Item, That no man waite at the table without a trencher in his hand, except it be vppon some good cause, on paine of Id. IX.

In other words, Ahasuerus and his trencher-mates ate and drank as much in five days as had been eaten and drunk by all the other Old Testament characters from "Genesis" to "Malachi.

"Guests at table were paired, and ate, every pair, out of the same plate or off the same trencher."

A clean trencher for my cousin Prodigo.

STUDIOSO, going aside, sayeth, Fair fell good Orpheus, that would rather be King of a molehill than a keisar's slave: Better it is 'mongst fiddlers to be chief, Than at [a] player's trencher beg relief.

Declining from this trencher-waiting trade.

[U.S.], spider, terrine, toby, urceus. plate, platter, dish, trencher, calabash, porringer, potager, saucer, pan, crucible; glassware, tableware; vitrics. compote, gravy boat, creamer, sugar bowl, butter dish, mug, pitcher, punch bowl, chafing dish.

He has some faculty in the mangling of a rabbit, and the distribution of his morsel to a neighbour's trencher.

My wrongs and fortune have made me so tame That I am a fytt subject for your spleene, Your trencher envye & reverssyon rage?

If he be a trencher chaplain in a gentleman's house, as it befell [2007] Euphormio, after some seven years' service, he may perchance have a living to the halves, or some small rectory with the mother of the maids at length, a poor kinswoman, or a cracked chambermaid, to have and to hold during the time of his life.

and they are much at one; no difference between the master and the man, but worshipful titles; wink and choose betwixt him that sits down (clothes excepted) and him that holds the trencher behind him: yet these men must be our patrons, our governors too sometimes, statesmen, magistrates, noble, great, and wise by inheritance.

But if some poor scholar, some parson chaff, will offer himself; some trencher chaplain, that will take it to the halves, thirds, or accepts of what he will give, he is welcome; be conformable, preach as he will have him, he likes him before a million of others; for the host is always best cheap: and then as Hierom said to Cromatius, patella dignum operculum, such a patron, such a clerk; the cure is well supplied, and all parties pleased.

[2085]"As children do by a bird or a butterfly in a string, pull in and let him out as they list, do they by their trencher chaplains, prescribe, command their wits, let in and out as to them it seems best."

Or plain, as Patricius holds, which Austin, Lactamius, and some others, held of old as round as a trencher. 3040.

Now, my fair nymph of the birchen-tree, use your interest to find me supper and lodging; for your elegant squires of the trencher look surly on me here: I am the prophet who has no honour in his own country.

Marie had served the noble guests with pleasant alacrity, passing the rainbow-tinted trout caught as well as broiled by her own hand, and the luscious huckleberries in tasteful baskets of her own braiding, and Tontz Main de Fer, the chivalric companion and friend of La Salle, was moved like Geraint, served by Enid, "to stoop and kiss the dainty little thumb that crossed the trencher."

Are ye not two beggarly retainers, trencher-parasites, to John?

The following is an additional illustration of Mr. Macaulay's sketch, from Bishop Hall's Byting Satyres, 1599: "A gentle squire would gladly entertaine Into his house some Trencher-chapelaine; Some willing man, that might instruct his sons, And that would stand to good conditions.

I'le heat a trencher for him.

Durty December doe, Thou with a face as old as Erra Pater, such a Prognosticating nose: thou thing that ten years since has left to be a woman, outworn the expectation of a Baud; and thy dry bones can reach at nothing now, but gords or ninepins, pray goe fetch a trencher goe.

The dwellers northward were by nature hunters and fishermen, and became only by Act of Parliament poachers, smugglers, and illicit distillers; the province of the male portion of the family was to find food for the rest; and a pair of spurs laid on an empty trencher was well understood by the goodman as a token that the larder was empty and replenishable.

In the "Conceits of Old Hobson," 1607, the worthy haberdasher of the Poultry gives some friends what is facetiously described as a "light" banqueta cup of wine and a manchet of bread on a trencher for each guest, in an apartment illuminated with five hundred candles.

The fifteenth century vocabulary notices the salt-cellar, the spoon, the trencher, and the table-cloth.

For in the "Serving-man's Comfort," 1598, one reads:"Even so the gentlemanly serving-man, whose life and manners doth equal his birth and bringing up, scorneth the society of these sots, or to place a dish where they give a trencher"; and speaking of the passion of people for raising themselves above their extraction, the writer, a little farther on, observes: "For the yeoman's son, as I said before, leaving gee haigh!

In former days it was frequently usual for a couple thus seated together to eat from one trencher, more particularly if the relations between them were of an intimate nature, or, again, if it were the master and mistress of the establishment.