Note 314 — SCENE IV.

The late ingenious Mr Robert Dodsley, whose modest merit is well known to those who were acquainted with him, had little skill in our ancient language, and therefore permitted many uncommon terms to be exchanged for others, to the no small detriment of the scenes which he undertook to publish. We had here a proof of the unpardonable licence, where a word of no meaning, soak, was given instead of a technical term belonging to falconry, in the language of which the present metaphor is carried on. A young hawk, like a young deer, was called a soar or soare: so that the brown soar feathers are the remains of its first plumage, or such feathers as resemble it in colour. These birds are always mewed while they were moulting, to facilitate the growth of fresh plumes, more strong and beautiful than those which dropped off. Without this restoration and explanation, the passage before us is unintelligible.—Steevens.

Latham, in his book of falconry, says: "A sore hawke, is from the first taking of her from the eiry, till she have mewed her feathers." The error introduced into the play by Mr Dodsley is continued by Mr Garrick who, in his alteration, reads brown soak feathers.

Trincalo has already used a phrase that seems to be equivalent, in act ii. sc. 4, where he says—

See the explanatory notes, where flags are called "the baser order of feathers," and sear, we are told, is "the yellow part between the beak and the eyes of the hawk." After all, sear may be a misprint for soar, and this would make the resemblance in the two passages the stronger.—Collier.