A jeer for those who lose the calves of their legs. He looks as angry as if he was vexed.-Irish.

A Scotch warming-pan.

A wench. In explanation of this phrase, Ray has the following note: "The story is well known of the gentleman travelling in Scotland, who, desiring to have his bed warmed, the servant-maid

doffs her clothes, and lays herself down in it awcot

land they have neither bellows, warming-pan, nor

of

office."-Edition, 1768, p. 65. It is hardly necessary to remark, that the state of things on the other side the Tweed has greatly improved since the time of Ray, and that Scotland is now distinguished for refinement and delicacy its capital even styled the "modern Athens."

A Welch ejectment.- Welch.

A legal process, by which an obnoxious tenant is driven out, by taking off the doors, windows, roof, &c.

The fragrance of sanctity.-Spanish.

Water bewitched.

Small beer.

He has been in the sun.

Got drunk.

That was laid on with a trowel.

A great lie.

He's blown up.

A bankrupt

She's like a cat, she'll play with her tail.

He'll dress an egg, and give the offal to the poor.

To bear away the bell.

A golden bell was formerly the prize of victory at races and other

sports.

The belly thinks the throat out.

To bite upon the bridle.

Welchman's hose,

According to Archdeacon Nares, is equivalent to the breeches of a Highlander, or the dress of a naked Pict; upon the presumption that Welchmen wear no hose.

"The laws we did interpret, and statutes of the land,

Not truly by the text, but newly by a glose:

And words that were most plaine, when they by us were skan'd,
We turned by construction to a Welchman's hose."

To wash a blackamoor white.

Blindman's holiday.

To come bluely off.

He is true blue, he'll never stain.

Mirror for Magistrates.

Coventry had formerly the réputation for dying blues, so much, that true blue came to be a proverb, signifying one that is always the same. Blue was formerly a colour appropriated to the dresses of servants and persons in low life :

"You proud varlets, you need not be ashamed to wear blue, when your master is one of your fellows."

Honest Whore.

It was also the colour of beadles; whence they came in for the appellation of blue-bottle. It is now applied to a certain party in politics.

There is a bone for you to pick.

The fire-side bettle.Guelic.

He knows which side his bread is buttered.

His eyes are like two burnt holes in a blanket.-Irish.

A Cuckold.

Dr. Johnson, Horne Tooke, Todd, and Archdeacon Nares, seem to agree in deriving this word from cuckoo; but, as Howell remarked two centuries ago, it more properly belongs to the adulterer, the cuckoo being well known to be a bird that deposits its eggs in other birds' nests. The Romans used cuculus in its proper sense as adulterer, calling, with equal propriety, the cuckold himself carruca, or "hedge-sparrow," which bird is known to

adopt the other's spurious offspring. In French, German, and Italian, the name of cuckoo has evidently been derived from the uniformity of its note; and in all these languages it is applied, in the same reproachful sense, to one whose wife has been unfaithful. Shakspeare says,

"There have been,

Or I am much deceiv'd, cuckolds ere now;

And many a man there is, ev'n at this present,

Now while I speak this, holds his wife by the arm,

That little thinks she has been sluic'd in's absence."

This unfortunate class of mortals are unhappy two ways; first, they are branded with an appellation which clearly does not belong to them; secondly, they have to bear, without redress, (except occasionally a little solid pudding in the shape of damages) the scorn and infamy of a crime which others have committed. "Ever since the reign of King Charles II." says Swift, "the alderman is made a cuckold, the deluded virgin is debauched, and adultery and fornication are committed behind the scenes."

His bread is buttered on both sides.

A chip of the old block.

He's in the cloth market.
In bed.

To carry coals to Newcastle..

This common and, one would suppose, local proverb, is quoted by D'Israeli, to show that scarcely any remarkable saying can be considered national, but that every one has some type or correspondent idea in other languages. In this instance, the Persians have, "To carry pepper to Hindostan;" the Hebrews, "To carry oil to a city of olives;" which is exactly the same idea, clothed in oriental metaphor.

To burn day light.

Mercutio gives a full explanation of this phrase:

"Come, we burn daylight, ho!"

Rom. Nay, that's not so. Merc. I mean, sir, in delay,
We waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day."

To work for a dead horse.

Rom. and Jul. 1. 4.

To play the dog in the manger; not eat yourself, nor let another eat.

A dog's life-hunger and ease.

To dine with duke Humphrey.

Those were said to dine with duke Humphrey, who, having no din

ner to eat, walked out the dinner hour in the body of St. Paul's church, where, it was erroneously believed, the duke was buried. The old church of St. Paul's was the exchange of former times, and a constant place of resort for business and amusement. Advertisements were fixed up there, bargains made, servants hired, and politics discussed.

To eat the calf in the cow's belly.

To make both ends meet.

Fair play is a jewel; don't pull my hair.
He pins his faith on another man's sleeve.
All is fish that comes to his net.

The Blackguard.

Originally a jocular name given to the lowest menials of the court, the carriers of coals and wood, turnspits, and labourers in the scullery, who followed the court in its perambulations, and thus became observed. Such is the origin of this common term.

I have other fish to fry.

'Tis a folly to fret; grief's no comfort.

Out of the frying-pan into the fire.

Go farther and fare worse.

He cannot say bo to a goose.

A rogue in grain.

It is related that a Welch curate in the Isle of Grain, on the borders of Kent, went stark mad, through the force of drink, and was sorely teased by his flock; by the young fry, especially. "Rogues," said the indignant Taffey," are to be found in all parishes, but my parishioners are Rogues in Grain !”

You hált before you are lame.

All bring grist to your mill.

To live from hand to mouth.

I'll pledge you.

An expression derived from the times when the Danes bore sway in England. The old manner of pledging was thus: the person who was going to drink, asked the person who sat next him if he would pledge him? on which, he answering he would, held up a knife, or sword, to guard him whilst he drank: for, such was the revengeful ferocity of the Danes, that they would often

stab a native, with a knife or dagger, while in the act of drinking. From this originated the custom of drinking healths.

A Yorkshire tike.

A tike here means a clown. Tike generally means, in the Yorkshire dialect, a great dog.

We don't gather figs from thistles.

To harp upon the same string.

Riding the Stang.

A custom I have often seen practised in the North of England, and, in fact, assisted in; is when a woman has beaten her husband, and one rides upon a stang or long pole, where he proclaims, like a herald, the woman's name, and the nature of her misde

meanor.

Too hasty to be a parish clerk.

To hit the nail on the head.

Hobson's choice.

A man is said to have Hobson's choice, when he must either take what is left him, or none at all. Hobson was was a noted carrier in Cambridge in King James's time, who, by carrying and grazing, raised himself to a great estate, and did much good in the town, relieving the poor, and building a public conduit in the market place. It does not appear how the proverb arose; but, I think, I have read somewhere, it originated in the way Hobson let out his horses, compelling his customers to choose that next the stable door, and no other.

To hold with the hare, and run with the hounds.

By hook or by crook.

By one way or another. The phrase is very ancient, and erroneously ascribed to two learned judges in the time of Charles I., Hooke and Crooke; implying that a difficult cause was to be got either by Hooke or Crooke-by Brougham or Scarlet. Warton, however, has shewn that the phrase is of older date, and occurs twice in Spenser, and once in Skelton.

See, how we apples swim !

To have a January chick.

To have children in old age.

Give him an inch and he'll take an ell.

Better known than trusted.

Help the lame dog over the style.