Bellower

1794, Robert Jephson, Roman Portraits, London: G.G. and J. Robinson, lines 558-561, p. 38, Besides, the scent of mischief lur’d along (The scum of towns) a numerous noisy throng; Bellowers, unfit to govern or obey, Who little heed the cause, but love the fray;

And these [oxen] the wittie-borne (Argicides,) set serious spie vpon: Seuering from all the rest; and setting gone Full fiftie of the violent Bellowers.

‘A—hem!’ cried the same voice; and that, not in the tone of an ordinary clearing of the throat, but in a kind of bellow, which woke up all the echoes in the neighbourhood, and was prolonged to an extent which must have made the unseen bellower quite black in the face.

Mic-swinging lead bellower Roger Daltrey stuck to singing, while sometime-vocalist Pete Townshend proved his guitar game was as strong as his aptitude and willingness for pithy, insolent commentary.