canakin

Psha! none of your jokes, man; you know, that her ladyship, no more than myself, has set eyes upon you since you was the bigness of a rumbo canakin.

Cassio enters and joins a group of soldiers, and the crowd light the bonfire and sing a chorus in praise of fire generally; at the end of which Iago tempts Cassio to drink, and sings an enlargement of "And let me the canakin clink," the chorus joining in the refrain.

The other songs, "King Stephen was a worthy peer," and "Let me the canakin clink, clink," are both probably quotations from older songs; while the so-called "traditional" tunes are very like the so-called "traditional" etc. in other plays by the master.

In different parts of the room were to be seen portions of the arms and armour the wearers had cast aside when they sat down to their carouse,—the heavy rapier, the cuirass, the helmet, and the plumed hat are thrown carelessly into corners, whilst the story, the biting jest, and the song is heard:— "And let me the canakin, clink, clink, clink, And let me the canakin clink, A soldier's a man, and life's but a span, Why then let a soldier drink."

Where does chivalry at last become something more than a mere procession of plumes and armor, to be lamented by Burke, except in some of the less ambitious verses of the Trouvères, where we hear the canakin clink too emphatically, perhaps, but which at least paint living men and possible manners?