From the inscription on the tomb of the Duchess of Newcastle in Westminster Abbey.

From a medallion by Wedgwood (1787), representing a negro in chains, with one knee on the ground, and both hands lifted up to heaven. This was adopted as a characteristic seal by the Antislavery Society of London.

Title of a play by Middleton.

A Scotch law-phrase,—an accessory before and after the fact. A man is said to be art and part of a crime when he contrives the manner of the deed, and concurs with and encourages those who commit the crime, although he does not put his own hand to the actual execution of it.—Scott: Tales of a Grandfather, chap. xxii. (Execution of Morton.)

From the inscription upon the faÇade of the house at Harlem formerly occupied by Laurent Koster (or Coster), who is charged, among others, with the invention of printing. Mention is first made of this inscription about 1628:—

Chapman: May Day. Shakespeare: Two Gentlemen of Verona.

The motto of David Crockett in the war of 1812.

This current phrase is said to be derived from a humorous song by Hudson, a tobacconist in Shoe Lane, London. He was a professional song-writer and vocalist, who used to be engaged to sing at supper-rooms and theatrical houses.

This is a common logical fallacy, petitio principii; and the first explanation of the phrase is to be found in Aristotle's "Topica," viii. 13, where the five ways of begging the question are set forth. The earliest English work in which the expression is found is "The Arte of Logike plainlie set forth in our English Tongue, &c." (1584.)

When a friend told Bishop Cumberland (1632-1718) he would wear himself out by his incessant application, "It is better," replied the Bishop, "to wear out than to rust out."—Horne: Sermon on the Duty of Contending for the Truth.

Boswell: Tour to the Hebrides, p. 18, note.

When St. Thomas Aquinas was asked in what manner a man might best become learned, he answered, "By reading one book." The homo unius libri is indeed proverbially formidable to all conversational figurantes.—Southey: The Doctor, p. 164.

This phrase is nearly without meaning as it is used. The true phrase, "better end," is used properly to designate a crisis, or the moment of an extremity. When in a gale a vessel has paid out all her cable, her cable has run out to the "better end,"—the end which is secured within the vessel and little used. Robinson Crusoe in describing the terrible storm in Yarmouth Roads says, "We rode with two anchors ahead, and the cables veered out to the better end."

Latham says the most probable explanation of this phrase lies (1) in the likeness of a heart to a cockleshell,—the base of the former being compared to the hinge of the latter; (2) in the zoÖlogical name for the cockle and its congeners being Cardium, from ?a?d?a (heart).

This is a proverbial phrase found throughout English literature, the first instance noted being in Sir Philip Sidney's "Defence of Poesy."

This is one of those popular sayings—like "Be good, and you will be happy," or "Virtue is its own reward"—that, like Topsy, "never was born, only jist growed." From the earliest times it has been the popular tendency to call this or that cardinal virtue, or bright and shining excellence, a jewel, by way of emphasis. For example, Iago says,—

Shakespeare elsewhere calls experience a "jewel." Miranda says her modesty is the "jewel" in her dower; and in "All 's Well that ends Well," Diana terms her chastity the "jewel" of her house.—R. A. Wight.

O discretion, thou art a jewel!—The Skylark, a Collection of well-chosen English Songs. (London, 1772.)

The origin of this expression is unknown. Some wag of the day allayed public curiosity in regard to its source with the information that it is from the ballad of Robin Roughhead in Murtagh's "Collection of Ballads (1754)." It is needless to say that Murtagh is a verbal phantom, and the ballad of Robin Roughhead first appeared in an American newspaper in 1867.

This is the title of a book by David Christy (1855).

The expression "Cotton is king" was used by James Henry Hammond in the United States Senate, March, 1858.

To get Chelsea: to obtain the benefit of that hospital. "Dead as Chelsea, by God!" an exclamation uttered by a grenadier at Fontenoy, on having his leg carried away by a cannon-ball.—Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1758 (quoted by Brady, "Varieties of Literature," 1826).

To William of Orange may be ascribed this saying. When Buckingham urged the inevitable destruction which hung over the United Provinces, and asked him whether he did not see that the commonwealth was ruined, "There is one certain means," replied the Prince, "by which I can be sure never to see my country's ruin,—I will die in the last ditch."—Hume: History of England. (1622.)

Macaulay ("History of England," chap. xii.) gives a saying "often in the mouth of Stephen Rice [afterward Chief Baron of the Exchequer], 'I will drive a coach and six through the Act of Settlement.'"

That after the said limitation shall take effect,...judge's commissions be made quando se bene gesserit.—Statutes 12 and 13 William III. c. 2, sect. 3.

Declared by Captain O'Kelley at Epsom, May 3, 1769.—Annals of Sporting, vol. ii. p. 271.

Dr. William Drennan (1754-1820) says this expression was first used in a party song called "Erin, to her own Tune," written in 1795. The song appears to have been anonymous.

The title of an article in the "Boston Centinel," July 12, 1817.

It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.—John Philpot Curran: Speech upon the Right of Election, 1790. (Speeches. Dublin, 1808.)

There is one safeguard known generally to the wise, which is an advantage and security to all, but especially to democracies as against despots. What is it? Distrust.—Demosthenes: Philippic 2, sect. 24.

William Watson: Decacordon of Ten Quodlibeticall Questions (1602). Prynne: Fresh Discovery of Prodigious New Wandering-Blazing Stars (second edition, London, 1646). Ward: Simple Cobbler of Aggawam in America (1647).

Fiat Justitia et ruat Mundus.—Egerton Papers (1552, p. 25). Camden Society (1840). Aikin: Court and Times of James I., vol. ii. p. 500 (1625).

January 31, 1642, the Duke of Richmond in a speech before the House of Lords used these words: Regnet Justitia et ruat Coelum. (Old Parliamentary History, vol. x. p. 28.)

The Republican Party rallying cry in 1856.

According to Brady ("Clavis Calendaria"), this designation arose from the fact that in an old romance a prince of the name of Crispin is made to exercise, in honour of his namesake, Saint Crispin, the trade of shoemaking. There is a tradition that King Edward IV., in one of his disguises, once drank with a party of shoemakers, and pledged them. The story is alluded to in the old play of "George a-Greene" (1599):—

Lord C. Hay at the battle of Fontenoy, 1745. To which the Comte d'Auteroches replied, "Sir, we never fire first; please to fire yourselves."—Fournier: L'Esprit dans l'histoire.

An exclamation of Charles II. when in Parliament attending the discussion of Lord Ross's Divorce Bill.

The king remained in the House of Peers while his speech was taken into consideration,—a common practice with him; for the debates amused his sated mind, and were sometimes, he used to say, as good as a comedy.—Macaulay: Review of the Life and Writings of Sir William Temple.

Nullos his mallem ludos spectasse.—Horace: Satires, ii. 8, 79.

That action is best which procures the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers.—Hutcheson: Inquiry concerning Moral Good and Evil, sect. 3. (1720.)

Priestley was the first (unless it was Beccaria) who taught my lips to pronounce this sacred truth,—that the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation.—Bentham: Works, vol. x. p. 142.

The expression is used by Beccaria in the introduction to his "Essay on Crimes and Punishments." (1764.)

Drunken Barnaby's Four Journeys (edition of 1805, p. 5).

Tobias Hobson (died 1630) was the first man in England that let out hackney horses. When a man came for a horse he was led into the stable, where there was a great choice, but he obliged him to take the horse which stood next to the stable-door; so that every customer was alike well served according to his chance,—from whence it became a proverb when what ought to be your election was forced upon you, to say, "Hobson's choice."—Spectator, No. 509.

Lord Coleridge remarked that Maule told him what he said in the "black beetle" matter: "Creswell, who had been his pupil, was on the other side in a case where he was counsel, and was very lofty in his manner. Maule appealed to the court: 'My lords, we are vertebrate animals, we are mammalia! My learned friend's manner would be intolerable in Almighty God to a black beetle.'" (Repeated to a member of the legal profession in the United States.)

Lochow and the adjacent districts formed the original seat of the Campbells. The expression of "a far cry to Lochow" was proverbial. (Note to Scott's "Rob Roy," chap. xxix.)

Bacon: Henry VII. Sidney: On Government, vol. i. chap. ii. sect. 24. Fuller: A Pisgah Sight of Palestine, book iv. chap. ii. South: Sermon, vol. viii. p. 403. Dryden: MacFlecknoe. Mathew Henry: Commentaries, Psalm lxxxviii. Johnson: Life of Lyttelton. Burke: On the French Revolution.

Bracton: Folio 1243 and folio 420 b. Register Original, 267 a.

Cervantes: Don Quixote, Author's Preface. Shakespeare: Othello, act ii. sc. 3. William King: Ulysses and Teresias.

It is unseasonable and unwholesome in all months that have not an R in their name to eat an oyster.—Butler: Dyet's Dry Dinner. (1599.)

From an oration purporting to have been delivered by Samuel Adams at the State House in Philadelphia, Aug. 1, 1776. (Philadelphia, printed; London, reprinted for E. Johnson, No. 4 Ludgate Hill, 1776.) W. V. Wells, in his Life of Adams, says: "No such American edition has ever been seen, but at least four copies are known of the London issue. A German translation of this oration was printed in 1778, perhaps at Berne; the place of publication is not given."

To found a great empire for the sole purpose of raising up a people of customers may at first sight appear a project fit only for a nation of shopkeepers.—Adam Smith: Wealth of Nations, vol. ii. book iv. chap. vii. part 3. (1775.)

And what is true of a shopkeeper is true of a shopkeeping nation.—Tucker (Dean of Gloucester): Tract. (1766.)

Let Pitt then boast of his victory to his nation of shopkeepers.—Bertrand BarÈre. (June 11, 1794.)

This new page opened in the book of our public expenditures, and this new departure taken, which leads into the bottomless gulf of civil pensions and family gratuities.—T. H. Benton: Speech in the U. S. Senate against a grant to President Harrison's widow, April, 1841.

(Rien ne rÉussit comme le succÈs.—Dumas: Ange Pitou, vol. i. p. 72. 1854.) A French proverb.

"I have heard frequent use," said the late Lord Sandwich, in a debate on the Test Laws, "of the words 'orthodoxy' and 'heterodoxy;' but I confess myself at a loss to know precisely what they mean." "Orthodoxy, my Lord," said Bishop Warburton, in a whisper,—"orthodoxy is my doxy; heterodoxy is another man's doxy."—Priestley: Memoirs, vol. i. p. 572.

The earliest instance of this expression is found in William Bullein's "Dialogue," p. 28 (1573). It is used by Shakespeare, Middleton, Milton, Pope, Fielding, Crabbe, and others.

Grimm says that Odin had a poll-tax which was called in Sweden a nose-tax; it was a penny per nose, or poll.—Deutsche Rechts AlterthÜmer.

It is not fit the public trusts should be lodged in the hands of any till they are first proved, and found fit for the business they are to be intrusted with.—Mathew Henry: Commentaries, Timothy iii.

To execute laws is a royal office; to execute orders is not to be a king. However, a political executive magistracy, though merely such, is a great trust.—Burke: On the French Revolution.

When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself as public property.—Thomas Jefferson ("Winter in Washington, 1807"), in a conversation with Baron Humboldt. See Rayner's "Life of Jefferson," p. 356 (Boston, 1834).

The very essence of a free government consists in considering offices as public trusts, bestowed for the good of the country, and not for the benefit of an individual or a party.—John C. Calhoun: Speech, July 13, 1835.

The phrase, "public office is a public trust," has of late become common property.—Charles Sumner (May 31, 1872).

The appointing power of the pope is treated as a public trust.—W. W. Crapo (1881).

The public offices are a public trust.—Dorman B. Eaton (1881).

Public office is a public trust.—Abram S. Hewitt (1883).

He who regards office as a public trust.—Daniel S. Lamont (1884).

Marriage of Wit and Wisdom (circa 1570).

From an inscription on the cannon near which the ashes of President John Bradshaw were lodged, on the top of a high hill near Martha Bay in Jamaica.—Stiles: History of the Three Judges of King Charles I.

This supposititious epitaph was found among the papers of Mr. Jefferson, and in his handwriting. It was supposed to be one of Dr. Franklin's spirit-stirring inspirations.—Randall: Life of Jefferson, vol. iii. p. 585.

An inscription on a stone seat on the top of one of the Highlands in Scotland. It is also the title of one of Wordsworth's poems.

These were two of the most famous in the list of Charlemagne's twelve peers; and their exploits are rendered so ridiculously and equally extravagant by the old romancers, that from thence arose that saying amongst our plain and sensible ancestors of giving one a "Rowland for his Oliver," to signify the matching one incredible lie with another.—Thomas Warburton.

The island of Sardinia, consisting chiefly of marshes and mountains, has from the earliest period to the present been cursed with a noxious air, an ill-cultivated soil, and a scanty population. The convulsions produced by its poisonous plants gave rise to the expression of sardonic smile, which is as old as Homer (Odyssey, xx. 302).—Mahon: History of England, vol. i. p. 287.

The explanation given by Mahon of the meaning of "sardonic smile" is to be sure the traditional one, and was believed in by the late classical writers. But in the Homeric passage referred to, the word is "sardanion" (sa?d?????), not "sardonion." There is no evidence that Sardinia was known to the composers of what we call Homer. It looks as though the word was to be connected with the verb sa???, "show the teeth;" "grin like a dog;" hence that the "sardonic smile" was a "grim laugh."—M. H. Morgan.

The anxious question of one of the wives of Bluebeard.

This saying took its rise from the battle of Bull Run, July 21, 1861. Said General Bernard E. Bee, "See, there is Jackson, standing like a stone-wall."

The death of Louis XIV. was announced by the captain of the bodyguard from a window of the state apartment. Raising his truncheon above his head, he broke it in the centre, and throwing the pieces among the crowd, exclaimed in a loud voice, "Le Roi est mort!" Then seizing another staff, he flourished it in the air as he shouted, "Vive le Roi!"—Pardoe: Life of Louis XIV., vol. iii. p. 457.

Alexander Wilson, in the Preface to his "American Ornithology" (1808), quotes these words, and relates the story of a boy who had been gathering flowers. On bringing them to his mother, he said: "Look, my dear ma! What beautiful flowers I have found growing in our place! Why, all the woods are full of them!"

The Russians dashed on towards that thin red-line streak tipped with a line of steel.—Russell: The British Expedition to the Crimea (revised edition), p. 187.

Soon the men of the column began to see that though the scarlet line was slender, it was very rigid and exact.—Kinglake: Invasion of the Crimea, vol. iii. p. 455.

The spruce beauty of the slender red line.—Ibid. (sixth edition), vol. iii. p. 248.

A solicitor, after hearing Lord Westbury's opinion, ventured to say that he had turned the matter over in his mind, and thought that something might be said on the other side; to which he replied, "Then, sir, you will turn it over once more in what you are pleased to call your mind."—Nash: Life of Lord Westbury, vol. ii. 292.

Hoyle: Twenty-four Rules for Learners, Rule 12.

A definition of a proverb which Lord John Russell gave one morning at breakfast at Mardock's,—"One man's wit, and all men's wisdom."—Memoirs of Mackintosh, vol. ii. p. 473.

The credite of the Realme, by defending the same with our Wodden Walles, as Themistocles called the Ship of Athens.—Preface to the English translation of Linschoten (London).

Fielding: Rape upon Rape, act ii. sc. 2. Aaron Hill: Snake in the Grass, sc. 1.

Massinger: A New Way to Pay Old Debts, act i. sc. 3.

Scott: Ivanhoe, chap. xx.

Tennyson: Idylls of the King. Elaine.

Massinger: A New Way to Pay Old Debts, act v. sc. 1.

Bulwer: Last Days of Pompeii, book iii. chap. vi.

Ford: The Lady's Trial, act ii. sc. 1.

Shakespeare: Richard II., act ii. sc. 3.

Dryden: The Wild Gallant, act ii. sc. 2.

Fielding: Rape upon Rape, act i. sc. 5.

Dryden: The Wild Gallant, act ii. sc. 1.

Ben Jonson: The Case is Altered, act v. sc. 1.

Peele: The Old Wives' Tale.

Fielding: Tom Thumb, act i. sc. 2.

Foote: The Knight, act ii.

Beaumont and Fletcher: The Knight of the Burning Pestle, act ii. sc. 5.

Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet, act iii. sc. 5.

Massinger: A New Way to Pay Old Debts, act iii. sc. 2.

Beaumont and Fletcher: Wit without Money, act iv. sc. 4.