[200] A galley foist was the name of a pleasure-boat, or one used on particular days for pomp and state. The Lord Mayor's and Companies' barges were sometimes formerly called "The City Galley Foists." See Wood's "South-East View of the City and part of Southwark, as it appeared about the year 1599."
[201] [Common. See Nares, edit. 1859, in v.] This epithet of contempt is of frequent occurrence: provand, as all the commentators on "Romeo and Juliet," act ii. sc. 1, agree, means provision. In Massinger's "Maid of Honour," act i. sc. 1, we meet with it applied to a sword, and Mr. Gifford explains it to mean there plain, unornamented, such a sword as the troops were provided with....—Collier.
[202] A fox was formerly a cant word for a sword. So in Ben Jonson's "Bartholomew Fair," act ii. sc. 6: "What would you have, sister, of a fellow that knows nothing but a basket-hilt and an old fox in't?" Again, in "Philaster," by Beaumont and Fletcher, act iv.—
"I made my father's old fox fly about his ears."
And in "Henry V.," by Shakespeare, act iv. sc. 4—
"Thou diest on point of fox."
See Steevens's note on the latter passage, where many passages of our ancient writers are produced to prove the explanation.
[203] [Old copy, half.]
[204] This custom, strange as it would now appear, was the constant practice of gentlemen in the 17th century. When on visits, either of ceremony or business, or even in company of ladies and at public places, their constant amusement was to comb their hair or wigs, and the fashion continued until the reign of Queen Anne. Dryden alludes to it in the Prologue to "Almanzor and Almahide"—
"But, as when vizard masque appears in pit
Straight every man, who thinks himself a wit,
Perks up; and managing his comb with grace,
With his white wig sets off his nut-brown face."