The [form] weet is also used by Spenser and Fairfax.
[231] In the ancient moralities, and in many of the earliest entertainments of the stage, the devil is introduced as a character, and it appears to have been customary to bring him before the audience with this cry of ho, ho, ho. See particularly the "Devil is an Ass," by Ben Jonson, act. i., sc. 1. From the following passages in "Wily Beguiled," 1606, we learn the manner in which the character used to be dressed:—"Tush! fear not the dodge: I'll rather put on my flashing red nose and my flaming face, and come wrapp'd in a calf's skin, and cry, ho, ho," &c. Again, "I'll put me on my great carnation nose, and wrap me in a rowsing calf's skin suit, and come like some hobgoblin, or some devil ascended from the grisly pit of hell; and like a scarbabe make him take his legs: I'll play the devil, I warrant ye."
[232] To palter is, as Dr Johnson explains it, to shuffle with ambiguous expressions. Thus—
"And be these juggling fiends no more believ'd,
That palter with us in a double sense."
—Macbeth, act v., sc. 8.
In confirmation of Dr Johnson's explanation, Mr Steevens produces the following instances:—
"Now fortune, frown, and palter, if thou please."
—Marius and Sylla, 1594.
"Romans that have spoke the word,