Chapter Glendoveer' to Gloves of G by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

32.

Glory Hand In folk lore, a dead man's hand, supposed to possess certain magical properties.

"De hand of glory is hand cut off from a dead man as have been hanged for murther, and dried very nice in de shmoke of juniper wood." - Sir W. Scott: The Antiquary (Dousterswivel).

Glory be to the Father etc. The first verse of this doxology is said to be by St. Basil. During the Arian controversy it ran thus: "Glory be to the Father, by the Son, and in the Holy Ghost." (See Gloria.)

Glossin (Lawyer) purchases Ellangowan estate, and is found by Counsellor Pleydell to be implicated in carrying off Henry Bertrand, the heir of the estate. Both Glossin and Dirk Hatteraick, his accomplice, are sent to prison, and in the night the lawyer contrives to enter the smuggler's cell, when a quarrel ensues, in which Hatteraick strangles him, and then hangs himself." (Sir W. Scott: Guy Mannering.)

Gloucester (2 syl.). The ancient Britons called the town Caer Glou (bright city). The Romans Latinised Glou or Glove in Glev-um, and added colonia (the Roman colony of Glev-um). The Saxons restored the old British word Glou, and added ceaster, to signify it had been a Roman camp. Hence the word means "Glou, the camp city." Geoffrey of Monmouth says, when Arviragus married Genuissa, daughter of Claudius Cæsar, he induced the emperor to build a city on the spot where the nuptials were solemnised; this city was called Caer-Clau', a contraction of Caer-Claud, corrupted into Caer-glou, converted by the Romans into Glou-caster, and by the Saxons into Glou-ceaster or Glou-cester. "Some," continues the same "philologist," "derive the name from the Duke Gloius, a son of Claudius, born in Britain on the very spot."

Glove In the days of chivalry it was customary for knights to wear a lady's glove in their helmets, and to defend it with their life.

"One ware on his headpiece his ladies sleve, and another bare on hys helme the glove of his dearlynge." - Hall: Chronicle, Henry IV.

Glove A bribe. (See Glove Money .)
   Hand and glove. Sworn friends; on most intimate terms; close companions, like glove and hand.

"And prate and preach about what others prove,
As if the world and they were hand and glove."
Cowper.

   He bit his glove. He resolved on mortal revenge. On the "Border," to bite the glove was considered a pledge of deadly vengeance.

"Stern Rutherford right little said,
But bit his glove and shook his head."
Sir Walter Scott: Lay of the Last Minstrel.

   Here I throw down my glove. I challenge you. In allusion to an ancient custom of a challenger throwing his glove or gauntlet at the feet of the person challenged, and bidding him to pick it up. If he did so the two fought, and the vanquisher was considered to be adjudged by God to be in the right. To take up the glove means, therefore, to accept the challenge.

"I will throw my glove to Death itself, that there's no maculation in thy heart." - Shakespeare: Troilus and Cressida, iv. 4.

   To take up the glove. To accept the challenge made by casting a glove or gauntlet on the ground.
   Right as my glove. The phrase, says Sir Walter Scott, comes from the custom of pledging a glove as the signal of irrefragable faith. (The Antiquary.)

Glove Money A bribe, a perquisite; so called from the ancient custom of presenting a pair of gloves to a person who undertook a cause for you. Mrs. Croaker presented Sir Thomas More, the Lord Chancellor, with a pair of gloves lined with forty pounds in "angels," as a "token." Sir Thomas kept the gloves, but returned the lining. (See above.)

Gloves are not worn in the presence of royalty, because we are to stand unarmed, with the helmet off the head and gauntlets off the hands, to show we have no hostile intention. (See Salutations.)
   Gloves used to be worn by the clergy to indicate that their hands are clean and not open to bribes. They are no longer officially worn by the parochial clergy.
   Gloves given to a judge in a maiden assize. In an assize without a criminal, the sheriff presents the judge with a pair of white gloves. Chambers says, anciently judges were not allowed to wear gloves on the bench (Cyclopædia). To give a judge a pair of gloves,