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Like the strawberry wives, that laid two or three great strawberries at the mouth of their pot, and all the rest were little ones.1 Apothegms. No. 54.

Sir Henry Wotton used to say that critics are like brushers of noblemen's clothes.

No. 64.

Sir Amice Pawlet, when he saw too much haste made in any matter, was wont to say, "Stay a while, that we may make an end the sooner."

No. 76.

Alonso of Aragon was wont to say in commendation of age, that age appears to be best in four things, old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.2

No. 97.

Pyrrhus, when his friends congratulated to him his victory over the Romans under Fabricius, but with great slaughter of his own side, said to them, "Yes; but if we have such another victory, we are undone.” 3 No. 193.

Cosmus, Duke of Florence, was wont to say of perfidious friends, that "We read that we ought to forgive our enemies; but we do not read that we ought to forgive our friends."

No. 206.

Cato said the best way to keep good acts in memory was to refresh them with new.

1 The custom is not altogether obsolete in the U. S. A.

No. 247.

2 Is not old wine wholesomest, old pippins toothsomest, old wood burns brightest, old linen wash whitest? Old soldiers, sweetheart, are surest, and old lovers are soundest. WEBSTER: Westward Hoe, act ii. sc. 2.

Old friends are best. King James used to call for his old shoes; they were easiest for his feet. - SELDEN: Table Talk. Friends.

Old wood to burn! Old wine to drink! Old friends to trust! Old authors to read! - Alonso of Aragon was wont to say in commendation of age, that age appeared to be best in these four things. - MELCHIOR: Floresta Española de Apothegmas o sentencias, etc., ii. 1, 20. What find you better or more honourable than age? inence of it in everything, - in an old friend, in old wine, in an old pedigree. - SHAKERLEY MARMION (1602-1639): The Antiquary.

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Take the prehem

I love everything that's old, old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine. - GOLDSMITH: She Stoops to Conquer, act i.

* There are some defeats more triumphant than victories. MONTAIGNE Of Cannibals, chap. xxx.

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A little too wise, they say, do ne'er live long.*

The Phoenix. Act i. Sc. 1.

The better day, the better deed.5

Act iii. Sc. 1.

The worst comes to the worst."

Ibid.

'Tis slight, not strength, that gives the greatest lift."

Michaelmas Term. Act iv. Sc. 1.

From thousands of our undone widows
One may derive some wit.8

A Trick to catch the Old One. Act i. Sc. 2.

Ground not upon dreams; you know they are

trary.9

Spick and span new.10

The Family of Love.

ever conAct iv. Sc. 3.

Ibid.

A flat case as plain as a pack-staff."

Act v. Sc. 3.

1 As the case stands. MATHEW HENRY: Commentaries, Psalm crix.

2 See Heywood, page 11.

8 I smell a rat. BEN JONSON: Tale of a Tub, act w. Sc. 3. BUTLER: Hudibras, part i. canto i. line 281.

I begin to smell a rat. — CERVANTES: Don Quixote, book iv. chap. x. 4 See Shakespeare, page 97.

5 The better day, the worse deed. - HENRY: Commentaries, Genesis iii. 6 Worst comes to the worst.- - CERVANTES: Don Quixote, part i. book

iii. chap. v. MARSTON: The Dutch Courtezan, act iii. sc. 1.

7 It is not strength, but art, obtains the prize. - POPE: The Iliad, book xxiii. line 383.

8 Some undone widow sits upon mine arm. —

to pay Old Debts, act v. sc. 1.

9 For drames always go by contraries. 10 Spick and span new. I

- MASSINGER: A New Way

LOVER: The Angel's Whisper.

-FORD: The Lover's Melancholy, act i. sc. 1.

FARQUHAR: Preface to his Works.

11 Plain as a pike-staff. — Terence in English (1641). BUCKINGHAM: Speech in the House of Lords. 1675. Gil Blas (Smollett's translation), book xii. chap. viii. BYROM: Epistle to a Friend.

Have you summoned your wits from wool-gathering?
The Family of Love. Act v. Sc. 3.

As true as I live.

Ibid.

From the crown of our head to the sole of our foot.1
A Mad World, my Masters. Act i. Sc. 3.

That disease

Of which all old men sicken,

- avarice.2

The Roaring Girl. Act i. Sc. 1.

Beat all your feathers as flat down as pancakes.

Ibid.

There is no hate lost between us." The Witch. Act iv. Sc. 3.

Let the air strike our tune,

Whilst we show reverence to yond peeping moon.

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Act v. Sc. 2.

Ibid.

Black spirits and white, red spirits and gray,
Mingle, mingle, mingle, you that mingle may.5
All is not gold that glisteneth. A Fair Quarrel.
As old Chaucer was wont to say, that broad famous
English poet.

"T is a stinger."

Act v. Sc. 1.

More Dissemblers besides Women. Act i. Sc. 4.

Act iii. Sc. 2.

The world's a stage on which all parts are played.

1 See Shakespeare, page 51.

A Game at Chess. Act v. Sc. 1.

2 So for a good old gentlemanly vice,

I think I must take up with avarice.

BYRON Don Juan, canto i. stanza 216. There is no love lost between us. CERVANTES: Don Quixote, book it. chap. zzi. GOLDSMITH: She Stoops to Conquer, act iv. GARRICK : Correspondence, 1759. FIELDING: The Grub Street Opera, act i. sc. 4. 4 See Shakespeare, page 123.

5 These lines are introduced into Macbeth, act iv. sc. 1. According to Steevens, "the song was, in all probability, a traditional one." Collier says, "Doubtless it does not belong to Middleton more than to Shakespeare." Dyce says, "There seems to be little doubt that 'Macbeth' is of an earlier date than The Witch.'"

6 See Chaucer, page 5.

He 'as had a stinger. - BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER : Wit without Money, act iv. sc. 1.

8 See Shakespeare, page 69.

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How many honest words have suffered corruption since

No Wit, no Help, like a Woman's. Act ii. Sc. 1.

Chaucer's days!

By many a happy accident.3

Sc. 2.

SIR HENRY WOTTON. 1568–1639.

How happy is he born or taught,
That serveth not another's will;
Whose armour is his honest thought,
And simple truth his utmost skill!

The Character of a Happy Life.

Who God doth late and early pray
More of his grace than gifts to lend;
And entertains the harmless day

With a religious book or friend.
Lord of himself, though not of lands;

Ibid.

And having nothing, yet hath all."
You meaner beauties of the night,
That poorly satisfy our eyes

More by your number than your light;
You common people of the skies, —

5

Ibid.

What are you when the moon shall rise?
On his Mistress, the Queen of Bohemia.

1 A Health to the Gentlemanly Profession of Servingmen (1598). Turn over a new leaf. DEKKER: The Honest Whore, part ii. act i. sc. 2. BURKE Letter to Mrs. Haviland.

2 See Shakespeare, page 128.

8 A happy accident. - MADAME DE STAËL: L'Allemagne, chap. xm CERVANTES: Don Quixote, book iv. part ii. chap. Ivii.

4 As having nothing, and yet possessing all things. 2 Corinth. v. 10. 5" Sun in Reliquiae Wottoniana (eds. 1651, 1654, 1672, 1685).

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6 This was printed with music as early as 1624, in Est's "Sixth Set of Books," etc., and is found in many MSS. — HANNAH: The Courtly Poets.

He first deceased; she for a little tried
To live without him, liked it not, and died.

Upon the Death of Sir Albert Morton's Wife.

I am but a gatherer and disposer of other men's stuff. Preface to the Elements of Architecture.

Hanging was the worst use a man could be put to.

The Disparity between Buckingham and Essex.

Reliquia Wottonianæ.

An ambassador is an honest man sent to lie abroad for the commonwealth.1 The itch of disputing will prove the scab of churches.2

A Panegyric to King Charles.

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Much like a subtle spider which doth sit

In middle of her web, which spreadeth wide;

1 In a letter to Velserus, 1612, Wotton says, "This merry definition of an ambassador I had chanced to set down at my friend's, Mr. Christopher Fleckamore, in his Album."

2 He directed the stone over his grave to be inscribed :

Hic jacet hujus sententiæ primus anthor:
DISPUTANDI PRURITUS ECCLESIARUM SCABIES.
Nomen alias quære

(Here lies the author of this phrase: "The itch for disputing is the sore of churches." Seek his name elsewhere).

WALTON: Life of Wotton.

3 This song, often attributed to Shakespeare, is now confidently assigned to Barnfield; it is found in his collection of "Poems in Divers Humours," published in 1598.- ELLIS: Specimens, vol. ii. p. 316.

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