Alle those false chapmen The fiend them will habbe, Bakeres and breowares For alle men they gabbe.[549] (_A litel soth Sermun._) In the North of England, I need scarcely add, this is the ordinary and colloquial sense of the term to the present day. The name of ‘John Totiller’ might well-nigh induce us to believe that teetotalism was not unknown by that name at this period, but it is not so. A ‘totiller’ was a ‘whisperer’ of secrets. In the ‘Legend of Good Women,’ one says to the God of Love— In ye court is many a losengeour And many a queinte totoler accusour. The name of ‘Dera Gibelot’ or ‘John Gibbelote’[550] reminds us of a term now obsolete, but once familiar as denoting a giddy, flighty girl.[551] It is found in various forms, the commonest being that of ‘giglot.’[552] Mr. Halliwell quotes an old proverb by way of adding a further variation— The smaller pesun (peas), the more to pott, The fayrer woman the more gylott. I would, however, suggest this as but the pet form of ‘Gill,’ mentioned in my chapter on Christian names. In either case the meaning is the same. An often met with sobriquet in the fourteenth century is that of ‘Robert le Burgulion,’ or ‘Geoffrey le Burgillon,’ the old term for a braggart. It is now, however, wholly obsolete. ‘Robert le Lewed,’ or ‘William le Lewed,’ is also lost to our directories, and certainly would be an unpleasant appellation in the nineteenth century. Its general meaning four hundred years ago, however, was its more literal one, that of simplicity or ignorance. It is connected with our word ‘lay’ as opposed to ‘cleric,’ and arose at a time when knowledge was all but entirely in the hands of the clergy. Thus in the ‘Pardoner’s Tale’ it is said— Lewed people loven tales olde, Such things can they wel report and holde. Such a name then, we may trust, implied nothing beyond a lack of knowledge in respect of its possessor. ‘William Milksop,’ or ‘Thomas Milkesop,’ or ‘Maurice Ducedame’ were but types of a class of dandified and effeminate beings who have ever existed, but even their names would be more acceptable than those which fell to ‘Robert le Sot,’ or ‘Maurice Druncard,’ or ‘Jakes Drynk-ale,’[553] or ‘Geoffrey Dringkedregges,’[554] or ‘Thomas Sourale.’[555] It is evident that there were those who were disposed to follow the dictate of at least one portion of the old rhyme— Walke groundly, talke profoundly, Drinke roundly, sleape soundly. ‘Ralph Sparewater,’ I fear, was a man of dirty habits, while ‘John Klenewater’ was a model of cleanliness.