I styckyll betwene wrastellers, or any folkes that prove mastries to se that none do other wronge, or I parte folkes that be redy to fyght.—Palsgrave.
Betwixt which three a question grew,
Which should the worthiest be;
Which violently they pursue,
And would not stickled be.
Drayton, Muses’ Elysium, Nymph. 6.
The same angel [in Tasso], when half of the Christians are already killed, and all the rest are in a fair way of being routed, stickles betwixt the remainders of God’s hosts and the race of fiends; pulls the devils backwards by the tails, and drives them from their quarry.—Dryden, Dedication of Translations from Juvenal, p. 122.
In ancient times they were wont to employ third persons as sticklers, to see no treachery nor disorder were used, and to bear witness of the combat’s success.—Florio, Montaigne, ii. 27.
The dragon wing of night o’erspreads the earth,
And, stickler-like, the armies separates.