2. Ditto—of "Spick and span new?"
Jerry Sneak.
[We leave to some of our friends the task of answering the first of the Queries which our correspondent has put to us by desire of his "better-half."
There is much curious illustration of the phrase Spick and Span in Todd's Johnson, s. v. Spick: and Nares in his Glossary says, "Span-newe is found in Chaucer:
'This tale was aie span-newe to begin.'—Troil. and Cres., iii. 1671.
It is therefore of good antiquity in the language, and not having been taken from the French may best be referred to the Saxon, in which spannan means to stretch. Hence span-new is fresh from the stretchers, or frames, alluding to cloth, a very old manufacture of the country; and spick and span is fresh from the spike, or tenter, and frames. This is Johnson's derivation, and I cannot but think it preferable to any other."
A very early instance of the expression, not quoted by Todd, may be found in the Romance of Alexander:
"Richelich he doth him schrede
In spon-neowe knightis weode."—L. 4054-5.