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adulation."

Jack, as shown above, | †JACK-BRAG, or JACK-BRAGGER. was a common appellative for every A boaster. person or thing familiarly, or rather contemptuously, spoken of.

Katherine calls her music-master a twangling jack. Tam. of Shr., ii, 1; and so elsewhere.

The clock-house evidently means that part of the steeple, &c., which contains the clock. +JACK-IN-A-BOX.

1. A thief who deceived tradesmen by substituting empty boxes for others full of money. This Jacke-in-a-bore, or this divell in mans shape, wearing (like a player on a stage) good cloathes on his backe, comes to a goldsmiths stall, to a drapers, a habberdashers, or into any other shoppe, where he knowes good store of silver faces are to be seene.

Dekker, English Villanies, 1632.

2. A kind of fire-work described in White's Artificial Fireworks, 1708, p. 17.

3. In the following passage it perhaps means a child's toy, such are still in

use.

As I was thus walking my rounds, up comes a brother of the quill, belonging to the office, who no sooner made his entrance amongst the equitable fraternity, but up started every one in his seat, like a Jack in a box, crying out Legit aut non Legit; To which they answer'd themselves, Non legit, my lord.

Jacke Bragger and his fellow, a vaunter, a cracker,
&c.
Withals' Dictionarie, ed. 1608, p. 263.

+JACK-MEDDLER. A busybody.

A Jacke-medler, or busie-body in everie mans matter,
ardelio.
Withals' Dictionarie, ed. 1608, p. 263.
A showman's

+JACK-PUDDING.
buffoon.

I tell you, I had as leave stand among the rabble, to
see a jack-pudding eat a custard, as trouble myself to
see a play.
Shadwell, Sullen Lovers, 1670.
Now's the only time for fools and fiddlers, and indeed
all sorts of people that have nothing to do; for now
Bartholomew Fair approaches, where they may trifle
away their time amongst drolls and Jack-puddings,
and their money in nuts, toys, and gingerbread.
Poor Robin, 1740.

+JACKET. To line one's jacket, to
drink deeply.

Il s'accoustre bien. He stuffes himselfe soundly, hee lines his jacket throughly with liquor. Cotgrave. 4 JACOB'S STAFF. A pilgrim's staff; either from the frequent pilgrimages to St. James of Compostella, or because the Apostle St. James was usually represented with one.

As he had traveil'd many a sommer's day

Through boyling sands of Arabie and Ynd;
And in his hand a Jacob's staffe to stay

His weary limbs upon. Spens. F. Q., I, vi, 32. Also an astronomical instrument, called likewise a cross-staff; from its re

semblance to the other: The Infernal Wanderer, 1702.

+JACK-A-DANDY. A pert fellow.

Bea. I'll throw him into the dock, rather than he
shall succeed Jack O Dandy. Come, sir, all shall be
well again. Fear not. Brome's Northern Lass.
My love is blithe and bucksome,
And sweet and fine as can be,
Fresh and gay as the flowers in May,
And lookes like Jack-a-dandy.
Wit and Drollery, 1682, p. 342.
San. Nor any where else, where he was not to be
found; if you had look'd for him where he was, 'twas
ten to one but you had met with him.
Jacin. 1 had, Jackadandy?

The Mistake, a Comedy, 1706.

+JACK-ON-BOTH-SIDES. A popular

name for a neutral.

Reader, John Newter, who erst plaid
The Jack on both sides, here is laid.
Witts Recreations, 1654.

+JACK-OUT-OF-DOORS. A houseless

person.
Neque pessimus neque primus: not altogether Jack
out of doores, and yet no gentleman.

Withals' Dictionary, ed. 1634, p. 569.
+JACK-OUT-OF-OFFICE appears to
have been used, in derision, for one
who was no longer a jack-in-office.
For liberalitie, who was wont to be a principall officer
...is tourned Jacke out of office, and others appointed
to have the custodie.

Riche his Farewell to Militarie Profession, 1581. +Hanging-JACK. A jack for cooking. I met Spicer in Lincoln's Inn court, buying of a hanging-jack to roast birds upon. Pepys' Diary, Feb. 4th, 1660.

Resolve that with your Jacob's staff.

Hudibr., II, iii, 785. +Whereupon the poore prognosticator was readie to runne himselfe through with his Jacobs staffe. Nash, Pierce Penilesse, 1592. +His life is upright, for he is alwaies looking upward, yet dares beleeve nothing above primum mobile, for 'tis out of the reach of his Jacobs staffe.

Overbury's New and Choise Characters, 1615. Aur. Then Ile tell you. There was once an astrologer brought mad before me, the circulations of the heavens had turn'd his braines round, he had very strange fits, he would ever be staring, and gazing, and yet his eyes were so weake, they could not looke up without a staffe. Spr. A Jacobs staffe you meane?

Marmyon's Fine Companion, 1633.
+Who having known both of the land and sky,
More than fam'd Archimide, or Ptolomy,
Would further press, and like a palmer went,
With Jacobs staff, beyond the firmament.
Witts Recreations, 1654.

JACOB'S STONE. The stone which
was brought from Scone by Edward I,
reputed among the Scots to have been
the very stone which supported Jacob's
head at Luz; and regarded by them
as the palladium of the monarchy.
See Hume, an. 1296. It is still en-
closed in the coronation chair.

If I survive England's inheritance,
Or ever live to sit on Jacob's stone,
Thy love shall with my crown be hereditary.

Heywood's Royal K., &c., Anc. Dr., vi, 227. For a fuller history of this stone, see the accounts of Westminster Abbey,

and these Latin verses, which are, or were, inscribed upon the chair itself: Si quid habent veri vel chronica cana, fidesve, Clauditur hac cathedrá nobilis ecce lapis, Ad caput eximius Jacob quondam patriarcha Quem posuit, cernens numina mira poli, &c. JACOBITE. This word seems to be used for Jacobin, or white friar. To see poor sucklings welcom'd to the light, With searing irons of some soure Jacobite. Hall, Sat., iv, 7. +To JADE. To weary. Apparently a new word in lord Bacon's time.

For it is a dull thing to tire, and, as we now say, to jade anything too far. Essay xxxii. JADRY.

The properties of a bad or vicious horse; from jade, which in its primitive sense, as applied to a horse, is growing into disuse, though Pope has so applied it, which may keep it alive a little; but the usage is in general transferred to the metaphorical sense, as applied to a woman.

Seeks all foul means

Of boisterous and rough jadry, to disseat

His lord, that kept it bravely. Two Noble Kinsm., v, 4. JAKES. A necessary-house, or privy.

See

The chamber stinkes worse all the yeere long, than a jakes-farmer's clothes doth at twelve a clock at night.

Fennow on the Compter, in Censura Lit., x, p. 342. Called in Stowe a goung-fermour. London, ed. 1633, p. 666. See GOUNG. +JAMSEY.

Then have they nether-stockes to these gai hozen, not
of cloth (tho never so fine), for that is thought too
base, but of jamsey, worsted, crewell, silke, thred, and
such like.
Stubbs, Anatomie of Abuses.

A JANE.

A small coin of Genoa, or Janua; according to Skinner, "Exp. Halfpence of Janua, potius Genova, q. d. nummus Genuensis vel Januensis." Supposed to be the same as the galley halfpence mentioned by Stowe.

Because I could not give her many a Jane.
Spens. F. Q., III, vii, 58.
Chaucer more than once speaks of a
Jane in this sense. See Warton on
Spenser, vol. i, p. 245.
+JANIVEER. An old form of January.
Fr. Janvier.

Time sure hath wheel'd about his yeare,
December meeting Janiveere.

A term now almost forgotten, though To JAPE. used by Dryden and Swift. Johnson. Hence the quibbling title of sir John Harrington's tract, Metamorphosis of Ajax," by which he meant the improvement of a jakes. See AJAX.

The

Its etymology is uncertain, unless we accept the very bad pun of sir John, who derives it (in jest indeed) from an old man who, at such a place, cried out age akes, age akes, meaning that age causes aches; whence some who heard him called the place age akes, or a jakes. Prologue to Ajax. The delicacy of queen Elizabeth was much offended with him for publishing that book, which is now esteemed by collectors such a prize. Jakes was sometimes written iaxe, which made the punning allusion the more

easy.

Solomon, a Jew, fell inte a iare at Tewkesbury on a Saturday. Camden's Remains, p. 307. JAKES-FARMER. One who cleanses the jakes, jocularly called a goldfinder.

Nay we are all signiors here in Spain, from the jakes-
farmer to the grandee, or adelantado."
B. & Fl. Love's Cure, ii, 1.
Not scorning scullions, coblers, colliers,

Jakes-farmers, fidlers, ostlers, oysterers.
Sylvester's Tobacco Batter'd, Works, p. 575, a.

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Cleaveland, Char. of London Diurnall, 1647. To play, or jest. Nay jape not hym, he is no smal fole. Skelton, p. 236. It was used also in an indecent sense: Now have ye other vicious manners of speech, but sometimes and in some cases tolerable, and chiefly to the intent to moove laughter and to make sport, or to give it some prety strange grace; and is when we use such wordes as may be drawen to a foule and unshamefast sence, as oue that should say to a young woman, I pray you let me jape with you, which is indeed no more but let me sport with you. Yea, and though it were not so directly spoken, the very sounding of the word were not commendable, as he that in the presence of ladies would use this common proverbe:

Jape with me, but hurt me not,

Bourde with me, but shame me not. For it may be taken in another perverser sense by that sorte of persons that heare it, in whose eares no such matter ought almost to be called in memory. Puttenh. Art of English Poesie, B. iii, ch. 22.

JAPE. A jest.

I durst aventure wel the price of my best cap,
That when the end is knowen, all will turne to a jape.
Gammer Gurton, O. Pl., ù, 68.

To

The pilf'ring pastime of a crue of apes,
Sporting themselves with their conceited japes.
Coryat, Verses prefized, [k 7, b.]
JAR. To tick as a clock.

My thoughts are minutes, and, with sighs, they jar
Their watches, to mine eyes, the outward watch;
Whereto my finger, like a dial's point,
Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears.
Rich. II, v, 5.

The above is the reading of the second folio, and is sense without alteration or laborious explication: the reading of the old quartos serves as the best comment, which is,

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The meaning is, "They tick their which periods on, to my eyes, sent the outward watch;" watch signifying, as Dr. Johnson observed, in the first place a portion of time, and in the second the face of the clock.

The bells tolling, the owls shrieking, the toads croaking, the minutes jarring, and the clock striking twelve.

A JAR, from the above, a beat or stroke; the ticking made by the pallets of the pendulum in a clock.

It seems to be only a harsh metaphor,
hazarded in this place.
JAWSAND, adj. Apparently, a corrup-
tion of joysome or jocund.

F. Will you be merry then and jawsand? R. As
merry as the cuckows of the spring.
Ford, Sun's Darl., iii, 1.

The old edition has jawfand.

Spanish Tragedy, O. Pl., iii, 1994 JAY. Used for a loose woman, pro-
bably from the gay plumage of that
bird. Warburton remarks, that putta
in Italian has also both these senses.
Go to, then-we'll use this unwholesome humidity,
this gross watry pumpion;-we'll teach him to know
turtles from jays!
Merr. W. W., iii, 3.
Some jay of Italy,

Yet, good deed, Leontes,

I love thee not a jar o' the clock behind What lady she her lord.

Wint. Tale, i, 2.

+JARSEY. Wool combed but not spun into yarn.

By no meanes therefore is the present practice to be borne, which daily carrieth away of the finest sorts of wools ready combed into jarsies for worke, which they Golden Fleece, 1657. pack up as bales of cloth.

JAVEL.

A worthless fellow. Javelle in French means a sheaf of corn, and also a faggot of brush wood, or other worthless materials; and therefore might be applied to such fellows as Shakespeare calls "rash bavin wits.”

The term that these two jarels

Should render up a reckoning of their travels
Unto their master. Spens. Moth. Hubb. T., v. 309.
To preach by halfes is to be worse than those tongue-
holly javels,

That cite good words, but shift off works and discipline
by cavells. Alb. Engl., B. viii, ch. 39, p. 192.
He called the fellow ribbald, villayn, jarell, back-
biter, &c.
Robinson's Utopia, 1551, E 3.
To ride hard; from

To JAUNCE.

jancer, old French, to work a horse violently.

And yet I bear a burden like an ass,
Spur-gall'd, and tir'd, by jauncing Bolingbroke.
Rich. II, v, 5.

A JAUNCE was also used for a jaunt,
the derivation of which is supposed
to be the same. For, "What a jaunt
have I had" (Rom. & Jul., ii, 5), the
quartos read, "What a jaunce have I
had." The same is meant by geance
in the following passage:
Vaith, would I had a few more geances on't!
An' you say the word, send me to Jericho,
Out-cept a man were a post-horse, I ha' not known
The like on't.
B. Jons. Tale of a Tub, ii, 4.

The word is purposely misspelt, to mark the dialect of the speaker; as vaith for faith, &c.

To JAW.

the jaws.

To devour, to take within

Whose mother was her painting, hath betray'd him. Cymb., iii, 4.

ICE-BROOK.

or icy brook.

Supposed to mean cold

I have another weapon in this chamber;
It is a sword of Spain, the ice-brook's temper.

Othell., v, 2.

The reading of the old quarto is isebrooke's, which the folio changed to ice brookes; whence Pope made Ebro's, and was followed by Capell. Mr. Steevens is of opinion that icebrook's is right; and proves from Martial, that the brook or rivulet so used, is the Salo, now Xalon, near Bilbilis, in Celtiberia.

ICELAND DOGS. Shaggy, sharp-eared, white dogs, much imported formerly as favorites for ladies, &c.

Pish for thee, Iceland dog, thou prick-ear'd cur of
Iceland.
Hen. V, ii, 1.
But if I had brought little dogs from Iceland, or fine
glasses from Venice, &c.

Swetnam's Arraignment of Women, Preface.
We have sholts or curs dailie brought out of Iseland.
Holinsh. Descr. of Brit., p. 231.

Written also corruptly Isling, and
Island:

Hang hair like hemp, or like the Isling curs,
For never powder, nor the crisping iron
Shall touch these dangling locks.

B. & F. Queen of Corinth, iv, 1.
So I might have my belly-full of that
Her Island cur refuses. Massing. Pict., v, 1.
Our water-dogs and Islands here are shorn,
White hair of women here so much is worn.
Drayton's Mooncalf, p. 489.
These dogs are particularly described
by A. Fleming, in his translation of
Caius de Canibus:

Use and custome hath intertained other dogges of an outlandishe kinde, but a few, and the same beying of a pretty bygnesse; I meane Iseland dogges, curled and rough all over, which by reason of the lenght of their heare make showe neither of face nor of body. And yet these curres forsoothe, because they are so strange, are greatly set by, esteemed, taken up, and made of, many times in the roome of the spaniell gentle or comforter. Of English Dogges, &c., 1576. ever so employed by any other author. IDLE WORMS. Worms bred from idle

I reck not if the wolves would jaw me, so
He had this file; what if I hollow'd for him?
Tico Noble Kinsm., iii, 2

I do not know that this word was

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+JENESTRAY.

somes.

Du Bartas.

Phi. You forget his cover'd dishes Of jene-strayes, and marmalade of lips, Perfum'd by breath sweet as the beanes first blosSuckling's Aglaura, 1638. JENERT'S BANK. The following passage is probably corrupt. It has been conjectured that there was a bank called Jenert's, so famous as to be proverbial for security; but it remains to be shown that any country-bank existed in the seventeenth century; much more that they were so common as for one to be famous above the rest. A better reading seems to be wanted:

How now, my old Jenert's bank, my horse,
My castle, lie in Waltham all night, and
Not under the canopy of your host Blague's house?
Merry Devil of Elm., O. Pl., v, 300.
Can it be a misprint, for Ermen's
bank, or the old Roman road passing
through Edmonton, which might
have been written Irmint's? Horse
is not much more intelligible, as
applied here. Should it not be
house? speaking of his house as his
castle.

+JENNET. A small Spanish horse.

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All the examples given in Todd's seventeenth Johnson, are of the century, or earlier. JEOBERTIE, for jeopardy, in like man

ner.

44.

If you foil me, of which there is small jeobertie, I will send word to set them all at libertie. Harr. Ariosto, XXXV, To JEOPARD. To hazard or endanger. Not in use now.

He was a prince right hardie and adventerous, not fearing to jeopard his person in place of danger. Holinsk., vol. i, 1. 3. col. 1.

I am compelled against my minde and will (as Pompey the Great was) to jeopard the libertie of our country, to the hazard of a battel. North's Plut. Brutus, p. 1072. †The forefrontes or frontiers of the ii. corners, what wythe fordys and shelves, and what with rockes, be very jeoperdous and daungerous. More's Utopia, 1551. JER-FAULCON, or GERFAULCON. A large and fine sort of hawk, said to come originally from the north; therefore by some called the Iceland falcon. Gyrofalco, low Latin; gerfaulk, or gerfaut, French. Latham is abundant in its praise:

A bird stately, brave, and beautifull to behold in the eye and judgement of man, more strong and powerfull than any other used hawk, and many of them very bold, couragious, valiant, and very venturous, next to the slight-faulcon, of whose worthiness I have already sufficiently discoursed. Latham, B. i, ch. 16. The Gentleman's Recreation is almost equally strong in its commendation; p. 48 of the Treatise on Hawks. The following description of a contest of one of these birds with a heron, may be thought interesting:

I saw once a jerfalcon let flie at an heron, and observed with what clamour the heron entertained the sight and approach of the hawke, and with what winding shift hee strave to get above her, labouring even by bemuting his enemies feathers to make her flagge-winged, and so escape; but when at last they must needs come to an encounter, resuming courage out of necessity, hee turned face against her, and striking the hawke through the gorge with his bill, fell downe dead together with his dead enemie.

Arthur Warwick's Meditations, part ii, p. 80.

JERICHO seems to be used, in the following instance, as a general term for a place of concealment or banishment. If so, it explains the common phrase of wishing a person at Jericho, without sending them so far as Palestine.

Who would to curbe such insolence, I know, Bid such young boyes to stay in Jericho Untill their beards were growne, their wits more staid. Heyw. Hierarchie, B. iv, p 208. JERONIMO. See HIERONIMO. It is censured with Titus Andronicus in the following passage:

He that will swear Jeronimo or Andronicus are the best plays yet, shall pass unexcepted at here, as a

man whose judgement shews it is constant, and hath stood still these five and twenty or thirty years. Though it be an ignorance, it is a virtuous and staid ignorance. B. Jons. Induct. to Barth. Fair. JESSES. The short straps of leather, but sometimes of silk, which went round the legs of a hawk, in which were fixed the varvels, or little rings of silver, and to these the leash, or long strap which the falconer twisted round his hand; from gect, or get, the same in old French; or geste, a bandage in general. In a passage of Heywood's Woman kill'd with Kindness, gets and gesses are distinguished:

So, seize her gets, her gesses, and her bells.
O. Pl., vii, 269.
If I do prove her haggard,
Though that her jesses were my dear heart strings,
I'd whistle her off, and let her down the wind
To prey at fortune.
Othello, iii, 3.
That, like an hauke, which feeling herself freed,
From bels and jesses which did let her flight,
Him seem'd his feet did fly, and in their speed delight.
Spens. F. Q., VI, iv, 19.
In the old play of Edw. II it is
printed gresses by mistake:

Soar ye ne'er so high,
I have the gresses [jesses] that will pull you down.
O. Pl., ii, 345.
A hawk he esteems the true burden of nobility, and
is exceeding ambitious to seem delighted in the sport,
and to have his fist gloved with his jesses.

Earle's Microcosm., § xviii, p. 54; Bliss's edition.

To JEST. To act any feigned part in a mask or interlude, &c.

As gentle and as jocund as to jest
Go I to fight.

Rich. II, i, 3.

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But where is old Hieronimo our marshal? He promis'd us, in honour of our guest, To grace our banquet with some pompous jest. Spanish Trag., Ó. Pl., iii, 138. On which immediately follows the mask, which satisfies the king as the fulfilment of the promise. It seems to be applied to actions in general, real or fictitious. See GEST. Jest is sometimes written for gest: There [in Homer] may the jestes of many a knight be read, Patroclus, Pyrrhus, Ajax, Diomed.

Jasper Heywood, in Cens. Lit., ix, 393. To JET. To strut, or walk proudly; to throw the body about in walking. Jetter, French.

O peace! Contemplation makes a rare turkey-cock
of him; how he jets under his advanc'd plumes!
Twelfth Night, ii, 5.
Not Pelops' shoulder whiter than her hands,
Nor snowie swans that jet on Isca's sands.
Browne, Br. Past., II, iii, p. 94.
Of those that prank it with their plumes,
And jet it with their choice perfumes.

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They that have any pains or swellings in the throat, let them take Jews-ears (which is to be had at the apothecaries), and lay it to steep in ale a whole night, and let the party drink a good draught thereof every day once or twice. Lupton's Thousand Notable Things. JEW'S EYE. This phrase does not require explanation, but its origin may be worth remarking. The extortions to which the Jews were subject in the thirteenth century, and the periods both before and after, exposed them to the most tyrannical and cruel mutilations, if they refused to pay the sums demanded of them. "King John," says Hume, "once demanded 10,000 marks from a Jew of Bristol, and on his refusal, ordered one of his teeth to be drawn every The Jew day, till he should consent. lost seven teeth, and then paid the sum required of him." Chap. xii, A.D. 1272. The threat of losing an eye would have a still more powerful effect. Hence the high value of a Jew's eye. The allusion was familiar in the time of Shakespeare:

There will come a Christian by

Will be worth a Jewess' eye. Mer. Ven., ii, 5. The fine black eye of the Jew does not seem sufficiently to account for the saying. Herrick's Noble Numbers, p. 44. †JEWLĖPS.

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