Fulsome is from the Gothic fuls, i. e. foul, fœtid. That it sometimes had another root, viz. full, is manifest from the line in Golding's Ovid, whose expression "fulsome dugs" is in the original "pleno ubere," but is of no service on the present occasion, though quoted by Mr. Steevens.
Scene 3. Page 418.
Shy. About my money and my usances.
Mr. Steevens asserts that use and usance anciently signified usury, but both his quotations show the contrary. Mr. Ritson very properly asks whether Mr. Steevens is not mistaken; and Mr. Reed, maintaining that he is right, adduces a passage which proves him to be wrong. A gentleman, says Wylson, borrowed 1000 pounds, running still upon usury and double usury. "The merchants termyng it usance and double usance, by a more clenly name," i. e. interest, till he owed the usurer five thousand pounds, &c. The sense was obscured by the omission of an important comma after the word name. Mr. Malone's note was quite adequate to the purpose of explanation.
Scene 3. Page 421.
Shy. ... seal me there
Your single bond; and in a merry sport,
If you repay me not, &c.
Thus in the ballad of Gernutus:
"But we will have a merry jeast
For to be talked long;
You shall make me a bond, quoth he.
That shall be large and strong."