ore, been suggested that the passage should be read thus:
"'Tis the next way to turn tailor, or red-breast teacher," _i. e._, "to
turn teacher of goldfinches or redbreasts."[215] Singer,[216] however,
explains the words thus: "Tailors, like weavers, have ever been
remarkable for their vocal skill. Percy is jocular in his mode of
persuading his wife to sing; and this is a humorous turn which he gives
to his argument, 'Come, sing.' 'I will not sing.' ''Tis the next [_i.
e._, the readiest, nearest] way to turn tailor, or redbreast
teacher'--the meaning being, to sing is to put yourself upon a level with
tailors and teachers of birds."

[215] Nares's "Glossary," vol. ii. p. 693. Some think that the
bullfinch is meant.

[216] Singer's "Notes," 1875, vol. v. p. 82; see Dyce's
"Glossary," p. 433.

_Gull._ Shakespeare often uses this word as synonymous with fool. Thus
in "Henry V." (iii. 6) he says:

"Why, 'tis a gull, a fool."

The same play upon the word occurs in "Othello" (v. 2), and in "Timon of
Athens" (ii. 1). In "Twelfth Night" (v. 1) Malvolio asks:

"Why have you suffer'd me to be imprison'd,
Kept in a dark house, visited by the priest,
And made the most notorious geck and gull
That e'er invention played on? tell me why."

It is also used to express a trick or imposition, as in "Much Ado About
Nothing" (ii. 3): "I should think this a gull, but that the
white-bearded fellow speaks it."[217] "Gull-catchers," or
"gull-gropers," to which reference is made in "Twelfth Night" (ii. 5),
where Fabian, on the entry of Maria, exclaims: "Here comes my noble
gull-catcher," were the names by which sharpers[218] were known in
Shakespeare's time.[219] The "gull-catcher" was generally an old
usurer, who lent money to a gallant at an ordinary, who had been
unfortunate in play.[220] Decker devotes a chapter to this character in
his "Lanthorne and Candle-light," 1612. According to him, "the
gull-groper is commonly an old mony-monger, who having travailed through
all the follyes of the world in his youth, knowes them well, and shunnes
them in his age, his whole felicitie being to fill his bags with golde
and silver." The person so duped was termed a gull, and the trick also.
In that disputed passage in "The Tempest" (ii. 2), where Caliban,
addressing Trinculo, says:

"sometimes I'll get thee
Young scamels from the rock."

some think that the sea-mew, or sea-gull, is inten