GLOSSARIAL EPILOGUE

Summary

(The numbers bracketed indicate the lines of the Dialogue on pp. 37–48.)

Crack'd Crown (5).

“Ingenioso. I may chance, indeed, give the world a bloody nose, but it shall hardly give me a crack'd crown, though it gives other poets French Crowns.” The Returne from Pernassus, or the Scourge of Simony, publiquely acted by the Students of St John's Cambridge, 1606.

Pummell (105). “The tang (or tongue of the sword), which is of many shapes…ends in the pommel or ‘little apple’ (le pommeau, il pomolo, der Knauf or Knopf) into which it should be made fast by rivets or screws. The object of this globe, lozenge, or oval of metal is to counterpoise the weight of the blade, to prop the ferient of the hand, and to allow of artistic ornamentation.” Burton's Book of the Sword, p. 124. Its further object was for use like the butt-end of a musket, to “ pummell “ your adversary.

Dagger at your backs (100). It was for some time the fashion to wear the dagger hanging at the back, cf.:

“This dagger has mista'en, for lo his house

Lies empty on the back of Montague.”

Romeo and Juliet

According to Nares, the rapier and dagger were usually worn side by side.

” His sword a dagger had, his page,

That was but little for his age:

It was a serviceable dudgeon

Either for fighting, or for drudging:

When it had stabb'd, or broke a head,

It would scrape trenchers, or chip bread.”

Hudibrasi. i. 375.