"A bad excuse is better, they say, than none at all."

STEPHEN Gosson. The Schoole of Abuse.

"A bad shift is better than none at all."

H. PORTER. The Two Angry Women of Abington

(Nicholas).

"[You shall see them on] a beautiful quarto page, where a neat rivulet of text shall meander through a meadow of margin."

SHERIDAN. School for Scandal (Sir B. Backbite), Act I.,

Sc. I.

“But every page having an ample marge,
And every marge enclosing in the midst
A square of text that looks a little blot."

TENNYSON. Merlin and Vivien.

"A beauty masked, like the sun in eclipse,

Gathers together more gazers than if it shined out."

WYCHERLEY. The Country Wife (Alithea), Act III., Sc. I. "A beggar's book

Out-worths a noble's blood."

SHAKESPEARE. Henry VIII. (Buckingham), Act I., Sc. I.

"A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush."

Old Proverb.

BUNYAN. Pilgrim's Progress (Interpreter), Bk. I.

A bird's weight can break the infant tree
Which after holds the aery in his arms."

R. BROWNING. Luria (Domizia), Act IV.

"A blow with a word strikes deeper than a blow with a sword." Anat. of Melancholy, Pt. I., Sec. II., Mem. IV.. Subs. IV.

BURTON.

"A bold, bad man!"

SPENSER. Faerie Queene, Bk. I., Can. I., St. 37.
CHURCHILL. The Duellist, Bk. II., 278.

OTWAY. Venice Preserved (Pierre), Act III., Sc. I. "(To most man's life but showed)

A bridge of groans across a stream of tears.'

P. J. BAILEY. Festus (Lucifer), Bk. XV.

2

A BRITON—A CROWN.

"A Briton, even in love, should be

A subject, not a slave."

WORDSWORTH. Poems founded on the Affections, X.

"A brother's sufferings claim a brother's pity."

ADDISON. Cato (Marcus), Act I., Sc. I.

"A burthen'd conscience

Will never need a hangman."

Beaumont and FLETCHER. Laws of Candy (Cassilane), Act V., Sc. I.

"A captive fetter'd at the oar of gain."

FALCONER. The Shipwreck, 99.

"A castie after all is but a house-The dullest one when lacking company." SHERIDAN KNOWLES. The Hunchback (Helen), Act IV., Sc. I.

"A change came o'er the spirit of my dream."

"A chield's amang you taking notes, And, faith, he'll prent it."

BYRON. The Dream.

BURNS. Capt. Grose's Peregrinations thro' Scotland.

"A Christian is God Almighty's gentleman."

J. C. HARE. Guesses at Truth,

Taylor and Walton's Ed., 1851, Vol. I., p. 224.

"A chyld were beter to be unbore, than to be untaught."

SYMON. Lessons of Wysedome for all maner Chyldryn, II. "Better unborne than untaught."

J. HEYWOOD. Proverbs, Bk. I., Ch. X. "A civil habit

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. Beggars' Bush, Act II., Sc. III.

"A convert's but a fly that turns about After his head's cut off, to find it out."

BUTLER. Miscellaneous Thoughts.

"A countenance more in sorrow than in anger."

SHAKESPEARE. Hamlet (Horatio), Act I., Sc. II.

"A crafty knave needs no broker."

OLD PROVERB.

UNKNOWN. A merry knack to know a knave. Honesty. BEN JONSON. Every man in his humour, Act III., Sc. II. "A crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of Pictures; and talke but a tinckling Cymball, where there is no love." BACON. Essay XXVII., Of Friendship.

"A crown, if it hurt us, is hardly worth wearing."

P. J. BAILEY. Festus (Helen), Bk. XIX.

"A crown, or else a glorious tomb!
A sceptre, or an earthly sepulchre!"

SHAKESPEARE. Henry VI., Pt. III. (York), Act I., Sc. IV.
"And either victory, or else a grave."

IBID. (Edward), Act II., Sc. II.

"A cruel story runs on wheels, and every hand oils the wheels as they run." OUIDA. Moths, Chap. XXIII.

More honour'd in the breach than the observance."

SHAKESPEARE. Hamlet (Hamlet), Act I., Sc. IV.

"A Daniel come to judgment! yea, a Daniel."

SHAKESPEARE. Merchant of Venice (Shylock), Act IV., Sc. I.

"A daughter of the gods, divinely tall, And most divinely fair.'

TENNYSON. A Dream of Fair Women.

"A day, an hour of virtuous liberty
Is worth a whole eternity in bondage."

ADDISON. Cato (Cato), Act II., Sc. I.

"A day in such serene enjoyment spent
Were worth an age of splendid discontent!"

J. MONTGOMERY. Greenland, Can. II.

"A death for love's no death but martyrdom."

G. CHAPMAN. Revenge for Honour, Caropia, Act IV., Sc. II. "A death is only to be felt, never to be talked over by those it touches!" HORACE Walpole. Letter to Sir Horace Mann, 29th March, 1745.

"A deed without a name."

SHAKESPEARE. Macbeth (Witches), Act IV., Sc. I.

"A divine sentence is in the lips of the king."

PROVERBS. Chap. XVI., ver. 10.

"A door without lock, is a bait for a knave."

TUSSER. The Points of Housewifery. After Supper Matters, 7.

"A double blessing is a double grace, Occasion smiles upon a second leave."

SHAKESPEARE. Hamlet (Laertes), Act I., Sc. III.

"A double error sometimes sets us right."

P. J. BAILEY. Festus (Festus), Bk. XXIV.

"A doubtful throne is ice on summer seas."

TENNYSON. Coming of Arthur, I.

"A fav'rite has no friend."

GRAY. Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat.

"A feather will turn the scale."

SHAKESPEARE. Measure for Measure (Provost), Act IV., Sc. II. "A feeble unit in the middle of a threatening Infinitude."

CARLYLE. Sartor Resartus, Bk. II., Chap. VII.

"A fellow-feeling makes one wondrous kind."

GARRICK. Prologue on quitting the stage, 1776.

A FIELD OF GLORY-A GIDDY SON.

4

"A field of glory is a field for all."

POPE. Dunciad, Bk. II., line 32.

"(Who stoode as though he had) a flea in his eare."

"A foole I doe him firmely hold,

That loves his fetters, though they were of gold."

SPENSER. Faerie Queene, Bk. III., Can. IX., St. 8.

"A fool never has thought, a madman has lost it; and an absent man is for the time without it.'

LORD CHESTERFIELD. Letter to his Son. 25th July, 1741.

"A fool's mouth is his destruction."

PROVERBS. Chap. XVIII., ver. 6.

"A fool's paradise is better than a wise-acre's purgatory."

G. COLMAN. The Deuce is in him (Belford), Act I., Sc. I.

"A foot more light, a step more true,

Ne'er from the heath-flower dash'd the dew;

E'en the slight harebell raised its head,

Elastic from her airy tread."

SCOTT. The Lady of the Lake, Can. I., St. 18.

"(But this denoted) a foregone conclusion."

SHAKESPEARE. Othello (Othello), Act III., Sc. III. "A friend ought to shun no pain, to stand his friend in stead."

R. EDWARDS. Damon and Pithias (Carisophus).

"A friend should bear a friend's infirmities." SHAKESPEARE. Julius Cæsar (Cassius), Act IV., Sc. III.

SOMERVILLE.

"A genius can't be forc'd; nor can
You make an ape an alderman.”
"(A plague split you,' said he, 'for) a giddy son of a gun.'"

Fable XIV.

SWIFT.

The Battle of the Books.