lackeying

The wavering multitude is a constant source of uneasiness in Antony and Cleopatra, as Antony and Octavius jockey for position; as Octavius observes, 'This common body,/Like to a vagabond flag upon the stream,/Goes to and back, lackeying the varying tide/To rot itself with motion'.

Shakespeare Bevington, David 2002

“Considering the connection they are making,” she responded, and very quickly she was launched on her favorite line of attack—the shamefulness of Cicero’s lackeying toward Pompey and his coterie of provincials, the way that this had set the family in opposition to all who were most honorable in the state, and the rise of mob rule which had been made possible by the illegal passage of the lex Gabinia.

Imperium Robert Harris 2006

“Considering the connection they are making,” she responded, and very quickly she was launched on her favorite line of attack—the shamefulness of Cicero’s lackeying toward Pompey and his coterie of provincials, the way that this had set the family in opposition to all who were most honorable in the state, and the rise of mob rule which had been made possible by the illegal passage of the lex Gabinia.

Imperium Robert Harris 2006

'brilliant emendations' are 'a'babbled of green fields' (Henry V, ii. 3), and 'lackeying the varying tide.'

Life Of Johnson Boswell, James, 1740-1795 1887

"These letters show," he says, "that Stevenson's was not one of those sunflower temperaments which turn by instinct, not effort, towards the light, and are, as Mr Francis Thompson puts it, 'heartless and happy, lackeying their god.'

Robert Louis Stevenson: a record, an estimate, and a memorial 1871