Chapter Hood to Horace of H by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

"seven half-penny loaves shall be sold for a penny; the three-hooped pot shall have ten hoops; and I will make it felony to drink small beer." (Shakespeare: 2 Henry VI., iv. 2.)

Hoopoe (Upupa Epops). A small crested bird revered by all the ancient Egyptains, and placed on the sceptre of Horus, to symbolise joy and filial affection. (Latin upupa, the hoopoe.)

Hop The plant, called by Tusser "Robin Hop." (Danish hop.) To hop on one leg is the Anglo-Saxon hopetan or hoppian.

"Get into thy hopyard, for now it is time
To teach Robin Hop on his pole how to climb."
Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry, xli. 17.

   Thick as hops. Very numerous; very compact.

"And thousand other things as thicke as hops."
Taylor the Water Poet (1630).

Hop-o'-my-Thumb A nix, the same as the German daumling, the French le petit pouce, and the Scotch Tom-a-lin (or Tamlane). Tom Thumb in the wellknown nursery tale is quite another character. He was the son of peasants, knighted by King Arthur, and killed by a spider.
    Several dwarfs have assumed the name of Tom Thumb. (See Dwarfs.)

"You Stump-o'-the-Gutter, you Hop-o'-my-Thumb,
Your husband must from Lilliput come."
Kane O'Hara: Midas.

"Plaine friend. Hop-o'-my-Thumb, know you who we are?" - Taming of the Shrew (1594).

   To hop the twig. To run away from one's creditors, as a bird eludes a fowler, "hopping from spray to spray."
    Also to die. The same idea as that above. There are numerous phrases to express the cessation of life; for example, "To kick the bucket" (q.v.; "To lay down one's knife and fork;" "Pegging out" (from the game of cribbage); "To be snuffed out" (like a candle); "He has given in;" "To throw up the sponge" (q.v.; "To fall asleep;" "To enter Charon's boat" (See Charon); "To join the majority;" "To cave in;" a common Scripture phrase is "To give up the ghost."

Hope Before Alexander set out for Asia he divided his kingdom among his friends. "My lord," said Perdiccas, "what have you left for, yourself?" "Hope," replied Alexander. Whereupon Perdiccas rejoined, "If hope is enough for Alexander, it is enough for Perdiccas," and declined to accept any bounty from the king.
   The Bard of Hope. Thomas Campbell (1777-1844), the author of The Pleasures of Hope. The entire profits on this poem were 900.
   The Cape of Good Hope. (See Storms.)

Hopeful The companion of Christian after the death of Faithful. (Bunyan: Pilgrim's Progress.)

Hope-on-High Bomby A puritanical character drawn by Beaumont and Fletcher.

" `Well,' said Wildrake, `I think I can make a "Hope-on-High Bomby" as well as thou canst." " - Sir Walter Scott: Woodstock, c. vii.

Hopkins (Matthew), of Manningtree, Essex, the witch-finder of the associated counties of Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, and Huntingdonshire. In one year he hanged sixty reputed witches in Essex alone. Dr. Z. Grey says that between three and four thousand persons suffered death for witchcraft between 1643 and 1661.
   Nicholas Hopkins. A Carthusian friar, confessor of the Duke of Buckingham, who prophesied "that neither the king (Henry VIII.) nor his heirs should prosper, but that the Duke of Buckingham should govern England.

"1 Gent. That devil-monk
Hopkins that made this mischief.
2 Gent. That was he
That fed him with his prophecies."
Shakespeare: Henry VIII., ii. 1.

Hopkinsians Those who adopt the theological opinions of Dr. Samuel Hopkins, of Connecticut. These sectarians hold most of the Calvinistic doctrines, but entirely reject the doctrines of imputed sin and imputed righteousness. The speciality of the system is that true holiness consists in disinterested benevolence, and that all sin is selfishness.

Hopping Giles A lame person; so called from St. Giles, the tutelar saint of cripples, who was himself lame.