374 
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare's Time . 
Bo the roughe and boonus voyded then may youre lorde endure 
To ete merily with mustard that tyme to his plesure.” 
(Babees Book , p. 38, ed. Fumivall, 1876.) 
Shakspeare has several references to tire herring, and 
takes notice of its great resemblance to the pilchard, 
Feste tells Viola , “ Fools are as like husbands as pilchards 
are to herrings; the husband’s the bigger ” ( Twelfth Night , 
iii. 1, 38). 
Falstaff denounces the cowardice of the Prince and 
Poins , and sings his own praises :— 
“ Go thy ways, old Jack; die when thou wilt, if manhood, good 
manhood, he not forgot upon the face of the earth, then am I a shotten 
herring.” (1 Henry IV., ii. 4,142.) 
“A shotten herring” was a phrase used to denote a 
shabby, underfed fellow. Taylor, the Water Poet, has. 
the same expression: — 
“ Though they like shotten herrings are to see, 
Yet such tall souldiers of their teeth they be. 
That two of them, like greedy cormorants. 
Devour more than sixe honest Protestants.” 
(Page 5, ed. Hindley.) 
Mr. Halliwell-Pkillipps, in his Dictionary, explains the 
term “ shotten herring ” to mean the gutted fish that were 
dried for keeping. According to other authorities the 
expression meant herrings that had spawned, and that 
were consequently in poor condition. Shotten herring' 
might be cured just the same as full fish, but the name 
applied to the fish and not to the method of preparing 
them. 
Fuller learnedly discourses on the origin of the pro¬ 
verb, “ a Yarmouth capon ”— 
“that is, a red-herring. No news for creatures to be thus disguised 
under other names; seeing criticks by a Libyan bear, sub pelle Libystidis 
utscb , understand a lion, no bears being found in the land of Libya. 
