268 SHAKESPEARE’S [SABLES, 
Sables. 
Hater, iv. 7, 81. 
Tue fur-marten is most excellent, for princes and great 
nobles are clothed therewith, every skin being worth a 
French crown, or four shillings at the least. 
Topsell, ‘ Four-Footed Beasts,” p. 386. 
[A thousand ducats were sometimes given for a suit of sables 
(Bishop's ‘“ Blossoms,”’ 1577), and none under the degree of an 
earl might use Sables (‘‘ Statute of Apparel,” 24 Henry VIII, 
c. 13, this quotation and the last being from Malone’s note on 
this passage). | 
Sack. 
[Condensed from Vares’ Glossary: ‘‘ Sack, a Spanish wine of 
the dry or rough kind; vzz Sec, French; Sac” (Sekt, which also 
means a dry champagne), “German. It was spelt ‘seck,’ and 
came from Xeres, and therefore was the same as_ sherry. 
Gervase Markham mentions other kinds of Sack, as Canary 
and Malaga” [which he says are stronger, those of Galicia 
and Portugal being smaller (‘‘ English Housewife’s Skill in 
Wines,” p. 118, 1656)]. ‘‘Sack was the general name for 
white wines; where sherry: was meant, it was distinguished as 
sherrts Sack (‘ Bartholomew Fair,’ v. 4). In‘ Pasquil’s Palinodia’ 
(1619) Sack and sherry are used throughout as_ perfectly 
synonymous : 
‘Give me Sack, old Sack, boys, 
To make the Muses merry, 
The life of mirth, and the joy of the earth, 
Is a cup of good old sherry.’” 
But Falstaff generally drank his Sack “ brewed,” or mulled, or 
“burnt” (‘ Merry Wives of Windsor,” iii. 5, 1. 30, and ii. 1, 223), 
or with sugar (i. ‘‘ King Henry IV.,” i. 2, 125, and ii. 4, 515), and 
perhaps a toast in it (“‘ Merry Wives of Windsor,” iii. 5, 3), or 
eggs (zdzd., iii. 5, 31); and the eggs were sometimes rotten 
(Heywood's ‘“‘Fair Maid of the West,” iii. 4, ad fin). Ginger 
was put into mulled Sack (Beaumont and Fletcher. ‘The 
Captain,” iv. 2). Lime was used to adulterate Sack (i. “‘ King 
Henry 1V.,” ii. 4, 130, and ‘‘ Merry Wives of Windsor,” i. 3, 10; 
and S7zr Richard Hawkins’ ‘‘ Voyages,” as quoted by War- 
burton) ; and horseflesh was hung in the cask to keep it quick 
(“ Webster, ‘‘ Westward Ho!” iv. 1, and Glapthorne’s ‘ Hol- 
lander ”).] : 
