l other parliaments was called by man, but
this was brought about by his own hand."

"_An't please the Pigs_." In this phrase there is not only a peculiarity
of dialect, but the corruption of a word, and a change of one thing for
another. In the first place, _an_, in the midland counties, is used for if;
and pigs is evidently a corruption of Pyx, the sacred vessel containing
the host in Roman Catholic countries. In the last place, the vessel is
substituted for the power itself, by an easy metonymy in the same manner
as when we talk of "the sense of the house," we do not mean to ascribe
intelligence to a material building; but to the persons in it assembled
for a deliberate purpose; the expression therefore signifies no more than
"_Deo volente_," or God willing.

"_Bumper_." In many parts of England any thing large is called a bumper.
Hence a bumping lass is a large girl of her age, and a bumpkin is a
large-limbed, uncivilized rustic; the idea of grossness of size entering
into the idea of a country bumpkin, as well as that of unpolished rudeness.
Dr. Johnson, however, strangely enough deduces the word bumpkin from bump;
but what if it should prove to be a corruption of bumbard, or bombard: in
low Latin, bombardus, a great gun, and from thence applied to a large
flagon, or full glass. Thus the Lord Chamberlain says to the porters who
had been negligent in keeping out the mob.

"You are lazy knaves:
And here ye lie, baiting of bombard, when
Ye should do service."

_Shaks. Hen_. VIII. _Act_ 5, _Scene_ 3.

"Baiting of bombard" is a term for sitting and drinking, which Nash in his
"Supplycacyon to the Deuyll," calls by the like metaphor, "bear baiting."
So Shakspeare again in the "Tempest," says,

"Yond same black cloud, yond huge one,
Seems like foul bombard, that would shed his liquor."

_Tempest, Act_ 2, _Scene_ 2.

Which Theobald rightly explains thus: "A large vessel for holding drink,
as well as the piece of ordinance so called."

"_Latter Lammas_." Lammas day is the first day of August, so called quasi,
Lamb-mass, on which day the tenants that hold lands of the Cathedral of
York, which is dedicated to St. Peter, ad Vincula, were bound by that
tenure to bring a living lamb into the church at high mass.--_Cornell's
Interpreter_. Lammas day was always a great day of account, for in the
payment of rents our ancestors distributed the year into four qua