Clo. Your honours have seen such dishes; they are not China dishes, but very good dishes.
We must not conclude with Mr Steevens that a China dish was such an uncommon thing in the age of Shakspeare. In the first act of Massinger's Renegado, this article is mentioned, together with crystal glasses and pictures, as composing the furniture of a broker's shop; and it appears from other authorities that China dishes were used at banquets. During the reign of Elizabeth several Spanish carracks were taken, a part of whose cargoes was China ware of porcelaine. The recent seizure by Philip II. of Portugal and its colonies led to this sort of commerce in the East Indies. In Minsheu's Spanish dialogues, 1623, folio, p. 12, China mettall is explained to be "the fine dishes of earth painted, such as are brought from Venice." It is very probable that we had this commodity by means of our traffic with Italy, which also supplied the term porcelaine. China ware was so called from its resemblance to the polished exterior of the concha Veneris or some other similar shell, which, for reasons that cannot here be given, was called porcellana. The curious reader may find a clue by consulting Florio's Italian dictionary, 1598, under the word porcile. In the time of Cromwell a duty of twenty shillings was paid on every dozen China dishes under a quart, and of sixty on those of a quart and upwards. See Oliverian acts, A. D. 1657.
Scene 2. Page 238.
Isab. ... spare him, spare him;
He's not prepar'd for death! Even for our kitchens
We kill the fowl of season.
She means "not before it is in season; not prematurely, as you would kill my brother."
Scene 2. Page 240.
Isab. Could great men thunder
As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet,
For ev'ry pelting petty officer
Would use his heaven for thunder; nothing but thunder.
This fine sentiment, which nevertheless contains a very obvious fault in the mode of expressing it, appears to have been suggested by the following lines in Ovid's Tristia, lib. ii., that Shakspeare might have read in Churchyard's translation:
"Si quoties peccant homines sua fulmina mittat
Jupiter, exiguo tempore inermis erit."