handsel

Aleman, Cervantes, Lesage, Defoe and Fielding were inspired to imitation, and today Lazarillo is acclaimed as the prototype of the picaresque novel, as a handsel of the arriving era of realism in European literature.

From Time Magazine Archive

The village where thou livedst was all apprised of the fact; and neighbour after neighbour kissed thy pudding-cheek, and gave thee, as handsel, silver or copper coins, on that the first gala-day of thy existence.

From Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History by Thomas Carlyle

Come hither and handsel him self-doom for thy fool’s onset!’

From The Roots of the Mountains; Wherein Is Told Somewhat of the Lives of the Men of Burgdale by William Morris

It has been share and share alike for three years, and bravely you have all held up, and share alike it shall be now, and here's the handsel of it.

From Westward Ho!, or, the voyages and adventures of Sir Amyas Leigh, Knight, of Burrough, in the county of Devon, in the reign of her most glorious majesty Queen Elizabeth by Charles Kingsley

Let's in, and handsel our new mansion-house With a carousing round of Spanish wine.

From A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 8 by William Carew Hazlitt

"Liberty has always been bought with life, and the glory of the greatest nations handseled with the blood of their founders."

From Remember the Alamo by Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

The Britons rode hardly upon them, doing them all the mischief they might, for they were passing wroth to see their comrades handselled so despitefully.

From Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut by Eugene Mason

Harry'll like it none the worse for my having handselled it.'

From The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories by George Gissing

The full moon handselled with the stars the teeth, like grains of      pearl, That on the laughing face of wine now dance, now      stirless lie.

From The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Volume III by John Payne

Holy peace at length they handselled, Eric must in bonds be laid!

From Eric Brighteyes by Henry Rider Haggard

In March or April he handselled his freedom, as Chamberlain wrote to tell Carleton, with a journey round London to see the new buildings erected since his imprisonment.

From Sir Walter Ralegh A Biography by W. (William) Stebbing

So now he gave forth the handselling grandly with open mouth, and this is the beginning thereof.

From The Story of Grettir the Strong by William Morris

Mary, who is handselling her new aerial perspectives upon a pair of old worsted stockings trod out in Cheshunt lanes, sends love.

From The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 6 Letters 1821-1842 by Mary Lamb