and noisomeness, devouring all which the other had sown.FULLER, A Pisgah Sight of Palestine, part i. b. ii. c. 8.

NOVEL,

'Novels' once were simply news, 'nouNOVELIST. velles ;' and the 'novelist' not a writer of new tales, but an innovator, a bringer in of new fashions into the Church or State.

She brynges in her bille som novels new;
Behold! it is of an olif tree

A branch, thynkes me.

Townley Mysteries.

But, see and say what you will, novelists had rather be talked of, that they began a fashion and set a copy for others, than to keep within the imitation of the most excellent precedents.HACKET, Life of Archbishop Williams, part ii. p. 36.

Every novelist with a whirligig in his brain must broach new opinions, and those made canons, nay sanctions, as sure as if a General Council had confirmed them.-ADAMS, The Devil's Banquet, 1614, p. 52.

I can hardly believe my eyes while I read such a petit novelist charging the whole Church as fools and heretics for not subscribing to a silly heretical notion, solely of his own invention.— SOUTH, Animadversions on Dr. Sherlock's Book, p. 3.

6

NURSERY. We have but one use of nursery' at this present, namely as the place of nursing; but it was once applied as well to the person nursed, or the act of nursing.

A jolly dame, no doubt; as appears by the well battling of the plump boy, her nursery.—FULLER, A Pisgah Sight of Palestine, part i. b. ii. c. 8.

If nursery exceeds her [a mother's] strength, and yet her conscience will scarce permit her to lay aside and free herself from so natural, so religious a work, yet tell her, God loves mercy better than sacrifice.-ROGERS, Matrimonial Honour, P. 247.

Obelisk-Obnoxious.

I loved her most, and thought to set my rest
On her kind nursery.

171

SHAKESPEARE, King Lear, act i. sc. I.

OBELISK. The 'obelus' is properly a sharp-pointed spear or spit; with a sign resembling this, spurious or doubtful passages were marked in the books of antiquity, which sign bore therefore this name of 'obelus,' or sometimes of its diminutive 'obeliscus.' It is in this sense that we find 'obelisk' employed by the writers in the seventeenth century; while for us at the present a small pillar tapering towards the summit is the only 'obelisk' that we know.

The Lord Keeper, the most circumspect of any man alive to provide for uniformity, and to countenance it, was scratched with their obelisk, that he favoured Puritans, and that sundry of them had protection through his connivency or clemency.-HACKET, Life of Archbishop Williams, part i. p. 95.

I have set my mark upon them [i.e. affected pedantic words]; and if any of them may have chanced to escape the obelisk, there can arise no other inconvenience from it but an occasion to exercise the choice and judgment of the reader.-PHILLIPS, New World of Words, Preface.

OBNOXIOUS. This, in its present lax and slovenly use a vague unserviceable synonym for offensive, is properly applied to one who on the ground of a mischief or wrong committed by him is justly liable to punishment (ob noxam pœnæ obligatus); and is used in this sense by South (see below). But there often falls out of the word the sense of a wrong committed; and that of liability to punishment, whether just or unjust, only remains; it does so very markedly in the quotation from Donne. But we punish, or wish to punish, those whom we dislike,

and thus 'obnoxious' has obtained its present sense of offensive.

They envy Christ, but they turn upon the man, who was more obnoxious to them, and they tell him that it was not lawful for him to carry his bed that day [John v. 10].-DONNE, Ser

mon 20.

Examine thyself in the particulars of thy relations; especially where thou governest and takest accounts of others, and art not so obnoxious to them as they to thee.-J. TAYLOR, The Worthy Communicant, c. vi. sect. 2.

What shall we then say of the power of God Himself to dispose of men? little, finite, obnoxious things of his own making? -SOUTH, Sermons, 1744, vol. viii. p. 315.

He [Satan] is in a chain, and that chain is in God's hand; and consequently, notwithstanding his utmost spite, he cannot be more malicious than he is obnoxious.—Id., Ib. vol. vi. p. 287.

OBSEQUIOUS, Į There lies ever in 'obsequious' OBSEQUIOUSNESS.) at the present the sense of an observance which is overdone, of an unmanly readiness to fall in with the will of another; there lay nothing of this in the Latin 'obsequium,' nor yet in our English word as employed two centuries ago. See the quotation from Feltham, s. v. ‘Garb.'

Besides many other fishes in divers places, which are very obeisant and obsequious, when they be called by their names.HOLLAND, Plutarch's Morals, p. 970.

I ever set this down, that the only course to be held with the Queen was by obsequiousness and observance.-Lord Bacon, Defence of Himself.

His corrections are so far from compelling men to come to heaven, as that they put many men farther out of their way, and work an obduration rather than an obsequiousness.—DONNE, Sermon 45.

In her relation to the king she was the best pattern of conjugal love and obsequiousness. -BATES, Sermon upon the Death of the Queen.

OCCUPY, He now 'occupies,' who has in present OCCUPIER. possession ; but the word involved once the further signification of using, employing, laying out that which was thus possessed; and by an ‘occupier' was meant a trader or retail dealer.

He [Eumenes] made as though he had occasion to occupy money, and so borrowed a great sum of them.-NORTH, Plutarch's Lives, p. 505.

If they bind me fast with new ropes that never were occupied, then shall I be weak, and be as another man.-Judges xvi. II, Authorized Version.

Mercury, the master of merchants and occupiers [àyopaíwr].— HOLLAND, Plutarch's Morals, p. 692.

OFFAL. This, bearing its derivation on its front, namely that it is that which, as refuse and of little or no worth, is suffered or caused to fall off, we restrict at the present to the refuse of the butcher's stall; but it was once employed in a much wider acceptation, an acceptation which here and there still survives. Thus, as one writes to me, ‘in all her Majesty's dockyards there is a monthly sale by auction of "offal wood," being literally that which falls off from the log under the saw, axe, or adze.'

Glean not in barren soil these offal ears,

Sith reap thou may'st whole harvests of delight.

SOUTHWELL, Lewd Love is Loss.

Of gold the very smallest filings are precious, and our Blessed Saviour, when there was no want of provision, yet gave it in charge to his disciples, the off-fall should not be lost.—SANDERSON, Preface to the Clavi Trabales.

Poor Lazarus lies howling at his gates for a few crumbs; he only seeks chippings, offals; let him roar and howl, famish and eat his own flesh; he respects him not.-BURTON, Anatomy of Melancholy, part iii. sect. I.

174

OFFICIOUS,

Officious-Orient.

Again and again we light on words used once in a good, but

OFFICIOUSNESS. now in an unfavourable, sense. An 'officious' person is now a busy uninvited meddler in matters which do not belong to him; so late as Burke's time he might be one prompt and forward in due offices of kindness. The more honourable use of 'officious' now only survives in the distinction familiar to diplomacy between an 'official' and 'officious' communication.

With granted leave officious I return.

MILTON, Paradise Regained, b. ii. Officious, ready to do good offices, serviceable, friendly, very courteous and obliging.-PHILLIFS, New World of Words.

They [the nobility of France] were tolerably well bred, very officious, humane, and hospitable.-BURKE, Reflections on the Revolution in France, p. 251.

Which familiar and affectionate officiousness and sumptuous cost, together with that sinister fame that woman was noted with [Luke vii. 37], could not but give much scandal to the Pharisees there present.-H. MORE, Grand Mystery of Godliness, b. viïì. c. 13.

ORIENT. This had once a beautiful use, as clear, bright, shining, which has now wholly departed from it. Thus, the orient' pearl of our earlier poets is not 'oriental,' but pellucid, white, shining. Doubtless it acquired this meaning originally from the greater clearness and lightness of the east, as the quarter whence the day breaks.

Those shells that keep in the main sea, and lie deeper than that the sunbeams can pierce unto them, keep the finest and most delicate pearls. And yet they, as orient as they be, wax yellow with age.-HOLLAND, Pliny, vol. i. p$255.