Queries about "Up and at 'em"

[Charles Doyle]

LION gives this (I can't find it in EEBO), from Richard Head and Francis Kirkman's _The English Rogue_ (1671):  ". . . if they, in the Morning, did fall to drinking again, taking a hair of the Old Dog, then he would up, and at them again."

I'm not sure that's an actual instance of the saying, though.  How definitive is imperative mood, or the contracted _'em_?

And why do I find backward apostrophes so annoying??

--Charlie
___________________________________________________

---- Original message ----
>Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2007 09:02:45 -0800
>From: Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
>Subject: Re: Queries about "Up and at 'em"

>
>The phrase has long been attributed to the Duke of Wellington at Waterloo in 1815, in the form "Up, Guards, and at 'em !"
>
>  I don't know the ultimate source of this claim.
>
>  JL

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