LAY 
colours. Atterbury. —To difpofe ; to plan.— The garden 
is laid out into a grove for fruits, a vineyard, and an al¬ 
lotment for olives and herbs. Notes on the Odyffey.-^ With 
the reciprocal pronoun, to exert; put forth.—No felfifh 
man will be concerned to lay out himfelf for the good of 
his country. Smalridge. 
To Lay to. To charge upon.—When we began,' in 
courteous manner, to lay his unkindnefs unto him, he, fee¬ 
ing himfelf confronted by fo many, like a refolute orator, 
went not to denial, but to juftify his cruel falfehood. Sid¬ 
ney. —To apply with vigour.—We lliould now lay to our 
hands to root them up, and cannot tell for what. Reafons 
againjl the Covenant. 
Let children be hired to lay to their bones, 
From fallow as needeth, to gather up hones. Tujfer. 
To harafs; to attack.—The great mailer, having a careful 
eye over every part of the city, went himfelf unto the Na¬ 
tion which was then hardly laid to by the Balia Muftapha. 
Knolles. 
Whilll he this, and that, and each man’s blow. 
Doth eye, defend, and Ihift, being laid to fore : 
Backwards he bears. Daniel's Civil War. 
To Lay together. To collect; to bring into one view. 
— Many different and oppofite deductions mull be exa¬ 
mined, and laid together, before a man can come to make 
a right judgment of the point in quellion. Locke. 
To Lay under. To fubjeft to: 
A Roman foul is bent on higher views; 
To civilize the rude unpolilh’d world. 
And lay it under the reltraint of laws. Addifon. 
To Lay up. To confine to the bed or chamber.—In 
the Ealt Indies, the general remedy of all fubjefl to the 
gout, is rubbing with hands till the motion raife a vio¬ 
lent heat about the joints; where it was chiefly ufed, no 
one was ever troubled much, or laid up, by that dileafe. 
Temple. —To llore ; to treafure ; to repofite for future ufe. 
—Thofe things which at the fault are obfcure and hard, 
when memory hath laid them up for a time, judgment af¬ 
terwards growing explaineth them. Hooker. —This faculty 
of laying up and retaining ideas, feveral other animals 
have to a great degree, as well as man. Locke. 
What right, what true, what fit, we jullly call. 
Let this be all my care; for this is all ; 
To lay this harvelt up, and hoard with halle 
What every day will want, and moll the lalt. Pope. 
To LAY, v. n. To bring eggs.—Hens will greedily eat 
the herb which will make them lay the better. Mortimer's 
Hujbandry. —To contrive ; to form a fcheme ; 
Which mov’d the king, 
By all the aptell means could be procur’d, 
To lay to draw him in by any train. Daniel's Civil War. 
To Lay about. To ftrike on all fides ; to aft with great 
diligence and vigour,—In the late fuccefsful rebellion, 
how lludioully did they lay about them, to call a llur upon 
the king ? South. 
And laid about in fight more bufily, 
Than th’ Amazonian dame Penthelile. Hudibras. 
To Lay at. To ftrike; to endeavour to ftrike.—The 
fword of him that layeth at him cannot hold. Job. 
Fiercely the good man did at him lay. 
The blade oft groaned under the blow. Spenjer. 
To Lay in for. To make overtures of oblique invita¬ 
tion.—I have laid in for thefe, by rebating the fatire, 
where juftice would allow it, from carrying too lharp an 
edge. Dry den. 
To Lay on. To ftrike ; to beat without intermiflion : 
Anfwer, or anfwer not, ’tis all the fame. 
He lays me on, and makes me bear the blame. Dry den. 
To afl with vehemence; ufed of expenfes.—My father 
has made her miftrefs of the feaft, and Ihe lays it on. Shahefp. 
Vou XII. No. 839. 
LAY AOb 
To Lay out. To take meafures. — I made Uriel inquiry 
wherever I came, and laid out for intelligence of all places; 
where the intrails of the earth were laid open. Woodward. 
To Lay upon. To importune ; to requeit with earneft- 
nefs and inceflantly. Obfolete. —All the people laid l’o ear-' 
neftly upon him to take that war in hand, that they faid 
they would never bear arms more againlt the Turks, if 
he omitted that occafion. Knolles. 
LAY, f. [from the verb.] A row; a ftratum ; a layer; 
one rank in a feries, reckoned upwards.—A viol lliould 
have a lay of wire-ltrings below, as clofe to the belly as 
the lute, and then the firings of guts mounted upon a 
bridge as in ordinary viols, that the upper firings ftruckea 
might make the lower refound. Bacon. —Upon this they 
lay a layer of llone, and upon that a lay of wood. Morti¬ 
mer's Hujbandry. —A wager.—It is efteemed an even lay, 
whether any man lives ten years longer j I fuppofe it is 
the fame, that one of any ten might die within one year. 
Graunt. 
LAY, f [ley, lea£, Sax. ley, Scottifli.j Grafly ground ; 
meadow ; ground unplowed, and kept for cattle ; more 
frequently, and more properly, written lea. —The plow¬ 
ing of layes is the firft plowing up of grafs-ground for 
corn. Mortimer's Hujbandry. 
A tuft of daifies on a flow’ry lay 
They faw. Dryden's Flower and Leaf. 
LAY, f. \_lai, Fr. It is faid originally to lignify far¬ 
row or complaint, and then to have been transferred to 
poems written to exprefs forrow. It is derived by the 
French from lejfus, Latin, a funeral fong; but it is found 
likewife in the Teutonic dialedl; ley, leoS, Saxon ; leey, 
Danilh.] A fong; a poem. It is lcarcely ufed but in 
poetry: 
He reach’d the nymph with his harmonious lay, 
Whom all his charms could not incline to flay. Waller. 
On Ceres let him call, and Ceres praife 
With uncouth dances, and with country lays. Dryden. 
Ev’n gods incline their ravilh’d ears, 
And tune their own harmonious fpheres 
To his immortal lays. Dennis. 
There were two forts of lays; the great and the little. 
The firft was a poem confining of twelve couplets of 
verfes, of different meafures. The other was a poem con¬ 
fiding of fixteen or twenty verfes, divided into four cou¬ 
plets. Thefe lays were the lyric poetry of the old French 
poets, who were imitated by fome among the Englifti. 
They were principally ufed on melancholy fubjefts, and 
are laid to have been formed on the model of the trochaic 
verfes of the Greek and Latin tragedies. 
Father Morgues gives us an extraordinary inftance of 
one of thefe ancient lays, in his Treatife of French Poetry; 
Sur Tappuis du monde 
Que faut il qu'on fonde 
D'Jpoir ? 
Cette mer profonde, 
En debris feconde 
Fait voir 
Calme au matin, I'onde 
Et I'orage y gronde ’ 
Le fair. 
<e Lays were a kind of elegies,” fays M. l’Eveque de la 
Ravaliere, (Anciente des Cha'nfons, tom. i. p. 225.) “ filled 
with amorous complaints.” However there are fome lays 
which deferibe moments of joy and pleafure more than 
forrow or pain ; and others upon facred fubjefts. Chau¬ 
cer, who frequently ufes the word lay, confines it wholly 
to fongs of complaint and forrow : Thus end I this com¬ 
plaining, or this lay. —In Spenfer’s time, however, its ac¬ 
ceptation was more general, and as frequently applied to 
fongs of joy as forrow : 
To the maiden’s founding timbrels fung 
In well attuned notes, a joyous lay. Fairy Queen. 
5 L Shake/peare 
