that I have met with, occurs in the Proclamations at the head of the parliamentary proceedings, early in the reign of Edward the Third, where it is spoken of as a childish amusement, and prohibited to be played in the avenues of the palace at Westminster, during the sessions of Parliament, because of the interruption it occasioned to the members and others in passing to and fro as their business required. It is also spoken of by Shakespear as a game practised by the boys [see the second of the passages above cited]. It was, however, most assuredly played by the men, and especially in Cheshire and other adjoining counties, where formerly it seems to have been in high repute. The performance of this pastime requires two parties of equal number, each of them having a base or home, as it is usually called, to themselves, at the distance of about twenty or thirty yards. The players then on either side taking hold of hands, extend themselves in length, and opposite to each other, as far as they conveniently can, always remembering that one of them must touch the base; when any one of them quits the hand of his fellow and runs into the field, which is called giving the chase, he is immediately followed by one of his opponents; he again is followed by a second from the former side, and he by a second opponent; and so on alternately, until as many are out as choose to run, every one pursuing the man he first followed, and no other; and if he overtake him near enough to touch him, his party claims one toward their game, and both return home. [Note. It is to be observed, that every person on either side who touches another during the chase, claims one for his party, and when many are out, it frequently happens that many are touched.] They then run forth again and again in like manner, until the number is completed that decides the victory; this number is optional, and I am told rarely exceeds twenty. About thirty years back I saw a grand match at base played in the fields behind Montague-house [Note. Now better known by the name of the British Museum] by twelve gentlemen of Cheshire against twelve of Derbyshire, for a considerable sum of money, which afforded much entertainment to the spectators. In Essex they play this game with the addition of two prisons, which are stakes driven into the ground, parallel with the home boundaries, and about thirty yards from them; and every person who is touched on either side in the chase is sent to one or other of these prisons, where he must remain till the conclusion of the game, if not delivered previously by one of his associates, and this can only be accomplished by touching him, which is a difficult task, requiring the performance of the most skilful players, because the prison belonging to either party is always much nearer to the base of their opponents than to their own; and if the person sent to relieve his confederate be touched by an antagonist before he reaches him, he also becomes a prisoner, and stands in equal need of deliverance. The addition of the prisons occasions a considerable degree of BASE-BASILISK. 29 variety in the pastime, and is frequently productive of much pleasantry." Sports and Pastimes, &c., p. 71, sec. ed. base is the slave that pays, iv. 433: This appears to have been a proverbial expression (Compare, in Heywood's Fair Maid of the West, "My motto shall be, Base is the man that paies." Second Part, sig. L 2, ed. 1631). base court, basse-cour, Fr., iv. 159. baseness-Forced, iii. 435: "Leontes had ordered Antigonus to take up the bastard; Paulina forbids him to touch the Princess under that appellation. Forced is false, uttered with violence to truth" (JOHNSON),—a passage, in which Walker (see note 50, iii. 435) would make what appears to me an improper alteration. bases-A pair of, ix. 32: "Bases, plural noun. A kind of embroidered mantle, which hung down from the middle to about the knees, or lower, worn by knights on horseback." Nares's Gloss. (where the word is illustrated by various quotations): In the list of apparel of the Lord Admiral's players, taken 1598, we find, "Item, ij payer of basses, j white, j blewe, of sasnet [sic]." Malone's Shakespeare (by Boswell), vol. iii. p. 316. Basilisco-like-Knight, knight, good mother,-iv. 12: "Falcon bridge's words here carry a concealed piece of satire on [rather, allude to] a stupid drama of that age, printed in 1599, and called Soliman and Perseda. In this piece there is the character of a bragging cowardly knight, called Basilisco. His pretension to valour is so blown and seen through, that Piston, a buffoon-servant in the play, jumps upon his back, and will not disengage him till he makes Basilisco swear upon his dudgeon dagger to the contents, and in the terms, he dictates to him; as, for instance; 'Bas. O, I swear, I swear. Pist. By the contents of this blade,- Pist. I, the aforesaid Basilisco,— Bas. I, the aforesaid Basilisco,-knight, good fellow, knight, knight,— So that, 'tis clear, our poet is sneering at this play [?]; and makes Philip, when his mother calls him knave, throw off that reproach by humorously laying claim to his new dignity of knighthood, as Basilisco arrogantly insists on his title of knight in the passage above quoted" (THEOBALD): The Tragedie of Soliman and Perseda. Wherein is laide open, Loues constancie, Fortunes inconstancie, and Deaths Triumphs, 1599, though a wretched production, was once very popular it has been attributed to Kyd. basilisk, an imaginary creature (called also cockatrice), supposed to kill by its very look: sighted like the basilisk, iii. 419; come, basilisk, And kill the innocent gazer with thy sight, v. 163; I'll slay more gazers than the basilisk, v. 281; It is a basilisk unto mine eye, viii. 428; 30 BASILISK-BAT-FOWLING. Their chiefest prospect murdering basilisks, v. 173; Would they were basilisks, to strike thee dead! v. 345. basilisk, a huge piece of ordnance, carrying a ball of very great weight of basilisks, of cannon culverin, iv. 229; The fatal balls of murdering basilisks, iv. 512: but in the second of these passages there is a double allusion,-to pieces of ordnance, and to the fabulous creatures named basilisks; see the preceding article. bass my trespass-Did, "told it me in a rough bass sound" (JOHNSON)," served as the bass in a concert, to proclaim my trespass in the loudest and fullest tone" (HEATH), i. 250. basta, enough (Italian and Spanish), iii. 117. bastard, whom the oracle Hath doubtfully pronounc'd, &c.-A, vii. 69: Alluding to the story of Edipus. bastard-Drink brown and white, i. 509; Score a pint of bastard, iv. 232; your brown bastard is your only drink, iv. 233: Bastard was a sweetish wine (approaching to the muscadel wine in flavour, and perhaps made from a bastard species of muscadine grape), which was brought from some of the countries bordering the Mediterranean. There were two sorts, white and brown: see Henderson's History of Ancient and Modern Wines, pp. 290-1. bat, a large stick, a cudgel, ix. 415; bats, vi. 134, 139. bat-fowling, i. 224: Is described as follows in Markham's Hunger's Prevention: or, The whole Arte of Fowling by Water and Land, &c. "Next to the Tramell, I thinke meete to proceed to Battefowling, which is likewise a nighty [sic] taking of all sorts of great and small Birdes which rest not on the earth, but on Shrubbes, tal Bushes, Hathorne trees, and other trees, and may fitly and most conueniently be vsed in all woody, rough, and bushy countries, but not in the champaine. For the manner of bat-fowling, it may be vsed either with nettes or without nettes. If you vse it without nettes (which indeede is the most common of the two), you shall then proceede in this manner. First, there shall be one to carry the cresset of fire (as was shewed for the Lowbell), then a certaine number, as two, three, or foure (according to the greatnesse of your company); and these shall haue poales bound with dry round wispes of hay, straw, or such like stuffe, or else bound with pieces of linkes or hurdes dipt in pitch, rosen, grease, or any such like matter that will blaze. Then another company shal be armed with long poales, very rough and bushy at the vpper endes, of which the willow, byrche, or long hazell are best; but indeed according as the country will afford, so you must be content to take. Thus being prepared, and comming into the bushy or rough ground where the haunts of birds are, you shall then first kindle some of your fiers, as halfe or a third part, according as your prouision is, and then with your other bushy and rough poales you shall beat the bushes, trees, and haunts of the birds, to enforce them to rise; which done, you shall see the birds, which are raysed, to flye and play about the lights and flames of the fier; for it is their nature, through their amazednesse and affright at the strangenes of the lightt and the extreame darknesse round about it, not to depart from it, but, as it were, almost to scorch their wings in the same; so that those which haue the rough bushye poales may (at their pleasures) beat them down with the same, and so take them. Thus you may spend as much of the night as is darke, for longer is not conuenient; and doubtlesse you shall finde much pastime and take great store of birds; and in this you shall obserue all the obseruations formerly treated of in the Lowbell; especially that of silence, vntill your lights be kindled, but then you may vse your pleasure, for the noyse and the light when they are heard and seene afarre of, they make the birds sit the faster and surer. The byrdes which are commonly taken by this labour or exercise are, for the most part, the rookes, ringdoues, blackebirdes, throstles, feldy fares, linnets, bulfinches, and all other byrdes whatsoeuer that pearch or sit vpon small boughes or bushes. This exercise, as it may be vsed in these rough, woody, and bushie places, so it may also be vsed alongst quickset hedges or any other hedges or places where there is any shelter for byrdes to pearch in." p. 98, ed. 1621. (A simpler mode of bat-fowling, by means of a large clap-net and a lantern, and called bird-batting, is noticed in Fielding's Joseph Andrews, B. ii. ch. 10.) bate, strife, contention: breeds no bate with telling of discreet stories ("if it be recollected with what sort of companions he [Pointz] was likely to associate, Falstaff's meaning will appear to be, that he excites no censure for telling them modest stories, or, in plain English, that he tells them nothing but immodest ones," DOUCE), iv. 344. bate, to flutter, to flap the wings (a term in falconry: "Bate, Bateing or Bateth, is when the Hawk fluttereth with her Wings either from Pearch or Fist, as it were striveing to get away; also it is taken for her striving with her Prey, and not forsaking it till it be overcome." R. Holme's Academy of Armory and Blazon (Terms of Art used in Falconry, &c.), B. ii. c. xi. p. 238): these kites That bate, iii, 161; 'tis a hooded valour; and when it appears, it will bate (in which passage is a quibble between bate, the term of falconry, and bate, i.e. abate, fall off, dwindle), iv. 470; Bated (used, it would seem, for Bating) like eagles, iv. 271; Hood my unmann'd blood, bating in my cheeks, vi. 432 (see hood, &c.). bate, to abate, to diminish, to lessen; To bate me a full year, i. 208; bate one breath of her accustomed crossness, ii. 102; the main flood bate his usual height, ii. 398; I will not bate thee a scruple, iii. 239; bate me some, iv. 407; bate thy rage, iv. 452; you bate too much of your own merits, vii. 24: Who bates mine honour, vii. 45; With bated breath, ii. 350; like a bated and retired flood, iv. 89; no leisure bated ("without any abatement or intermission of time," MALONE), vii. 423. bate, to grow less: do I not bate? iv. 262. bate, to except: Bate, I beseech you, widow Dido, i. 221; Those bated that inherit but the fall, &c., iii. 221. bate, to blunt: which shall bate his scythe's keen edge, ii. 159 (see the third sense of abate). bate-breeding, apt to cause strife or contention, ix. 245. batlet, a bat for beating clothes in washing, iii. 32. batten, "To batten (grow fat), pinguesco" (Coles's Lat. and Engl. Dict.), vi. 227 ; vii. 381. bauble, the licensed Fool's or Jester's "official sceptre or bauble, which was a short stick ornamented at the end with a figure of a fool's head, or sometimes with that of a doll or puppet" (DOUCE): gives his wife my bauble, iii. 287; An idiot holds his bauble for a god, vi. 348 ("There cannot be a doubt that Aaron refers to that sort of bauble or sceptre which was usually carried in the hand by natural idiots and allowed jesters, and by which, it may be supposed, they would sometimes swear. The resemblance which it bore to an image or idol suggested the poet's comparison," DOUCE); hide his bauble in a hole, vi. 415. Bavian-The, The Baboon (the word is also written Babian and Babion), ix. 163, 165, 168, 169: Here [in the third of the above passages] are not [as Steevens supposed] two fools described. The construction is, 'next comes the fool, i.e. the Bavian fool, &c.' The tricks of the Bavian, his tumbling and barking like a dog. were peculiar to the morris-dance described in the Two Noble Kinsmen, which has some other characters that seem to have been introduced for stage-effect, and not to have belonged to the genuine morris" (DOUCE). .... bavin wits, flashing wits, iv. 258 (Bavin is "a faggot of brushwood;" but the word, as here, is sometimes used adjectively; "I onely burne the bauen heath of youth." Jacke Drums Entertainement, sig. A 3 verso, ed. 1616). bawbling, trifling, insignificant, contemptible, iii. 386. bawcock, a burlesque term of endearment, said to be derived from the French beau coq, iii. 367, 409; iv. 452, 475. bay-After three-pence a, i. 481: “Bay, a principal compartment or division in the architectural arrangement of a building, marked either by the buttresses or pilasters on the walls, by the disposition of the main ribs of the vaulting of the interior, by the main arches and pillars, the principals of the roof, or by any other leading |