We never knowed what it was to want a meal's meight till lately.

After each nation got these toys in use[107] There grew up certain drunken parasites, Term'd poets, which, for a meal's meat or two. Would promise monarchs immortality.

But so very little is this regarded, that if a young Divinity Intender has but got a sermon of his own, or of his father's; although he knows not where to get a meal's meat or one penny of money by his preaching: yet he gets a Qualification from some beneficed man or other, who, perhaps, is no more able to keep a curate than I am to keep ten footboys!

A bare head in the street doth him more good than a meal's meat.

To see a scholar crouch and creep to an illiterate peasant for a meal's meat; a scrivener better paid for an obligation; a falconer receive greater wages than a student; a lawyer get more in a day than a philosopher in a year, better reward for an hour, than a scholar for a twelvemonth's study; him that can paint Thais, play on a fiddle, curl hair, &c., sooner get preferment than a philologer or a poet.

Which is most grievous, poverty makes men ridiculous, Nil habet infelix paupertas durius in se, quam quod ridiculos homines facit, they must endure jests, taunts, flouts, blows of their betters, and take all in good part to get a meal's meat: magnum pauperies opprobrium, jubet quidvis et facere et pati.

A poor man takes more delight in an ordinary meal's meat, which he hath but seldom, than they do with all their exotic dainties and continual viands; Quippe voluptatem commendat rarior usus, 'tis the rarity and necessity that makes a thing acceptable and pleasant.

The meal's nearly out.

o' whaur the next meal's coming frae.

"A meal's meat twice a week, worth a groat," is mentioned as the farm servant's portion in "Civil and Uncivil Life," 1579.

" George Dorety made no answer, and to the meal's end no one spoke.