Note E491 — 114.

"What toesed eares." Toese, or touze, to worry (as a dog does a bear), properly used of the dressing of wool, and thence metaphorically, as in Spenser, Faerie Queene, xi. 33,

"And as a beare, whom angry curres have touz'd:"

to the dog who pulls the fell off the bear's back. Cf. the old name for a dog, Towzer. Coles renders tose or toze by "carpo, vellico." Baret, Alvearie, 1580, gives, "to Tosse wooll, carpere lanam." Compare chap. 99. 4, p. 189, "so tossed with comorants," which is spelt toesed in the ed. of 1577, and teazed in those of 1580 and 1585.