Shakspeare and His Times [Vol. 1 of 2] / Including the Biography of the Poet; criticisms on his genius and writings; a new chronology of his plays; a disquisition on the on the object of his sonnets; and a history of the manners, customs, and amusements, superstitions, poetry, and elegant literature of his age

by Nathan Drake

[268:B] "I am told, that silver being mixed with the metal, when the bells are cast, adds much to the sweetness of the sound; and hence probably the allusion of Shakspeare, when he says,

'How silver sweet sound lovers tongues by night.'"

[268:C] Strutt's Sports and Pastimes, p. 28.

[268:D] This subsequent edition, to which Mr. Strutt alludes, is probably that by Gervase Markham, who tells us under the head of "Hawkes belles:" "The bells which your hawke shal weare, looke in any wise that they be not too heavy, whereby they overloade hir, neither that one be heavier than an other, but both of like weight: looke also, that they be well sounding and shrill, yet not both of one sound, but one at least a note under the other." He adds "of spar-hawkes belles there is choice enough, and the charge little, by reason that the store thereof is great. But for goshawks sometimes belles of Millaine were supposed to bee the best, and undoubtedly they be excellent, for that they are sounded with silver, and the price of them is thereafter, but there be now," he observes, "used belles out of the lowe Countries which are approoved to be passing good, for they are principally sorted, they are well sounded, and sweet of ringing, with a pleasant shrilnesse, and excellently well lasting." Gentleman's Academie, fol. 13.

[269:A] These technical terms may admit of some explanation, from the following passage in Markham's edition of the Booke of St. Alban's, 1595, where speaking of the fowl being found in a river or pit, he adds, "if shee (the hawk) nyme or take the further side of the river or pit from you, then she slaieth the foule at fere juttie: but if she kill it on that side that you are on yourselfe; as many times it chanceth, then you shall say shee killed the foule at the jutty ferry: if your hawke nime the foule aloft, you shal say she tooke it at the mount. If you see store of mallards separate from the river and feeding in the fielde, if your hawke flee covertly under hedges, or close by the ground, by which means she nymeth one of them before they can rise, you shall say, that foule was killed at the querre." Gentleman's Academie, fol. 12.

[270:A] Ancient British Drama, vol. ii. p. 436.

[270:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xix. p. 387. Act iii. sc. 3.

[270:C] Ibid., vol. v. p. 339. Act iii. sc. 1.

[270:D] Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, fol. 8th edit. p. 152.

[271:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. ix. p. 135. Act iv. sc. 1.