[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, And will not _palter_." --_Englishmen for my Money_, c. 3.--_O. G._ [233] I suppose he means to say a little _room_; and therefore retires till Gammer Gurton has uttered her complaint--S. [234] I imagine this word was formerly used to signify _sharp_. So in "The Woman's Prize," by Beaumont and Fletcher, act ii., sc. 4-- "They heave ye stool on stool, and fling [a-]main pot-lids Like massy rocks dart ladles, tossing irons And tongs like thunder-bolts, till overlaid They fall beneath the weight." [Dyce's B. and F. vii., 140.] [235] The ancient spurs were fixed into straps of leather. Spurriers, of course, would be obliged to use very strong needles.--_S._ [236] Who was it, dear son? So in the ballad-poem of "Adam Bell," &c.-- "Ye myght have asked towres and towne, Parkes and forestes plentie, None so pleasaunt to my pay, she said; Nor none so _lefe_ to me." [--Hazlitt's _Popular Poetry_, ii. 160.] [237] _Our_, first edition. [238] "As brisk as a body-louse was formerly proverbial." See Ray's "Proverbs," 1742, p. 219. [239] "_Callet_, a lewd woman, a drab." [See Nares, edit. 1859, p. 128.] So in the "Supposes," by Geo. Gascoigne, act v., sc. 6: "Come hither, you old _kallat_, you tatling huswife: that the deuill cut oute your tong." Again, in Jonson's "Fox," act iv., sc. 3-- "Why, the callet You told me of here I have ta'en disguis'd." _Callett_ is elsewhere used for stupid, inactive--