C. H. Howard.
Edinburgh.
[This phrase, according to Grose, "originated in the days of good Queen Bess. When great chimnies were in fashion, there was at each corner of the hearth, or grate, a small elevated projection, called hob, and behind it a seat. In winter-time the beer was placed on the hob to warm; and the cold beer was set on a small table, said to have been called the nob: so that the
question, Will you have hob or nob? seems only to have meant, Will you have warm or cold beer? i.e. beer from the hob, or beer from the nob." But Nares, in his Glossary, s.v. Habbe or Nabbe, with much greater reason, shows that hob or nob, now only used convivially, to ask a person whether he will have a glass of wine or not, is most evidently a corruption of the old hab-nab, from the Saxon habban, to have, and nabban, not to have; in proof of which, as Nares remarks, Shakspeare has used it to mark an alternative of another kind:
"And his incensement at this moment is so implacable, that satisfaction can be none but by pangs of death and sepulchre: hob, nob is his word; give't or take't."—Twelfth Night, Act III. Sc. 4.]
Replies.
WELLESLEY PEDIGREE.
(Vol. vi., pp. 508. 585.)
There is an anxiety to obtain further particulars on this interesting subject, and I have searched my Genealogical MSS. Collections for such; the result has extended farther than I could have wished, but, while I am able to furnish dates and authorities for hitherto naked statements, I have inserted two or three links of descent not before laid down.