made of clover and artificial grasses, which is kept for the winter
feed of cattle. But in Shakespeare's time the artificial grasses were
not known in England, and were not introduced till about the middle of
the seventeenth century. In Cambridgeshire I am informed that hay made
in this manner is not called "stover" till the seeds have been threshed
out. In the sixteenth century the word was apparently used to denote
any kind of winter fodder except grass hay. Compare
"Thy turfy mountains, where live nibbling sheep,
And flat meads thatch'd with _stover_, them to keep."
--Shakspere, Tempest, Act iv. sc. I;
and Drayton, Polyolbion, xxv. 145,
"And others from their Carres, are busily about,
To draw out Sedge and Reed, for Thatch and _Stover_ fit."
"Stover" is enumerated by Ray among the South-and East-Country words as
used in Essex, and is to be found in Moor's Suffolk Words and Forby's
Vocabulary of East Anglia.
[E120] See note E61.
[E121] In cleaning corn for _seed, casting_ or throwing it with a
_casting shovel_ (see 17. 1) from one heap to another, in order to
select the heaviest grains, which will always go farthest, is an
excellent practice: but in _malting_, this is not necessary, as the
light grains and seeds of weeds may be skimmed off in the cistern.--M.
[E122] Wheat is well known to work better in grinding and baking after
it has undergone a natural heat in the rick or mow. Wheat that is
threshed early keeps with difficulty.--M.
[E123] "Rauening curres" seem to have been as great a nuisance in
Tusser's time as at present, in spite of what Dr. Mavor terms one of
the "few patriotic taxes which we have to boast of."
[E124] St. Edmund's Day (20th November) may probably be the proper time
for planting garlic and beans; but why the moon should be "in the wane"
we are not informed, though, according to Tusser, "thereon hangeth a
thing." The moon was formerly supposed to extend her power over all
nature, and not over the tides and weather only.
[E125] The farmer who "looks to thrive" must "have an eye," not only
to his barn, but also to the cruel habits or tricks of his servants;
otherwise he may find his cattle maimed or otherwise injured, and his
poultry made "to plaie tapple vp taile," a cant expression, meaning
to tumble head over heels. Cf. the Scotch phrase, "coup your creels."
Cotgrave, _s.v. Laisser_ and _Houseau_, has an exactly parallel
expression: "_Il a laissé ses houseaux_, he hath tipped up the heeles,
or is ready to doe it; he hath got him to his last bed; he is even as
good as gone; he is no better then a dead man." The Catholicon Anglicum
also gives "Top ouer tayle, _precipitanter_: to cast tope ouer tayle,
_precipitari_."
[E126] The leathern bottle, from its size, must have been a most
convenient vehicle for the removal of corn and other stolen property.
[E127] Our author does not appear to have had any idea of the use of
soot as a top-dressing to land, but its value is now well understood,
as one of the greatest improvers of cold, mossy grasslands.
[E128] It is leanness and ill-dressing that occasion nits and lice, not
the state of the weather when they are taken to house.
[E129] The rack ought to be accessible on all sides, and perhaps high
enough for small cattle to escape under it from their more powerful
adversaries.--M.
[E130] "_Barth_." Wedgwood includes this under _berth_, the seaman's
term for snug anchorage for themselves or their vessels. See Glossary.
[E131] "A _fires-bird_, for that she sat continually by the fire
side."--Tom Tell-Trothe's New Yeare's Gift, New Shakspere Soc. ed.
Furnivall, p. 12.
[E132] "Beath." Bathing at the Fire, as it is commonly called, when the
wood is yet unseasoned, sets it to what purpose you think fit.--T.R.
[E133] "Camping." "Goals were pitched 150 or 200 yards apart, formed
of the thrown-off clothes of the competitors." Each party had two
goals 10 or 15 yards apart. The parties, 10 to 15 aside, stand in line
facing their own goals and each other, at 10 yards distance, midway
between the goals and nearest that of their adversaries. An indifferent
spectator throws up the ball--the size of a cricket ball--midway
between the confronted players, whose object is to seize and convey
it between their own goals. The shock of the first onset to catch the
falling ball is very great, and the player who seizes it speeds home
pursued by his opponents, through whom he has to make his way, aided by
the jostlings of his own sidesmen. If caught and held, or in imminent
danger of it, he _throws_ the ball, but must in no case _give_ it, to
a comrade, who, if it be not arrested in its course, or he be jostled
away by his eager foes, catches it, and hurries home, winning the
game or _snotch_ if he contrive to _carry, not throw_, it between the
goals. A holder of the ball caught with it in his possession loses
a _snotch_. At the loss of each of these the game recommences after
a breathing time. Seven or nine _snotches_ are the game, and these
it will sometimes take two or three hours to win. Sometimes a large
football was used, and the game was then called "_kicking camp_," and
if played with the shoes on, "_savage camp_."--Abridged from Major
Moor's Description.
Ray says it prevailed, in his time, most in Norfolk, Suffolk, and
Essex. It was new to Sir T. Browne on his settling in Norfolk, and is
not mentioned by Strutt amongst the "Sports and Pastimes of the English
People."
Mr. Spurdens, in his Supplement to Forby's Vocabulary, remarks: "The
contests were not unfrequently fatal to many of the combatants. I have
heard old persons speak of a celebrated _Camping_, Norfolk against
Suffolk, on Diss Common, with 300 on each side. Before the ball was
thrown up, the Norfolk men inquired tauntingly of the Suffolk men if
they had brought their coffins. The Suffolk men after fourteen hours
were the victors. Nine deaths were the result of the contest within
a fortnight. These were called _fighting camps_, for much boxing was
practised in them." Cf.
"This faire floure of womanheed
Hath two pappys also smalle,
Bolsteryd out of lenghth and breed,
Lyche a large _Campyng ball_."
--Lydgate.
_Camping Land_ was a piece of ground set apart for the game. A field
abutting on the churchyard at Swaffham was willed for the purpose
by the Rector in 1472. At East Bilney and Stowmarket are pieces of
ground still called _Camping land_. Sir John Cullum, in his "History
of Hawstead, Suffolk," describes the _Camping-pightle_ as mentioned
A.D. 1466. "_Campar_ or _pleyar_ at foott balle, _campyon_ or
_champyon_."--Prompt. Parv. "Camping is Foot Ball playing, at which
they are very dextrous in Norfolk; and so many People running up and
down a piece of ground, without doubt evens and saddens it, so that the
Root of the Grass lies firm.... The trampling of so many People drives
also the Mole away."--T.R.
[E134] "All quickly forgot as a play on a stage." Comp. Shakspere,
As you Like it, Act ii. sc. 7: "All the world's a stage," etc., and
Merchant of Venice, Act i. sc. 1, where Antonio calls the world
"A stage where every man must play a part." "Totus mundus agit
histrionem," from a fragment of Petronius, is said to have been the
motto on the Globe Theatre. Calderon wrote a play called El Teatro del
Mundo (The Theatre of the World). It is remarkable for containing the
lines:
"En el teatro del mundo
Todos son representantes,"
_i.e._ in the stage of the world all men are players.--W. W. S. In the
old play of Damon and Pythias (Dodsley's Old Plays, ed. Hazlitt, iv.
31) the following occurs:
"Pythagoras said that this world was like a stage,
Where many play their parts: the lookers on, the sage
Philosophers are, said he, whose part is to learn
The manners of all nations, and the good from the bad to discern."
The same comparison occurs also in Don Quixote, part ii. cap. 12. See
note E378.
[E135] Psalm cxliv. 4.
[E136] "Atrop." "The fatall sisters," Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos,
daughters of Erebus and the Night, were supposed to spin out the life
of man as it were a long thread, which they drew out in length, till
his fatal hour had arrived; but if by any other casualty his days were
shortened, then _Atropos_ was said to have cut the thread in two. Hence
the old verse: "Clotho colum bajulat, Lachesis trahit, Atropos occat."
[E137] "Euer among," an expression of frequent occurrence in Early
English, meaning "constantly, continually." Compare the Mod. Eng. "all
the while." In a Carol of the fifteenth century, we read:
"Thys endus nyȝth
I saw a syȝth,
A stare as bryȝt as day;
And _ever among_
A mayden song
Lullay, by by, lullay."
And in another:
"Our der Lady she stod hym by,
And wepe water ful bytterly,
And terys of blod _ever among_."
[E138] "As onely of whom our comfort is had." The expression is
obscure, but the meaning is clear: as the only one from whom our
comfort (or strength) is derived.
[E139] "Good husbands," that is, good husbandmen or farmers.
[E140] "Then lightly," an old form of expression. Tusser means that
poor people are then _probably_ or _generally_ most sorely oppressed.
Cf. "Short summer _lightly_ has a forward spring."--Shakspere, Richard
III. Act iii. sc. 1.
[E141] "Few Capons are cut now except about Dorking in Surrey; they
have been excluded by the turkey, a more magnificent, but perhaps not a
better fowl."--Pegge's Forme of Cury, ed. 1780, p. 19.
[E142] "Vpon the tune of King Salomon." Mar. 4, 1559, there is a
receipt from Ralph Newberry for his licence for printing a ballad
called "Kynge Saloman," Registr. Station. Comp. Lond. notat. A fol.
48a. Again in 1562, a licence to print "iij balletts, the one entituled
'Newes oute of Kent;' the other, a 'Newe ballat after the tune of Kynge
Solomon;' and the third, 'Newes oute of Heaven and Hell.'"--_Ibid._
fol. 75a. Again, _ibid._ "Crestenmas Carowles auctorisshed by my lord
of London." A ballad of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba is entered in
1567, _ibid._ fol. 166a.--Warton's Hist. of Eng. Poetry, ed. Hazlitt,
vol. iii. p. 428.
[E143] There is some confusion here, although the sense is clear;
probably we should read, "and _flies_ from sinne," etc.
[E144] "Michel cries," _i.e._ to delay the operation of cutting, and
therefore the cries of the animals, till Michaelmas, will have the
effect of getting them into such condition as better to please the
butchers' eyes.
[E145] "Bulchin," a double diminutive = _bull-ock-in_, cf. _man-ik-in_.
"For ten mark men sold a little _bulchin_;
Litille less men tolde a bouke of a motoun;
Men gaf fiveten schillynges for a goos or a hen."
--R. de Brunne's Chronicle, ed. Hearne, i. 174.
See also Langtoft, p. 174, and Middleton, iii. 524.
[E146] "Apricot;" in Shakspere, and in other writers of that century,
apricock; in older writers abricot and abrecocke; from L. _præcoqua_
or _præcocia_ = early, from the fruit having been considered to be an
early peach. A passage in Pliny (Hist. Nat. xv. 12) explains its name:
"Post autumnum maturescunt Persica, æstate _præcocia_, intra xxx annos
reperta." Martial also refers to it in the following words:
"Vilia materius fueramus praecoqua ramis,
Nunc in adoptivis persica cara sumus."
--Liber xiii. Ep. 46.
The English, although they take their word from the French, at first
restored the _k_, and afterwards adopted the French termination,
_apricot_.--See a paper on the word in N.& Q. for November 23, 1850. "I
account the _White peare-plum stocks_ the best to _Inoculate Aprecock
buds upon_, although they may be done upon other _Plum-stocks_ with
good successe, if they be good juycie stocks, able to give a good
nourishment, for _Aprecock trees_ require much nourishment."--Austen's
Treatise on Fruit Trees, 1657, p. 57. Cotgrave (Fr. Dict.) gives,
"Abricot: m. The Abricot, or Apricocke plum." Minsheu (Span. Dict.
1599) has, "Albarcoque, or Alvarcoque, m. an apricocke." Compare
Midsummer Night's Dream, iii. 1. 169: "Feed him with apricocks and
dewberries"; and Rich. II. Act iii. sc. 4, 29: "Go bind you up yon
dangling apricocks."
[E147] "Boollesse." In the Grete Herball _bolays_, in Prompt. Parv.
_bolas_. Prunus communis, Huds.; var. insititia, L. In Bacon's Essays
xlvi. the name is spelt "_bullises_."
[E148] "Cheries." Austen, in his Treatise on Fruit Trees, Oxford, 1657,
p. 56, enumerates the following kinds of cherries: "The _Flanders
Cherry_, most generally planted, is a great bearing fruit. The _May
Cherries_ are tender, and the trees must be set in a warm place. The
_Black-hart Cherry_, a very speciall fruit, and a great bearing fruit,
and doubtlesse exceeding proper to presse for wine either to drink of
itselfe, or to mix the juyce with _Cider_ to give it a _colour_ as
_Clarret-wine_, it being of a deepe red, and a small quantity of it
will colour a gallon of _Cider_ or _White wine_. There is a _Cherry_
we call the _great bearing Cherry_ of M. Milleu. It may very well be
called the _great bearer_, for the trees seldome fayle of great store
of fruits, although in a cold and sharp spring."
[E149] "Chestnuts." Often spelt, but improperly, _chesnut_, as though
the _cheese_-like nut. From the O. Fr. _Chastaigne_, and the Ital.
_Castagna_, we learn its true derivation, namely from _Castanæa_ in
Thessaly, its native place.
[E150] "Cornet plums" = cornel plums; called also cornel cherry. O. Fr.
_cornille_, now _cornouille_, L. Lat. _cornolium_, from Lat. _cornus_ =
a cornel cherry tree.
[E151] "The _Damasco-plum_ is a good fruit and the trees beare
well."--Austen's Treatise on Fruit Trees, 1657.
[E152] Andrew Boorde, in his Introduction of Knowledge, ed. Furnivall,
p. 283, says: "_Fylberdes_ be better than hasell nuttes; yf they be
newe, and taken from the tree, and the skyn or the pyth pulled of, they
be nutrytyue, and doth increase fatnes."
[E153] "Goose beries." Dr. R. A. Prior says: "From the Flemish _kroes_
or _kruys berie_, Swed. _krusbär_, a word that bears the two meanings
of 'cross-' and 'frizzle-berry,' but was given to this fruit with the
first meaning, in reference to its triple spine, which not unfrequently
presents the form of a cross. This equivocal word was misunderstood and
taken in its other sense of 'frizzle-berry,' and translated into German
and herbalist Latin as '_kraüsel-beere_,' and '_uva crispa_.' The Fr.
_groseille_ and Span. _grosella_ are corruptions of Ger. _kraüsel_."
[E154] "Some Authors affirme that there have been _Vine-yards_ in
England in former times, though they be all destroyed long since.
Divers places retaine the name of Vine yards still, at _Bromwell Abby_
in _Norfolke_ and at Elie in Cambridgshiere which afforded _Wine_; what
else is the meaning of these old Rimes?
"'Quatuor sunt Elie, Lanterna, Capella Marias
Et molendinum, nec non dans Vinea vinum.'
"Englished thus:
"'Foure things of Elie Towne much spoken are,
The Leaden Lanthorn, Maries Chappell rare,
The mighty Mil-hill in the Minstre field,
And fruitful _Vine-yards_ which sweet wine doe yeeld.'
"And doubtlesse men might plant Vines with good successe, to make good
wine even with us. There are many kinds of Vines, but I know none so
good, and fit for our climate as the _Parsley Vine_ or Canada Grape, we
see by experience yearly it beares abundance of fruit unto perfection.
And whosoever would plant Vines in England I think he cannot meet
with a better kind than the _Parsley Vine_ both for _bearing_ and
_goodnesse_. The _Fox grape_ is a faire _large Fruit_ and a very
_great bearer_ although not of so much esteem as divers others. The
_Frantiniack Grape_ is of great accompt with many, and is a speciall
fruit where it comes to perfect ripenesse, which it hardly does, except
the Vine be set upon the _South-wall_ where it may have _much sun_.
The _Red_ and _White Muskadine Grape_ are speciall fruits and beare
very well, and come to perfect ripenesse if the Vine grow upon the
_South-wall_ or upon the _Easte-wall_ which is best next. There is the
_Curran Grape, Cluster Grape_, and many other kinds of good grapes, and
the fruits are _better_ or _worse_ according to the _place_ they grow
in: If they have _much sun_, and be _well ordered_, the fruit will be
_better_ and _sooner ripe_."--Austen's Treatise of Fruit Trees, 1657.
[E155] "There are very many kinds of _Plums_, many more than of
Cherries. I esteeme the _Mustle Plum_ one of the best, being a faire
large black plum, and of an excellent rellish, and the _trees beare
abundantly_. The Damazeene also is an excellent fruit. The _Violet_ and
_Premorden_ Plum-trees are very _great bearing trees_, and the fruits
pleasant and good. The _White Peare-plum-stocks_ are accounted the
best, and the _Damson-stocks_ the worst for grafting upon."--_Ibid._ p.
57.
[E156] "Hurtillberies (= Whortleberries) called 'Hurts' for shortness
at Godalming. I suspect this may be connected with Hurtmoor, the name
of a dale near Godalming."--Note by Rev. W. W. Skeat. "'Hurtilberries'
for 'whortleberries,' itself a corruption for 'myrtleberries.'"--Dr.
Prior, Popular Names of British Plants, 1870.
[E157] "Medlars, called in Normandy and Anjou _meslier_, from Lat.
_mespilus_, but as the verb _mesler_ became in English _meddle_, so
this fruit also, although a word of different origin, took a _d_ for an
_s_ and became _medlar_."--_Ibid._
"The Kernells [of medlers] bruised to dust, and drunk in liquor
(especially where Parsly roots have been steeped), doe mightily drive
out stones and gravell from the kidneyes."--Austen, Treatise on Fruit
Trees, 1657, p. 84.
[E158] "The _Iuyce of Mulberries_ is knowne by experience to be a
good remedy for a sore mouth, or throat, such as are perfectly ripe
relax the belly, but the unripe (especially dry'd) are said to bind
exceedingly, and therefore are given to such as have _Lasks and
Fluxes_."--_Ibid._ p. 84.
[E159] "Peach, in old works spelt Peske, Peesk, Peshe, and Peche, O.
Fr. _pesche_, L. _Persica_, formerly called _malum persicum_ = Persian
apple, from which the Arabs formed their name for it with the prefix
_el_ or _al_, and thence the Spanish _alberchigo_."--Dr. R. A. Prior.
Austen, in his work already quoted, says (p. 58): "Of _Peaches_ there
are divers kinds. I know by experience the _Nutmeg and Newington_
Peaches to be excellent fruits, especially the _Nutmeg_ Peach."
[E160] Evidently a misprint for Peare-plums, which is the reading
of all the later editions. Austen, in his Treatise on Fruit Trees,
recommends that Peaches be grafted on plum stocks, such as the _White
Peare-plum-stock_.
[E161] The word "Quince" preserves only a single letter of its
original form. A passage in the Romaunt of the Rose shows an early
form of the word, and also exhibits _chestnut_ and _cherry_ in a
transitional stage of adoption from the French. The author of the
Romaunt writes:
"And many homely trees there were,
That peaches, _coines_, and apples bere;
Medlers, plummes, peeres, chesteines,
Cherise, of which many one faine is."
It is evident that the English word is a corruption of the French
_coing_, which we may trace through the Italian _cotogna_ to Lat.
_cotonium_ or _cydonium malum_, the apple of Cydon, a town in
Crete.--Taylor's Words and Places. In the Paston Letters, i. 245,
occurs the word "chardequeyns," that is, a preserve made of quinces.
See also the Babees Book, E.E.T. Soc. ed. Furnivall, p. 152. In the
ordinances of the household of George, Duke of Clarence, p. 103,
_charequynses_ occur under the head of spices, their price being 5
shillings "the boke," or £2 10_s._ for 10 lbs., A.D. 1468.
[E162] "Respis." In Turner's Herbal called _Raspis_ or _Raspices_, the
latter of which is apparently a double plural. Probably from _resp_,
a word that in the Eastern counties means a shoot, a sucker, a young
stem, and especially the fruit-bearing stem of raspberries (Forby).
This name it may owe to the fact that the fruit grows on the young
shoots of the previous year.
[E163] "Reisons," most probably currants. "Raysouns of
Coraunte."--Pegge's Forme of Cury, ed. 1780, p. 16.
Turner (Names of Herbes) says the currant tree is called "in some
places of England a _Rasin_ tree."--Note by Mr. J. Britten, F.L.S.
[E164] "Seruice trees." Dr. R. A. Prior, in his Popular Names of
British Plants, 1870, p. 209, says: "Service-, or, as in Ph. Holland's
Pliny more correctly spelt, Servise-tree, from L. _Cervisia_, its fruit
having from ancient times been used for making a fermented liquor, a
kind of beer:
"Et pocula læti
Fermento atque acidis imitantur vitea _sorbis_.
--Virg. Georgics III. 379.
"Diefenbach remarks (Or. Eur. 102): 'bisweilen bedeutet cervisia einen
nicht aus Getreide gebranten Trank;' and Evelyn tells us in his Sylva
(ch. xv.), that 'ale and beer brewed with these berries, being ripe,
is an incomparable drink.' The _Cerevisia_ of the ancients was made
from malt, and took its name, we are told by Isidore of Seville, from
_Ceres, Cereris_, but this has come to be used in a secondary sense
without regard to its etymological meaning, just as in _Balm-tea_
we use tea in the sense of an infusion, without regard to its being
properly the name of a different plant." Wild Service, the rowan tree;
_Pyrus aucuiparia_, Gärt.
[E165] "Wallnuts are usually eaten after meales to close up the
stomach, and help digestion. And according to _Avicen_ (Can. lib. 2,
cap. 501), recentes sunt meliores stomacho (the newer the better for
the stomach). Bread or Bisket may be made of the meale being dried. The
young nuts peeled are preserved, and candied for Banquetting stuffe:
and being ripe the Kernells may be crusted over with sugar, and kept
long. _Avicen_ says (Can. lib. 2, cap. 501): 'Iuglans ficubus et Rutâ
medicina omnibus venenis': Wallnuts with Figs and Rue is a preservative
against all poison. Schol. Salern. reckons _Wallnuts_ for one of the
six things that resist poyson:
'Allia, Nux, Ruta, Pyra, Raphanus cum Theriaca:
Hæc sunt Antidotum contra mortale venenum.'
Garlicke, Rue, Peares, Treacle and Nuts:
Take these and then no deadly poyson hurts.
Mithridates the great: his preservative was (as is recorded by Pliny,
Nat. Hist. lib. 23, c. 18), '_Two Wallnuts_, two Figs, 20 leaves of
Rue and a grain of salt stamped together,' which taken no poyson that
day could hurt him. _Greene Wallnuts_ about Midsommer distilled and
drunk with vineger, are accounted a certain preservative against the
Pestilence."--Austen's Treatise of Fruit Trees, 1657. "_Walnuts_ be
hurtful to the memory, and so are Onyons, because they annoy the eyes
with dazeling dimnesse through a hoate vapour."--T. Newton, Touchstone,
ed. 1581, f. 125_b_. The original prescription of the antidote of
Mithridates, discovered by Pompey among the archives of the king, was
very simple. Q. Serenus tells us that
"Magnus scrinia regis
Cum raperet victor, vilem deprehendit in illis
Synthesin, et vulgata satis medicamina risit:
Bis denum rutæ folium, salis et breve granum,
Juglandesque duas, terno cum corpore ficus."
Cf. Piers Plowman, C. Text, Pass. xiii. 143:
"As in a _walnote_ withoute ys a byter barke,
And after þat biter barke be þe shele aweye,
Ys a curnel of comfort kynde to restorie."
On which see Mr. Skeat's note.
[E166] "Warden appulles rosted, stued, or baken, be nutrytyue,
and doth comfort the stomache, specyally yf they be eaten with
comfettes."--Andrew Boorde's Dyetary, ed. Furnivall, E.E.T. Soc. p.
284. And again, _ibid._ p. 291, as a remedy for the Pestilence: "Let
hym vse to eate stued or baken wardens, yf they can be goten; yf not,
eate stued or baken peers, with comfettes: vse no grosse meates, but
those the which be lyght of dygestyon."
[E167] "Froth" refers here to veal and pig and lamb, all three.
Halliwell suggests tender as the meaning. It seems to mean _pulpy_ or
_light_.
[E168] "Be greedie in spending," that is, he who is eager to spend and
careless in saving, will soon become a beggar, and he who is ready to
kill, and unskilful in storing, need look for no plenty.
[E169] There are certain wheels called Dredge Wheels, by the use
of which loads may be carried thro' meadows, even if it be not a
frost.--T.R.