A Collection of Familiar Quotations, with complete indices of authors and subjects. New edition

Front matter

Familiar Quotations: BEING AN ATTEMPT TO TRACE TO THEIR SOURCES PASSAGES AND PHRASES aIN COMMON USE. By JOHN BARTLETT. " I have gathered a posie of other men's flowers, and nothing but the thread that binds them is mine own." — Montaigne. SEVENTH EDITION. BOSTON: LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. 1875- Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1S75, by JOHN BARTLETT, In the Office of the Librarian of_j___jgress, at Washington. Cambridge ; Press of John Wilson and Son. TO REZIN A. WIGHT, Esq. SEVENTH EDITION. In this edition of " Familiar Quotations," many authors are cited who have not been represented in any former edition, and numer ous phrases added which have been gathered by patient gleanings from the old fields. To the quotations from Shakespeare more than three hundred lines have been added ; and those from Emerson, Gibbon, Johnson, Lamb, Lowell, Macaulay, Montgomery, Pope, and other authors, have been largely increased in number.

The notes and appendix contain much new matter, and the index has been carefully re vised as well as enlarged. Cambridge, June, 1875. The fourth edition of " Familiar Quotations " was published in 1863. The present edition embodies the results of the later researches of its editors, besides the contributions of various friends, and includes many quotations which have long been waiting a favorable verdict on the all-important question of familiarity. A few changes have been made in the arrangement, and the citations from Shakespeare have been adapted to the principal modern editions. The former edition has been freshly com pared with the originals, and such errors re moved as the revision has disclosed. The editorial labors have been shared with Rezin A. Wight, Esq., of New York, who has been a generous contributor to the former editions.

The editor takes pleasure in acknowledging his renewed obligations to Prof. Henry W. Haynes, of Burlington ; D. W. Wilder, Esq., of Leavenworth ; Justin Winsor, Esq., and James J. Storrow, Esq., of Boston, and to many other friends. Cambridge, June, 1868.

Part I

In those holy fields, Over whose acres walk'd those blessed feet Which fourteen hundred years ago were nail'd. For our advantage, on the bitter cross. Adi. Sc 1. Diana's foresters, gentlemen of the shade, minions of the moon. Ad i. Sc _ Act i. Sc. 2. Old father antic the law. /bid. Shakespeare. 61 King Henry IV., Part I., continued.] I would thou and I knew where a commodity of good names were to be bought ! Ad i. Sc 2. Thou hast damnable iteration. /bid. And now am I, if a man should speak truly, little better than one of the wicked. /bid. 'T is my vocation, Hal ; 't is no sin for a man to labour in his vocation. /bid. He will give the Devil his due. ibid. There 's neither honesty, manhood, nor good fellowship in thee. /bid. If all the year were playing holidays, To sport would be as tedious as to work Ibid.

Fresh as a bridegroom ; and his chin, new reap'd, Show'd like a stubble-land at harvest-home ; He was perfumed like a milliner, And 'twixt his finger and his thumb he held A pouncet-box, which ever and anon He gave his nose, and took 't away again. Ad i. Sc. 3. And as the soldiers bore dead bodies by, He call'd them untaught knaves, unmannerly, To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse Betwixt the wind and his nobility. ibid. And telling me, the sovereign'st thing on earth Was parmaceti for an inward bruise ; And that it was great pity, so it was, This villanous saltpetre should be digg'd Out of the bowels of the harmless earth, Shakespeare. [King Henry IV., Part I., continued. Which many a good tall fellow had destroy'd So cowardly ; and, but for these vile guns, He would himself have been a soldier.

Ad i. Sc. 3. The blood more stirs To rouse a lion than to start a hare ! ibid. By Heaven, methinks, it were an easy leap, To pluck bright honour from the pale-fac'd moon. Or dive into the bottom of the deep, Where fathom-line could never touch the ground, And pluck up drowned honour by the locks. Ibid. I know a trick worth two of that. Ad H. Sc 1. If the rascal have not given me medicines to make me love him, I '11 be hanged. Ad ii. Sc. 2. It would be argument for a week, laughter for a month, and a good jest forever. ibid. Ibid. Falstaff sweats to death, And lards the lean earth as he walks along. Ibid. Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety. Ad ii. Sc 3. Brain him with his lady's fan. Ibid. A Corinthian, a lad of itiettle, a good boy. Ad ii. Sc. 4. A plague of all cowards, I say. ibid.

There live not three good men unhanged in England ; and one of them is fat, and grows old. Ibid. Call you that backing of your friends ? A plague upon such backing ! /bid. Ibid. I am a Jew else, an Ebrew Jew. /bid. Shakespeare. 63 King Henry IV., Parti.,continued.] I have pepper'd two of them : two, I am sure, I have paid ; two rogues in buckram suits. I tell thee what, Hal, — if I tell thee a lie, spit in my face, call me horse. Thou knowest my old ward : here I lay, and thus I bore my point. Four rogues in buckram let drive at me. Ad ii. Sc. 4. Three misbegotten knaves in Kendal green. Ibid. Give you a reason on compulsion ! If reasons were as plenty as blackberries, I would give no man a reason upon compulsion. /bid. Ibid. Mark now, how a plain tale shall put you down. /bid. I was a coward on instinct. /bid.

No more of that, Hal, an thou lovest me ! /bid. What doth gravity out of his bed at midnight ? Ibid. A plague of sighing and grief ! it blows a man up like a bladder. /bid. /bid. In King Cambyses' vein. /bid. Banish plump Jack, and banish all the world. /bid. Play out the play. Ibid. O monstrous ! but one half-pennyworth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack ! Ibid. Diseased nature oftentimes breaks forth In strange eruptions. Act iii. Ad iii. Sc. I. I am not in the roll of common men. Ibid. Shakespeare. [King Henry IV., Part I., continued. Glen. I can call spirits from the vasty deep. Hot. Why, so can I, or so can any man ; But will they come when you do call for them ? Ad iii. Sc. I. O, while you live, tell truth, and shame the Devil. Ibid. I had rather be a kitten and cry mew, Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers.

Ibid. But, in the way of bargain, mark ye me, I '11 cavil on the ninth part of a hair. ibid. A deal of skimble-skamble stuff. /bid. A good mouth-filling oath. /bid. A fellow of no mark nor likelihood. Ad iii. Sc. 2. To loathe the taste of sweetness, whereof a little More than a little is by much too much. /bid. An I have not forgotten what the inside of a church is made of, I am a pepper-corn. Act iii. Sc. 3. Company, villanous company, hath been the spoil of me. j^d. Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn ? Ibid. Rob me the exchequer. /bid. This sickness doth infect The very life-blood of our enterprise. Ad iv. Sc. 1. That daff'd the world aside, And bid it pass. di Ibid. Shakespeare. 65 King Henry IV., Part I., continued.] I saw young Harry, with his beaver on, His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly arm'd, Rise from the ground like feather'd Mercury, And vaulted with such ease into his seat, As if an angel dropp'd down from the clouds, To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus, And witch the world with noble horsemanship.

Ad iv. Sc. 1. The cankers of a calm world and a long peace. Ad iv. Sc. 2. A mad fellow met me on the way, and told me I had unloaded all the gibbets, and pressed the dead bodies. No eye hath seen such scare crows. I '11 not march through Coventry with them, that 's flat : nay, and the villains march wide betwixt the legs, as if they had gyves on 3 for, indeed, I had the most of them out of prison. There 's but a shirt and a half in all my company ; and the half-shirt is two napkins, tacked together and thrown over the shoulders like a herald's coat without sleeves. Ibid. Food for powder, food for powder ; they '11 fill a pit as well as better. Ibid. Ibid. I would it were bedtime, Hal, and all well. Ad v. Sc 1. Honour pricks me on. Yea, but how if hon our prick me off when I come on ? how then ?

Can honour set to a leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take away the grief of a wound ? No. Honour hath no skill in surgery, then? No. What is honour ? A word. What is that word, Shakespeare. [King Henry IV., Part I., continued. honour ? Air. A trim reckoning. Who hath it ? He that died o' Wednesday. Doth he feel it ? No. Doth he hear it ? No. Is it insen sible, then ? Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living ? No. Why ? Detraction will not suffer it : therefore, I '11 none of it : honour is a mere scutcheon, and so ends' my catechism. Adv. Sc. i. Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere. Ad v. Sc. 4. This earth, that bears thee dead, Bears not alive so stout a gentleman. /bid. I could have better spared a better man. /bid. The better part of valour is discretion Ibid. Lord, lord, how this world is given to lying !

I grant you I was down and out of breath, and so was he ; but we rose both at an instant, and fought a long hour by Shrewsbury clock. Ibid. Purge, and leave sack, and live cleanly. Ibid. KING HENRY IV.,

Part II

Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless, So dull, so dead in look, so woebegone, Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night, And would have told him, half his Troy was burn'd. Ad i. Sc. 1. Shakespeare. 67 King Henry IV., Part II., continued.] Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news Hath but a losing office ; and his tongue Sounds ever after as a sullen bell, Remember'd knolling a departed friend Adi. Sc. 1. I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men. Adi. Sc. 2. Some smack of age in you, some relish of the saltness of time. ibid. We that are in the vaward of our youth. Ibid. For my voice, I have lost it with hollaing and singing of anthems. /bid. /bid. It was always yet the trick of our English nation, if they have a good thing, to make it too common. /bid. If I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle.

Ibid. I '11 tickle your catastrophe. Ad H. Sc 1. He hath eaten me out of house and home. Ibid. Thou didst swear to me upon a parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in my Dolphin-chamber, at the round table, by a sea-coal fire, on Wednesday in Whitsun-week. Ibid. In troth, I do now remember the poor creat ure, small beer. Ad ii. Sc. 2. Thus we play the fools with the time, and the spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us. Ibid. S/takespeare. [King Henry IV., Part II., continued. He was, indeed, the glass Wherein the noble youth did dress themselves. Ad ii. Sc. 3. Sleep ! O gentle sleep ! Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee, That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down, And steep my senses in forgetfulness ? Ad iii. Sc. 1. With all appliances and means to boot, ibid. Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

Ibid. Death, as the Psalmist saith, is certain to all : all shall die. How a good yoke of bullocks at Stamford fair ? Ad iii. Sc 2. Accommodated : that is, when a man is, as they say, accommodated ; or when a man is — being — whereby — he may be thought to be accommodated ; which is an excellent thing. Ibid. Most forcible Feeble. /bid. We have heard the chimes at midnight. Bid. A man can die but once. /bid. Like a man made after supper of a cheese paring : when he was naked, he was, for all the world, like a forked radish, with a head fan tastically carved upon it with a knife. ibid. I may justly say with the hook-nosed fellow of Rome, I came, saw and overcame. Ad iv. Sc. 3. Shakespeare. 69 King Henry IV., Part II., continued.] He hath a tear for pity, and a hand Open as day for melting charity.

Ad iv. Sc 4. Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought. Ibid. Commit The oldest sins the newest kind of ways. Ibid. A joint of mutton, and any pretty little tiny kickshaws, tell William cook. Ad v. Sc 1. A foutra for the world and worldlings base ! I speak of Africa and golden joys. Ad v. Sc. 3. Under which king, Bezonian ? speak, or die. Ibid. KING HENRY V. O for a muse of fire, that would ascend The brightest heaven of invention ! Chorus. Consideration, like an angel, came And whipp'd th' offending Adam out of him. Ad i. Sc. 1 . Turn him«to any cause of policy, The Gordian knot of it. he will unloose, Familiar as his garter: that, when he speaks, The air, a charter'd libertine, is still. /bid. Base is the slave that pays. /bid. His nose was as sharp as a pen, and 'a babbled of green fields.

Ad ii. Sc 3. Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin As self-neglecting. Act ii. Sc. 4. Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our English dead ! SJiakespeare. 70 [King Henry V. continued. In peace there 's nothing so becomes a man As modest stillness and humility ; But when the blast of war blows in our ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger : Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood. Ad iii. Sc. I. And sheath'd their swords for lack of argument. Ibid. I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, Straining upon the start. Ibid. Ibid. I thought upon one pair of English legs Did march three Frenchmen. Ad iii. S<_. 6. You may as well say, that 's a valiant flea that dare eat his breakfast on the lip of a lion. Act iii. Sc. 7.1 The hum of either army stilly sounds, That the fix'd sentinels almost receive The secret whispers of each other's watch.

Fire answers fire ; and through their paly flames Each battle sees the other's umbered, face. Steed threatens steed, in high and boastful neighs Piercing the night's dull ear ; and from the tents, The armourers, accomplishing the knights, With busy hammers closing rivets up, Give dreadful note of preparation. Act iv. Chorus. There is some soul of goodness in things evil, Would men observingly distil it out. Adiv. Sc. 1. Every subject's duty is the king's ; but every subject's soul is his own. /bid. Ibid. 1 Ad iii. Sc. 6, Dyce. Shakespeare. 71 King Henry V. continued.] That 's a perilous shot out of an elder gun. Ad iv. Sc. I. Gets him to rest, cramm'd with distressful bread. Ibid. Winding up days with toil, and nights with sleep. Ibid. But, if it be a sin to covet honour, I am the most offending soul alive.

Ad iv. Sc. 3. This day is call'd the feast of Crispian : He that outlives this day, and comes safe home, Will stand a tiptoe when this day is named, And rouse him at the name of Crispian. Ibid- Then shall our names, Familiar in their mouths 1 as household words, — Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter, Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloster, — Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd. Ibid. There is a river in Macedon ; and there is also moreover a river at Monmouth . . . and there is salmons in both. Act iv. Sc 7. In the universal 'orld, or in France, or in Eng land. Ad iv. Sc. 8. There is occasions and causes why and where fore in all things. Adv. Sc. 1. By this leek, I will most horribly revenge ; I eat, and yet I swear. /bid. /bid. If he be not fellow with the best king, thou shalt find the best king of good fellows, /bid. 1 'in his mouth,' White, Cambridge, Knight. Shakespeare. 72 KING HENRY VI.,

PART I.

Huns be the heavens with black. Adi. Sc i. Between two hawks, which flies the higher pitch, Between two dogs, which hath the deeper mouth, Between two horses, which doth bear him best, Between two girls, which hath the merriest eye, I have, perhaps, some shallow spirit of judgment ; But in these nice sharp quillets of the law, Good faith, I am no wiser than a daw. Ad ii. Sc. 4. Delays have dangerous ends. Ad iii. Sc z She 's beautiful, and therefore to be woo'd ; She is a woman, therefore to be won. Ad v. Sc. 3. KING HENRY VI.,

PART II.

Could I come near your beauty with my nails, I 'd set my ten commandments in your face. Act i. Sc. 3. Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep. Ad iii. Sc. I. What stronger breastplate than aheartuntainted? Thrice is he arm'd that hath his quarrel just ; And he but naked, though' lock'd up in steel, Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.1 Ad iii. Sc. He dies, and makes no sign. Act iii. Sc. 3. 1 I 'm armed with more than complete steel, The justice of my quarrel. Lust's Dominion. Shakespeare. 73 King Henry VI., Part II. , continued.] The gaudy, blabbing, and remorseful day Is crept into the bosom of the sea. Adiv. Sc 1. There shall be, in England, seven half-penny loaves sold for a penny : the three-hooped pot shall have ten hoops ; and I will make it felony to drink small beer.

Ad iv. Sc 2. Is not this a lamentable thing, that of the skin of an innocent lamb should be made parchment ? that parchment,being scribbled o'er, should undo a man ? /bid. Sir, he made a chimney in my father's house, and the bricks are alive at this day to testify it. /bid. Thou hast most traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm in erecting a grammar-school: and whereas, before, our forefathers had no other books but the score and the tally, thou hast caused printing to be used ; and, contrary to the King, his crown, and dignity, thou hast built a paper-mill. Ad iv. Sc. 7. KING HENRY VI.,