These whiffling Criticks, 'tis our Auth'ress fears, And humbly begs a Trial by her Peers: Or let a Pole of Fools her fate pronounce, There's no great harm in a good quiet Dunce.

p. 278, l. 25 whiffling.

p. 278 whiffling.

To whiffle = to hesitate; waver; prevaricate.

Tillotson, Sermons, xiv (1671-94): 'Everyman ought to be stedfast ... and not suffer himself to be whiffled ... by an insignificant noise.'

The whiffle-tree would swing round and hit them, and when their collars were taken off, their necks would be raw and bloody.

Like the whiffle-tit, they were just a damn lie.

"Watson is apt to whiffle about, though a prime fellow, if you can once fasten to him, and get him into blue water.

We have been the best of friends in the way of whiffle-trees, butter tubs and pig killingsbut never once looked up together at the sky.

Sometimes his verse is merely plain rimed prose, but again it becomes vigorous, picturesque, and vivid in description, as in the following lines from Dauber: "...then the snow Whirled all about, dense, multitudinous cold, Mixed with the wind's one devilish thrust and shriek Which whiffled out men's tears, deafened, took hold,

Eolus, Boreas, Zephyr, cave of Eolus. air pump, air blower, lungs, bellows, blowpipe, fan, ventilator, punkah^; branchiae^, gills, flabellum^, vertilabrum^. whiffle ball.

respire, breathe, puff; whiff, whiffle; gasp, wheeze; snuff, snuffle; sniff, sniffle; sneeze, cough. fan, ventilate; inflate, perflate^; blow up.

This puts him upon perpetual apologies, excuses, and defences, but still by way of defiance, in a kind of whiffling strain, without regard of any man that stands in the way of his pageant.

Somewhere in the middle of it a hideous whiffling wail came down the sky: Trrou... trrou... trou!and then a crash!

I thought as strong a splice was laid, between me and Kate Whiffle, as was ever turned into a sheet-cable; but then came the law, with its regulations and shipping articles, luffing short athwart my happiness, and making a wreck at once of all the poor girl's hopes, and a Flemish account of my comfort.

"I christened the gun after Mistress Whiffle, your Honour, for the same reason, that they both can do their own talking.

And as in uffish thought he stood, The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, Came whiffling through the tulgey wood And burbled as it came!

[Footnote 022: Susuffrus: "whiffling," susurrus: "whistling."

Peter Whiffle, his life and works.

Peter Whiffle, his life and works.

He had grown up to the scrape and whiffle of the currycomb, breathing ammonia, cracking the skin of his infantile knuckles with harness soap.

Some were merely hunting country, and were ready to be whiffled off toward any neck of the woods which might be puffed up by a wayside acquaintance as ignorant about it as he.

His wife was a perfect picture of those women who had the life drailed out of them by a yielding to the whiffling winds of influence that carried the dead leaves of humanity hither and yon in the advance of the frontier.

As I watch it with the wondering admiration with which I have daily regarded it, I hear the door of our sitting-room open, and Vick give a little shrewish shrill bark, speedily changed into an apologetic and friendly whiffling and whoffling.

Call 'em in; the turkeys will be on in a whiffle.