Scene 2. Page 206.
Dull. She is allowed for the day-woman.
See more on the word dey in Mr. Tyrwhitt's edition of The Canterbury tales, iii. 287, who supposes that a dey originally meant a day labourer, however it came afterwards to be applied to the dairy: yet this conjecture must give way to Dr. Johnson's statement that day is an old word for milk. The doctor has not indeed produced any authority, and the original Saxon word seems lost; but in the Swedish language, which bears the greatest affinity to our own of any other, as far as regards the Teutonic part of it, dia signifies to milk, and deie, in Polish, the same. Die, in Danish, is the breast. The nearest Saxon word that remains is diende, sucklings; and there can be no doubt that we have the term in question from some of our northern ancestors. The dey or dairy maid is mentioned in the old statutes that relate to working people; and in that of 12 Ric. II. the annual wages of this person are settled at six shillings.
ACT II.
Scene 1. Page 221.
Prin. Good wits will be jangling: but gentles agree.
These alliterative and anapæstic lines are in the manner of Tusser, who has many such; for example,
"At Christmas of Christ many carols we sing."
It will be admitted that the construction of this sort of verse is rather less adapted to a court than a cottage; but it is presumed that none will be inclined to find Shakspeare guilty of such poetry, which a good deal resembles the halfpenny book style of