TO BE NONE OF THE HASTINGS SORT, verb. phr. (old colloquial).—To be slow, deliberate, or slothful.
c. 1696. B. E., A New Dictionary of the Canting Crew, s.v. You are NONE OF THE HASTINGS; of him that loses an Opportunity or a Business for want of Dispatch.
1785. GROSE, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v.
1811. GROSE and CLARKE, Lexicon Balatronicum, s.v. HE IS NONE OF THE HASTINGS SORT; a saving of a slow, loitering fellow: an allusion to the Hastings pea, which is the first in season.
