Or where display her banners?
Alas! in Granby she has lost
True courage and good Manners.’
Puns of this nature may be met with frequently in books of the last century. Some complimentary verses to Dr. Gill, on account of a supposed victory in a public controversy, in 1727, in support of immersion at baptism, have a play of this kind at one part:—
‘Stennet,’ at first, his furious foe did meet,
Cleanly compelled him to a swift retreat;
Next powerful ‘Gale,’ by mighty blast made fall
The Church’s Dagon, the gigantic ‘Wall.’
(Gill’s Works, edit. 1839.)
[119]. Our now vulgar term ‘nob’ is a relic of this: ‘To hit a man on the nob’ is, in the north, to strike on the head. In the same districts a ‘nob’ is a rich man, one of family and influence.