[25] A common form of expression. Everybody remembers Puck's—
"I'll put a girdle round about the earth
In forty minutes."
Cf. Chapman's Bussy D'Ambois, I. 1.—
"In tall ships, richly built and ribd with brasse,
To put a Girdle round about the world."
[26] Furnished with "bosses," which seem to have been the name for some tinkling metal ornaments. Nares quotes from Sp. Moth. Hub. I. 582:—
"The mule all deck'd in goodly rich array,
With bells and bosses that full loudly rung."
[27] Cf. Spanish Tragedy, sc. vi.:—
"A man hanging and tottering and tottering,
As you know the wind will wave a man."
(Quoted by Mr. Fleay in illustration of the "tottering colours" in King
John, v. 5, 7.)
[28] One is reminded of Shakespeare's—