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

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 Kingsley, Charles

They sang a doggerel rhyme, and the form in which money was asked was, "Please to handsel the Lord and Lady's purse."

From Miscellanea by Ewing, Juliana Horatia Gatty

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 Hazlitt, William Carew

Then on the 2'd of January 1671 being hansell   Monday I gave my wife to give out to people   who expected handsel, 4 dollars.

From Publications of the Scottish History Society, Volume 36 Journals of Sir John Lauder Lord Fountainhall with His Observations on Public Affairs and Other Memoranda 1665-1676 by Fountainhall, John Lauder, Lord

"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 Barr, Amelia Edith Huddleston

‘Yea, even so let it be,’ quoth Folk-might; and stepped forward and took Bristler by the hand, and handselled him self-doom. 

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

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 Mason, Eugene

When anything is used for the first time it is handselled.

From Weather and Folk Lore of Peterborough and District by Dack, Charles

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 Stebbing, W. (William)

And between their clasped hands it lay,—the bit of orange ribbon that had handselled all their happiness.

From The Bow of Orange Ribbon A Romance of New York by Hampe, Theo.

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 Morris, William

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 Lamb, Mary