_"I put a spoke in his wheel."_--What is the meaning of the phrase, "I put
a spoke in his wheel?"
In April last, a petition was heard in the Rolls Court on the part of the
trustees of Manchester New College, praying that they might be allowed to
remove that institution to London; and a single trustee was heard against
such removal. One of the friends of the college was on this occasion heard
to remark, "the removal to London was going on very smoothly, and it would
have been done by this time, if this one trustee had not _put his spoke in
the wheel_:" meaning, that the conscientious scruple of this trustee was
the sole _impediment to the movement_. Is this the _customary_ and proper
mode of using the phrase; and, if so, how can putting a spoke to a wheel
impede its motion?
On the other hand, having heard some persons say that they had always
understood the phrase to denote affording _help_ to an undertaking, and
confidently allege that this must be the _older_ and {270} more correct
usage, for "what," say they, "is a wheel without spokes?" I inquired of an
intelligent lady, of long American descent, in what way she had been
accustomed to hear the phrase employed, and the answer was "Certainly as a
help: we used to say to one who had anything in hand of difficult
accomplishment, 'Do not be faint-hearted, I'll give you a spoke.'"
Dr. Johnson, in the folio edition of his _Dictionary_, 1755, after defining
a spoke to be the "bar of a wheel that passes from the nave to the felly,"
cites:
" . . . . All you gods,
In general synod, take away her power,
Break all the _spokes_ and fellies to her wheel,
And bowl the round nave down the hill of Heaven."--_Shakspeare_.