"All suddenly they heard a troublous noise,
That seemed some perilous tumult to design,
Confused with women's cries and shorts of boys,
Such as the troubled theatres oft-times annoys."—B. IV. iii. 37.
2. Spenser's solitary pun occurs in book iv. canto viii. verse 31.:
"But when the world wox old, it wox war-old,
Whereof it hight."
3. Cleanliness does not appear to have been a virtue much in vogue in the "glorious days of good Queen Bess." Spenser (book iv. canto xi. verse 47.) speaks of
"Her silver feet, fair washed against this day,"
i. e. for a special day of rejoicing.