[E491] "What toesed eares." Toese, or touze, to worry (as a dog does a bear), properly used of the dressing of wool, and thence metaphorically, as in Spenser, Faerie Queene, xi. 33,
"And as a beare, whom angry curres have touz'd:"
to the dog who pulls the fell off the bear's back. Cf. the old name for a dog, Towzer. Coles renders tose or toze by "carpo, vellico." Baret, Alvearie, 1580, gives, "to Tosse wooll, carpere lanam." Compare [chap. 99. 4], p. 189, "so tossed with comorants," which is spelt toesed in the ed. of 1577, and teazed in those of 1580 and 1585.
[E492] "What robes." The livery or vestis liberata, often called robe, allowed annually by the college.—Warton, Hist. of Eng. Poetry.
[E493] Penny-ale is common, thin ale. It is spoken of in Piers Plowman, ed. Skeat, Passus xv. l. 310, as a most meagre drink, only fitted for strict-living friars. It was sold at a penny a gallon, while the best ale was four pence.
"Peny ale and podyng ale she poured togideres
For labourers and for lowe folke, þat lay by hym-selue."
—Piers Plowman, B. Text, Passus v. 220.
[E494] "Sundrie men had plagards then." See remarks in Biographical Sketch, [p. xii].
[E495] "The better brest," etc. On these words Hawkins, in his Hist. of Music, ed. 1853, ii. 537, remarks: "In singing, the sound is originally produced by the action of the lungs, which are so essential an organ in this respect, that to have a good breast was formerly a common periphrasis to denote a good singer." Cf. Shakspere, Twelfth Night, Act ii. sc. 3, "By my troth, the fool hath an excellent breast." Halliwell quotes:
"I syng not musycall
For my brest is decayd."
—Armonye of Byrdes, p. 5.
Ascham, in his Toxophilus, says, when speaking of the expediency of educating youths in singing: "Trulye two degrees of men, which have the highest offices under the king in all this realme, shall greatly lacke the vse of singinge, preachers and lawyers, because they shall not, without this, be able to rule theyr brestes for euerye purpose."—Lond. 1571, fo. 86; and in Strype's Life of Arch. Parker it is stated that "In the Statutes of Stoke College, Suffolk, founded by Parker, is a provision in these words: 'of which said queristers, after their breasts are changed, will the most apt of wit and capacity be holpen with exhibitions of forty shillings.'"