[97] _i.e._, A cast of that species of hawks that were called _Merlins_.--_Steevens._ He calls them [_merlins_, which he might perhaps have been supposed to pronounce] _Murlons_ on account of their size. _Merlins_ were the smallest species of hawks. Turbervile says, “These _merlyns_ are very much like the haggart falcon in plume, in seare of the foote, in beake and talons. So as there seemeth to be no oddes or difference at al betwixt them save only in the _bignesse_, for she hath like demeanure, like plume, and very like conditions to the falcon, and in hir kind is of like courage, and therefore must be kept as choycely and as daintly as the falcon.” The _merlin_ was chiefly used to fly at small birds; and Latham says, it was particularly appropriated to the service of ladies. [98] _Father Grimme_, second edition. [99] [Something seems to have dropped out of the text here to this purport.] [100] Adopted into the original text from the second edition.--_Collier._ [101] [A play on the similarity between _rug_ and _rogue_.] [102] _What fault can you see heere?_ second edition. [103] [Small casks, buckets.] [104] _i.e._, Robin red breasts. Shakespeare uses _ruddock_ for red breast in “Cymbeline.”--_S._ Again, in Nash’s “Lenten Stuff,” 1599: “He eft soons defined unto me, that the red herring was this old tickle cob, or magister fac totum, that brought in the _red ruddocks_, and the grummel seed as thick as oatmeal, and made Yarmouth for Argent to put down the city of Argentine.” [105] _Hose at_, second edition. [106] _Well_, first edition. [107] [Luscious.] [108] An intended mistake for _muscadine._--_S._ [109] _Jebit avow mon companion._ Both 4tos.--_S._ [110] _Ihar vow pleadge pety Zawne._ Both 4tos. [_Zawne_ appears to be a loose application of _Zani_ quasi _noodle_, though here, perhaps, the meaning is rather _mimic_.] [111] _Was_, second edition. [112] [Interrupt? See Nares, edition 1859, in v.] [113] _Coppe_, in Chaucer, is used for the top of anything, and here seems intended to signify the head, or, as the common phrase is, a _hair-brained_ fellow. [114] _Merie_, second edition. [115] See “Gammer Gurton’s Needle,” vol. iii., p. 189, note. [116] [See Rimbault’s “Little Book of Songs and Ballads,” 1851, p. 83.] [117] _Benne_ is the French word for a sack to carry coals. See Cotgrave.