Line 441. Surquedry, presumption, arrogance, conceit. Chaucer has—"Presumpcion is he whan a man taketh an emprise that him ought not to do, or ellis he may it not do & that is called surquidrie" (Parson's Tale, Corpus MS.).
Line 441. Shooing-horne.—Metaphorically, anything which helps to draw something else on: a tool. Cf. Troilus and Cressida, v. 1, 61: "A thrifty shoeing-horn in a chain, hanging at his brother's leg." The expression "shoeing horn of surquedry" is thus equivalent to "chosen implement of personified arrogance."
Line 442. Casting topp, a peg-top. See W. Coles (1657), Adam in Eden, 169—"The fruit is in forme like a casting-top."
Line 443. Stopple.—The older form of stopper. Cotgrave has—"Tampon, a bung or stopple."
Line 446. Vpp leave.—So MS. for vpp heave, possibly by confusion with vpp lift.
Line 453. Corneagle.—I can find no instances whatever of this very puzzling word; neither does it seem to be closely analogous to any known form. Can corneagle be a corrupt spelling of co-niggle, to niggle both (our hearts) together? Niggle was used formerly for deceive, steal (still in the dialects), make sport of, mock; but is not, to my knowledge, compounded elsewhere with this prefix. Or is "harts corneagle" a substitution for "harts' core niggle"? (Heart's core occurs in Hamlet.) Both explanations have been suggested to me only as a last resource, and are too far-fetched to be at all convincing. Moreover, the context seems to require the sense of pursue, persecute, rather than of deceive.
Line 464. Tales of tubbes.—A characteristic rendering into Elizabethan English of Ovid's "Illa Deam longo prudens sermone tenebat." The earliest instances of the expression "tales of tubs" seem to occur about the middle of the sixteenth century.
Notes and Queries, series v. vol. xi. p. 505, quotes amongst "curious phrases in 1580"—"To heare some Gospel of a distaffe and tale of a tubbe" (Beehive of the Romish Church, fo. 275b). See also Holland's "Plutarch," p. 644, and (for further references) Dodsley-Hazlitt's Old Plays, ii. 335.
Line 475. Quatte.—A corruption of squat, sometimes used substantively for the sitting of a hare:
"Procure a little sport
And then be put to the dead quat."