"An arch Barber at a certain Borough in the West, where there are but
few Electors, had Art enough to suspend his Promise till the Voters, by
means of _Bribery_, the _old Balsam_, were so divided, that the casting
vote lay in himself. One of the Candidates, who was sensible of it,
cameinto his little dirty Shop to be shaved, and when the operation was
finish'd, threw into the Bason _Twenty Guineas_. The next Day came the
other Candidate, who was shaved also, and left _Thirty_. Some Days after
this, the first return'd to solicit the Barber's Vote, who told him very
coldly, _That he could not promise. Not promise!_ says the Gentleman;
why I thought I had been shaved here! 'Tis true, says the Barber, _you
was, but another Gentleman has been trimm'd_ since that; however, if you
please, I'll trim you again, and then tell you my mind."--_Complete
London Jester_, ed. 1771, p. 99.
P. 35. _Conon peaked into the court._--So in Skelton's _Colin Clout_
(Works by Dyce, I. 312), we have:--
"He cryeth and he creketh,
He pryeth and he peketh,
He chides and he chatters," &c.
In the _Posthums Poems of Richard Lovelace, Esq._ 1659, 80, p. 60, the
word is employed in a different sense:--
"Have you not marked their C[oe]lestial play,
And no more peek'd the gayties of day?"
_To peak_, however, in the sense in which it is used by Skelton, and in
the _Merie Tales_, &c. is of rather frequent occurrence in _Scoggin's
Jests_, 1626 (but first printed before 1565); and Gascoigne employs the
word in the same manner in the _Steel Glas_, n. d. (1576) 40. The
passage in Gascoigne, which I perused long ago, was brought back to my
recollection by a note by the Rev. A. Dyce to Skelton's _Colin Clout_.
P. 38.--See Diogenes Laertius, transl. by Yonge, p. 226. Diogenes the
Cynic evidently had Thales in his mind when he said "that mathematicians
kept their eyes fixed on the sun and moon, and overlooked what was under
their feet."