Drayton, Polyolbion, song 13.
The report which these roving hunters had made to their countrymen of that pleasant land, did invite the chief heads of their clans, with their several rascalities, to flock into Europe, like beggars dismissed out of prison, invited to a solemn banquet.—Jackson, A Treatise on the Divine Essence, b. vi. c. 25, § 6.
Rather. This survives for us now only as an adverb, but meets us often in Middle English as an adjective, as the comparative of ‘rathe,’ quick, swift, early.
This is he that Y seide of, aftir me is comun a man, which was maad bifor me; for he was rather than Y [quia prior me erat, Vulg.].—John i. 30. Wiclif.
If the world hatith you, wite ye that it hadde me in hate rather than you [me priorem vobis odio habuit, Vulg.].—John xv. 18. Wiclif.
The Sarazines maden another cytie more far from the see, and clepeden it the newe Damyete, so that now no man dwellethe at the rathere town of Damyete.—Sir John Mandeville, Voyage and Travaile, p. 46, Halliwell’s edition.
Whatsoever thou or such other say, I say that the pilgrimage that now is used is to them that do it, a praisable and a good mean to come the rather to grace.—Foxe, Book of Martyrs; Examination of William Thorpe.
The rather lambs been starved with cold.
Spenser, The Shepherd’s Calendar, February.
Receipt. At this present the act of receiving, or acknowledgment of having received; but not seldom once the place for receiving, or receptacle.