f thy gentry."[844]

[843] Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps, in his "Handbook Index to the
Works of Shakespeare" (1866, p. 231), suggests this meaning.

[844] See Nares's "Glossary," vol. i. p. 397.

Mr. Dyce,[845] however, says the most probable meaning of this obscure
passage is, that there is an allusion to the extravagant number of
knights created by King James, and that _hack_ is equivalent to "become
cheap or vulgar."

[845] Dyce's "Glossary," p. 197.

It appears, too, that in days gone by the arms, etc., of traitors and
rebels might be defaced. Thus, in "Richard II." (ii. 3), Berkeley tells
Bolingbroke:

"Mistake me not, my lord; 'tis not my meaning
To raze one title of your honour out."

Upon which passage we may quote from Camden's "Remains" (1605, p. 186):
"How the names of them, which for capital crimes against majestie, were
erased out of the public records, tables, and registers, or forbidden to
be borne by their posteritie, when their memory was damned, I could show
at large." In the following act (iii. 1) Bolingbroke further relates how
his enemies had:

"Dispark'd my parks, and fell'd my forest woods,
From mine own windows torn my household coat,
Raz'd out my impress, leaving me no sign."

_Bilboes._ These were a kind of stocks or fetters used at sea to confine
prisoners, of which Hamlet speaks to Horatio (v. 2):

"Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting,
That would not let me sleep: methought I lay
Worse than the mutines in the bilboes."

This punishment is thus described by Steevens: "The _bilboes_ is a bar
of iron with fetters annexed to it, by which mutinous or disorderly
sailors were anciently linked together. The word is derived from Bilboa,
a place in Spain where instruments of steel were fabricated in the
utmost perfection. To understand Shakespeare's allusion completely, it
should be known that, as these fetters connect the legs of the offenders
very close together, their attempts to rest must be as fruitless as
those of Hamlet, in whose mind 'there was a kind of fighting that would
not let him sleep.' Every motion of one must disturb his partner in
confinement. The _bilboes_ are still shown in the Tower of London, among
the other spoils of the Spanish Armada."[846]

[846] Bilbo was also a rapier or sword; thus, in "Merry Wives
of Windsor" (iii. 5), Falstaff says to Ford: "I suffered the
pangs of three several deaths: first