417. Wood signifies mad, furious, or violent. So, in Aseham's "Toxophilus" [1545, repr. Arber, p. 56], "Howe will you thinke that such furiousness, with woode countenaunce and brenning eyes, with staringe and bragging, with heart redie to leape out of the belly for swelling, can be expressed ye tenth part to the vttermost" (Churchyard's "Worthiness of Wales," p. 103, Evans's edit., 1776).
"It flowes with winde, although no rayne there bee.
And swelles like sea, with waves and foming flood:
A wonder sure to see this river Dee,
With winde alone, to wax so wild and wood,
Make such a sturre, as water would be mad,
And shewe such life, as though some spreete it had."
418. Swere, edit. 1569.
419. Wyl, edit. 1569. Neither edition reads wyl, nor wil, but wolde.—Collier.
420. The oldest copy has it "as nyche as ye wyll," and the edition of 1569, "as nie as ye wilt;" perhaps the meaning is "as much as you will."—Collier. [More probably nice, which word seems to have borne a somewhat different pronunciation formerly. Compare a passage in Ingelend's "Disobedient Child"—
"Even as to a greate man, wealthy and ryche,
Service and bondage is a harde thynge,
So to a boye, both dayntie and nyce,"
where nyce must be pronounced nyche, though not so spelled.]
421. Fall, 1st edit.
422. Pay down.
423. Ready; pret, Fr. So in "Caesar and Pompey," 1607: