should be known that, as these fetters connect the legs of the offenders very close together, their attempts to rest must be as fruitless as those of Hamlet, in whose mind there was a kind of fighting that would not let him sleep. Every motion of one must disturb his partner in confinement. The bilboes are still shown in the Tower of London, among the other spoils of the Spanish Armada" (STEEVENS).

bill, a sort of pike or halbert, or rather a kind of battle-axe affixed to a long staff, formerly carried by the English infantry, and afterwards the usual weapon of watchmen ("Bills-these long-popular weapons of the foot-soldier—were constructed to thrust at mounted men, or cut and damage their horse-furniture; sometimes they were provided with a side-hook to seize a bridle." FAIRHOLT): take thou the bill (with a quibble), give me thy mete-yard, iii. 171; my brain-pan had been cleft with a brown bill, v. 203; have a care that your bills be not stolen, ii. 113; a goodly commodity, being taken up of these men's bills (with a quibble both on taken up,—see take up,—and on bills), ii. 117; manage rusty bills, iv. 149; take up commodities upon our bills (with a quibble), v. 197; our bills. Tim. Knock me down with 'em (with a quibble): cleave me to the girdle, vii. 49; Bring up the brown bills, viii. 96.

bill, a forest-bill, an implement carried by foresters: with bills on their necks (with a quibble—see note 17, iii. 13), iii. 13.

bill, a placard posted by public challengers: He set up his bills here in Messina, ii. 74.

bill, a billet, a note: give these bills Unto the legions on the other side, vii. 189.

bin, been, ix. 277.

bird-bolt, a short thick arrow with a blunted extremity, for killing birds without piercing them, ii. 74, 204; bird-bolts, iii. 325.

birds, deceiv'd with painted grapes, ix. 243: "Our author alludes to the celebrated picture of Zeuxis, mentioned by Pliny, in which some grapes were so well represented that birds lighted on them to peck at them" (Malone).

birthdom, birthright, vii. 269.

bisson, blind: your bisson conspectuities, vi. 167; this bisson multitude, vi. 196 (see note 109, vi. 196).

bisson, blinding: bisson rheum, vii. 352.

bite

my

thumb at them—1 will, vi. 375; Do you bite your thumb at us, sir? &c., ibid. "This mode of insult, in order to begin a quarrel, seems to have been common in Shakespeare's time. Decker, in his Dead Term, 1608, describing the various groups that daily frequented St. Paul's Church, says, 'What swearing is there, what

BITE-BLANKS.

41

shouldering, what justling, what jeering, what byting of thumbs, to beget quarrels !' [a passage originally cited by Malone]. ... The mode in which this contemptuous action was performed is thus described by Cotgrave [sub Nique], in a passage which has escaped the industry of all the commentators; 'Faire la nique: to mocke by nodding or lifting up of the chinne; or more properly, to threaten or defie by putting the thumbe naile into the mouth, and with a jerke (from the upper teeth) make it to knacke'" (SINGER). bite thee by the ear—I will, vi. 415: “This odd mode of expressing pleasure, which seems to be taken from the practice of animals, who, in a playful mood, bite each other's ears, &c., is very common in our old dramatists." Gifford's note on Jonson's Works, vol. ii. p. 184.

bitter sweeting-A very, vi. 415: sweeting means a kind of sweet apple; bitter-sweet or bitter-sweeting, an apple which has a compound taste of sweet and bitter ("A bitter-sweet [Apple], Amarimellum." Coles's Lat. and Engl. Dict.).

black men are pearls in beauteous ladies' eyes, i. 247 : Ray gives “A black man's a jewel in a fair woman's eye." Proverbs, p. 47, ed. 1768. Black-Monday, ii. 362: "Black Monday (as Mr. Peck observes, Explanatory and Critical Notes upon Shakespeare's Plays) is a moveable day, it is Easter-Monday, and was so called on this occasion. In the 34th of Edward III. [1360], the 14th of April, and the morrow after Easter-day, King Edward with his host lay before the city of Paris; which day was full dark of mist and hail, and so bitter cold, that many men died on their horses backs with the cold. Wherefore unto this day it hath been call'd the BlackeMonday.' Stow, p. 264 b.” (GREY.)

blacks-O'er-dy'd, iii. 410: Blacks, i.e. mourning habiliments: by o'er-dy'd blacks "Sir Thomas Hanmer understands blacks dyed too much, and therefore rotten" (JOHNSON).

bladed corn, vii. 261 see note 84, vii. 261.

blank, the white in the centre of the butts (see clout), also the mark or aim in gunnery: the blank And level (the mark and range or line of aim) of my brain, iii. 432; As level as the cannon to his blank, vii. 389; The true blank of thine eye, viii. II; within the blank ("shot," JOHNSON) of his displeasure, viii. 204.

blanks, benevolences, and I wot not what-As, iv. 129: “Blanks. A mode of extortion, by which blank papers were given to the agents of the crown, which they were to fill up as they pleased, to authorize the demands they chose to make." Nares's Gloss.: "Stow records, that Richard II. 'compelled all the Religious, Gentlemen, and Commons, to set their scales to blankes, to the end he might, if it pleased him, oppresse them severally, or all at once: some of

42

BLANKS-BLOOD.

the Commons paid 1000 markes, some 1000 pounds,' &c. Chronicle, p. 319. fol. 1639" (HOLT WHITE). blanks-Commit to these waste, ix. 370: "Probably this Sonnet was designed to accompany a present of a book consisting of blank paper. Lord Orrery sent a birth-day gift of the same kind to Swift, together with a copy of verses of the same tendency" (STEEVENS).

blast in proof, burst in the trial (a metaphor, as Steevens observes, from the proving of fire-arms or cannon), vii. 409.

bleared thine eyne, imposed upon you, deceived you, iii. 183 (The expression is a very old one).

blench, to start off, to fly off, to shrink, to flinch, i. 536; iii. 417 (where Steevens explains Could man so blench? by "Could any man so start or fly off from propriety of behaviour?"); vi. 8, 40; vii. 355.

blenches, "starts, or aberrations from rectitude" (MALONE), ix. 387. blend, blended, blent: blend with objects manifold, ix, 420: see note 9, ix. 420.

blent, blended: being blent together, ii. 384; beauty truly blent, iii. 330. blind-worm, a slow-worm, vii. 260; blind-worms, ii. 280.

blister'd breeches, "breeches puffed, swelled out like blisters" (STEEVENS), breeches "gathered into close rolls or blisters" (FAIRHOLT), V. 488.

bloat, bloated, swollen with intemperance, vii. 386.

block, the shape or fashion of a hat,-properly the mould on which felt hats were formed: changes with the next block, ii. 75 (Dekker uses the word metaphorically: But, sirra Ningle, of what fashion is this knights wit, of what blocke?" Satiro-mastix, 1602, sig. C 2). block, the hat itself: This' a good block, viii. 99: see note 106, viii. 99. blood, disposition, inclination, temperament, impulse: Blood, thou still

art blood, i. 492; faith melteth into blood ("as wax, when opposed to the fire kindled by a witch, no longer preserves the figure of the person whom it was designed to represent, but flows into a shapeless lump; so fidelity, when confronted with beauty, dissolves into our ruling passion, and is lost there like a drop of water in the sea," STEEVENS), ii. 90; wisdom and blood combating, ii. 102; his important blood, iii. 264; Let thy blood be thy direction till thy death! vi. 45; Strange, unusual blood, vii. 63; To let these hands obey my blood, viii. 87; our bloods No more obey the heavens, &c., viii. 385 (see note 1, viii. 385).

blood-To be in, (a term of the chase), to be in good condition, to be vigorous: The deer was, as you know, in sanguis,--blood, ii. 198;

BLOOD-BLOW.

43

If we be English deer, be, then, in blood (“of true mettle," JOHNSON), v. 68; Thou rascal, thou art worst in blood to run, vi. 139 (a rather difficult passage; see note 13, vi. 139); his crest up again, and the man in blood, vi. 234.

blood will I draw on thee,-thou art a witch, v. 25: "The superstition of those times taught that he that could draw the witch's blood was free from her power" (JOHNSON).

blood-boltered, vii. 265: "It [blood-boltered] is a provincial term, well known in Warwickshire, and probably in some other counties. When a horse, sheep, or other animal, perspires much, and any of the hair or wool, in consequence of such perspiration, or any redundant humour, becomes matted in tufts with grime and sweat, he is said to be boltered; and whenever the blood issues out, and coagulates, forming the locks into hard clotted bunches, the beast is said to be blood-boltered" (MALONE): "To bolter, in Warwickshire, signifies to daub, dirty, or begrime. 'I ordered (says my informant) a harness-collar to be made with a linen lining, but blacked, to give it the appearance of leather. The sadler made the lining as he was directed, but did not black it, saying, it would bolter the horse. Being asked what he meant by bolter, he replied, dirty, besmear; and that it was a common word in his country. This conversation passed within eight miles of Stratford-on-Avon.' In the same neighbourhood, when a boy has a broken head, so that his hair is matted together with blood, his head is said to be boltered (pronounced baltered). So, in Philemon Holland's translation of Pliny's Natural History, 1601, Book xii, ch. xvii. p. 370; 'they doe drop and distill the said moisture, which the shrewd and unhappie beast catcheth among the shag long haires of his beard. Now by reason of dust getting among it, it baltereth and cluttereth into knots,' &c." (STEEVENS): "Boltered. Having the hair clotted or matted together." Supplement to Richardson's Dict.: "According to Sharp's Ms. Warwickshire Glossary, snow is said to balter together; and Batchelor says, 'hasty pudding is said to be boltered when much of the flour remains in lumps.' Orthoepical Analysis, 1809, p. 126" (HALLIWELL): "I believe the Warwickshire word [balter] to have originated in ball, and to have meant balled, clogged, or matted." Latham's Johnson's Dict. sub "Bolter."

bloody, in or of the blood: Lust is but a bloody fire, i. 449.

blow, to blow upon : Air, quoth he, thy cheeks may blow, ii. 207; And the very ports they blow, vii. 208.

blow, to swell: blown Jack, iv. 275; the blown tide (wrongly explained "the tide driven by the wind "), vi. 261; blown ambition, viii. 92 ; a vent of blood, and something blown, viii. 380; our blown sails, ix. 99; how imagination blows him, iii. 348; This blows my heart, viii. 343.

blow my mouth-The flesh-fly, i. 240: Here, according to Malone,

44

BLUBBER'D—BOLD.

blow means "swell and inflame:" but, says Steevens, "to blow, as it stands in the text, means 'the act of a fly by which she lodges eggs in flesh.'"

blubber'd queens, ix. 118; Blubbering and weeping, weeping and blubbering, vi. 441: it must be remembered that the verb to blubber did not formerly convey the somewhat ludicrous idea which it does at present.

blue-bottle rogue, an allusion to the dress of the beadle, which in Shakespeare's days was blue, iv. 403.

blue-caps,

66 a name of ridicule given to the Scots, from their blue bonnets" (JOHNSON), iv. 241.

blue coats, the common dress of serving-men in Shakespeare's time and long before, iii. 157; v. 16, 18.

blue eye-A, "A blueness about the eyes" (STEEVENS): a blue eye and sunken, iii. 54.

blunt, dull, stupid, insensible: That Clarence is so harsh, so blunt, unnatural, v. 314.

blurted at, pished at, held in contempt, ix. 74.

blush.... like a black dog, as the saying is, vi. 350: Ray gives, "To

blush like a black dog." Proverbs, p. 218, ed. 1768: and Walker cites, from Withals's Adagia, p. 557, "Faciem perfricuit. Hee blusheth like a blacke dogge, he hath a brazen face."

boar of Thessaly-The, "The boar killed by Meleager" (STEEVENS), viii. 351.

board, to accost, to address: board her, iii. 122, 319; board him, vii. 341; boarded me, i. 382; ii. 89; boarded her, iii. 302; boarding, i. 382 (with a quibble).

bob, a taunt, a scoff (“A bob, sanna." Coles's Lat. and Engl. Dict.): senseless of the bob, iii. 38.

bob, to cheat: You shall not bob us out of our melody, vi. 55; gold and jewels that I bobb'd from him ("fool'd him out of," MALONE), viii. 228.

bodg'd, v. 240: see note 36, v. 240.

bodkin, a small dagger: his quietus make With a bare bodkin, vii. 358. boggler, viii. 331: Means here "a vicious woman, one who starts from the right path. Johnson in his Dict. explains it a doubter, a timorous man; but it is evidently addressed, not to Thyreus, but Cleopatra." Nares's Gloss.

Bohemian-Tartar, "A wild appellation, to insinuate that Simple makes a strange appearance" (JOHNSON), i. 436.

bold, confident: Bold of your worthiness, ii. 175.