Commentators have puzzled themselves to find out Falstaff's sherries
sack: there can be no doubt but that it was _dry sherry_, and the
French word _sec_ dry, corrupted into sack. In a poem printed in 1619,
sack and sherry are noted throughout as synonymous, every stanza of
twelve ending--
Give me sack, old sack, boys,
To make the muses merry,
The life of mirth, and the joy of the earth,
Is a cup of old sherry.
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