age) 333. 382. It excites surprise that the word never,
as far as I am aware, occurs in any of the voluminous works of Sir Thomas
More, nor in any of the theological productions of the Reformers.

With respect to _speare_, the orthography varies, as _spere_, _sperr_,
_sparr_, _unspar_; but in the Prologue to _Troilus and Cressida_, _sperre_
is Theobald's correction of _stirre_, in Folios '23 and '32. Let me add,
what I had forgotten at the time, that another instance of _budde_
intransitive, to bend, occurs at p. 105. of _The Life of Faith in Death_,
by Samuel Ward, preacher of Ipswich, London, 1622. Also another, and a very
significant one, of the phrase to _have on the hip_, in Fuller's _Historie
of the Holy Warre_, Cambridge, 1647:

"Arnulphus was as quiet as a lambe, and durst never challenge his
interest in Jerusalem from Godfrey's donation; as fearing to _wrestle_
with the king, who _had him on the hip_, and could out him at pleasure
for his bad manners."--Book ii. chap. viii. p. 55.

In my note on the word _trash_, I said (somewhat too peremptorily) that
_overtop_ was not even a hunting term (Vol. vii., p. 567.). At the moment I
had forgotten the following passage:

"Therefore I would perswade all lovers of hunting to get two or three
couple of tryed hounds, and once or twice a week to follow after them a
train-scent; and when he is able to _top_ them on all sorts of earth,
and to endure heats and colds stoutly, then he may the better relie on
his speed and toughness."--_The Hunting-horse_, chap. vii. p. 71.,
Oxford, 1685.

* * * * *

SNEEZING AN OMEN AND A DEITY.

In the _Odyssey_, xvii. 541-7., we have, imitating the hexameters, the
following passage:

"Thus Penelope spake. Then quickly Telemachus _sneez'd_ loud,
_Sounding around all the building_: his mother, with smiles at her son,
said,
Swiftly addressing her rapid and high-toned words to Eumaeus,
{122}
'Go then directly, Eumaeus, and call to my presence the strange guest.
See'st thou not that my son, _ev'ry word I have spoken hath sneez'd
at_?[5]
Thus portentous, betok'ning the fate of my hateful suitors,
All whom death and destruction await by a doom irreversive.'"

Dionysius Halicarnassus, on Homer's poetry (s. 24.), says, sneezing was
considered by that poet as a good sign ([Greek: sumbolon agathon]); and
from the Anthology (lib. ii.) the words [G