J02 SHAKESPEARE'S [TASSEL-GENTLE. 



Tassel-gentle. 



ROMEO AND JULIET, ii. 2, 160. 

 TASSEL, or Tiercel, or the male of a hawk. 



Minsheus Dictionary, s.v. 



LONG-WINGED Hawks, as the falcon gentle, and her 

 Tiercel. Martbara's " Husbandry " ( Of Hawks "), ch. i. 



THEN for an evening flight 



A Tiercel-gentle. Massinger, "Guardian," i. i. 



I SHOULD not be so fond to mistake a Jenny Howlet 



for a Tassel-gentle. Brome, "The Northern Lass," iii. 2. 



[Malone quotes from an old treatise on hawking, name not 

 given : " The names of all manner of hawks, and to whom they 

 belong : For a Prince. There is a falcon gentle, and a Tiercel 

 gentle ; and these are for a prince."] 



Tench. 



i. KING HENRY IV., ii. i, 17, 18. 



["Stung like a Tench" may perhaps refer to the small size 

 of the scales of this fish. Nares quotes Walton's " Complete 

 Angler" (part i. ch. xi.) : "That the Tench is the physician 

 of fishes, for the pike especially ; and that the pike, being either 

 sick or hurt, is cured by the touch of the Trench."] 



I LONG to see this fish. I wonder whether 

 They will cut up his belly ; they say a Tench 

 Will make him whole again. 



Jasper Mayne, "The City Match," iii. 2 (1639). 



y. Fish. 

 Thistle. 



MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, iii. 4, 76. 



THISTLE is a manner herb or a weed with pricks ; the 

 kind thereof is biting and cruel, therefore the juice thereof 

 cureth the falling of the hair. The root thereof sod in water 

 giveth appetite to drinkers, and it is no wonder though 

 women desire it, for it helpeth the conception of male 

 children. Bartholomew (Bertbelet], bk. xvii. 36. 



