Note 912 — BOOK III THE COMPANIES (continued 7)

H. C. Coote in Intermédiaire des Chercheurs et Curieux, ii. 105; cf. 5 N. Q. ix. 42. The idea was that ‘Tiph, toph’ represented a reminiscence of 2 Henry IV, II. i. 205, ‘This is the right fencing grace, my lord; tap for tap, and so part fair’. The phrase ‘tiff toff’ occurs in brackets in a speech of Crapula while he beats Mendacio in Lingua (Dodsley,4 ix. 434). Collier explains it as hiccups; Fleay, ii. 261, on the authority of P. A. Daniel, as an Italian term for the thwack of stage blows.