"
I HENRY VI., V. v. 53.
And, in any case, is it possible to set up such a distinction between
"bargaining" and "haggling" as to be worth an international wrangle?
"Starved" for frozen is to Mr. Tucker an innovation; it was used both by
Shakespeare and Milton. "Assist" in the sense of to "be present at" is
an "absurd" innovation; it was used by Gibbon and by Prescott, a
"tolerably good authority," says Mr. Tucker himself, "in the use of
English." Miss Yonge is taken to task for saying, "Theodora _flung_ away
and was rushing off;" but Milton says, "And crop-full out of doors he
flings." Charles Reade "is guilty of such phrases as 'Wardlaw whipped
before him,' 'Ransome whipped before it;'" but the Princess in _Love's
Labour's Lost_ is guilty of saying, "Whip to our tents, as roes run
o'er the land," and the word occurs in the same sense in Ben Jonson and
Steele, to search no further. The simple fact is that Mr. Tucker has not
happened to note the intransitive sense of "to fling" and "to whip,"
which has been current in the best authors for centuries. He is very
severe on the English habit of "inserting utterly superfluous words,"
instancing from Lord Beaconsfield, "He was _by way of_ intimating that
he was engaged on a great work," and, from a magazine, "She was _by way
of_ painting the shrimp girl.
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