"All which things being much admirable, yet this is most, that they are so profitable; bringing vnto man both honey and wax, each so wholesome that we all desire it, both so necessary that we cannot misse them."—Euphues and his England.

 
"I will have honest valiant souls about me;
I cannot miss thee."
 

Beaumont and Fletcher, The Mad Lover, Act II. Sc. 1.

 
"The blackness of this season cannot miss me."
 

The second Maiden's Tragedy, Act V. Sc. 1.

"All three are to be had, we cannot miss any of them."—Bishop Andrewes, "A Sermon prepared to be preached on Whit Sunday, A.D. 1622," Library of Ang.-Cath. Theology, vol. iii. p. 383.

"For these, for every day's dangers we cannot miss the hand."—"A Sermon preached before the King's Majesty at Burleigh, near Oldham, A.D. 1614," Id., vol. iv. p. 86.

"We cannot miss one of them; they be necessary all."—Id., vol. i. p. 73.

It is hardly necessary to occupy further room with more instances of so familiar a phrase, though perhaps it may not be out of the way to remark, that miss is used by Andrewes as a substantive in the same sense as the verb, namely, in vol. v. p. 176.: the more usual form being misture, or, earlier, mister. Mr. Halliwell, in his Dictionary, most unaccountably treats these two forms as distinct words; and yet, more unaccountably, collecting the import of misture for the context, gives it the signification of misfortune!! He quotes Nash's Pierce Pennilesse; the reader will find the passage at p. 47. of the Shakspeare Society's reprint. I subjoin another instance from vol. viii. p. 288. of Cattley's edition of Foxe's Acts and Monuments:

"Therefore all men evidently declared at that time, both how sore they took his death to heart; and also how hardly they could away with the misture of such a man."

In Latin, desidero and desiderium best convey the import of this word.

To buckle, bend or bow. Here again, to their great discredit be it spoken, the editors of Shakspeare (Second Part of Hen. IV., Act I. Sc. 1.) are at fault for an example. Mr. Halliwell gives one in his Dictionary of the passive participle, which see. In Shakspeare it occurs as a neuter verb:

 
"… And teach this body,
To bend, and these my aged knees to buckle,
In adoration and just worship to you."
 

Ben Jonson, Staple of News, Act II. Sc. 1.

"For, certainly, like as great stature in a natural body is some advantage in youth, but is but burden in age: so it is with great territory, which, when a state beginneth to decline, doth make it stoop and buckle so much the faster."—Lord Bacon, "Of the True Greatness of Great Britain," vol. i. p. 504. (Bohn's edition of the Works).

And again, as a transitive verb:

"Sear trees, standing or felled, belong to the lessee, and you have a special replication in the book of 44 E. III., that the wind did but rend them and buckle them."—Case of Impeachment of Waste, vol. i. p. 620.

On the hip, at advantage. A term of wrestling. So said Dr. Johnson at first; but, on second thoughts, referred it to venery, with which Mr. Dyce consents: both erroneously. Several instances are adduced by the latter, in his Critique of Knight and Collier's Shakspeare; any one of which, besides the passage in The Merchant of Venice, should have confuted that origin of the phrase. The hip of a chase is no term of woodman's craft: the haunch is. Moreover, what a marvellous expression, to say, A hound has a chase on the hip, instead of by. Still more prodigious to say, that a hound gets a chase on the hip. One would be loth to impute to the only judicious dramatic commentator of the day, a love of contradiction as the motive for quarrelling with Mr. Collier's note on this idiom. To the examples alleged by Mr. Dyce, the three following may be added; whereof the last, after the opinion of Sir John Harington, rightly refers the origin of the metaphor to wrestling:

"The Divell hath them on the hip, he may easily bring them to anything."—Michael and the Dragon, by D. Dike, p. 328. (Workes, London, 1635).

"If he have us at the advantage, on the hip as we say, it is no great matter then to get service at our hands."—Andrewes, "A Sermon preached before the King's Majesty at Whitehall, 1617," Library of Ang.-Cath. Theology, vol. iv. p. 365.

 
"Full oft the valiant knight his hold doth shift,
And with much prettie sleight, the same doth slippe;
In fine he doth applie one speciall drift,
Which was to get the Pagan on the hippe:
And hauing caught him right, he doth him lift,
By nimble sleight, and in such wise doth trippe:
That downe he threw him, and his fall was such,
His head-piece was the first that ground did tuch."
Sir John Harington's Translation of Orlando
 

Furioso, Booke xlvi. Stanza 117.

In some editions, the fourth line is printed "namely to get," &c., with other variations in the spelling of the rest of the stanza.

W. R. Arrowsmith.

(To be continued.)

LORD COKE

Turning over some old books recently, my attention was strongly drawn to the following:

"The Lord Coke, his Speech and Charge, with a Discouerie of the Abuses and Corruptions of Officers. 8vo. Lond. N. Butter, 1607."

This curious piece appears to have been published by one R. P. ¹, who describes himself, in his dedication to the Earl of Exeter, as a "poore, dispised, pouertie-stricken, hated, scorned, and vnrespected souldier," of which there were, doubtless, many in the reign of James the Pacific. Lord Coke, in his address to the jury at the Norwich Assizes, gives an account of the various plottings of the Papists, from the Reformation to the Gunpowder Treason, to bring the land again under subjection to Rome, and characterises the schemes and the actors therein as he goes along in the good round terms of an out-and-out Protestant. He has also a fling at the Puritans, and all such as would disturb the church and hierarchy as by law established. But the most remarkable part of the book is that which comes under the head of "A Discouerie of the Abuses and Corruption of Officers;" and believing an abstract might interest your readers, and furnish the antiquary with a reference, I herewith present you with a list of the officials and others whom my Lord Coke recommends the Jurie to present, assuring them, at the same time, that "by God's grace they, the offenders, shall not goe unpunished for their abuses; for we have," says he, "a COYFE, which signifies a scull, whereby, in the execution of justice, wee are defended against all oppositions, bee they never so violent."

1. The first gentleman introduced by Lord Coke to the Norwich jury is the Escheator, who had power to demand upon what tenure a poor yeoman held his lands, and is an officer in great disfavour with the judge. He gives some curious instances of his imposition, and concludes by remarking that, for his rogueries, he were better described by striking away the first syllable of his name, the rest truly representing him a cheator.

2. The Clarke of the Market comes in for his share of Lord Coke's denouncements. "It was once," he says, "my hap to take a clarke of the market in his trickes; but I aduanst him higher than his father's sonne, by so much as from the ground to the toppe of the pillorie" for his bribery.

3. "A certaine ruffling officer" called a Purveyor, who is occasionally found purveying money out of your purses, and is therefore, says Lord Coke, "on the highway to the gallowes."

4. As the next officer is unknown in the present day, I give his character in extenso:

"There is also a Salt-peter-man, whose commission is not to break vp any man's house or ground without leaue. And not to deale with any house, but such as is vnused for any necessarie imployment by the owner. And not to digge in any place without leauing it smooth and leuell: in such case as he found it. This Salt-peter-man vnder shew of his authoritie, though being no more than is specified, will make plaine and simple people beleeue, that hee will without their leaue breake vp the floore of their dwelling house, vnlesse they will compound with him to the contrary. Any such fellow, if you can meete with all, let his misdemenor be presented, that he may be taught better to vnderstand his office: For by their abuse the country is oftentimes troubled."

5. There is another troublesome fellow called a Concealor, who could easily be proved no better than a cosioner, and whose pretensions are to be resisted.

6. A Promoter, generally both a beggar and a knave. This is the modern informer, "a necessarie office," says Lord Coke, "but rarely filled by an honest man."

7. The Monopolitane or Monopolist; with these the country was overrun in James' reign. "To annoy and hinder the public weale, these for their own benefit have sold their lands, and then come to beggarie by a starch, vinegar, or aqua vitæ monopoly, and justly too," adds his lordship.

8. Lord Coke has no objection to those golden fooles, the Alcumists, so long as they keep to their metaphisicall and Paracelsian studies; but science is felony committed by any comixture to multiply either gold or silver; the alchymist is therefore a suspected character, and to be looked after by the jury.

9. Vagrants to be resolutely put down, the Statute against whom had worked well.

10. The stage-players find no favour with this stern judge, who tells the jury that as they, the players, cannot perform without leave, it is easy to be rid of them, remarking, that the country is much troubled by them.

11. Taverns, Inns, Ale-houses, Bowling Allies, and such like thriftless places of resort for tradesmen and artificers, to be under strict surveillance.

12. Gallants, or riotous young gents, to be sharply looked after, and their proceedings controlled.

13. Gentlemen with greyhounds and birding-pieces, who would elude the statutes against gunnes, to be called to account "for the shallow-brain'd idlenesse of their ridiculous foolery."

14. The statute against ryotous expence in apparel to be put in force against unthriftie infractors.

There is room here for a few Queries, but I content myself with asking for a further reference to No. 4., "The Salt-peter-man."

J. O.