Volume 2

A glossary, or, Collection of words, phrases, names, and allusions to customs, proverbs, etc., which have been thought to require illustration, in the works of English authors, particularly Shakespeare, and his contemporaries / [Robert Nares].

  • Nares, Robert, 1753-1829.
Date:
1882
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A glossary, or, Collection of words, phrases, names, and allusions to customs, proverbs, etc., which have been thought to require illustration, in the works of English authors, particularly Shakespeare, and his contemporaries / [Robert Nares]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    LIMBECK. An alembic; a corrupt form of the word. It means a still, and is hardly disused in poetry. It is abundantly exemplified by Johnson. Mr. Todd has found it used as a verb by sir E. Sandys. It is found also in Milton and Dryden. The warder of the brain Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason A limbeck only. Mach., i, 7. His head is a receptacle of catarrhs, his eyes limbecks of fluxes and inflammations. Clitus's Whimzies, p. 60. LIMBO. The borders of hell, some- times used for hell itself; corruptly formed from limbus, the hem or border of a garment. The old school- men supposed there to be, besides hell (infernus damnatorum), 1. A limbus puerorum, where the souls of infants unbaptized remained; 2. A limbus patrum, where the fathers of the church, saints, and martyrs, awaited the general resurrection ; and, 3. Purgatory. To which, in popular opinion, was added, 4. A limbus fatuorum, or fool’s paradise, the re- ceptacle of all vanity and nonsense. Shakespeare uses it generally for hell: As far from help as limbo is from bliss. Tit. Andr., iii, 1. For indeed he was mad for her, and talk’d of Satan, and of limbo, and of furies, and I know not what. All's Well, v, 3. Limbus patrum is jocularly put in the following passage for a prison : I have some of them in limbo patrum, and there they are like to dance these three days; besides the running banquet of two beadles, that is to come. Hen. VIII, v, 3. It is here used for hell by Spenser: What voice of damned ghost from limbo lake ? F. Q., I, ii, 32. And elsewhere in his works. Here it has its proper sense: Legions of sprites from limbo's prison got, The empty air, the hills and valleys till’d. Fairfax, Tasso, ix, 53. Milton has indulged himself in rather a jocular description of what he calls A limbo large and broad, since call’d The paradise of fools. Far. Lost, iii, 495. Which he stores with Both all things vain, and all who in vain things Built their fond hopes of glory or lasting fame. Or happiness, in this or tli’ other life: All who have their reward on earth, the fruits Of painful superstition, and blind zeal,— All tli’ unaccomplish’d works of nature’s hand, Abortive, monstrous, and unkindly mix’d, Dissolv’d on earth. Ver. 448, &c. The idea is undoubtedly borrowed, in part, from Ariosto’s repository of lost things in the moon ; to which, indeed, he directly refers: Not in the neighb’ring moon, as some have dream’d. Ver. 459. We find, in the following passage, a kind of origin for Milton’s bridge from hell to the earth: And up from darksome lymbo's dismall stage, One Stygian bridge, from Plutoe’s emperie Came Night’s black brood, Disorder, Ruine, Rage, Rape, Discord, Dread, Despaire, Impietie, Horror, swift Vengeance, Murder, Crueltie. Nicchol’s England's Eliza, An. 1588; Mirr. Mag., 814. The company that passes over is exactly of the same kind. Limbo is also used for a prison, or any place of restraint. LIME, as put into liquor, for adultera- tion, complained of by Falstatf and others. You rogue, here’s lime in this sack too: there’s nothing but roguery to be found in villainous man: yet a coward is worse than a cup of sack with lime in it. 1 Hen. IV, ii, 4. Sir Richard Hawkins is quoted as saying that lime was mixed with the wine in making “ for conservation.” Voy., p. 379. But that cannot be what the tavern-keeper is accused of doing. It was probably used for fining. It is said, however, in a pamphlet by R. Greene, to be mixed with ale, “ to make it mightie.” How it could have that effect, it is not easy to say. See notes on the passage above cited. LIME, s., for bird-lime. This was often separately used, which now it is not. It frequently thus occurs in Shake- speare. You must lay lime to tangle her desires. Two Gent. Ver., iii, 2. See Todd. LIME, v. To besmear with bird-lime, or to catch with it. York and impious Beaufort, that false priest, Have all lim'd bushes to betray thy wings, And fly thou how thou can’st they’ll tangle tbee. 2 Hen. VI, ii, 4. LIME-HOUND. A sporting dog, led by a kind of thong called a lyam, or lyme. Limier, French. We let slip a grey-hound, and cast off a hound. The string wherewith we lead a greyhound is called a lease; and for a hound a lyome. Gentl. Recreat., 8vo ed., p. 15. No, an I had, all the lime-hounds o’ the city should have drawn after you by the scent rather. B. Jons. Barth. Fair, i, 3.