_Fag_ = "a horse for easy riding" or some such?

[Wilson Gray]

From:

THE SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS FOR 1805

VOL. IX

LONDON:
...
1806

p.352

A HORSE FOR AFTER DINNER

AN EPIGRAM

SAYS Sir Toby---" My friend, can you get me a nag
That will ride very quiet---and serve as a _fag_?"--- [Emphasis supplied]
" Yes, I've one that will suit you ; he's steady and mild,
And so safe in his paces, he'd carry a child."---
" A child !" says Sir Toby, " that is not the sort ;
Do you think he can carry _two bottles of port?"_ [Emphasis original]


http://goo.gl/ymowq

I ran across this while idly researching "a knock-down argument," a
phrase that I'd never heard heard before 1972 at MIT, where it is/was?
endemic in the linguistics dept. Then, I discovered that Lewis Carroll
had used this turn of phrase. Quelle surprise! (Yes, it appears in
_Alice_, but, astoundingly, I'd forgotten about that.) IAC, I can now
date the phrase to 1806.

I'm just messing around for personal enjoyment. Nevertheless, if
anyone should have the earliest cite at the tip of his fingers and be
willing to spare me the effort of finding it for myself ... :-)

--
-Wilson
-----

All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"––a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

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