I'll give thee a wind.
1ST WITCH. Thou art kind.
3D WITCH. And I another.
From the passage in Nash's play, it seems that Irish and Danish witches
could sell winds: Macbeth's witches were Scotish.
[106] [Old copy, _party_.]
[107] [Old copy, _Form'd_.]
[108] As usual, Nash has here misquoted, or the printer has omitted a
word. Virgil's line is--
"_Fama malum, quo non aliud velocius ullum_."
--"Aeneid," iv. 174.
Gabriel Harvey, replying in 1597, in his "Trimming of Thomas Nash,
Gentleman" (written in the name of Richard Litchfield, the
barber-surgeon of Trinity College, Cambridge), also alludes to this
commonplace: "The virtuous riches wherewith (as broad-spread fame
reporteth) you are endued, though _fama malum_ (as saith the poet) which
I confirm," &c. Perhaps this was because Nash had previously employed it,
or it might be supposed that the barber would have been unacquainted
with it.
[109] A soldier of this sort, or one pretending to be a soldier, is a
character often met with in our old comedies, such as Lieutenant
Maweworm and Ancient Hautboy in "A Mad World, my Masters," Captain Face
in "Ram-Alley," &c.
[110] [_Dii minores_.]
[111] Pedlar's French was another name for the cant language used by
vagabonds.
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