314 Notes and Illustrations. 
Practise. In two Bookes. The first intreating of the use of the 
Rapier and Dagger. The second of Honor and Honorable 
Quarrels,” the printer’s device has the motto: ‘‘O wormes meate : 
O froath: O vanitie: why art thou so insolent.” Compare ‘‘ As you 
Like it,” Act iii. sc. 2, 59, ‘‘ Most shallow man! thou worm’s meat!” 
112. 1. “ For fortunes looke.” In editions of 1573 and 1585 the 
reading is ‘‘ For fortune, look.” It is evident that these verses were 
written at the time when our author first retired from court, and 
that they were appended to this work long after. They allude to 
recent events, to “‘ fatal chance,” and to other circumstances, which 
would have been obliterated from the mind after the lapse of so many 
years.—M. See Tusser’s Autobiography, ch. 113, stanza 14, p. 208. 
112. 4. ‘‘Too daintie fed;” that is, to one who has been accus- 
tomed to luxury, and high living. 
112. 5. ‘If court with cart, ete.” If one, who’ has/\beeapa 
courtier, must put up with the life of the country. 
118. 5. ‘‘ What toesed eares.” Toese, or fouze, to worry (as a 
dog does a bear), properly used of the dressing of wool, and thence 
metaphorically, as in Spenser, Faerie Queene, xi. 33, 
‘«« And as a beare, whom angry curres have /ouz’d:” 
to the dog who pulls the fell off the bear’s back. Cf. the old name 
for a dog, Zowzer. Coles renders /ose or foze by “ carpo, vellico.” 
Baret, Alvearie, 1580, gives, ‘to Tosse wooll, carpere lanam,” 
Compare chap. 99. 4, p. 189, ‘so fossed with comorants,” which is 
spelt /vesed in the ed. of 1577, and /eazed in those of 1580 and 1585. 
“‘What robes.” The livery or vests liberata, often called robe, 
allowed annually by the college.—Warton, Hist. of Eng. Poetry. 
Penny-ale is common, thin ale. It is spoken of in Piers Plow- 
man, ed. Skeat, Passus xv. ]. 310, as a most meagre drink, only 
fitted for strict-living friars. It was sold at a penny a gallon, while 
the best ale was four pence. 
««Peny ale and podyng ale she poured togideres 
For labourers and for lowe folke, fat lay by hym-selue.” 
Piers Plowman, B. Text, Passus v. 220. 
118. 6. ‘‘Sundrie men had plagards then.” See remarks in 
Biographical Sketch. 
«The better brest,” etc. On these words Hawkins, in his Hist. 
of Music, ed. 1853, ii. 537, remarks: ‘‘In singing, the sound is 
originally produced by the action of the lungs, which are so 
essential an organ in this respect, that to have a good breast was 
formerly a common periphrasis to denote a good singer.” Cf. 
Shakspere, Twelfth Night, Act ii. sc. 3, ‘‘ By my troth, the fool 
hath an excellent breast.” Halliwell quotes: 
“‘T syng not musycall 
For my dres¢ is decayd.”—Armonye of Byrdes, p. 5. 
Ascham, in his Toxophilus, says, when speaking of the expediency 
of educating youths in singing: “Trulye two degrees of men, 
