mother's arms, is still used, and a child is sometimes said to noozle the nipple when the mother is nursing it. PILCHARD. Clown. No, indeed, sir; the lady Olivia has no folly she will keep no fool, sir, till she be married; and fools are as like husbands as pilchards are to herrings, the husbands the bigger."-Twelfth Night, iii., 1. This example is given to show Shakespeare's habits of minute observation and ready application. The difference in size and appearance between the two fish would escape the notice of a casual observer. The term pilchard seems often to have been used as a term of reproach—a proof that the writer could not have known the luxury of a fresh pilchard. "Valentine. Upbraid me with your benefits, you pilchers, You shotten-soul'd, slight fellows! Wit without Money, B. and F., iii., 4. "Clause. You shall not sink for ne'er a sous'd flap-dragon, For ne'er a pickled pilcher of 'em all, sir." Beggars' Bush, B. and F., iv., 1. "Clara. You dog-skin-fac'd rogue, pilcher, you poor-john." 66 Love's Cure, ii., 2. Dandyprat. Pilcher! thou'rt a most pitiful dried one." Blurt, Master Constable, i., 2. Bonduca, B. and F., ii., 3. "Caratach. Hang up poor pilchers." Fletcher, in the "Bloody Brother, or Rollo, Duke of Normandy,” ii., 2, makes the mistake of placing the pilchard subordinate to the herring. "Cook. And brave King Herring, with his oil and onion, Crown'd with a lemon peel, his way prepar'd With his strong guard of pilchers.” PLANCHED." Isabella. He hath a garden circummur'd with brick, Whose western side is with a vineyard back'd, And to that vineyard is a planched gate." Measure for Measure, iv., 1. A wooden floor is called the planching, and the room or passage is said to be planched. "She lev'd fall the cloam buzza 'pon the planchen, and scat it all to midgens and jouds ;” i.e., "She let the earthenware pan fall upon the floor, and broke it all to pieces." Plankan, in the old Cornish, is a plank. PRANKED. "Perdita. - your high self, The gracious mark o' the land, you have obscur'd Winter's Tale, iv., 3. "Sir Oliver Kite. I hope to see thee, wench, within these few years, Circled with children, pranking up a girl, And putting jewels in her little ears." A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, Middleton, iii., 3. A person dressed out fine is said in the West of England to be prinked out. PUN.-"Thersites. He would pun thee into shivers with his fist, as a sailor breaks his biscuit."-Troilus and Cressida, ii., 1. "I'll poam thee well," one countryman will say to another in Cornwall. SAGG. "The mind I sway by, and the heart I bear, Shall never sagg with doubt, nor shake with fear." To sagg is used for to hang down clumsily, or sink down; applied, for instance, to a bag, or anything hanging in folds, as a curtain or a dress. "This does not hang, or fit well; it saggs." SCULL.- (6 anon, he's there afoot, Before the belching whale." Troilus and Cressida, v., 5. This term is usually applied to pilchards, which generally approach the shore in very large masses, that in Cornwall are called scools, or scoles. SLIVER." There on the pendant boughs her coronet weeds Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke." "Gall of goat and slips of yew, Sliver'd in the moon's eclipse." Hamlet, iv., 7. Macbeth, iv., 1. Sliver is used as a slice, or more properly a slip or splinter, and also as a verb, to cut or divide into splinters. SOME." I have three daughters; the eldest is eleven, The second, and the third, nine, and some five." Winter's Tale, ii., 1. "Accord The same form is occasionally used in the West. ing to my censure, there were twenty or some (i.e., about twenty) up to Bâl" (i,e., the mine). SOUSE. This word is found in the old dramatic writers, applied to the action of a bird sousing on its prey, as— "So ho ho! through the skies How the proud bird flies, And sousing, kills with a grace." The Sun's Darling, Ford and Dekker, iii., 2. In the West, it is used in the sense of speaking out plainly, or doing a thing in earnest, as well as falling down; as "I tould em the whole coose of et down souse.”. "She fall'd down souse 'pon the planchen." SQUINY.-"Lear. I remember thine eyes well enough: This word is used for one looking askance, or under the eyelids, as it is called, a kind of magpie-ish look. "I don't like she, she do squiny so." STICKLER." The dragon wing of night o'erspreads the earth, And stickler-like, the armies separates." Troilus and Cressida, v., 9. Young Forrest. “ 'tis not fit That ev'ry prentice should with his shop-club Fortune by Land and Sea, i., 4. The umpires or managers of a wrestling-match are to this day called sticklers. TILLY-VALLEY.-" Am not I consanguineous? am not I of her blood? Tilly-valley! lady!"-Twelfth Night, ii., 3. The expression occurs also in other plays, and is said to have been a favourite with the lady of Sir Thomas More. Skelton also uses it "Tully valy, strawe, let be, I say! Gup, Cristian Clowte, gup, Jak of the vale! With Manerly Margery Mylk and Ale.” Some have derived the term from an old French hunting cry. It is not used in the present Cornish dialect, but may be found a few times in a piece written in the old Cornish language, called "The Creation of the World," a mystery, or play, in the style of those of Coventry and Chester. This piece, however, was written about the year 1611 by one William Jordan of Helstone, and the term therefore may have been introduced by him; and it does not appear in the old compositions in the Cornish tongue: the expression occurs as a sort of ejaculation of impatience. 66 Tely caly, bram an gath." which is modestly translated "Tittle tattle, the wind of a cat." UPRISING." Cleremont. God keep my wife and all my issue female From such uprisings !" The Noble Gentleman, B. and F., i., 1. This term is still used for the churching of women. WILLIAM SANDYS. Devonshire Street, 19th December, 1846. |