This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1869 Excerpt: ...work upon the edge, purfiled has also a more extended meaning, and is applied to garments overlaid with gems or other ornaments. 'Pourfiler dor, to purfie, tinsill, or overcast with gold thread, &c. Pourfileure, purfling, a purfling lace or work, bodkin work, tinselling.' (Cotgrave.) 1. 194. grys, a sort of costly fur, formerly very much esteemed; but what species of fur it was is not clear. Some suppose it to be that of the grey squirre1. Such a dress as is here described must have been very expensive. Occleve refers to the fashion in the following lines:--'But this me thynkethe a grete abusioun, To see one walke in gownes of scarlet Twelve yerdes wide, with pendaunt sieves doune On the grounde, and the furre therin set, Amountyng unto twenty pound and bet.' (De Regimine Principum, p. 16, ed. Wright.) 'His armes two han right ynoughe to done, And somwhat more, his sieves up to holde. The taillours, I trowe, mote hereafter sone Shape in the felde, they shalle not sprede and folde On her bord, though they never so fayne wolde, The clothe that shall be in a gowne wrought.' (lb. p. 18.) 1. 198. balled, bald. See Specimens of Early English, p. 75, 1. 408. 1. 200. in good poynt =Fr. embonpoint. I. 201. steep, O.E. steap, does not here mean sunken, but brigbt, burning, fiery. Mr. Cockayne has illustrated the use of this word in his Seinte Marherete: 'His twa ehnen semden steappre )ene sterren,' his two eyes seemed brigbter than stars, (p. 9.) 1. 202. stemede as aforneys of a leede, shone like the fire under a cauldron. 1. 203. bootes maple. This is part of the description of a smart abbot, by an anonymous writer of the thirteenth century: 'Ocreas habebat in cruribus quasi innatx essent, sine plica porrectas.' Bod. MS. James, n. 6, p. 121. (Tyrwhitt.) 1. 205. ...