66 
THE ROYAL MEWS. 
withdrawn, it became inapplicable. But, what is more 
curious still, in later times, when the people of London 
began to build ranges of stabling at the back of their 
streets and houses, they christened those places “ mews,” 
after the old stabling at Charing Cross. 
The word “ enmew,” quoted above in the passage from 
Measure for Measure , would seem rather to signify here, 
“ to seize upon,” or “ to disable.” It is sometimes written 
“ enewe.” In Nash’s “ Ouaternio ; or, a Fourefold Way 
to a Happie Life,” published in 1633, it occurs in a 
spirited description of hawking at water-fowl :—“ And to 
hear an accipitary relate againe how he went forth in a 
cleare, calme, and sunshine evening, about an houre before 
the sunne did usually maske himselfe, unto the river, 
where finding of a mallard, he whistled off* his falcon, 
and how shee flew from him as if shee would never have 
turned head againe, yet presently upon a shoote came in ; 
how then by degrees, by little and little, by flying about 
and about, shee mounted so high, until shee had lessened 
herselfe to the view of the beholder to the shape of a 
pigeon or partridge, and had made the height of the moon 
the place*)* °f her flight ; how presently, upon the landing 
of the fowle, shee came downe like a stone and enewed it, 
and suddenly got up againe, and suddenly upon a second 
landing came down againe, and missing of it, in the 
* Compare, ante , pp. 57-59, “ I’d whistle her off,” &c. 
t Compare, ante , p. 52, “A falcon tow’ring in her pride of place,” &c. 
