Hobson's Choice

a popular expression equivalent to "this or none." It is said to have originated in the custom of one Tobias Hobson, a carrier and the keeper of a livery stable at Cambridge, England, at the time Milton was a student. Probably with a view to treating his horses fairly, Hobson required his customers to take the horse that stood nearest the door--the first he came to. This eccentric character died in 1631. Milton wrote his epitaph. Hobson is described in the Spectator, No. 509.