ACT II.
Scene 3. Page 436.
Lady Per. Of basilisks, of cannon, culverin.
In the note we are only told that "a basilisk is a cannon of a particular kind." It is well known that there was a serpent so called, perhaps an imaginary one; and this animal with others of a like nature being sculptured on the ancient pieces of artillery, supplied them with the various appellations of serpentines, culverines, (from the French couleuvre,) flying dragons, &c. Of these the basilisk was the largest. It was sometimes called a double culverine, and was much used about the middle of the sixteenth century, especially by the Turks. It must have been of a prodigious size, as it carried a ball of near two hundred pounds weight. Coryat mentions that he saw in the citadel of Milan "an exceeding huge basiliske which was so great that it would easily contayne the body of a very corpulent man."—Crudities, p. 104, quarto edition. Father Maffei, in his History of the Indies, relates that Badur, king of Cambay, had at the siege of Chitor four basilisks of so large a size that each was drawn by a hundred yoke of oxen, so that the ground trembled beneath them.
Scene 3. Page 438.
Lady Per. In faith I'll break thy little finger, Harry.
This "token of amorous dalliance" is more particularly exemplified in an ancient song, entitled Beware my lyttyl fynger, reprinted by Mr. Ritson from Sir John Hawkins's History of music.
As the learned historian has not stated whence he procured this piece, it may be worth adding that it occurs in a small oblong quarto volume of songs with music, printed, according to appearance, by Wynkyn de Worde, in 1530; but as it varies in some instances from the reading in Sir John's work it is possible that he might have used some other authority.
Scene 4. Page 442.
P. Hen. I am no proud Jack, like Falstaff; but a Corinthian, a lad of mettle.