Page 110. v. 462. callet] i. e. trull, drab, jade.
v. 465. wretchockes] “The famous imp yet grew a wretchock; and though for seven years together he was carefully carried at his mother’s back, rocked in a cradle of Welsh cheese, like a maggot, and there fed with broken beer, and blown wine of the best daily, yet looks as if he never saw his quinquennium.” Jonson’s Masque, The Gipsies Metamorphosed,—Workes, vii. 371. ed. Gifford, who thus comments on the passage in his authoritative style: “i. e. pined away, instead of thriving. Whalley appears to have puzzled himself sorely in this page, about a matter of very little difficulty. In every large breed of domestic fowls, there is usually a miserable little stunted creature, that forms a perfect contrast to the growth and vivacity of the rest. This unfortunate abortive, the goodwives, with whom it is an object of tenderness, call a wrethcock; and this is all the mystery. Was Whalley ignorant that what we now term chick, was once chocke and chooke?” The fol. ed. of the Masque of Gipsies has “wretch-cock,” which Nares, who does not know what to make of the word, observes “would admit of an easy derivation from wretch and cock, meaning a poor wretched fowl.” Gloss. in v.
Page 110. v. 466. shyre shakyng nought] i. e. sheer worthless. So again our author in his Magnyfycence;
“From qui fuit aliquid to shyre shakynge nought.”
v. 1319. vol. i. 267.
v. 475. fall] i. e. fallen.
v. 483. foggy] “Foggy, to full of waste flesshe.” Palsgrave’s Lesclar. de la Lang. Fr., 1530. fol. lxxxviii. (Table of Adiect.).
v. 489. craw] i. e. crop, stomach.
v. 491. on] i. e. of: compare v. 131.
Page 111. v. 492. an old rybibe] Chaucer, in The Freres Tale, says,