[434]. Skelton seems of the same mind as the author of Cocke Lorelle.
‘So many lollers,
So few true tollers,
So many pollers,
Saw I never.’
[435]. I need not remind the majority of my readers of the origin of our term ‘lumber room,’ that it is but a corruption of lombard-room, or the chamber in which the mediæval pawnbroker stored up all his pledges. Hence we now speak of any useless cumbrous articles as ‘lumber.’
[436]. Mr. Halliwell gives ‘chevisance,’ an agreement, and ‘chevish,’ to bargain. Mr. Way commenting on ‘chevystyn,’ quotes Fabyan as saying—‘I will assaye to have hys Erldom in morgage, for welle I knowe he must chevyche for money to perfourme that journey.’ Mr. Wright’s Glossary to Piers Plowman has ‘chevysaunce, an agreement for borrowing money.’ The word often occurs in mediæval writers, and no wonder at least one surname arose as a consequence.
[437]. An act of Richard II. speaks of officers and ministers made by brocage, and of their broggers, and of them that have taken the said brocage, ‘pour brogage, et de lor broggers, et de,’ etc.
[438]. I use this phrase as the most convenient. I shall have to record many descriptive compounds under every separate division, but it is the most suited for my purpose, and will embrace all the more eccentric nicknames that I have met with in my researches, especially those made up of verb and substantive, a practice which opened out a wide field for the inventive powers of our forefathers.
[439]. ‘Lease to Thomas Unkle of a wood within the manor of Bolynbroke, Nov. 30, 1485.’ (Materials for Hist. Henry VII. 593 p.)