period of British history or tradition. King 
 Leir, as the name is written in the old chronicles, is supposed 
 to have been the son of Bladud, and to have reigned over 
 part of Britain in the middle of the ninth century before 
 the Christian era. Shakspeare did not invent the legend
 
 38 Obscinr Words and P/irnsis in 
 
 on which he fcuindcd his matchless tr<i<;cdy, nor Ihc names 
 of the three daughters of the unhappy king, all of which 
 he found recorded in Geoffrey of Monmouth, and other 
 ancient chroniclers. It has never before been pointed out 
 that their purely Keltic names are descriptive of the cha- 
 racters assigned to each of the three sisters in the old legend. 
 Goucril is derived from gon, a wound, and gonnch, sharp, 
 keen, cruel, wounding, stinging, and riaghail^ to rule or go- 
 vern ; Regan from rigJdnn, hard, stubborn, unyielding, un- 
 bending; and Cordelia, from cord, agreement, or to agree 
 or corr, excellent, and dilcacJi, loving, affectionate. No 
 reader of Shakspcarc can fail to recognise the singular 
 accuracy of the epithets as applied to the three women, 
 or by what easy transitions of pronunciation from the Keltic 
 to the Saxon the words acquired the form which thc}- now 
 bear. Lcir or Lcire signifies in Keltic, austere and pious ; 
 and it is possible that the ancient king, if he ever existed, 
 was so named by his contemporaries, in designation of his 
 character. 
 
 G O N G A R I A N . 
 
 In the scene in the first act of the Merry Wives of 
 Windsor, when Bardolph is recommended to accept ser- 
 vice as tapster to " mine host of the Garter," Falstaff 
 says : — 
 
 liardolph, Follow him : a tapster is a good trade. An old cloak 
 makes a new jerkin, a withered serving-man a fresh tapster I Go ! 
 adieu ! 
 
 and Pistol in di.sgust at Bardolph's acquiescence in the 
 arrangement exclaims — 
 
 O base Gotigarian wight I wilt thou the spigot wield ! 
 
 Nares supposes that Gongarian is a corruption of Hunga- 
 rian — "perhaps to make a more tremendous sound"; but
 
 Shakspcarc and the EUzahcthaii Drauiatists. 39 
 
 why Hungarian, he does not explain. It is clearly Gonga- 
 rian in the first Quarto. If the word be derived, as is 
 probable, from the Keltic gon, to cut, to slash, to carve ; and 
 gaorran, a glutton, the phrase would mean that Bardolph 
 was about to add to the gluttony of a greedy wielder of the 
 carving-knife the drunkenness of a wielder of the spigot. 
 Hungarian, according to Mr. Halliwell, is an old cant term, 
 generally meaning an hungry person, but sometimes a 
 thief or rascal of any kind. Of the two words, Gongarian^ 
 in the Keltic sense, is preferable in force of expression, the 
 more especially as the correction, if it be a correction, into 
 Hungarian, was not made by Shakspeare. 
 
 HACK. 
 
 In the Merry Wives of Windsor, Act II. Sc. i, we find 
 what Nares calls a " puzzling speech." Mrs. Ford says 
 to Mrs. Page : " If I would but go to hell for an eternal 
 moment, or so, I could be knighted." Mrs. Page replies : 
 " What ! — thou liest ! — Sir Alice Ford ? — These knights will 
 hack ; and so thou shouldst not alter the quality of thy 
 gentility. 
 
 Nares is of opinion that Hack meant cut or chop, and 
 that Shakspeare used it as an appropriate term for chop- 
 ping off the spurs of a knight, when he was to be degraded. 
 But if this were truly the etymology of the word, we might 
 ask whether Hack was both an active and a passive verb, 
 and whether Hack signified to be hacked. Nares adds, in 
 explanation, " One lady (Mrs. Ford) had said she might be 
 knighted, alluding to her offered connection with l^'alstaff. 
 Mrs. Page, not yet knowing her meaning, says, in effect : 
 'What! a female knight ! These knights will degrade 
 such unqualified pretenders.' " This explanation is sup- 
 ported by the not very great authority of Dr. Johnson. 
 As there is no known authority for the use of the woid
 
 40 Obsaar Words (iiid P/irasrs in 
 
 ....... tor the tk\uradatioii tif a kniy^ht. and as knij^hts of 
 
 the calibre and quality of Sir John Falstaff could dct,M-ade 
 nob(xiy but thcmseKcs, further search ouijht to be made for 
 its meaninj;, thoutj^h Nares was decided that nothing else 
 could be made of it. Mr. Staunton is of opinion that no 
 satisfactor}' explanation of the word Hack has ever been 
 given. "It is generally understood," he adds, "to be an 
 allusion to the extravagant creation of knights by James I., 
 in the early part of his reign — 'These knights will hack, 
 or become hacknicd! " But as the Merry Wives was written 
 in the reign of Elizabeth, the allusion is an anachronism, 
 even if the etymology were otherwise well-founded. Mr. 
 Staunton is quite cori'ect in his opinion " that there must 
 be a meaning in it more pertinent than this." 
 
 In the local dialects of England Jiack, or Jiag, has various 
 meanings besides that of cut or hew. In the glossary to 
 Tim Bobbin (Lancashire dialect), Jtack signifies to knock 
 together; and in Halliwell's "Archaic Dictionary," Jiack has 
 no less than twelve different meanings : — i. A pick-axe, a 
 hoe ; 2. a hatch or half door ; 3. to stammer or cough faintly ; 
 4. a place to dry newly made bricks ; 5. the entrails of 
 swine ; 6. a hard-working man ; 7. Jiack at, to irritate ; 
 8. a place where a hawk's food was set for it ; 9. to hop on 
 one leg ; 10. to chatter with cold ; 11. a hedge ; 12. to win 
 anything ; and hag or Jiack, to dispute, whence haggle over 
 a bargain. Mr. Thomas Wright's " Provincial Dictionary" 
 also contains these words, but none of them seems to meet 
 the sense. A meaning can be found in the Keltic ver- 
 nacular, in the use of which Shakspeare was a proficient ; 
 in which language ac or acaidh signifies to deny, to repu- 
 diate. So that what Mrs. Page probably meant, was : 
 " These knights [such as Falstaff] will deny that they have 
 made you ' Sir Alice ' [or ' Lady ' Alice], after they have 
 deceived you and made you alter the quality of your 
 gentility by having anything to do with them." All Keltic 
 words that begin with a vowel are aspirated — so that ac
 
 Shak spear e and the Elizabethan Dramatists. 41 
 
 becomes Jiac, the English Jiack. The Gaelic Dictionary 
 published under the auspices of the Highland Society of 
 Edinburgh defines ac or ag as denial, repudiation. 
 
 Under the word Hackster or Haxter, Nares, still misled 
 by his previous idea of hackney, affirms that hackster means 
 a hacknied person, and quotes : — 
 
 To bring an old hackster to the exercise of devotion is to bring an 
 old bird to sing prick song in a cage. 
 
 — Braithwaite'S Whimsies. 
 
 Here the sense would be correctly rendered by the 
 Keltic ac, to deny, to repudiate. A hackster returning to his 
 devotions, signifies one who has previously denied or 
 repudiated his religion. 
 
 JAKES. 
 
 Jakes, — a water-closet — a place of convenience, formerly 
 called in French a commodite. 
 
 Your lion that holds his poll-axe, sitting 
 On a close stool, will be given to A-jax: 
 He will be the ninth worthy. 
 
 — Love's Labour Lost, Act V. So. 2. 
 
 The name of the ancient hero Ajax, nearly the same in 
 sound as the once common word a Jakes, furnished, says 
 Nares, many unsavoury puns to our ancestors. " The ety- 
 mology," he adds, " is uncertain, unless we accept the very 
 bad pun of Sir John Barrington (who wrote the Mctamor- 
 pJiosis of Ajax) who derives it in jest from an old man, who, 
 at such a place, cried out ' age achesj " This vulgar and 
 ridiculous derivation has been hitherto sufficient for Saxon 
 philologists, but the Keltic provides the true etymology 
 in deic (pronounced yVz/C'^) convenient, and deichcas, convcni- 
 ency, or a place of conveniency. From a jakc, in the 
 singular, came the corruption a Jakes, and the still more 
 foolish corruption, Ajax.
 
 4 J Okuntr JVt^nfs aud /Vtni.us in 
 
 i..\ M i; . 
 
 This word occurs in the quarrel scene between lirutus 
 .ind Cassius in the fine trailed)' of Julius Ccesar. Cassius, 
 stuncj b\- the reproaches of Brutus, bares his breast, and 
 ch'aws his dai^i^xM", inxitiiiL;' l>riitus to take his heart, instead 
 of ijold, w hich he had denied him. Brutus rci)lies : — 
 
 Slieathe your d<j_i^]s^cr. 
 I>e angry when you will, it shall have scope ! 
 
 O Cassius, you are yoked with a {auiO, 
 That carries anger as the flint bears fire ; 
 Which much enforced, shows a hasty spark. 
 And straight is cold again. 
 
 Sufficient critical acumen has not been brought to bear 
 upon the expression "yoked with a lamb." Yoked has been 
 held to mean coupled ; and Brutus is supposed to assert 
 that he himself is of a lamb-like nature ; and that his anger, 
 provoked by Cassius, his yoke-fellow, is as transient as the 
 spark of a flint. Mr. Staunton, who seems to acquiesce in 
 the interpretation, objects nevertheless to the word /anib, 
 which, he observes, " can scarcely have been Shak.speare's 
 word. Pope, who saw its unfitness, printed man (instead of 
 lamb), but it requires a happier conjecture than this to 
 justify an alteration of the text." 
 
 Man is certainly no better than lamb as a clue to 
 Shakspcare's meaning, and a justification of his simile to 
 the flint. It is probable, however, that in this, as in so many 
 other instances, the clear meaning of Shakspearc has been 
 darkened by his ignorant printers. Mr. Hallivvell says, 
 Lamm, is a plate or scale of metal, and that it is an ar- 
 mourer's term. Nares quotes from Sidney's Arcadia : — 
 " He strake Phalantus just upon the gorget, so as he bat- 
 tered the lamms thereof," and derives the word, which he 
 says means a plate, from the Latin, lamina. 
 
 The I'Vcnch lame signifies the blade of a sword, of a
 
 Shakspeare and tJic Elizabethan Dramatists. 43 
 
 dagger, of a knife, &c., and this apparently was the word, 
 pronounced lanim, which Shakspeare employed, and which 
 his printers corrupted into lamb. The root of the word is 
 the Keltic lann, whence the French and English lance, a 
 spear; but in Keltic signifying the same as the French lame, 
 the sharp blade of an offensive or defensive weapon. Thus 
 it was the dagger, or lame (blade), of Cassius, which he had 
 just unsheathed that provoked the taunting remark of 
 Brutus as to its harmlessness. The suggested emendation 
 restores the true sense and poetry of the passage. The 
 change of the Keltic terminal ;/ into ;;/ in English, Lowland 
 Scotch, and French, in words borrowed from the more an- 
 cient language, is common, as in the vulgar word bum, 
 from bun, a fundament, or foundation ; and i?//wbarton, 
 from Z>w;/barton. As regards yoke in this passage 
 which Johnson cites as signifying coupled, as if Cassius and 
 Brutus were coupled together, it means " burthened," and 
 the true sense is : — " O Cassius you are burthened with 
 a lamm (weapon, dagger, blade, etc.)," as in the Scriptural 
 phrase, ''Wy yoke is easy, and my burthen is light." 
 
 LAMB'S WOOL. 
 
 The name of a drink in the seventeenth century, 
 described in Nares and in many old authors. This 
 phrase is a striking exemplification of the fact that 
 the Keltic words which remained in the vernacular long 
 after their original meaning had been lost, were continually 
 subjected to a Saxon pronunciation and interpretation 
 which did not belong to them. This is more especially the 
 case in the matter of drinks. Thus, ol taom (the drink to 
 pour out) was mctamorphosized into "Old Tom," still the 
 favourite name for gin. Deoch nos, signifying the usual 
 drink, became "dog's nose" ; Deoch an diugh (a drink to- 
 day), became "Dog and Duck," still a familiar sign for
 
 44 Ohsciire Wonfs ninf P/tmst-s in 
 
 public-houses; .uul srivi dcocli {^slian dcocii), the "old chink," 
 w.is pcrvcrtcil into slunuiy-gajf, which word an ct^rc^ious 
 pundit of our time asserts to have been derived from one 
 GofT, a blacksmith, to whom this liquor was as dear as his 
 heart's blood ; and that shandy-gaff was named in his 
 honour " Sang dc Goff " ! 
 
 Lamb's Wool was a drink composed of ale and the 
 pulp of apples, thoroughly mixed by ccjntinuous hand 
 labour, until the beverage became of a perfectly smooth 
 consistency. The liquor is mentioned by Peelc, a contem- 
 porary of Shakspeare, and by Merrick, w^ho lived a little 
 later : — 
 
 Lay a crab-apple in the fire, to roast for lamb's wool. 
 
 Old Wives' Ta/d-— Peele. 
 
 Now crown the bowl 
 With gentle lamb's wool., 
 Add sugar, and nutmeg, and ginger. 
 
 — Herkick. 
 
 The old Keltic name was lani/is suil, hand and eye, so 
 named from the labour of the hand required to make the 
 />urir of apples smooth and without lumps in the liquor, 
 and the eye to perceive and approve of the results. Laiiih 
 is the hand ; 's is the contraction of agiis (and) ; whence 
 lainlis s'lil, jjcrverted into the Saxon English Lamb's IVool. 
 
 L A N D - D A M N . 
 
 This word, or combination of words, is used in the 
 Winters Talc. Its meaning has excited much con- 
 troversy, without leading to any satisfactory explanation. 
 Antigonus says to Leontes, who doubts the honour of 
 his wife : — 
 
 You are abused, and by some putter-on 
 
 That will be damned iox it I Would I knew the villain, 
 
 I would land-damn him !
 
 SJiakspeave and tJie ElizabetJiati Dramatists. 45 
 
 Here a pun is evidentlj^ intended — the villain shall not 
 only be damned but land-damned. Mr. Staunton says 
 that the passage " may almost with certainty be pro- 
 nounced corrupt," and adds, " that the only tolerable 
 attempt to extract sense from it, is that of Rann, who 
 conjectured that it meant condemned to the punishment 
 of being built up in the earth, a torture mentioned in 
 Tit7is Andronicns, — " Set him breast deep in the earth, 
 and famish him." 
 
 " Dr. Johnson," says Nares, " interprets Land-damn as, ' I 
 will damn him, or condemn him, to quit the land! Sir 
 Thomas Hanmer derives it from lant, urine ; and explains 
 it, ' To stop his urine, which he might mean to do by total 
 mutilation ' ; and there is this to be said in favour of his 
 explanation, that it suits with the current and complexion 
 of the whole speech, which is gross with the violence of 
 passion, and contains indecent images of a similar kind." 
 He adds that Dr, Farmer's conjecture of '"laudanum him,' 
 in the sense of to poison him, has no probability to recom- 
 mend it." 
 
 Mr. Wedgwood, in Notes and Queries, states his opinion 
 that Land-damn ought to be read landann; adding, " It is 
 hardly doubtful that landan, like randan, or rantan, is :. 
 mere representation of continued noise. The name of 
 landan was given, in the Midland Counties, to a charivari 
 of rough music, by which country people were accustomed^ 
 as late as forty years ago, to express their indignation 
 against some social crime, such as slander or adultery.' 
 But this is scarcely satisfactory. Possibly in an earlier 
 time the popular indignation displayed itself in a more 
 vigorous manner than by rough music, and took the shape 
 of rough blows. Land-damn is not a corruption of A/;/ ^/r/;/^ 
 but landan is a corruption of the older word, of which the 
 roots are the Gaelic lann, the penis or pizzlc of an animal ; 
 and damh, a bull, or stag; whence lann-damh, a hull's 
 pizzle, which, when dried, was converted into a scourge of
 
 40 Ohstutr ]\'i<rt/s niii/ /V/rasrs in 
 
 a formidable nature. Thus, " I will diinin him, and /and- 
 (iiimti him," sij^nifios, with a t;rim pun in the |)hriisc, "I 
 will damn hiin, a\c, and scourcjc him also with a bull's 
 piz/.le." The word pizzlc, as a scourgi\ occurs in Hailcv's 
 Dictionary, 173 1. 
 
 M A LT-II RSK. 
 
 From the sense of the two passages in which this word 
 is used by Shakspeare, it is evidentl)- a term of reproach : — 
 
 Mome I Malt-horse .' capon I coxcomb I idiot ! patch ! 
 
 — Comedy of Errors, Act III. Sc, i. 
 
 You peasant swain I you whoresom malt-horse ' 
 
 — TamiiiQ 0/ the Shrew, Act IV. Sc. i. 
 
 Mr. Halliwell quotes the word Mall-mare, employed in a 
 similar sense : — 
 
 He would simper and snuffle as though he had gone a-wooing to a 
 malt-mare .' 
 
 — Lilly (1632). 
 
 The conjunction of the words malt and Jiorse has sug- 
 gested to some commentators that it means a brewer's horse, 
 Nares saj-s that " malt horses \\-ere probably strong heavy 
 horses, like dray horses." ]\Ir. Halliwell is of the same 
 opinion, and saj-s that " jnalt-horse, is a sIok', {full, heavy 
 horse, such as is used by brewers." It may be questioned, 
 however, whether Jiiall, in this phrase, means the malt from 
 which brewers make beer, or that a brewer's horse, though 
 strong, is necessarily dull or stupid because he is less agile 
 than a race-horse. The obvious English word too easily 
 satisfied the English etymologists. The Welsh, or Kymric 
 branch of the Keltic languages spoken in the British Isles, 
 supplies mallt, which in all the Welsh dictionaries is ex- 
 plained as " devoid of energy, dull, spiritless, stupid." The
 
 Shakspcarc and the Eli::abctJian Dranmiists. 47 
 
 Gaelic branch has mall, slow ; and maol or viaolad/i, dull, 
 heavy, blunt, which supports Mr. Halliwell's derivation. 
 Thus, Alalt-horse as used by Shakspeare does not mean the 
 horse that draws the malt for the brewer; but a dull, heavy, 
 stupid horse — whether he belonged to a brewer, or to any 
 other person. 
 
 MARR, OR MAR. 
 
 In Antony's spirit-stirring address to the citizens of 
 Rome, over the dead body of Caesar, he says, exhibiting 
 the dagger stabs in his garment : — 
 
 Kind souls, what, weep you when you but behold 
 Our CfEsar's vesture wounded ? Look you here, 
 Here is himself, niarr'd, as you see, with traitors. 
 
 The ordinary meaning of Adar, to spoil, to disfigure, docs 
 not meet the sense of the passage. If it were intended to 
 convey that Caesar was marred, or spoiled, it would be 
 by and not ivith traitors. The author of a recent glossary 
 of the archaic words of the county of Stafford, has 
 a note on the passage, in which he states that mar, in 
 Staffordshire, signifies spoilt, used of a child ; which Notes 
 and Queries, of September [8th, 1880, remarks is not a 
 good illustration. It may be suggested that the Keltic 
 word mar, which means, like, similar, the same, is, in all 
 probability, the solution of the difficulty, as if Antony had 
 said, " Here is Caesar himself, and not merely his vesture, 
 treated as if he were a traitor to the Commonwealth." This 
 allegation it is the whole purpose of his eloquent speech 
 to repudiate and deny. From this word comes the Lowland 
 Scotch marrozv, in the sense of a pair, as in the expres- 
 sion, "These gloves are no marrozvs," i.e., the)' are not a 
 pair — "His een are no marroius," i.e., he squints, his two 
 eyes arc not alike, A Lowland Scotsman would make the
 
 ^8 O/'snnr ]\\>rt/s nn/i P/iniscs in 
 
 passage (]uitc intcllgiiblc if he read it, "Here is himself 
 ftuinvw'i/, or paired, as you see, witli fynitors." lien Jonson 
 uses marnnc in the sense of a comj).'inion, or mate. 
 
 M KAL- MOUTH ED. 
 
 The modern vicaly-mouthed was written and pronounced 
 meal-iuouthed \x\ the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: — 
 
 Wlio would imagine yonder sober man, 
 Tlie same devout, mtuxh--tnoiitlie(i precisian. 
 That cries good brother, kind sister, and 
 Is a vile politician ? 
 
 Marston's Satires (1598). 
 
 Ye hypocrites, 
 
 Ye vteale-mouthed counterfeits. 
 
 Harm ax's Beza {quoted by Nares). 
 
 Nares says : " This word is applied to one whose words 
 arc as fine and soft as meal, as Minshew well explains it." 
 Johnson, on the same track, says, " Imagined by Skinner to 
 be corrupted from w/7/^/-mouthed or w/^/Z^tc-mouthed ; but 
 perhaps from the sore vioiitJis of aiiinials, that when they 
 are unable to comminute their grain, must be fed with 
 mcair Meal is not always soft in the mouth, but some- 
 times gritt}', and more or less rough. A much more 
 probable derivation is from the Keltic milis, soft, sweet ; 
 ;;///, honey. Shakspearc has /-^//rj'-mouthed and lioney- 
 tongued, as in : — 
 
 A hoiiey tongue — a heart of gall, 
 
 Is Fancy's Spring, but Sorrow's Fall. 
 
 This derivation is so obvious that it seems strange that any 
 philologist should miss it, or prefer meal, ground grain, to 
 mil, hone)-, as the origin of the simile. But English philo- 
 logists like to travel in the old ruts, and, knowing nothing 
 of Keltic, prefer Saxon resemblances to Keltic realities.
 
 Shakspcare and the ElizabetJiaii Dramatists. 49 
 
 MEINY — MENIE. 
 
 A household, and the people composing it ; — the French 
 menage. 
 
 A reeking post 
 Delivered letters — (from Goneril) 
 Which presently they read, and whose contents 
 They summoned up their meiiiy, straight took horse, 
 Commanded me to follow. 
 
 — King Lear. , 
 
 Mr. Staunton explains Mcijiy in this passage to mean a 
 " retinue," in which sense it is used in Stowe's Survey, who 
 says the guests " were set and served plentifully with veni- 
 son and wine by Robin Hood and his nieynie." It is a 
 mistake to derive this word from the same source as many, 
 the plural of vincJi. In the " Dictionnaire de la Langue 
 Romane, ou vieux langage Fran^ais " (Paris, 1768), inesnie 
 or mesniez, is explained as signifying " habitations, fermes, 
 bourgs, et villages." The word is used in the Scottish Low- 
 land dialect as mains, a farm and collection of farm build- 
 ings. Halliwell's "Archaic Dictionary" (1848), states that 
 " 7neny, a family," is a word still in u.se in the North of 
 England. It is from the old Keltic iiminn or inuinnc, the 
 people comprising the household, the servants and retainers 
 of a chief ; whence muinntir, a large farm or establishment 
 — and muinntireach, largel)^ provided with servants, ]ia\ing a 
 numerous household. 
 
 M E P H I S T O P H E L E S . 
 
 This word, rendered more familiar to the last and present 
 generations by the Faust of Goethe, was known in llu: I'".li/.a- 
 bcthan era, and used by Shakspeare and AJarlowc — a ccntiir)- 
 and a half before Goethe. In its present orthograph)-, il 
 has all the appearance of a Greek word; but the Greek
 
 CO O/'srnn' Wotuis an<f P/imst's in 
 
 knows it not. In the Shakspcrcan era it was written 
 M^phistophilis and Mtfltistopliilus — 
 
 Come, Mi-f'histopholis, let us dispute again, 
 And argue of divine astrology ! 
 
 — Malone. 
 
 Hath McphistopJiolis no greater skill— 
 
 Who knows not the double motion of the planets ? 
 
 —Ibid. 
 
 Pistol, in Merry Wives of Windsor, Act I. So. 2, uses the 
 word jocularly — 
 
 How now, MephisiOphilus f 
 
 Nares describes the word as a fanciful name of a sup- 
 posed familiar spirit mentioned in the old legend of Sir 
 Jolin Faitstus. It appears to have been compounded of 
 two Keltic words — nii-fios, mis-knowledge or perversion of 
 knowledge ; and diabhol {dia-vol), devil ; whence mi-fios- 
 diavol, the devil of perverted or misleading knowledge — 
 an exact description of the cunning devil pourtraycd by 
 Marlowe and Goethe, 
 
 MERRY ANDREW. 
 
 Merry Andrew is an old word of the Elizabethan era 
 for a jester, or mountebank, not yet wholly obsolete. 
 Johnson is the first English lexicographer who notices it, 
 and translates it a Jack-pudding, a buffoon. He attempts 
 no etymology. The Germans call a Merry AndjTiv a " Jack 
 Sausage," or Hans Wiirz. The French call it saltinbanque, 
 and Jean Potage. A writer in Notes and Queries, Feb, 7th, 
 1852, says : " Although Strutt in his Sports and Pastimes 
 has several allusions to Merry Andreivs, he docs not attempt 
 to explain the origin of the term. Hearn, in his Benedictus 
 Albus, speaking of the well-known Andrew Borde, gives it 
 as his opinion that this facetious physician gave rise to the
 
 Shakspearc and the ElizabetJiau Dramatists. 5 1 
 
 name ; 't was from the Doctor's method of using such speech 
 at markets and fairs, that in after times those that imitated 
 the hke humorous, jocose language were styled Merry 
 Andrezus, a term much in use among our stages." 
 
 All the lexicographers who mention the word, which is 
 one peculiar to the English language, are content to derive 
 it from this Dr. Andrew Borde. The true root seems to be 
 the Keltic mear, merry ; Jiih', to sport ; mearaicJie, a clown, 
 a buffoon ; mirean, sportiveness ; combined with druidh 
 (pronounced Droo-i), a conjuror, a pretended magician. We 
 have thus the common word Merry Andrezv, without 
 reference to the fabulous physician, whom lazy makers 
 Dictionaries, each following in the track of his prede- 
 cessors, are contented to accept. Thus we have An 
 druidli bord, a jesting conjuror. Bord, in Keltic, signifies 
 a jest, a witticism, a joke, as in the lines quoted bj^ 
 Nares : — 
 
 Trust not their words 
 Nor merry l?ords. 
 
 MERRY GREEK 
 
 -Drayton. 
 
 This phrase occurs twice in Troiliis and Cressida, and is 
 once the occasion of a pun by the fair and fickle Cressida 
 [Act I. Sc. 2]. In reply to Pandarus, who thinks that 
 Helen loves Troilus better than she does Paris, she 
 replies jestingly, " Then she is a merry Greek indeed." 
 Mr. Staunton remarks that ''Merry Greek meant a wag or 
 humourist, and is frequently to be met with in old books. 
 Our oldest English comedy, RalpJi Roister Doister, lias a 
 character who is the droll of the piece, called Matthew 
 Merry-Greeke!' Mr. Staunton attempts no etymology, and 
 gives no explanation why in pjigland the Greeks, if the
 
 ^2 Ohnnr H'l'ra's mui PJirascs in 
 
 wonl he derived Uo\w that nati(^n, should be considered 
 merrier than other people, or than the inhal)itants of 
 "Mcrr)- Eni^land," to whom the pleasant cpitlict was iisuall}' 
 applied. Mt'ar in Keltic sijj^nifies sportive, joyful, wanton, 
 and from that lan^ua<je the English words mcrr)- and 
 merriment are derived. Greek, in this particular phrase, 
 derived from the Keltic cridlic (crcc), the heart, and crid- 
 heach (pronounced cree-ac/i), hearty, pleasant; whence Jlfenj 
 Greek corrupted from }iicarc-cridJteacJi, merr)'-hcarted. 
 
 MODERN. 
 
 Shakspeare, in several instances, makes use of this word 
 in a sense which is not that of modern, as opposed to 
 antique ; and which all the commentators agree in con- 
 sidering must mean, trivial, worthless, common. The most 
 noted example occurs in As Yon Like It, Act II. Sc../, in 
 the line : — 
 
 Full of wise saws, and modern instances ; 
 
 in which modern, as opposed to antique, is generally ac- 
 cepted as the true meaning : " Full of ancient sayings or 
 proverbs, and modern instances of their wisdom." In the 
 following instances, among many others that might be 
 cited, a similar interpretation cannot be held valid. When 
 Rosalind tells the melancholy Jacques that those who 
 indulge in extremity of either laughter or melancholy — 
 
 Betray themselves to every modern censure, 
 As worse than drunkards, 
 
 modern, as distinguished from ancient, is wholly inappli- 
 cable. 
 
 So in Maebeth, Act. IV. Sc. 3 :— 
 
 Where sighs, and groans, and shrieks that rend the air, 
 Are made, not mark'd ; where violent sorrow seems 
 A modern ecstasy —
 
 Shakspeare and the ElizabetJuin Dyamatists. 53 
 
 modern in the usual sense is clearly inadmissible. The same 
 remark applies to the Queen's speech in Antony and 
 Cleopatra, Act. V. Sc. 2 : — 
 
 Say, good Csesar, 
 That 1 some lady trifles have reserved, 
 Immoment toys, things of such dignity 
 As we greet 7nodern friends withal. 
 
 The Keltic modhar signifies gentle, mild, soft, in which 
 sense in the passages above quoted gentle might be sub- 
 stituted for modern, with the greatest advantage to the 
 meaning. The same interpretation would exactly suit the 
 passage in Ben ]ow&o\\'?, Poetaster : — 
 
 Alas ! that were no modern consequence 
 
 To have cothernidl briskness frightened hence. 
 
 NIGHTMARE. 
 
 In King Lear, Act. III. Sc. 4, Edgar quotes what is 
 supposed to be a passage from an old song : — 
 
 Saint Withold footed thrice the wold ; 
 He met the night-mare and her nine-fold ; 
 
 Bade her alight, 
 
 And her troth plight, 
 And aroint thee, witch, aroint thee ! 
 
 This doggerel is evidently corrupt, and some annotators 
 have endeavoured to make sense of the second line by 
 reading " The night-mare and her nine foals." The emend- 
 ation, however, only helps to make the confusion worse 
 confounded ; although the nine " foals" of a marc, supposing 
 the delirium of sleeplessness, or perturbed sleep in the night, 
 to be rightly personified in the shape of a female horse, as 
 the superstitious and vulgar notion is, are comprehensible 
 enough. In French, the word which the English renders 
 "mare" is mar, which does not signify a female horse.
 
 Obscure W'onh ntni P/ifnsis in 
 
 The I'rcnch call the N/i^^/ff-zf/ttrr the " amchc-v/itr," in 
 which the final sjllablc would have to hcjunitiit, ami not 
 w/*/r, if the received Enjj;iish et>'moloj,y were correct, or 
 «i,, Tr„ Mish interpretation prevailed in France. The word 
 •;•<• in English results from a misunderstanding; of 
 the ancient Keltic vicar, which signifies delirium : plural 
 vicarau ; whence Noc/id vicar, corrupted into " Night-///^/rt','' 
 the delirium of the night. Many philologists, aware of the 
 absurdity of the derivation from the female horse supposed 
 to sit on the bosoms of sleepless persons, have sought to 
 trace the word from the Runic and Teutonic viar (or viur^, 
 a demon or incubus, which, according to Malone, had nine 
 familiars. Not one of them, however, has discovered the 
 simple and obvious Keltic etymology that makes an end of 
 the mare and her '' n'mQ-fo/d" or foa/s, and brings down 
 the superstitious fancy to the level of common-sense, and 
 to a plain prose description neat enough to be accepted as 
 scientific b)- any physician who understands the causes of 
 the temporary malady. 
 
 PAS IT. 
 
 In Winters Talc, Act I. Sc. 2, Leontcs, suspici(jus of 
 the fidelity of his wife, liermione, addresses his little son, 
 Mamillius, and asks : — 
 
 Art thou my calf ? 
 Mamillius. Yes, if ye will, my lord. 
 
 Leontes. Thou want'st a rough pash and the shoots that I have, 
 To be full like me. 
 
 " Calf" in this passage was probably at one time in the 
 English vernacular a term of peculiar endearment for a 
 young child — as it remains to this day, among the Gaelic- 
 speaking people of Scotland. A Highland mother has no 
 more affectionate words for her baby boy than Mo laoch 
 (my calf).
 
 Skakspeave and the ElizabetJian Dramatists. 5 5 
 
 Nares thought that the word PasJL meant something- 
 belonging to a calf or bull, and that it was probably a 
 provincial word that had not been traced out, adding that 
 Steevens pretended to derive it from paz, a kiss in Spanish, 
 a derivation for which there was neither proof nor proba- 
 bility. Grose mentions " m.2i.di-pasJi " as meaning a madcap in 
 Cheshire. Mr. T. Wright says that in the same county 
 PasJi means brains ; and Mr. Staunton, who, though 
 ignorant of the Keltic languages, came very near the mark 
 in this instance, explained PasJi as a tufted head or brow. 
 The word in reality means the forehead, and is the English 
 rendering of the Gaelic batJiais (pronounced basJi or pasJi, 
 b and/ being interchangeable in that language), signifying 
 the brow or forehead. The word abash, in its sense of to 
 browbeat or intimidate, is from the same root. Thus, in the 
 speech of the forlorn Leontes to the innocent child, whom 
 he suspects may not be his own, a " rough pash " means a 
 brow furrowed with care, like his father's, and the " shoots " 
 the emblematic horns which the jealous husband is afraid 
 he wears. 
 
 If this had been known to the Rev. Alexander Dyce, one of 
 the many ignorant and pretentious editors of Shakspearc, he 
 would not have fallen into the ludicrous error common to him, 
 to Malone and others, of supposing that Leontes compared 
 himself to a bull, the sire of a calf Malone, in attempting 
 to explain the passage, says: " You tell me that you are like 
 me, that you are my ca/f. I am the horned bull : thou 
 wantest the rough head and the horns of the animal, com- 
 pletely to resemble your father." The force of absurdity 
 could go no further unless it went further in the attempted 
 elucidation of another commentator, Henley, who says that 
 Leontes meant to tell the child that to be a calf, he must 
 have a tuft on his forehead, and the young horns that shoot 
 from it ! as if Leontes had a tuft on his forehead, and tlie 
 horns were not the figurative horns with which the heads 
 of cuckolds were supposed to be burthen cd !
 
 Obsanr Wonfs ivni P/it;tscs in 
 
 I'l'.N 1) K A (W)X. 
 
 The dramatists <>f the Khzabcthan era do not seem to 
 have been qjrcatly fascinated by the Keltic lei^ends that 
 refer to the name and exploits of the j^reat Kini;- Arthur, 
 althoui^h the)' oftcred such abundant material for dramatic 
 poetry. Falstaft", in the 2nd Part of Henry IV., Act. \\ . 
 Sc. 2, sings a fragment of the old ballad of Sir Lancelot 
 Du Lake : — 
 
 When . Irlhuy first in court began, 
 And was approved king. 
 
 The ballad literature of the sixteenth antl seventeenth 
 centinies was enriched ^\■ith the traditions, more or less 
 mythological, that pertained to the name of this greatest 
 favourite of all the Keltic nations, but it remained to a poet 
 of our time to produce a work worthy of so great a 
 memory. But neither in Shakspeare's day nor in our own 
 was there, or is there, any correct notion existent in the 
 popular mind of the meaning of the word Pendragon, 
 bestowed upon Arthur himself and on his supposed father 
 Uther. The commonly-received opinion was, and is, that 
 the word was related, in some way or other, to the fabulous 
 monster — so familiar in Heraldry — the Dragon. Alfred 
 Tennyson, in the Idylls of the King, speaks of King 
 Arthur's golden helmet, on which he bore 
 
 The dragon of the great Pendragonship. 
 
 But Pcndragon is neither a proper name, as some have 
 supposed, nor a crest in the form of a helmet, as Ritson 
 suggests ; nor has it any relation to a dragon. It was 
 undoubtedly the real title of a chief warrior among the 
 Keltic nations. When the Romans abandoned Britain, 
 the several petty kings who shared the dominion between 
 them, each independent, or semi-independent of the other,
 
 SJiakspcare and the Elizabethan Dramatists. 57 
 
 found it necessary to unite for mutual defence against the 
 invading hordes of North Germany that harried and 
 despoiled their coasts, and strove to reduce them to subjec- 
 tion. For this purpose a chief king was chosen, to preside 
 over their councils and direct their operations in war. This 
 great personage was called the Pen-dragon. One of the 
 first who bore the title was Vortigern, whose name in 
 Keltic {Fior-tighearn) signifies the " true Lord." After him 
 came the father of Arthur, and Arthur himself. Possibly 
 many other and forgotten chieftans bore the same title. 
 The word is derived from the Kymric Pen^ head, chief; 
 drag, a section ; and dragon, a leader in war. From these 
 words comes Pendragon, the leader of all the sections ; that 
 is to say, an Emperor. In our day, if the Kymric, or Keltic, 
 was the language in use, Queen Victoria would be called 
 the Pendragon of India ; and the King of Prussia, the Pe7i- 
 dragon of the German Empire, 
 
 QUAIL AND CALLET. 
 
 These words, used contemptuously by Shakspeare, 
 signify a woman of light behaviour or loose morals : — 
 
 Here's Agamemnon, — an honest fellow enough, 
 and one that loves quails. 
 
 — Troilus and Cressida, Act V. So. i. 
 
 " The qnai/,^' says Nares, " was thought to be a very 
 amorous bird ; hence the metaphor." In this instance 
 Nares jumped to an erroneous conclusion — to the dis- 
 advantage of the quail, which is no more amorous than a 
 sparrow or any other bird. Ben Jonson, thinking that 
 Quad was only metaphorically used for a woman, employs 
 plover in the same sense in BartJiolonieiv Fair, Act IV. 
 Sc. 5. Shakspeare makes Leontes, in his wrath, rail at
 
 58 Obscure Words niiii P/ifiiscs in 
 
 Paulina, who presents his ncw-horii <.laut;hlcr to him, and 
 calls her — 
 
 A callat. 
 Of boundless tonjjue, wlio lale lialli heat her husband, 
 And ni>\v bnit"^ ine I 
 
 — IVintc-r's Tali', Act II. Sc. 3. 
 
 And again — 
 
 He called her whore ; a beggar, in his drink. 
 Could not have laid such terms upon his calhit. 
 
 —Othello, Act IV. Sc. 2. 
 
 Quail, Co/let, and Cnlhit arc all derived from the Keltic 
 caih\ a girl, and cailieac/t, an old woman. 
 
 SHREW. 
 
 Few words in the English language have excited greater 
 controversy as to its origin than this, and few have been 
 more largely twisted from their first meaning, A Shrew is 
 a noisy and ill-tempered woman ; a shrezud man is a 
 cunning and sagacious, but may be a very quiet and good- 
 natured, person ; while to have a " sJireivd suspicion," is to 
 have a suspicion that appears in the estimation of its 
 entertainer to be more then commonly well founded. 
 Shrezu and shrewd would thus appear to be related 
 in sound, but unrelated in meaning. The currently accepted 
 etymolog>' of shrezu is from the German Schreien, to cry 
 out in a shrill voice, from whence comes shriek. 
 
 The derivation from sJirew-niotise, because that little 
 animal was supposed to be particularly vicious, has long 
 been abandoned by philologists, though a few still remain 
 who cling to it. The Germans translated the English " to 
 shrezu " by Verjluchen, to curse — and a shrew, by Zankerinn 
 (a. female who quarrels), Keiferinn (a female who chides or 
 scolds), and by Ein boses weib (a bad or wicked woman)
 
 Shakspeare and the EHzabetJian Dramatists. 59 
 
 These all convey the modern English meaning of a V^/rw, but 
 do not in the slightest degree approach the etymology. The 
 French have Megere, from the Greek, a fury, and Gro7ideuse, 
 a woman who grumbles or scolds. The only other possible 
 source of the English word must be sought in the Keltic, 
 where we find sior (sheer), perpetual ; and mag, to persecute, 
 to annoy, to vex, to harass, to torment ; whence sior ruag 
 {shceruag), anglicised and abbreviated into shrezu, a per- 
 petual worry, vexation, or annoyance. The word has also 
 been derived from sruth (srn), to flow, applied metaphori- 
 cally to an unceasing flow or flux (of angry words). 
 Neither of these derivations, if either may be accepted — 
 would confine the opprobrious epithet to women, but 
 would apply equally to men, as Shakspeare has it in the 
 Taming of the SJireiv : — 
 
 By this reckoning, he is more a shrew than she. 
 
 and in Gauuner Giirton : — 
 
 Come on, old fellow ! it is told me thou art a shrew. 
 
 The noun is probably from sior ruag. The verb " to 
 shrezv," to curse, is probably from srn, to curse with a run- 
 ning or flux, as in the couplet in Love's Labour Lost (Act 
 V. Sc. 2) vv'here the word is written shrows, and when 
 in allusion to pock-marks, Rosaline says : — 
 
 O that your face were not so full of O's ; 
 
 and the Princess replies — 
 
 A pox of that jest ! and I bcshrew all shroivs. 
 
 SLIGHT. 
 
 This is a word of many meanings : Slight, is frail or 
 fragile ; to slight, is to despise or scorn, or think lightly of 
 a person or thing ; slight, is to eject or throw out, as Fal-
 
 6o Ohairr W'onfs oik/ /^//m.ws in 
 
 statT was .f//>//Av/ ficjin the huckb.i^Ki i ihIm ihe 'riiamcs. 
 It is usctl b)- Shakspcaro in the sense of a liick, artifice, 
 or contrivance, and survives to this time as s/ii;;ht or s/eig/it- 
 of-/iiind, a conjurintj trick. The l^'rench have translated 
 this phrase into /i\i^cr-dt'-!finiii, or h't^^ht of hand ; and the 
 Enj^Hsh have adopted it aijain, \.o express " conjuring" : — 
 
 And that distilled by magic s/i't^/i/s, 
 Shall raise such artificial sprites. 
 
 — Mtui>et/i, Act III. Sc. 5. 
 
 Narcs and others define sZ/'x/^/ where it occurs in Ticclfth 
 Night as an abbreviation of " by tliis b\;ht." 
 
 ^Siight, 1 could so beat the rogue. 
 
 —Act II. Sc. 5. 
 ^Slight J will you make an ass of me.' 
 
 —Act III. Sc. 2. 
 
 How wrong these explanations are, and what is the true 
 source o^ slight or sleight of hand, wall appear from the Keltic 
 slaight, a piece of roguery, a deception, a trick ; slaight, 
 slaightear^ a rogue, a rascal, a cheat ; and slaightcarachd, 
 knaverj^ conjuration. This accounts for 'slight in Macbeth ; 
 and 'slight in Tivelfth Night, and makes an end of the 
 derivation which finds favour with Nares, for " b}- this 
 light," and converts 'Slight ! will you make an ass of me ? " 
 into " ' Rogue,' ' cheat,' or ' knave,' will you make an ass of 
 me?" 
 
 TAKEN W ITU THE Vl A X N E R. 
 
 This appears to have been a proverbial phrase in 
 Shakspeare's time to signify " taken in the act," or taken 
 with stolen property still in possession. It occurs in the 
 first part of King Henry I V. : — 
 
 Oh, villain I thou stolest a cup of sack eighteen years ago, and wert 
 
 tal'cn ivitli the manner ! 
 
 —Act II. Sc. 4.
 
 Skakspeart mid the ElizabetJiaii Dramatists. 6i 
 
 It also occurs in Love's Labour Lost, where Costard (Act I. 
 Sc. i) makes several puns upon the word : — 
 
 . . . . The manner of it is, I was taken 
 with the manner. 
 
 Biron. In what manner ? 
 
 Costard. In mamier and form following, Sir ; 
 all those three : I was seen with her in the 7nanor 
 house, sitting with her upon the form, and taken 
 following her into the park ; which, put together, 
 is in manner and form following. Now, Sir, for 
 the manner, — it is the manner of a man to speak 
 to a woman : for X\v& form, — in so\x\t fG7-m. 
 
 In the old Law Books, mainour, maiioiir, and meinour 
 are derived from the French manier, to handle or laj- hold 
 of, and are said to signify, in a legal sense, the thing taken 
 away, or found in the /land of the thief who has stolen it. 
 But this derivation is unsatisfactory. What is called New 
 Latin, including many law terms, is formed of Keltic words 
 with Latin terminations, such, for instance, as " burglary," 
 which is derived from the Keltic buar, cattle, g/ac, to seize, 
 whence a buarglacair, one who committed a burglary, one 
 of the earliest forms of robbery in a pastoral country. In 
 like manner (no pun intended). Taken with or in the manner 
 is derived from the Keltic mainnir, and manrach, a sheep- 
 fold, and signified originally a shcep-stealer, detected in the 
 fold, and in the very act of stealing the animals. 
 
 TAWDRY. 
 
 This word, as used by Shakspeare and his contempo- 
 raries, seems to have signified an ornament for the neck 
 or arm, either of lace or jewellery ; and never to have been 
 employed as a depreciatory epithet— as in the modern sense 
 of gaudy, but worthless, or of small intrinsic value. In
 
 Oj OhSiiire \\'o)t/s a mi P/irnst's in 
 
 Wittters Tale (Act IV. Sc. 3) the rustic wcncli Mopsa says 
 to the Clown : — 
 
 You promised nic a Ituciiry lace and a pair of sweet ij;lovcs. 
 
 Here it is evident tliat ISIopsa did not mean anything 
 worthless. In Drayton's Polyolbion the poet says : — 
 
 The blue Nereids 
 Make tawdries for their necks. 
 
 The origin of the word has never been correctly traced. 
 All the etymologists have derived it from Saint Andny, or 
 EtJu'Idreda, because an annual fair was held on St. 
 Audrey's day, in some town or village in the Isle of El)', 
 or some part of Lincolnshire, and which became famous 
 for the sale of cheap flimsy ornaments for the adornment 
 of women. Mr. Wedgwood does not admit the accuracy 
 of this derivation, but he suggests no other, Nares, 
 who is contented with the derivation from St. Audrey or 
 St. Etheldreda, narrates that an old historian makes St. 
 Audrey die of a swelling in her throat, which she con- 
 sidered as a particular judgment upon her, for having been 
 in her youth too much addicted to wearing fine necklaces ! 
 The credulous historian, and the too easily satisfied philo- 
 logist, in accepting necklace as the original meaning of the 
 word, came very near the truth without knowing it. The 
 word in the Keltic signified, not a necklace, but a bracelet, 
 or ornament for the arm, from iaod, a rope, a string, a lace, 
 a small chain of gold ; and righe, the arm ; whence taod- 
 righc, corrupted into Tazvdry. When the original Keltic 
 meaning became obscured, and the sense was finally lost, 
 the word was held to signify any ornament for the person. 
 None of the quotations from Shakspeare and the Elizabe- 
 than writers conveys the modern idea that the tawdries 
 were necessarily valueless or vulgar.
 
 Shakspeare and the Elizabethan Dramatists. 63 
 
 TEAR CAT. 
 
 This odd epithet was applied in the seventeenth 
 century to violent and ranting actors, who overdid their 
 parts — 
 
 D. What's thy name, fellow soldier ? 
 
 T. I am called, by those who have seen my valour, Tear Cat. 
 
 — Old Play {quoted by Nares). 
 
 I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a cat in. 
 
 — Midsumtner Nights Dream, Act I. So. 2. 
 
 I had rather hear two good jests, than a whole play of such tear cat 
 thunderbolts. 
 
 —Day's Isle 0/ Gulls. 
 
 Nares suggests that probably the phrase originated from 
 a cruel act of this kind (tearing a cat) having been per- 
 formed by some daring ruffian to create surprise and alarm. 
 As if in corroboration of this opinion, Mr. Staunton cites 
 from an anonymous author, " Sirrah ! this is you that 
 would rend or tear-a-cat upon the stage," from Histrio- 
 mastix, or the Players WJiipt (161 o). It is difficult to 
 believe that such a brutal and disgusting action, taking the 
 words in their literal Saxon sense, could ever have happened, 
 or could have been tolerated on the English stage, and just 
 as difficult not to believe that the words were a corruption 
 of a similarly sounding phrase in the vernacular. Such 
 words are to be found in the Keltic dur or duire, obstinate, 
 and cath (Kymric cad), a battle, whence [d pronounced as /) 
 duire-cath, an obstinate or fierce single-handed combat on 
 the stage, between two violent actors, desirous of pleasing 
 the gallery or the groundlings of the pit. The allusion by 
 Bottom the Weaver to the part of Ercles, which, he thought 
 he could " play rarely," lends force to this interpretation.
 
 64 Ol'Siinr W'onfs niid P/imses in 
 
 X R O J A \ . 
 
 When Shakspcarc, in Ifiiiry J'., uses the word Trojan, 
 docs he mean a thief? whieh Xares conjeetures lie docs. 
 
 Dost thou think, base Trojan, to have me fold up I'arca's fatal web ? 
 
 or does he mean, in the Homeric sense of the word, a 
 warrior of Troy ? 
 
 Mr. Halh'well defines Trojan as " a boon companion : a 
 person who is fond of h'quor. According to some," he adds, 
 " a thief was so called, but it was applied somewhat in- 
 discriminately." A rough, manly boy is now called a fine 
 Trojan. Grose, has " trusty Trojan, a true friend. " 
 
 The word is vernacular I^nglish — not Greek, and is de- 
 rived from the Keltic troid (pronounced troij or iroidgc), 
 to fight, to contend, to quarrel. 
 
 TRUE-PEXNY. 
 
 Forby, quoted in Halliwell's " Archaic Dictionary," thinks 
 that the application of this phrase by Hamlet to the gl)(jst 
 of his father (Act I. Sc. 5) is unseemly and incongruous, 
 and is of opinion that it means staunch and trusty, true to 
 his purpose or pledge, Mr. Collier, led astra)- apparently by 
 the word " cellarage " that occurs in the same passage, where 
 the ghost, " from below," exclaims to Horatio and Marcellus, 
 whom Hamlet adjures to secrecy, " Swear ! " describes 
 Trnc-Fenny as a mining term that signifies a particular in- 
 dication in the soil, of the direction in which ore is to be 
 found. Surely perverted ingenuity never went further ! 
 Forby's explanation, derived from the ordinary English 
 sense of trne, though it takes no account of the word 
 penny, is infinitely preferable to Mr. Collier's. It is never- 
 theless possible that True-Benny, apparently used by
 
 Shakspeare and the Elizabetliaii Draviatists. 65 
 
 Shakspeare in a jocular and disrespectful sense, was in- 
 tended by the poet to conceal or slur over the deep tragic 
 emotion of Hamlet's mind, so that his two friends might 
 not suspect the intensity of his feeling ; especially as further 
 on in the scene, w^here the ghost from below ac^ain ur^-es 
 them to " swear," he addresses him familiarly as " old mole." 
 Hamlet has, however, addressed the ap^Darition once before 
 with the words, " Alas, poor ghost ! " ; and afterwards, in 
 the third reiteration of " swear," adjured it with the words, 
 " Rest, rest, perturbed spirit"; neither of which phrases par- 
 takes of irreverence. Perhaps the Keltic etymology of Tnic- 
 Penny, as employed in this passage, expresses the real 
 meaning, and conceals a play upon the words identical in 
 sound, but not in meaning, in the Keltic and Saxon. In Kel- 
 tic tniagh {pronounced tni-d) signifies unhappy, wretched, 
 miserable ; and peine, torment or punishment. This, as a 
 phrase of commiseration, should be read by the gloss of the 
 ghost's first speech to Hamlet : — 
 
 I am thy father's spirit : 
 Doomed fur a certain time to walk the night, 
 And for the day condemned to fast in fires ; 
 Till the foul crimes, done in my days of nature. 
 Are burnt and purged away. 
 
 In this sense, trnagJi peine would be a phrase of the deepest 
 pity, and would better suit the solemn character of the 
 whole scene than the ludicrous True-Penny in the Saxon 
 sense. True-Pe)iny has not been traced to any writer 
 before or contemporary with Shakespeare ; and Johnson's 
 and other dictionaries cite him as the sole authority for it. 
 
 WELKIN. 
 
 This word, which is usually held to signify the sky, 
 heaven, and what in biblical and non-scientific language 
 was called the " firmament," is derived by all the English
 
 66 Of'saitr W'onfs niul Phrases in 
 
 dictionaries from the German or Saxon ivealcan, to rr)ll ; or 
 ivolki\ a cloud ; and icolkcuhittuncl, a cloudy sk}-. I\Ir. 
 Wcdg^wooil suj^^csts that " perhaps icolkc ma\' be from the 
 German ivolle (wool), from the woolly asjicct of the clouds ": 
 and adds that " the fleecy clouds is an habitual metaphor, 
 which is also to be found in Vir<:jil." 
 
 Shakspeare uses Welkin in a sense which docs not 
 imply cloudiness, as in Midsuinnier Niglifs Dream, Act III. 
 Sc. 2 :— 
 
 The starry welkin cover thee anon 
 With drooping fog as black as Acheron. 
 
 Chaucer has " In all the welkin was no cloud "; and 
 Milton writes, "from cither end of hca\cn thctcr//-/// burns." 
 
 From these instances it is evident that zvelki)i signified 
 the sky, but not evident that the word was derived from 
 the clouds. 
 
 But the singular phrase, " a we/kin eye," as used by 
 Shakspeare in the Winter's Tale, when Leontes addresses 
 his little son ^Mamillius, whose paternity he doubts, cannot 
 be satisfactoril}^ explained by the Saxon derivation from 
 " the clouds." To get over this preliminary difficulty, all 
 commentators seem to agree that in this sentence zvelkin 
 means bine as the zvelkin ; or that the father, addressing the 
 child, whom he would fain believe to be his own, but 
 dares not on account of his overpowering and increasing 
 jealousy, uses the word zuelkin to signify blue, like the clear 
 sky : — 
 
 Come, Sir page ! 
 Look on me with thy welkin eye, sweet villain ! 
 Most dearst, my collop I Can thy dam ? 
 
 Here the unextinguished affection of the father for the 
 child is strongly apparent. He wishes to believe in him, 
 calls him his "dearest," his "collop" (that is, his blossom,
 
 '*VJf 
 
 Shakspeare and the EIi::abct/ian Dramatists. 67 
 
 bud or sprout — see that word), and asks him to look at him 
 with his ivelkin eye, and then asks again, " Can thy dam ? " 
 — i.e., " Can thy mother look at me with a zvelkin eye as 
 thou canst ?" If zvelkin means blue as the sk)', it would 
 follow that both the child and the mother had blue e)-es ; 
 and that if one could look at him with such an e\-e, so 
 could the other. But Leontes doubted the mother in spite 
 of her blue eyes — if they zuere blue, and not grey or black, 
 as they might have been for all that appears in the play. 
 If clear as the sky, and not blue as the sky, be accepted as 
 the true meaning of Shakspeare's epithet, the Saxon et}-mo- 
 logy from zvolken (or the clouds) would have to be rejected. 
 Possibly the true origin of the word in this sense may be 
 the Keltic nile, all ; and cean (kean), love, favour, fondness, 
 kindness ; whence nile-cean, the all-loving, the all-fond eye 
 of the innocent child. Interpreted by this gloss, the pas- 
 sage would be : Look at me with th}' clear, certain, endear- 
 ing, and all-Ioviiig eye. Can thy dam, or mother, do as 
 much? 
 
 In the child's clear, innocent, and loving eye he refused 
 to see uncertainty or falsehood, and implicitly relied on its 
 truth and ingenuousness. In the mother's eye he had no 
 such confidence, and hence the question — " Can thy dam ?" 
 
 This suggestion is offered, undogmatically and simply, as 
 one that merits consideration from all who would, if possi- 
 ble, extract light from the darker passages of a poet who 
 always thought clearly and expressed himself plainly, and 
 all whose seeming obscurities are due either to the printer 
 or to our own ignorance of the colloquial language of his 
 time and his native Warwickshire. Another beautiful idea 
 would spring from the word zvelkin if nile-cean could be 
 accepted as the true etymology — namely, that the zcclhin 
 was the all-loving heavens, and so addressed and so con- 
 sidered by the earliest nations in the dawn of their reh"gion 
 and poetry. Whatever hatred there might be on the earth, 
 heaven was all-loving.
 
 '>S Ohcnrr \\'i>ri!< n"-r' r/irascs. 
 
 " Sky," in Entjlish, did not ori^'inall)' sit^nif}' heaven — the 
 clear expanse without cloud — but cloud itself, or an excres- 
 cence upon the blue purity of the " firmament." Chaucer 
 sa)'S : — 
 
 A certain wimic 
 That blew so hideously and hie, 
 That it ne lefte not a skie 
 In all ihcwflkin long and brode. 
 
 — House of Fame, Hook III. 
 And Gowcr also : — 
 
 All so deirly 
 She passeth as it were a skie. 
 All clere out of this ladies' sight. 
 
 — Confcssio Aiii(in/is. 
 
 From these and other passages that might be cited from 
 the pre-Shakspearcan poets, it is evident that tvelkin and 
 sky were not synonj-mous, as they afterwards became ; that 
 the word zvelkin had no reference to clouds ; and that the 
 phrase a " cloudy sky " was pleonastic.
 
 3 1205 03058 6562 
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 A A 001 403 039 9