250 SHAKESPEARE’S [PORCUPINE. 
Poppy and mandragora. Hortus Sanitatis, bk. i. § 328. 
ComMonLy sown it is with coleworts, purslane, rocket 
and lettuce. Holland’s Pliny, bk. xix. ch. viii. 
Porcupine, Porpentine. 
Ham er, 3. 5, 20. 
Irs anger is most quick to revenge, so that very often 
it looses its spines from its back, and wounds dogs or 
men that are near it. Hortus Sanitatis, bk. ii. § 73. 
Tue Porcupines come out of India and Africa; a kind 
of urchin or hedge-hog they be; armed with pricks they 
be both, but the Porcupine hath the longer sharp-pointed 
quills, and those when he stretcheth his skin, he sendeth 
and shooteth from him. Holland's Pliny, bk. viii. ch. xxxv. 
Tue pilgrims that come yearly from St. James of Com- 
postella in Spain do bring back generally one of these 
quills in their caps. The pace of this beast is very slow 
and troublesome unto it. It is a filthy beast, smelling 
rank because it liveth so much in the earth; being wild 
it never drinketh, and I think it eateth apples, roots and 
rinds of trees, and peradventure snails and such reptile 
creatures.” If men scrape their teeth with their quills, they 
will never be loose. Topsell, ‘* Four-footed Beasts,” pp. 457-8. 
Potato. 
Merry Wives or Winpsor, v. 5. 21. 
[Potatoes were held to be incentives to venery (vide Collins’ 
long note at the end of ‘ Troilus and Cressida” in JZalone and 
Steevens’ Shakespeare, vol. xi. ed. 1793). 
Potato-pies are mentioned in Ben Jonson’s ‘‘ Every Man out 
of his Humour,” Heywood’s “The English Traveller,” and 
Dekker’s “‘Gull’s Hornbook,” etc. In the ‘Good Huswife’s 
Jewel” is a recipe for a “ potato-tart’; ‘‘ potatoes marrowed” 
in Massinger’s “Guardian,” ii. 2). 
Potatoes were sometimes cheap, so ‘ Histrio - mastix,” 
ii, 1, 76: , 
Merchant's Wife: Ha’ ye any Potatoes? 
Seller: The abundance will not quit-cost the bringing.] 
