Page:Farmer - Slang and its analogues past and present - Volume 3.pdf/301

 Hedge-bird, subs. (old).—See quot.

1614. Jonson, Bartholomew Fair, ii., 1. Out, you rogue, you hedge-bird, you pimp, you panier-man's bastard, you.

1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew. Hedge-bird, a Scoundrel or sorry Fellow

1725. New Cant. Dict.

Hedge-bottom Attorney (or Solicitor), subs. phr. (legal).—A person who, being not admitted or being uncertificated (or, it may be, admitted and certificated both, but struck off the rolls for malpractice), sets up in the name of a qualified man, and thus evades the penalties attaching to those who act as solicitors without being duly qualified. [All the business is done in another name, but the hedge-bottom is the real principal, the partner being only a dummy.]—Sir Patrick Colquhoun in Slang, Jargon and Cant.

Hedge-creeper, subs. (old).—A hedge-thief; a skulker under hedges; a pitiful rascal.

1594. Nashe, Unfortunate Traveller p. 32 (Chiswick Press, 1892). Call him a sneaking eavesdropper, a scraping hedge-creeper, and a piperley pickthanke.

1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, s.v. Hedge-creeper; a pitiful rascal.

1725. New Cant. Dict. s.v.

1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v.

Hedge-docked, adj. (venery).—Deflowered in the open.

Hedge-marriage (or wedding), subs. (old).—An irregular marriage performed by a hedge-priest (q.v.); a marriage over the broom.

Hedge-note, subs. (old).—Low writing. [As Dryden: 'They left these hedge-notes for another sort of poem.']

HEDGE-POPPING, subs. (sporting).—Shooting small birds about hedges. Whence Hedge-popper = a trumpery shooter; and Hedge-game = small birds, as sparrows and tits.

Hedge-priest (or parson), subs. (old: now recognised).—A sham cleric; a blackguard or vagabond parson; a couple beggar. [As Johnson notes, the use of Hedge in a detrimental sense is common. As Hedge-begot; Hedge-born; Hedge-brat; Hedge-found; Hedge-docked (q.v.); Hedge-tavern (= a low ale-*house); Hedge-square (q.v.); Hedge-reared; Hedge-mustard; Hedge-writer (= a Grub-street author); Hedge-building, etc. Shakspeare uses the phrase 'Hedge-born' as the very opposite of 'gentle blooded' (1 Henry VI., iv., 1).] Specifically, Hedge-priests = (in Ireland) a cleric admitted to orders directly from a Hedge-school (q.v.) without having studied theology. [Before May-*nooth, men were admitted to ordination ere they left for the continental colleges, so that they might receive the stipend for saying mass.]

1588. Marprelate's Epistle, p. 30 (Ed. Arber). Is it any maruaile that we haue so many swine dumbe dogs nonresidents with their iourneimen the hedge-priests in our ministry.

1594. Shakspeare, Love's Labour Lost, v., 2. The pedant, the braggart, the hedge-priest, the fool, and the boy.

1598. Florio, Worlde of Wordes. Arlotto, the name of a merie priest, a lack-latine, or hedge-priest.

1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, s.v. Hedge Priest. A sorry Hackney, Underling, Illiterate, Vagabond, see Patrico.

1725. New Cant. Dict., s.v.

1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue. s.v.