subs. (old).—A catch, SELL (q.v.). Hence, TO SELL A BARGAIN = to humbug, hoax, banter: a species of low wit, of ancient usage, but much in vogue about the latter end of the reign of Queen Anne. Swift remarks that, ‘The maids of honour often amused themselves with it.’ A typical example is given by Grose: a person coming into a room full of company, apparently in a fright, cries out, ‘It is white, and follows me!’ On any of the company asking what? the bargain was sold by the first speaker retorting ‘My arse.’ DUTCH (or WET) BARGAIN = a deal clinched by a drink; DUTCH-BARGAIN also means a deal the advantage of which is all on one side. Also in various proverbial phrases: thus, ‘To make the best of a bad BARGAIN’ (RAY); ‘At a great BARGAIN make a pause’; ‘More words than one go to a BARGAIN’; ‘A good BARGAIN is a pick-purse’ (i.e.) tempts people to buy what they need not.
1594. SHAKESPEARE, Love’s Labour’s Lost, iii. 1. 102. The boy hath SOLD HIM A BARGAINE.
1623. MABBE, The Spanish Rogue [T. L. KINGTON-OLIPHANT, The New English, ii. 83. Among the verbs we see … MAKE THE BEST OF A BAD BARGAIN.
1640. BRAITHWAIT, Boulster Lectures, 81. You may suspect mee that I relate these purposely to SELL YOU A BARGAINE.
1678. OTWAY, Friendship in Fashion, 16. I hate a DUTCH BARGAIN that’s made in heat of Wine.
c. 1680. EARL OF DORSET, Song [CHALMERS, English Poets, viii. 345. 1.].
| If a lord should but whisper his love in the crowd, | |
| She ’d sell him a bargain, and laugh out aloud. |
1690. DRYDEN, Prophetess, Prologue. ll. 44–7.
| Then think, on that bare Bench my servant sate, | |
| I see him Ogle still, and hear him Chat; | |
| Selling facetious BARGAINS, and propounding | |
| That witty Recreation, called Dum-founding. |
1727. POPE, Bathos, III. The principal branch the alamode in the Prurient … It consists … of … SELLING THE BARGAINS, and double entendre.
1731. SWIFT, Strephon and Chloe.
| No maid at Court is less asham’d, | |
| Howe’er for selling BARGAINS fam’d. |
1790. BOSWELL, Johnson (1811), II. 341. Mrs. Thrale was all for … according to the vulgur phrase, ‘MAKING THE BEST OF A BAD BARGAIN.’
1805. WINDHAM, Speeches (1812), II. 271. The recruit took the condition of a soldier, with a guinea to make it a WET BARGAIN.
1809. MALKIN, Gil Blas [ROUTLEDGE], 10. I MADE THE BEST OF A BAD BARGAIN, finding the luck ran against me.
1876. E. A. FREEMAN, The History of the Norman Conquest of England, IV. xvii. 7. Men had made up their minds to submit what they could not help, and to MAKE THE BEST OF A BAD BARGAIN.
