A little too wise, they say, do ne'er live long.1

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

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

2 See Heywood, page 11.

3 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.

4 See Shakespeare, page 97.

CERVANTES: Don Quixote, book iv. chap. x.

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.

MASSINGER: A New Way

9 For drames always go by contraries. — LOVER: The Angel's Whisper. 10 Spick and span new. - 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.3 The Witch. Act iv. Sc. 3.

Let the air strike our tune,

Whilst we show reverence to yond peeping moon.*

Black spirits and white, red spirits and gray,
Mingle, mingle, mingle, you that mingle may.5

Act v. Sc. 2.

Ibid.

All is not gold that glisteneth. A Fair Quarrel. Act v. Sc. 1.

As old Chaucer was wont to say, that broad famous English poet.

"T is a stinger."

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.

8 There is no love lost between us. - CERVANTES: Don Quixote, book iv. chap. xxiii. 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.

7 He 'as had a stinger.

Money, act iv. sc. 1.

8 See Shakespeare, page 69.

- BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER : Wit without

Chaucer's days!

How many honest words have suffered corruption since

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

By many a happy accident."

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,
What are you when the moon shall rise?

5

Ibid.

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 STAEL: L'Allemagne, chap. xvL CERVANTES: Don Quixote, book iv. part ii. chap. lvii.

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

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.

BARNFIELD.

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.

An ambassador is an honest man sent to lie abroad for the commonwealth.1

Reliquia Wottoniana.

The itch of disputing will prove the scab of churches.2

A Panegyric to King Charles.

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 author:
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.

If aught do touch the utmost thread of it,
She feels it instantly on every side.1

The Immortality of the Soul.
Wedlock, indeed, hath oft compared been

To public feasts, where meet a public rout, -
Where they that are without would fain go in,
And they that are within would fain go out.2
Contention betwixt a Wife, etc.

1 Our souls sit close and silently within,
And their own webs from their own entrails spin;
And when eyes meet far off, our sense is such
That, spider-like, we feel the tenderest touch.

Song.
Ibid.

DRYDEN: Mariage à la Mode, act ii. sc. 1.

The spider's touch-how exquisitely fine!
Feels at each thread, and lives along the line.

POPE: Epistle i. line 217.

2 'Tis just like a summer bird-cage in a garden: the birds that are without despair to get in, and the birds that are within despair and are in a consumption for fear they shall never get out. WEBSTER: The White Devil, act i. sc. 2.

Le mariage est comme une forteresse assiégée; ceux qui sont dehors veulent y entrer, et ceux qui sont dedans veulent en sortir (Marriage is like a beleaguered fortress: those who are outside want to get in, and those inside want to get out). — QUITARD: Études sur les Proverbes Français, p. 102.

It happens as with cages: the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair of getting out. MONTAIGNE: Upon some Verses of Virgil, chap. v.

Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the beginning of the world, that such as are in the institution wish to get out, and such as are out wish to get in? - EMERSON: Representative Men: Montaigne.

3 When the battle rages loud and long,

And the stormy winds do blow.

CAMPBELL: Ye Mariners of England