52 | SHAKESPEARE’S [caPER. 
Caper. 
Sir Anp. Faith, I can cut a caper. 
Sir Tosy. And I can cut the mutton to ‘t. 
TwetrtH NicuT, i. 3,°129. 
Tuey stir up an appetite to meat. They are eaten 
boiled (the salt first washed off) with oil and vinegar as 
other salads be, and sometimes are boiled with meat. They 
be rather a sauce and medicine than a meat. 
Gerard’s “Herbal,” s.v. 
Tuy say that those who eat them daily are in no 
danger of paralysis. They should not be eaten without 
coriander. Hortus Sanitatis, bk. 1. ch. xcvili. 
Capon. 
Item, A capon, : . 25. 2d, 
i. King Henry IV., i. 4, 584. 
He steps me to her trencher, and steals her capon’s leg. 
Two GeEnTLEMEN OF VERONA, iv. 4, I0. 
Tue Capon sitteth on brood upon eggs that be not his 
own, as it were an hen, and companieth with hens, and 
eateth with them of their meat, but he feedeth them not; 
he is fatted with them but he fatteth not them. And 
sometime his feet are broken to compel him to sit on 
brood upon eggs. When he is fat, his feet be bound 
together, and his head hangeth down towards the ground, 
and is borne by the feet to fairs and to markets. And 
their brain is better and more profitable than the brains ot 
other fowls, Bartholomew (Berthelet), bk. xii. § 17. 
A Capon if he be well beaten with nettles will lead its 
chickens about like a hen, which as they say, he does not 
for the good of the chickens, but for his own good, that 
by the warmth of the chickens he may make the poison 
of the nettle to evaporate. Hortus Sanitatis, bk. iii. ch. liv. 
Auxectoria [or Electorius], is a stone that is found in 
the maws of Capons, and is like dim crystal. And as 
witches tell, it is supposed that in battle-fighting, this stone 
