My wife cries five loaves a penny; i. e. She is in travail. 'Tis good fish, if it were but caught.

It is spoken of any considerable good that one hath not, but talks more of, sues for, or endeavours after. A future good, which is to be catched, if a man can, is but little worth.

Fo-morrow morning I found an horse-shoe.

The fox was sick, and he knew not where:

He clapp'd his hand on his tail, and swore it was there.
That which one most forehets soonest comes to pass.

Quod quisque vitet nusquam, homini satis cantum est in horas. Hor.
Look to him, gaoler; there's a frog in the stocks.
He frets like gumm'd taffety.

To give one the go-by.
The
way to be gone

G.

is not to stay here.

Good goose, do not bite.

'Tis a sorry goose that will not baste herself.

I care no more for it than a goose-t-d for the Thames.

Let him set up shop on Goodwin's sands.

This is a piece of country wit; there being an equivoque in the word Goodwin, which is a surname, and also signifies gaining wealth.

He would live in a gravel-pit.

Spoken of a wary, sparing, niggardly person.

This growed by night.

Spoken of a crooked stick or tree, it could not see to grow.

Great doings at Gregory's; heat the oven twice for a custard. He that swallowed a gudgeon.

He hath swore desperately, viz. to that which there is a great presump tion is false: swallowed a false oath.

The devil's guts. i. e. The surveyor's chain.

A good fellow lights his candle at both ends.

God help the fool, quoth Pedley.

This Pedley was a natural fool himself, and yet had usually this expression in his mouth. Indeed, none are more ready to pity the folly of others, than those who have but a small measure of wit themselves.

H.

His hair grows through his hood.

He is very poor; his hood is full of holes.

You have a handsome head of hair; pray give me a tester. When spendthrifts come to borrow money, they commonly zsher in their

errand with some frivolous discourse in commendation of the person thoy would borrow of, or some of his parts or qualities: the same may be said of beggars.

A handsome-bodied man in the face.

Hang yourself for a pastime.

If I be hang'd, I'll choose my gallows.
A king Harry's face.

Better have it than hear of it.

To take heart of grace.

To be hide-bound.

This was a hill in king Harry's days.

To be loose in the hilts.

Hit or miss for a cow-heel.

A hober-de-hoy; half a man and half a boy. According to Grose, Hobbety-hoy.

May not this be a corruption from the Spanish Hombre de hoy? A man of to-day.

Hold or cut cod-piece-point.

Hold him to it buckle and thong.

She's an holy-day dame.

You'll make honey of a dog's-t-d.
That horse is troubled with corns.

i. e. Foundered.

He hath eaten a horse, and the tail hangs out of his mouth.
He had better put his horns in his pocket than wind them.
There's but an hour in a day between a good house-wife and a
bad.

With a little more pains, she that flatters might do things neatly.
He came in hosed and shod.

He was born to a good estate. He came into the world as a bee into the hive; or into a house, or into a trade or employment.

I, J.

I AM not the first, and shall not be the last.

To be Jack in an office.

An inch an hour, a foot a day.

A basket justice, a jill justice, a good forenoon justice.
He'll do justice, right or wrong.

K.

THERE I caught a knave in a purse-net.

Knock under the board. He must do so that will not drink his

сир.

As good a knave I know, as a knave I know not.

A horse-kiss. A rude kiss, able to beat one's teeth out.

L.

His house stands on my lady's ground.

A long lane, and a fair wind, and always thy heels here away. Lasses are lads' leavings. Chesh.

In the east part of England, where they use the word mauther for a girl, they have a fond old saw of this nature, viz:-Wenches are tinkers' bitches, girls are pedlars' trulls, and modhdhers are honest men's daughters. He'll laugh at the wagging of a straw.

Neither lead nor drive. An untoward, unmanageable person. To play least in sight.

He has given him leg bail. 2. e. decamped.

To go as if dead lice dropped out of him.

He is so poor, lean, and weak, that he cannot maintain his lice.

Thou'lt lie all manner of colours but blue, and that is gone to the litting. i. e. dying.

Tell a lie, and find the troth.

Listeners never hear good of themselves.

To lie in bed, and forecast.

Sick of the Lombard fever, or of the idles.

She hath been at London to call a strea a straw, and a waw a wall. Chesh.

This the common people use in scorn of those who having been at London, are ashamed to speak their own country dialect.

She looked on me as a cow on a bastard calf. Somerset.
She lives by love and lumps in corners.

I love thee like pudding; if thou wert pie I would eat thee. Every one that can lick a dish; as much as to say, every one simpliciter, tag-rag and bobtail.

'Tis a lightening before death.

This is generally observed of sick persons, that a little before they die, their pains leave them, and their understanding and memory return t them; as a candle just before it goes out gives a great blaze.

The best dog leap the stile first. 2. e. Let the worthiest person take place.

You'd do well in lubberland, where they have half a crown a day for sleeping.

M.

MAXFIELD measure, heap and thrutch. i. e. thrust.

To find a mare's nest.

He's a man every inch of him.

Chesh.

A match, quoth Hatch, when he got his wife by the breech. A match, quoth Jack, when he kiss'd his dame.

All the matter's not in my lord judge's hand.

Let him mend his manners, it will be his own another day. He's metal to the back. A metaphor taken from knives and swords.

'Tis midsummer moon with you. i. e. you are mad.

To handle without mittens.

He was born in a mill. i. e. He's deaf.

Sampson was a strong man, yet could he not pay money before he had it.

Thou shalt have moon-shine in the mustard pot for it. i. e. Nothing.

Sick of the mulligrubs with eating chopped hay.

You make a muck-hill on my trencher, quoth the bride.

You carve me a great heap. I suppose some bride at first, thinking to speak elegantly and finely, might use that expression; and so it was taken up in drollery; or else it is only a droll, made to abuse country brides, affecting fine language.

This maid was born odd.

Spoken of a maid who lives to be old, and cannot get a husband.

N.

NIPENCE nopence, half a groat lacking twopence.
Would No I thank you had never been made.

His nose will abide no jests.

Doth your nose swell [or eek, i. e. itch] at that?

I had rather it had wrung you by the nose than me by the belly. i. e. a f—t.

'Tis the nature of the beast.

Q.

A SMALL officer.

Once out, and always out.

Old enough to lie without doors.

Old muck-hills will bloom.

Old man, when thou diest, give me thy doublet.

An old woman in a wooden ruff. i. e. In an antique dress. It will do with an onion.

To look like an owl in an ivy-bush.

To walk by owl-light.

He has a good estate, but that the right owner keeps it from him.

How do you after your oysters?

All one; but their meat goes two ways.

THERE's a pad in the straw.

As it pleases the painter.

P.

Mock no pannier-men, your father was a fisher.
Every pea hath its vease, and a bean fifteen.

A veaze, in Italian vescia, is crepitus ventris. So it signifies, peas are fatulent, but beans ten times more.

You may know by a penny how a shilling spends.

Peter of wood, church and mills are all his.

Go pipe at Padley, there's a pescod feast.

Chesh.

Some have it, Go pipe at Colston, &c. It is spoken in derision to people that busy themselves about matters of no concernment.

He has p-s'd his tallow.

This is spoken of bucks who grow lean after rutting time, and may be applied to men.

To piss down one's back. i. e. to flatter.

Such a reason piss'd my goose.

He plays you as fair as if he picked your pocket.

He has been seeking the placket.

If you be not pleased, put your hand in your pocket, and please yourself.

A jeering expression to such as will not be pleased with the reasonabie offers of others.

As plum as a jugglem ear. i. e. a quagmire. Devonsh.