The "tucks" he speaks of could have been no very agreeable addition to the salted beer; for, as he himself explains it, a few lines above, "to tuck" consisted in "setting the nail of the thumb to their chin, just under the lip, and by the help of their other fingers under the chin, they would give him a mark, which sometimes would produce blood."
Before I leave Anthony Wood, let me mention that I find him making use of the word "bull" in the sense of a laughable speech ("to make a jest, or bull, or speake some eloquent nonsense," p. 34.), and of the now vulgar expression "to go to pot." When recounting the particulars of the parliamentary visitation of the University in 1648, he tells us, that had it not been for the intercession of his mother to Sir Nathan Brent, "he had infallible gone to the pot." If Dr. Maitland or any of your readers can give the history of these expressions, and can produce earlier instances of their use, they would greatly oblige me.
P.S. I ought to mention, that "Penniless Bench" was a seat for loungers, under a wooden canopy, at the east end of old Carfax Church: it seems to have been notorious as "the idle corner" of Oxford.
E.V.
QUERIES ANSWERED, NO. 5.
A comparative statement of the number of those who ask questions, and those who furnish replies, would be a novel contribution to the statistics of literature. I do note mean to undertake it, but shall so far assume an excess on the side of the former class, as to attempt a triad of replies to recent queries without fear of the censures which attach to monopoly.
To facilitate reference to the queries, I take them in the order of publication:—
1. "What is the earliest known instance of the use of a beaver hat in England?"—T. Hudson Turner, p. 100.
The following instance from Chaucer (Canterbury tales, 1775, 8°. v. 272.), if not the earliest, is precise and instructive: