[36] Nash seems, from various parts of his works, to have been well read in what are called, though not very properly in English, the burlesque poets of Italy. This praise of poverty in the reply of Ver to the accusation of Summer is one proof of his acquaintance with them. See "Capitolo sopra l'epiteto della poverta, à Messer Carlo Capponi," by Matteo Francesi in the Rime Piacevoli del Berni, Copetta, Francesi, &c., vol. ii. p. 48. Edit. Vicenza, 1609-- "In somma ella non ha si del bestiale, Com' altri stima, perche la natura Del poco si contenta, e si prevale," &c. [37] [Jesus.] [38] Sir J. Hawkins, in his "Hist. Music," iv. 479, contends that the _recorder_ was the same instrument as that we now term a _flageolet_. Some have maintained that it is the _flute_. [See Dyce's "Glossary" to his second edit. of _Shakespeare_, in v.] [39] Chaucer [if at least he had anything to do with the poem,] translates _day's-eye_, or _daisy_, into _margarete_ in French, in the following stanza from his "Flower and the Leaf"-- "Whereto they enclined everichon With great reverence and that full humbly, And at the lust there began anon A lady for to sing right womanly A bargaret in praising the _day's-eye_, For as, methought, among her notes swete, She said, _Si douce est la margarete_." [40] Nash seems often to have quoted from memory, and here he has either coupled parts of two lines, so as to make one, or he has invented a beginning to the ending of Ovid's "Metam.," ii. 137. [The author seems merely to have introduced scraps of Latin, without much regard to their juxtaposition.] [41] [A common subject at shows.] [42] [A _jeu-de-mots_ on the scale in music and the Latin word _sol_.] [43] [Some play on words is here probably meant. _Eyesore_ quasi _eye-soar_.] [44] It may be doubtful whether this is the right word. Old copy, _sonne_. [45] [Old copy, _baddest_.] [46] [Old copy, _Heber_.] [47] The quarto reads-- "And as for poetry, _woods_ eloquence." It is no doubt a misprint for _words' eloquence_, or the eloquence of words. [48] [Old copy, _source_. The emendation was suggested by Collier.] [49] [Former edits.--"Envy envieth not outcries unrest." And so the 4to.] [50] [Old copy, _slight_.] [51] On this subject Camden tells us: "There was both this summer (1592) and the last so great a drought all England over, that the fields were burnt, and the fountains dried up, and a great many beasts perish'd everywhere for want of water. The Thames likewise, the noblest river of all Britain, and which has as full and large a tide as any in Europe (for it flows twice a day above sixty miles from the mouth of it, and receives an increase from the mixture of many other streams and rivers with it), was, however, sunk to that degree (to the wonder of all men) on the 5th September, that a man might ride over it near London Bridge, so shallow was the channel."