Note 559 — NEW ENGLISH CANAAN OR NEW CANAAN. (continued 3)
Reading edition
Mr. Swift (Supra, 328, note) suggests that Morton here alludes to the scene in Ben Jonson’s Tale of a Tub (act iv. sc. 1), where Justice Preamble says:
“And what say you now, neighbor Turfe?”
Turfe answers him:
“I put it Even to your worship’s bitterment, hab, nab.”
Here the Countryman makes the remark, and not the Justice; but a wholly correct allusion by Morton is not to be looked for. (Supra, 123, note 2.) The meaning of hab, nab is, of course, “hit or miss, at a venture, at random,” and is probably derived from habbe, nabbe,—“to have or not to have.” (See Nares’s Glossary.)