Note 101 — ACT V., SCENE I.

[Equivalent to our modern phrase, tag, rag, and bobtail. The original signification seems to have been descriptive of the different kinds of horses, cuts, curtails, and longtails, and hence it came to mean generally all sorts and kinds, like the modern term. Compare Dyce's "Shakespeare Glossary," 1868, in v.] This phrase occurs in "The Merry Wives of Windsor," act iii. sc. 4. Steevens says the origin of it was from Forest Laws, by which the dog of a man who had no right to the privilege of chase, was obliged to be cut or lawed; and amongst other modes of disabling him, one was by depriving him of his tail. Cut and long tail therefore signified the dog of a clown and the dog of a gentleman. [Reed (more correctly) remarks:] "Cut and long tail, I apprehend referred originally to horses, when their tails were either docked, or left to grow their full length; and this distinction might formerly be made according to their qualities and values. A horse therefore used for drudgery might have his tail cut, while the tails of those which served for pomp or show, might be allowed their utmost growth. A cut appears to have been the term used for a bad horse in many contemporary writers, and from thence to call a person cut became a common opprobrious word employed by the vulgar, when they abused each other. See note to 'Gammer Gurton's Needle' [iii. 211.] In confirmation of this idea, it may be added, that Sim says in the text, Some horse taught him that, which naturally introduces the phrase cut and long tail into the Constable's answer. The words cut and long tail occur also in 'The Return from Parnassus,' act iv. sc. 1: 'As long as it lasts, come cut and long tail, we'll spend it as liberally for his sake.' There seems no doubt that cut and long tail has reference to horses. Sir J. Vanbrugh, in his 'Æsop,' so employs the phrase: the groom says, 'Your worship has six coach horses, cut and long tail, two runners, half a dozen hunters,' &c."—Collier.