Notes and Queries, Number 180, April 9, 1853, page 9 by Various Authors
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ls and breaches, so that there remains only the narrow neck that is naturally fortified; and if thirty leagues of a wilderness will not do that, it may be artificially fortified in twenty ways. In short, it may be made impregnable; and there are bounds enough within it, if it were all cultivated, to afford 10,000 hogsheads of sugar every year. The soil is rich, the air good and temperate; the water is sweet, and every thing contributes to make it healthful and convenient."
C. T. W.
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NOTES ON SEVERAL MISUNDERSTOOD WORDS.
Mechal is from the mint of Thomas Heywood; but, like many other words of the same stamp, it continued a private token of the party who issued it, and never, as far as I am aware, became current coin. Four times, at least, it occurs in his works; and always in that sense only which its etymon indicates, to wit, "adulterous." In his "Challenge for Beauty:"
"... her own tongue Hath publish'd her a mechall prostitute." Dilke's Old English Plays, vol. vi. p. 421.
In his "Rape of Lucrece:"
"... that done, straight murder One of thy basest grooms, and lay you both Grasp'd arm in arm in thy adulterate bed, Men call in witness of that mechall sin." Old English Drama, vol. i. p. 71.
--where the editor's note is--"probably derived from the French word méchant, wicked." In his "English Traveller:"
"... Yet whore you may; And that's no breach of any vow to heaven: Pollute the nuptial bed with michall sin." Dilke's Old English Plays, vol. i. p. 161.
This misprint the editor corrects to mickle: professing, however, as he well might, distrust of his amendment. Nares discards Dilke's guess, and says, "If a right reading, it must be derived from mich, truant, adulterous." Whereby to correct one error he commits another, assigning to mich a sense that it never bears. If haply any doubt should remain as to what the true reading in the