Bad (Vol. vi. p. 509.).—Horne Tooke's etymology may, perhaps, satisfy B. H. Cowper's inquiry, or at least gratify his curiosity. He assumes the bay or bark of a dog to be excited by what it abhors, hates, defies; and farther, that our epithet of bad is applied by us to that, which, for reasons which we may call moral (æsthetic, I believe I ought to say) reasons or feelings, we hate, or abhor. And he forms it thus, bay-ed, bay'd, ba'd, bad.
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Bloomsbury.
Porc-pisee (Vol. vi., p. 579.).—Mr. Warde will find that this is the old English way of writing porpoise, more nearly to the French and Italian. Spenser writes porcpisces, and Ray porpesse, i.e. porc-pesee. Both are quoted in Richardson.
"Wheal instead of milk," is whey or whig. "To flesh in sin," is to indulge in, to accustom to, to inure to, the gratification of the sinful lusts of the flesh. Johnson has from Hales the same expression "fleshed in sin" which he interprets "hardened."
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Bloomsbury.
Lowbell (Vol. vii., pp. 181. 272.).—Your correspondents H. T. W. and M. H. will find sufficient reasons from Nares' quotations to convince them that lowbell is so called from its sound; and the usage by Hammond (in Johnson) that the verb, to lowbell, was used consequentially to signify to frighten into a snare, and thus, to ensnare. And the noun, a snare, allurement, temptation.
"Now commonly he who desires to be a minister looks not at the work, but at the wages; and by that lure or lowbell may be toll'd from parish to parish all the town over."—Milton, "Hirelings," &c., Works, vol. i. p. 529.
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