Nash abounds with "Mother-wit;" but he was also educated at the University, with every advantage of classical studies.
[89] _Bombast_ was the tailors' term in the Elizabethan era for the stuffing of horsehair or wool used for the large breeches then in fashion; hence the term was applied to high-sounding phrases--"all sound and fury, signifying nothing."--ED.
[90] These were the loose heavy breeches so constantly worn by Swiss soldiers as to become a national costume, and which has been handed down to us by the artists of the day in a variety of forms. They obtained the name of _galeaze_, from their supposed resemblance to the broad-bottomed ship called a galliass.--ED.
[91] A cade is 500 herrings; a great quantity of an article of no value.
[92] Harvey's love of dress, and desire to indulge it cheaply, is satirically alluded to by Nash, in confuting Harvey's assertion that Greene's wardrobe at his death was not worth more than three shillings--"I know a broker in a spruce leather jerkin shall give you thirty shillings for the doublet alone, if you can help him to it. Hark in your ear! he had a very fair cloak, with sleeves of a goose green, it would serve you as fine as may be. No more words; if you be wise, play the good husband, and listen after it, you may buy it ten shillings better cheap than it cost him. By St. Silver, it is good to be circumspect in casting for the world; there's a great many _ropes_ go to ten shillings? If you want a greasy pair of silk stockings to shew yourself in the court, they are there to be had too, amongst his moveables."--ED.
[93] This unlucky Venetian velvet coat of Harvey had also produced a "Quippe for an Vpstart Courtier, or a quaint dispute between Veluet-breeches and Cloth-breeches," which poor Harvey declares was "one of the most licentious and intolerable invectives." This blow had been struck by Greene on the "Italianated" Courtier.
[94] "Pierce's Supererogation, or a new praise of the Old Asse," 1593.
[95] Harvey's opponents were much nimbler penmen, and could strike off these lampoons with all the facility of writers for the stage. Thus Nash declares, in his "Have with you to Saffron Walden," that he leaves Lilly, who was also attacked, to defend himself, because "in as much time as he spends in taking tobacco one week, he can compile that would make Gabriell repent himself all his life after."--ED.