4346. _laten blood_, let blood, i. e. removed gravy from. It refers to a meat-pie, baked with gravy in it; as it was not sold the day it was made, the gravy was removed to make it keep longer; and so the pie was eaten at last, when far from being new. 4347. The meaning of 'a Jack of Dover' has been much disputed, but it probably meant a pie that had been cooked more than once. Some have thought it meant a sole (probably a fried sole), as 'Dover soles' are still celebrated; but this is only a guess, and seems to be wrong. Sir T. More, Works, p. 675 E, speaks of a '_Jak of Paris_, an evil pye twyse baken'; which is probably the same thing. Roquefort's _French Dict._ has:-- '_Jaquet_, _Jaket_, impudent, menteur. C'est sans doute de ce mot que les pâtissiers ont pris leur mot d'argot _jaques_, pour signifier qu'une pièce de volaille, de viande ou de pâtisserie cuite au four, est vieille ou dure.' See Hazlitt's Proverbs, p. 20; and Hazlitt's Shakespeare Jest-books, ii. 366. Hence, in a secondary sense, _Jack of Dover_ meant an old story, or hashed up anecdote. Ray says:--'This he [T. Fuller] makes parallel to _Crambe bis cocta_, and applicable to such as grate the ears of their auditors with ungrateful tautologies of what is worthless in itself; tolerable as once uttered in the notion of novelty, but abominable if repeated.' This may explain the fact that an old jest-book was printed with the title _A Jack of Dover_ in 1604, and again in 1615. The E. word _jack_ has indeed numerous senses. 4350. The insinuation is that stray flies were mixed up with the parsley served up with the Cook's geese. Tyrwhitt quotes from MS. Harl. 279--'Take _percely_,' &c. in a receipt for stuffing a goose; so that parsley was sometimes used for this purpose. It was also used for stuffing chickens; see Liber Cure Cocorum, ed. Morris, p. 22.