Worsted, in the county of Norfolk, though formerly a town of
considerable trade, and much celebrity, is now reduced to a village,
and the manufactures, which obtained a name from the place, are
removed to Norwich and its vicinity.
Shakspeare has not been very courteous towards the _worsted gentry_;
had he lived in our times, they might have _worsted_ him for a libel:
he says in King Lear, "A base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three suited,
hundred pound, filthy, worsted stocking knave."