1630 J. Taylor Epigram 30 in Wks. 10 Though Base and Trebles, fortune did me grant,..Yet to make vp the Musicke, I must looke The Tenor in the cursed Counter booke.

?1631 Wat Tyler in Evans O.B. (1784) I. li. 282 Into the counters then they get, Where men in prison lay for debt; They broke the doors and let them out, And threw the counter-books about.