Chapter Handy Andy to Hardy of H by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Handy Andy to Hardy

Handy Andy, a novel by S. Lover (1842).

Hang up his Fiddle (To), to give a thing up as hopeless or as a bad job; to decamp; to discontinue.

When a man loses his temper, and ain’t cool, he might as well hang up his fiddle.—Sam Slick.

If a man at 42 is not in a fair way to get his share of the world’s spoils, he might as well hang up his fiddle, and be content to dig his way through life as best he may.—Dow: Sermons, p.78.

Hang up his Fiddle with his Hat (To) to lose all cheerfulness on return home; to be merry abroad and morose at home.

Mr. N. can be very agreeable when I am absent, and anywhere but at home. I always say, he hangs his fiddle up with his hat.—Theodore Hook: Gilbert Guerney.

The Provencals have a proverb, Gau de carriers, doulou d’oustan (“Joyabroad, grief at home”). (See Daudet’s novel Numa Roumestan. The gist of the story turns on this proverb.)

Hanging Judge (The), Sir Francis Page (1718–1741).

The earl of Norbury, chief justice of the Common Pleas in Ireland from 1820 to 1827, was also stigmatized with the same unenviable title.

Hank. I have him at a hank. Fe le tiens dans mes filets. Here hank means the quantity of thread, etc., tied into one skein or hank.

Hank for Hank, on perfect equality, neither being able to outrun the other. In sea phrase it means the situation of two vessels which run the same road, and are par le travers l’un de l’ autre.

The Dolphin and Cerberus turned up the river hank for hank, neither being able to get the windward of the other.

Hanks are rings used instead of grommets to confine the staysails.

Hannah, housekeeper to Mr. Fairford the lawyer.—Sir W. Scott: Redgauntlet (time, George III.).

Hannah, the heroine of Mrs. Inchbald’s story of Nature and Art (1796).

Hannibal ad Portas! or Attila ad portas! a cry of alarm at the near approach of a formidable enemy, especially an army of invaders. Attila and Hannibal were to the Romans the “scourges of the gods.”

Hanno, a slave, chiefly famous for the description of his death.—Dr. John Moore: Zeluco (a novel, 1789).

Hanover Rat. The Jacobites used to affirm that the rat was brought over by the Hanoverians when they succeeded to the crown.

Curse me the British vermin, the rat,—
I know not whether he came in the Hanover ship.
   —Tennyson: Maud, II.v.6.

Hans, a simple-minded boy of five and twenty, in love with Esther, but too shy to ask her in marriage. He is a “Modus” in a lower social grade; Esther is a “cousin Helen,” who laughs at him, loves him, and teaches him how to make love to her and win her.—Knowles: The Maid of Mariendorpt (1838).

Hans, the pious ferryman on the banks of the Rhine.—Sir W. Scott: Anne of Geierstein (time, Edward IV.).

Hans (Adrian), a Dutch merchant, killed at Boston.—Sir W.Scott: Peveril of the Peak (time, Charles II.).