Volume 1

A glossary, or, Collection of words, phrases, names, and allusions to customs, proverbs, etc., which have been thought to require illustration, in the works of English authors, particularly Shakespeare, and his contemporaries / [Robert Nares].

  • Robert Nares
Date:
1882
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A glossary, or, Collection of words, phrases, names, and allusions to customs, proverbs, etc., which have been thought to require illustration, in the works of English authors, particularly Shakespeare, and his contemporaries / [Robert Nares]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    431/494 (page 417)
    Knowing the eare marke of their own, Spy ’em from ev’ry one’s i’ th town. Homer a la Mode, 1665. Ra. Troth, sir, higle te pigle te among my neighbours. Some better, some worse. Yet, tlio’ I saay’t, that shou’dn’t saay’t, I’m as well belov’d as ony poor fellow i’ th’ parish? Wit of a Woman, 1705. HIGRE, or HYGRA. The Dame for the violent and tumultuous influx of the tide into the mouth of the Severn, and for similar effects in other rivers. It is spelt also aigre, eagre, eger. The derivation is as uncertain as the orthography. Mr. Todd tries the Runic and the Saxon ; but I cannot find any authority for his Saxon word. Dryden has used eagre, as a general word for such a tide, occasioned by the narrowness of the channel, and the steepness of the banks; called also the bore of the Severn. For the etymology, I fear we cannot venture to go to the Greek vypos. It is pro- bably of Saxon origin. Drayton thus describes its effects: Until they be imbrac’d In Sabrin’s sovereign arms; with whose tumultuous waves Shut up in narrower bounds the higre wildly raves ; And frights the straggling flocks, the neighbouring shores to fly. Afar as from the main it comes with hideous cry, And on the angry front the curled foam doth bring, The billow's ’gainst the banks w'hen fiercely it doth fling, Hurls up the slimy ooze, and makes the scaly brood Leap madding to the land affrighted from the flood; Q’erturns the toiling barge, whose steersman does not lanch And thiust her furrowing beak into her ireful panch. Polyolh., Song 7- Chatterton, acquainted with this local phenomenon, has made it the subject of a simile : As when the hygra of the Severne roars Ami thunders ugsom on the sandes below, The cleembe [noise] rebounds to Wedecester’s shore, And sweeps the black sand round its liorie prowe. Second Battle oj Hastings, 691. See also ver. 326 of the same. In Drayton is this marginal note, upon a simile subjoined to the lines cited above: “ A simile expressing the hoar or higre.” The name higra is spoken of by William of Malms- bury in the following passage, and the phenomenon described: In eo quotidianus aquarum furor, quod utrum vora- ginem vel vertiginem uudarum dicain nescio; fundo ab imo verrens arenas et conglobans in cumulum cum impetu venit, nec ultra quam ad pontem perten- dit; nonnunquam etiam ripas transcendit, et magna vi parte terra circuita victor regreditur; infelix navis si quam a latere attigerit. Nautse certe gnari cum vident illam Ingram (sic enim Anglice vocant) venire, navem obvertunt, et per medium secantes violentiam ejus elidunt. Be Pontif., lib. iv, p. 283 In this last circumstance we see that Drayton exactly agrees with this writer. Drayton has applied the same name to the tide in the York- shire Ouse or Humber: For when my higre comes, I make my either shore Even tremble w'ith the sound, that I afar do send. Polyolh., xxviii, p. 1206. See also Eger, in Todd. [Taylor the water-poet gives the following description of the same phenomenon as observed on the coast of Lincolnshire :] tAnd there in three lioures space and little more, We row’d to Boston from the Norfolke shore; Which by report of people that dwell there, Is six and twenty mile, or very neere. The w'ay unknowne, and we no pilot had, Flats, sands and shoales, and tydes all raging mad, Which sands our passage many times denide, And put us sometimes three or foure miles wide. Besides the flood runs there with such great force, That I imagine it out-runnes a horse; And with a head some 4 foot high that rores, It on the sodaine sw'els and beats the shores. It tumbled us a ground upon the sands. And all that we could doe with wit, or hands. Could not resist it, but wTe were in doubt It would have beaten our boates bottome out. It hath lesse mercy then beare, wolfe, or tyger, And in those countries it is called the hyger. We much were unacquainted with those fashions, And much it troubled us with sundry passions; We thought the shore we never should recover. And look’d still when our boat would tumble over. But He that made all with his w'ord of might, Brought us to Boston, where we lodg’d all night. HILD, for held, for the sake of a rhyme. This kind of licence was very frequently taken by Spenser, and other contemporaries of Shakespeare, No man inveigh against the wither’d flow’r. But chide rough winter that the flow’r hath kill’d; Not that devour’d, but that which doth devour. Is worthy blame. 0 let it not be hild Poor women’s faults that they are so fulfill’d With men’s abuses. Shakesp. Rape of Lucrece, Suppl., i, 545. HILDEBRAND. The family name of pope Gregory the Seventh, so black- ened by Fox, and other writers against the Romish Church, that his name became proverbial in this country for violence and mischief. In an old abridgment of Fox’s Mar- tyrs, by a Dr. Bright, printed 1589, I find him thus described: “ This Hildebrand was a most wicked and reprobate monster, a sorcerer, a ne- cromancer, an old companion of Sil- vester, Theophilactus, and Laurentius, conjurers.” Page 136. Any name of reproach being thought fair to such a character, Shakespeare has made Falstaff call him Turk s