Note 579 — SCENE II.

camooch] In B. Jonson’s Every Man out of his Humour, act v. sc. 3, the word camouccio occurs, as a term of vituperation; which, says Gifford, “is perhaps a corruption of camoscio, a goat or goat’s skin, and may mean clown or flat-nose, or any other apposite term which pleases the reader.” So, too, in Dekker and Webster’s Sir T. Wyatt, 1607, (Webster’s Works, vol. ii. p. 298), “A Spaniard is a camocho, or calamanco,” &c.; and Sir T. Brown observes (Vulgar Errors, p. 351, ed. 1669), “Many Spaniards ... which are of the race of Barbary Moors ... have not worn out the camoys nose unto this day.”