subs. (venery).—1.  The waist.

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  1640.  Wit’s Recreations [HOTTEN], 136.

        But yet I care not, let my friend go fiddle;
Let him mark her end, I’le mark her MIDDLE.

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  1719.  D’URFEY, Wit and Mirth; or Pills to Purge Melancholy, v. 79.

        In troth, sweet Robin, I cannot,
  He hath got me about the MIDDLE.
    Ibid., vi. 31.
He took her by the MIDDLE,
  And taught her by the Flute.

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  2.  (Fleet Street).—See quot.

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  1887.  Walford’s Antiquarian, 283. The writer of social, literary and scientific articles for the press is said to be a writer of ‘MIDDLES,’ or a ‘Middleman.’

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  3.  (old cant).—A finger.

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