first as touching the auncientie of the people, the site and limits of the kingdome, then the heads, courses, mouthes, or issues, and strange wonders of Nilus. Holland's Ammianus Marcellinus. AUNT. A cant term for a woman of bad character, either prostitute or procuress.

The lark that tirra-lirra chaunts

With, hey! with, hey! the thrush and the jay,
Are summer songs for me and my aunts,
While we lie tumbling in the hay,

W Tale, iv, 2. Also Mids., ii, 1.
To call you one o' mine aunts, sister, were as good as
to call you arrant whore.
O. Pl., iii, 260.
Naming to him one of my aunts, a widow by Fleet-
ditch, her name is Mistress Gray, and keeps divers
gentlewomen lodgers.
O. Pl., vii, 410.
And was it not then better bestowed upon his uncle,
than upon one of his aunts? I need not say bawd, for
every one knows what aunt stands for in the last
translation. Middleton's Trick to catch the Old One, ii, 1.

Aunt was also the customary appellation addressed by a jester or fool, to a female of matronly appearance; as uncle was to a man. This appears in the justice's personification of a fool, Barth. Fair, act ii, 1, where he by no means intends to provoke the old lady, nor does she take offence. See UNCLE.

AVOID, v. n. To go, depart, or retire: as in the translation of the Bible, 1 Sam. xviii, 11.

Let us avoid.

W. Tale, i, 2. Thou basest thing, avoid, hence from my sight. Cym., i, 2.

Saw not a creature stirring, for all the people were avoyded and withdrawen Holinshed.

+Master Lieutenant gives a straite commaund, The people be avoyded from the bridge.

The Play of Sir Thomas More, p. 87.

+ Moreover 'tis a handkerchiefes high place

To be a scavenger unto the face,

To clense it cleane from sweat and excrements,
Which (not avoyded) were unsavory scents;
And in our griefes it is a trusty friend,
For in our sorrow it doth comfort lend.

Taylor's Workes, 1680.

AVOUCH, 8. Proof; testimony.

Before my God, I might not this believe
Without the sensible and true avouch
Of mine own eyes.

Ham., i, 1.

Shakespeare uses avouchment also. AVOURE, 8. Confession; acknowledgment.

He bad him stand t' abide the bitter stowre

Of his sore vengeance, or to make avoure
Of the lewd words and deeds, which he had done.
Sp. F. Q., VI, iii, 48.

AVOURY, 8. An old law term, nearly equivalent to justification. Not exemplified in Johnson.

Therefore away with these avouries: let God alone be
our avourie, what have we to doe to runne hither and
thither, but onely to the Father of heaven?
Latimer, Serm., f. 81, b.
+When Troy was destroyed by the Greekes, and most

of their nobilitie slaine, Aeneas beeing sonne to prince

Anchises, and begotten of Venus, a man of most valiant courage and vertue (after great slaughter made on his enemies) was forced to flee his country, and

sea.

taking with him his images and gods, whom he then worshipt for his avouries, withdrew himselfe to the Virgil, by Phaer, 1600. AVOUTRY. See ADVOWTRY. +AUSPICATE. Auspicious.

They puffed up (as their usuall manner was) the emperour, of his owne nature too high minded, ascribing whatsoever was in the world fortunatly exploited, unto his auspicate direction and happie government. Holland's Ammianus Marcellinus.

Austria. The French

+AUSTRICH.
form of the name.

Where it on Italy doth next confine, Closing with Hungary, doth Austrich rest: Renowned Austrich, whose prince-branching line Stretcht through the yielding and declining west. Zouche's Dove, or Passages of Cosmography. AUTEM MORT. Cant language, a married woman. Jovial Crew. AUTHENTIC, seems to have been the proper epithet for a physician regularly bred or licensed. The diploma of a licentiate runs "authenticè licen tiatus." So says Dr. Musgrave, on the following passage:

To be relinquished of Galen and Paracelsus-
And all the learned and authentic fellows.

All's Well that ends W., ii, 3.

The accurate Jonson also uses it, in the person of Puntarvolo, who, though pompous, is not incorrect:

Or any other nutriment that by the judgment of the most authentical physicians, where I travel, shall be thought dangerous. Every Man out of H., iv, 4. To AUTHOR. To be the cause or author of. Frequently used by Chap

man.

And charge ingloriously my flight, when such an overthrow

Of brave friends I have author'd. Chapman, I., ii, 99. AUTHORIZE. This accentuation was anciently prevalent.

One quality of worth or virtue in him
That may authorize him to be a censurer
Of me, or of my manners.

B. & Fl. Spanish Curate, act. i, sc. 1.
All men make faults, and even I in this
Authorizing thy trespass with compare.

Sh. Sonnet, 35.

AUTOR. An author; a beginner.

The serpent autor was, Eve did proceed:
Adam not autor, auctor was indeed.

Owen's Epigrams. To AWAY WITH, v. To bear with. It seems originally to have meant, to go away contented with such a person or thing.

She could never away with me. 2 Hen. IV, iii, 2.
Of all nymphs i' the court I cannot away with her.
B. Jon. Cynth. Revels, iv, 5.
And do not bring your eating player with you there:
I cannot away with him.
Poetaster, iii, 4.

I cannot away with an informer.

Cure for a Cuckold, sig. F. Away the mare, i. e., begone. Adew, sweteharte, Christe geve the care! Adew to the, dewll! Away the mare!

MS. Corp. Christ. Coll. Cantab., 168.

To the gentlemen readers that understand a B from a
battledoor.
Ibid., Dedic. to Odcomb's Compl.
+Againe, I affirme that thus being no scholler, but a
simple honest dunce, as I am, that cannot say B to a
battledore, it is very presumptuously done of me to
offer to hey-passe and repasse it in print so.

King's Halfepennyworth of Wit, 1613, ded. +Neque natare neque literas novit: hee knoweth not a B from a battle-dore.

Withals' Dictionary, ed. 1634, p. 567. BABIES IN THE EYES. The miniature reflection of himself which a person sees in the pupil of another's eye, on looking closely into it, was sportively called by our ancestors a little boy or baby, and made the subject of many amorous allusions. Thus Drayton :

But Q, see, see we need enquire no further,

Upon your lips the scarlet drops are found,
And in your eye the boy that did the murder. Idea 2.
Thus also an anonymous writer, in an
ode which Mr. Ellis inserted in his
beautiful compilation from the old
English poets:

In each of her two crystal eyes
Smileth a naked boy;

It would you all in heart suffice
To see that lamp of joy.

Specimens, 1st ed., p. 7. Quoted also by Warton, Hist. P., iii, 48.

And Herrick :

Or those babies in your eyes, In their christall nunneries.

P. 138. Also p. 150.

Shakespeare is supposed to have alluded to this notion in the following passage:

as

Joy had the like conception in our eyes, And, at that instant, like a babe sprung up. Timon of Ath., i, 2. As it requires a very near approach to discern these little images, poets make it an employment of lovers to look for them in each other's eyes. See To LOOK BABIES, &c. BABION, or BABIAN, the same BAVIAN. A baboon. "Our old writers,' says Mr. Gifford, "spell this word in many different ways; all derived, however, from bavaan, Dutch." He adds, "We had our knowledge of this animal from the Hollanders, who found it in great numbers at the Cape." Note on the following passage.

I am neither your minotaur, nor your centaur, nor your satyr, nor your hyæna, nor your babion. B. Jon. Cynthia's Revels, i, 1.

See BAVIAN.

Of all the rest, that most resembles man,
Was an o'ergrown ill-favourd babian.

Drayt. Moonc., p. 500.

For which he afterwards uses baboon, as equivalent. See p. 503.

Out dance the babioun. B. Jons. Epigr., 280. In the reprint of Marston's Satires by J. Bowle (1764) we read,

Fond affectation

Sat. ix, b. 3, p. 218.

Befits an ape, and mumping babilon. This error arose from ignorance of the word babion. Omit the 1 in babilon, and all is right.

Befits an ape, and mumping babion.
+And is it possible so divine a goddesse
Should fall from heaven to wallow here in sin
With a babion as this is?

Randolph's Jealous Lovers, 1646.

BABLE, the same as BAUBLE, q. v. In the edition of Drayton's Works printed in 1753, 8vo, this word is ignorantly changed to Babel.

Which with much sorrow brought into my mind
Their wretched souls, so ignorantly blind,
When ev'n the great'st things in the world unstable,
That climb to fall, and damn them for a bable.

The Owl, Drayt., vol. iv, p. 1290.
Mean while, my Mall, think thou it's honourable
To be my foole, and I to be thy bable.

Harring. Epig., ii, 96.

†BABLE, adj. Empty; chattering;
frivolous. As a n. s., idle talk; in
which sense the word bablery was
also used, and babblement. It seems
to be only another form of bauble,
and was also used to signify glass or
metal ornaments of dress.
Languard, babillard. A babbler: a pratler: a tatler:
one that is full of vaine talke.
Nomenclator, 1585.

I list not write the bable praise
Of apes, or owles, or popinjaies,
Or of the cat Grimmalkin.

Taylor's Workes, 1630. That woorthie Booke of Martyrs made by that famous father and excellent instrument in God his church, maister John Fox, so little to be accepted and all other good books little or nothing to be reverenced; whilst other toyes, fantasies, and bableries, wherof the world is ful, are suffered to be printed.

"Stubbes' Anatomie of Abuses. The word babelavant, which occurs in the following passage of the Chester Plays, is probably from the same

source.

Sir Cayphas, harcken nowe to me,
This babelavante our kinge woulde be;
Whatsoever he sayes nowe before thee,
I harde hym saye full yore

That prince he was of such postee,
Destroye the temple well mighte he,
And bulde it up in dayes three,
Righte as it was before.

BACCARE. A cant word, meaning, go back, used in allusion to a proverbial saying, "Backare, quoth Mortimer to his sow;" probably made in ridicule of some man who affected a knowledge of Latin without having it, and who

produced his Latinized English words on the most trivial occasions.

Saving your tale, Petruchio, I pray

Let us, that are poor petitioners, speak too:
Baccare! you are marvellous forward.

Tam. Shr., ii, 1.

The masculine gender is more worthy than the feminine. Therefore, Licio, backare. Lyly, Mydas, v, 2.

Thy father made an asse off, wilt thou goe? And I in triumph riding on his back. The Wizard, a Play, 1610. + Back bear, an old term of forest law. Back beare is, where any man hath slaine a wild beast in the forrest, and is found carying away of the same, this the old forresters do call back beare.

Manwood's Treatise of the Lawes of the Forrest, 1598.

Poems, p. 34.

Shall I consume myself, to restore him now; Nay Backare, quoth Mortimer to his sow. Upon this proverb the same author made several things that he called epigrams. This word was unpropitious to the conjecturing critics, who would have changed it to Baccalare, an Italian term of reproach. BACHELOR'S BUTTON.

A flower; the campion, or lychnis sylvestris of Johnson's Gerard, p. 472.

Now the similitude that these floures have to the jagged cloath buttons, antiently worne in this kingdom, gave occasion to our gentlewomen and other lovers of floures in those times, to call them bachelor's buttons.

Loc. cit.

Supposed, by country people, formerly, to have some magical effect upon the fortunes of lovers. [They practised a sort of divination with them, to try whether they should marry their mistresses or not.] Perhaps alluded to in this passage:

Master Fenton,he will carry't, he will carry't: 'tis
in his buttons, he will carry't.
Mer. W., iii, 2.

It seems to have grown into a phrase for being unmarried, "to wear bachelors buttons," in which probably a quibble was intended:

He wears bachelors buttons, does he not?

Heyw. Fair Maid of the West. [Bachelors' buttons are described as having been sometimes worn also by the young women.]

+Thereby I saw the batchelors' buttons, whose virtue is to make wanton maidens weepe when they have worne it forty weekes under their aprons, for a favour.

Greene's Quip for an Upstart Courtier, 1620.

BACK AND EDGE, phr. for completely, entirely; the back and the edge being nearly the whole of some instruments.

By the influence of a white powder, which has wrought
so powerfully on their tender pulse, that they have
engaged themselves ours, back and edge.
Lady Alimony, act iii, sign. II, 1.

+To set one's back up, to provoke his indignation.

That word set my back up, and I said, As master had not brib'd to be close, so I hop'd he would not betray Dame Huddle's Letter, 1710.

his trust.

+To ride on one's back, to deceive him successfully.

p. 123, is one "to the tune of the new French dance called backnal.” BACKRACK, or BACKRAG. A sort of German wine, sometimes mentioned with Rhenish. The name is corrupted from that of the place of its growth. In a modern book of travels I find the following account:

The finest flavour is communicated by soils either argillaceous or marly. Of this sort is a mountain near Bacharach, the wines of which are said to have a muscadine flavour, and to be so highly esteemed, that an emperor, in the fourteenth century, demanded four large barrels of them, instead of 10,000 florins, which the city of Nuremberg would have paid for its privileges. Mrs. Radcliffe's Journey in 1794. Also in Dr. Ed. Brown's Travels, 16×7: On the 19th we came to Baccharach, or ad Bacchi aras, belonging to the elector palatine; a place famous for excellent wines.

P. 117.

I'll go afore, and have the bon-fire made,
My fireworks, and flap-dragons, and good backrack,
With a peck of little fishes, to drink down
In healths to this day. B. & Fl. Beg. Bush, v, 2.
I'm for no tongues but dry'd ones, such as will
Give a fine relish to my backrag.

City Match, O. Pl., ix, 282. A beautiful view of Bacharach is given in some late views on the Rhine. BADDER, from bad. This analogous, but unauthorised comparative, is used by Lyly, in his preface to Euphues. But as it is, it may be better, and were it badder, it is not the worst. Euph., B. 1, b. Mr. Todd found baddest, in Sir E. Sandys.

BADGE. In the time of Shakespeare, &c., all the servants of the nobility wore silver badges on their liveries, on which the arms of their masters were engraved. To this Shakespeare alludes in the following passage:

To clear this spot by death, at least I give
A badge of fame to slander's livery.

Rape of Lucrece, p. 534.
The colour of the coat was universally
blue, which made this further distinc-
tion necessary.
See BLUE.

A blue coat with a badge does better with you. Gr. Tu Quoque. O. Pl., vii, 33. That is, a servant's dress. It was also called a cognizance; and vulgarly corrupted into cullisen. See CULLISEN. Attending on him he had some five men; their cognizance, as I remember, was a peacocke without a tayle. Greene's Quip, Harl. Misc., v, p. 412.