Page:The Works of Ben Jonson - Gifford - Volume 6.djvu/146

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136

A TALE OF A TUB.

Tub. What is't, sir Hugh?

Hugh. Where is your governor Hilts?
Basket must do it.

Tub. Basket shall be call'd.—
[Aloud.Hilts! can you see to rise?

Hilts. [appears at the window.] Cham not blind, sir,
With too much light.

Tub. Open your t'other eye,
And view if it be day.

Hilts. Che can spy that
At's little a hole as another, through a milstone.
[Exit above.

Tub He will have the last word, though he talk bilk for't.^[1]

Hugh Bilk! what's that?

Tub. Why, nothing; a word signifying
Nothing; and borrowed here to express nothing.

Hugh. A fine device!

Tub. Yes, till we hear a finer.
What's your device now, canon Hugh?

Hugh. In private,
Lend it your ear; I will not trust the air with it,
Or scarce my shirt; my cassock shall not know it;
If I thought it did I'd burn it.

Tub. That's the way,

↑ Though he talk bilk] I have mislaid my examples of the use of this word, as explained by squire Tub. It seems to have become a cant term about this time, for the use of it is ridiculed by others as well as Jonson. It is thus explained in Coles' English Dict. "Bilk, nothing; also, to deceive."
In "Davenant Vindicated," a burlesque poem, the meaning is thus expressed:
"Some say by Avenant no place is meant,
And that our Lombard is without descent,
And as, by bilk, men mean there's nothing there,
So come from Avenant, means from no-where."

[1] Though he talk bilk] I have mislaid my examples of the use of this word, as explained by squire Tub. It seems to have become a cant term about this time, for the use of it is ridiculed by others as well as Jonson. It is thus explained in Coles' English Dict. "Bilk, nothing; also, to deceive."
In "Davenant Vindicated," a burlesque poem, the meaning is thus expressed:
"Some say by Avenant no place is meant,
And that our Lombard is without descent,
And as, by bilk, men mean there's nothing there,
So come from Avenant, means from no-where."

[1]