Minor Queries with Answers.
"Very like a Whale."—What is the origin of this expression? It occurs in the following doggerel verses, supposed to be spoken by the driver of a cart laden with fish:
"This salmon has got a tail;
It's very like a whale;
It's a fish that's very merry;
They say its catch'd at Derry.
It's a fish that's got a heart;
It's catch'd and put in Dugdale's cart."
Henry H. Breen.
St. Lucia.
[This expression occurs in Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 2.:
"Hamlet. Do you see yonder cloud, that is almost in shape of a camel?
Polonius. By the mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed.
Hamlet. Methinks it is like a weasel.
Polonius. It is backed like a weasel.
Hamlet. Or like a whale?
Polonius. Very like a whale."
Since Shakspeare's time, it has been used as a proverb in reply to any remark partaking of the marvellous.]
Wednesday a Litany Day.—Why is Wednesday made a Litany day by the Church? We all know why Friday was made a fast; but why should Wednesday be sacred?
Anon.
[Wednesdays and Fridays were kept as fasts in the primitive Church: because on the one our Lord was betrayed, on the other crucified. See Mant and Wheatley.]
"Thy Spirit, Independence," &c.—Could you, or any of your readers, inform me where are the following lines?—
"Thy spirit, Independence, let me share,
Lord of the lion heart and eagle eye!
Thy steps I'll follow with my bosom bare,
Nor heed the storm that howls along the sky."
I quote from memory.
H.
[In Smollett's Ode to Independence.]
"Hob and nob," Meaning of.—What is the origin of these words as verbs, in the phrase "Hob or nob," which means, as I need not inform your readers, to spend an evening tippling with a jolly companion?
What is the origin of "nob?" And is either of these two words ever used alone?
C. H. Howard.
Edinburgh.
[This phrase, according to Grose, "originated in the days of good Queen Bess. When great chimnies were in fashion, there was at each corner of the hearth, or grate, a small elevated projection, called hob, and behind it a seat. In winter-time the beer was placed on the hob to warm; and the cold beer was set on a small table, said to have been called the nob: so that the
question, Will you have hob or nob? seems only to have meant, Will you have warm or cold beer? i.e. beer from the hob, or beer from the nob." But Nares, in his Glossary, s.v. Habbe or Nabbe, with much greater reason, shows that hob or nob, now only used convivially, to ask a person whether he will have a glass of wine or not, is most evidently a corruption of the old hab-nab, from the Saxon habban, to have, and nabban, not to have; in proof of which, as Nares remarks, Shakspeare has used it to mark an alternative of another kind:
"And his incensement at this moment is so implacable, that satisfaction can be none but by pangs of death and sepulchre: hob, nob is his word; give't or take't."—Twelfth Night, Act III. Sc. 4.]