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J — Jel lyby to Jeremy Diddler (Part 3 of 3)

Polonius: What [a] treasure had he, my lord?

Hamlet: Why, “one fair and no more, the which he loved passing well…

Polonius: If you call me Jeptha, my lord, I have a daughter, that I love passing well.

Hamlet: Nay, that follows not.

Polonius: What follows then, my lord?

Hamlet: Why, “As by lot, God wot.” The first verse of the ballad is—

Have you not heard these many years ago,
Jeptha was judge of Israel;
He had one only daughter, and no mo,
The which he lovéd passing well,
And as by lot, God wot,
It so came to pass…

(Polonius asks, “What follows [‘passing well’]?” to which Hamlet replies, “As by lot, God wot.”)

Jepson (Old), a smuggler.—Sir W. Scott: Redgauntlet (time, George III.).

Jeremiah (The British), Gildas, author of De Exidio Britanniæ, a book of lamentations over the destruction of Britain. He is so called by Gibbon (516-570).

Jeremy (Master), head domestic of lord Saville.—Sir W. Scott: Peveril of the Peak (time, Charles II.).

Jeremy Diddler, an adept at raising money on false pretences.—Kenney: Raising the Wind (1803).