E. Cobham Brewer 1810–1897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898.
Bayes’s Troops.
Dead men may rise again, like Bayes’s troops, or the savages in the Fantoci’ni (Something New). In the Rehearsal, by George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, a battle is fought between foot-soldiers and great hobby-horses. At last Drawcansir kills all on both sides. Smith then asks how they are to go off, to which Bayes replies, “As they came on—upon their legs”; upon which they all jump up alive again.
