be the true explanation of the phrase, I am unable to determine."

[767] "Glossary," p. 210.

_All hid, all hid._ Biron, in "Love's Labour's Lost" (iv. 3), no doubt
means the game well-known as hide-and-seek, "All hid, all hid; an old
infant play." The following note, however, in Cotgrave's "French and
English Dictionary," has been adduced to show that he may possibly mean
blind-man's-buff: "Clignemasset. The childish play called Hodman-blind
[_i. e._, blind-man's-buff], Harrie-racket, or Are you all hid."

_Backgammon._ The old name for this game was "Tables," as in "Love's
Labour's Lost" (v. 2):

"This is the ape of form, monsieur the nice
That, when he plays at tables, chides the dice."

An interesting history of this game will be found in Strutt's "Sports
and Pastimes" (1876, pp. 419-421).

_Barley-break._ This game, called also the "Last Couple in Hell," which
is alluded to in the "Two Noble Kinsmen," (iv. 3), was played by six
people, three of each sex, who were coupled by lot.[768] A piece of
ground was then chosen, and divided into three compartments, of which
the middle one was called hell. It was the object of the couple
condemned to this division to catch the others, who advanced from the
two extremities; in which case a change of situation took place, and
hell was filled by the couple who were excluded by preoccupation from
the other places. This catching, however, was not so easy, as, by the
rules of the game, the middle couple were not to separate before they
had succeeded, while the others might break hands whenever they found
themselves hard pressed. When all had been taken in turn, the last
couple were said "to be in hell," and the game ended.

[768] From Gifford's Note on Massinger's Works, 1813, vol. i.
p. 104.

The game was frequently mentioned by old writers, and appears to have
been very popular. From Herrick's Poems, it is seen that the couples in
their confinement occasionally solaced themselves by kisses:

"_Barley-break; or, Last in Hell._

"We two are last in hell; what may we fear,
To be tormented, or kept pris'ners here?
Alas, if kissing be of plagues the worst,
We'll wish in hell we had been last and first."

In Scotland it was called barla-breikis, and was, says Jamieson,
"generally played by young people in a corn-yard, hence its name,
barla-bracks, about the stacks."[769] The term "hell," says Nares,[770]
"was indiscreet, and m