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Boy.-Ah! happy years! once more who would not be a BOY?

BYRON, Childe Harold.

Eager-hearted as a BOY, when first he leaves his father's field.

The BOY stood on the burning deck,
Whence all but him had fled;

The flame that lit the battle's wreck

TENNYSON, Locksley Hall.

Shone round him o'er the dead. -MRS. HEMANS, Casabianca. Twelve years ago I was a BOY,

A happy boy, at Drury's.-PRAED, School and School-fellows. Boz.-A pseudonym under which Charles Dickens contributed a series of " Sketches of Life and Character" to the London " Morning Chronicle." Of this nom de plume he has given the following ac

count:

"Boz, my signature in the 'Morning Chronicle,' was the nickname of a pet child, younger brother, whom I had dubbed Moses, in honour of the Vicar of Wakefield,' which, being facetiously pronounced through the nose, became Boses, and being shortened, Boz. Boz was

a very familiar household word to me long before I was an author, and so I came to adopt it."

Though a pledge I had to shiver,

And the longest ever was,

Ere his vessel leaves our river

I would drink a health to Boz.-Hood.

Brain. With curious art the BRAIN, too finely wrought,
Preys on herself, and is destroyed by thought.

CHURCHILL, Epistle to Hogarth. Brains.-Beard was never the true standard of BRAINS.-T. FULLER. Brandy. Claret is the liquor for boys; port for men; but he who aspires to be a hero must drink BRANDY.-BOSWELL, Life of Johnson.

Brave. How sleep the BRAVE who sink to rest,

By all their country's wishes bless'd!--COLLINS, Ode, 1746.

None but the BRAVE deserves the fair.-DRYDEN, Alexander's Feast.

Toll for the BRAVE!

The brave that are no more!
All sunk beneath the wave,
Fast by their native shore!

COWPER, On the Loss of the Royal George. Bravest of the Brave.-A title conferred upon the celebrated Marshal Ney (1769-1815) by the French troops at Friedland (1807), on account of his fearless bravery. He was in command of the right wing, which bore the brunt of the battle, and stormed the town. Napoleon, as he watched him passing unterrified through a shower of balls, exclaimed, "That man is a lion;" and henceforth the army styled him Le Brave des Braves.

Breach.-Once more unto the BREACH, dear friends, once more,

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Or close the wall up with our English dead!

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.

SHAKESPERE, Henry V.

Bread.-BREAD is the staff of life.-SWIFT, Tale of a Tub.

Breeches Bibles.-A name given to editions of the so-called Genevan Bible (first printed at Geneva, by Rowland Hall, 1560, in 4to), from the peculiar rendering of Gen. iii. 7.

Brevity.-BREVITY is the soul of wit,

And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes.

SHAKESPERE, Hamlet.

BREVITY is the body and soul of wit. It is wit itself, for it alone isolates sufficiently for contrasts; because redundancy or diffuseness produces no distinctions.-JEAN PAUL RICHTER.

Bridge of Sighs.-[It. Ponte del Sospiri.] The name popularly given to the covered passage-way which connects the Doge's palace in Venice with the state prisons, from the circumstance that the condemned prisoners were transported over this bridge from the hall of judgment to the place of execution. Hood has used the name as the title of one of his poems.

I stood in Venice, on the BRIDGE OF SIGHS;

A palace and a prison on each hand.-BYRON, Childe Harold. Brief. 'Tis better to be BRIEF than tedious.

SHAKESPERE, Richard III.

Bright. All that's BRIGHT must fade,—
The brightest still the fleetest;

All that's sweet was made

But to be lost when sweetest !-MOORE, All that's Bright.

Brightest.-BRIGHTEST and best of the sons of the morning!

Dawn on our darkness, and lend us thine aid.-HEBER, Epiphany. Britain. When BRITAIN first, at Heaven's command

Arose from out the azure main,

This was the charter of her land,

And guardian angels sung the strain :
Rule Britannia! Britannia rules the waves!
Britons never shall be slaves.-THOMSON.

Brother Jonathan.-[America.] When Washington was in Massachusetts with his army, he was often in great difficulty for supplies of all kinds; and having often been assisted by Jonathan Turnbull; governor of Connecticut, he was wont, in cases of emergency, to say that he would "consult BROTHER JONATHAN," and the saying passed into a by-word.

Bull, John.-A well-known collective name of the English nation, first used in Arbuthnot's satire, "The History of JOHN Bull," usually published in Swift's works. In this satire, the French are designated as Lewis Baboon, the Dutch as Nicholas Frog, etc. The "History of John Bull" was designed to ridicule the Duke of Marlborough.

"One would think that, in personifying itself, a nation would be apt to picture something grand, heroic, and imposing; but it is characteristic of the peculiar humour of the English, and of their love for what is blunt, comic, and familiar, that they have embodied their national oddities in the figure of a sturdy, corpulent old fellow, with a three-cornered hat, red waistcoat, leather breeches, and stout oaken cudgel. Thus they have taken a singular delight in exhibiting their most private foibles in a laughable point of view, and have been so successful in their delineation that there is scarcely a being in actual existence more absolutely present to the public mind than that eccentric personage, JOHN BULL."-W. IRVING.

Bumper. When the English were good Catholics, they usually drank the Pope's health in a full glass every day after dinner-au bon père: whence BUMPER.-COCCHI.

Butterfly.--I'd be a BUTTERFLY; living a rover,

Dying when fair things are fading away.-T. H. BAYLEY.

C.

Cabal, The.-A name given in English history to a famous cabinet council formed in 1670, and composed of five unpopular ministers of Charles II., namely, Lords Clifford, Ashley, Buckingham, Arlington, and Lauderdale. The word "CABAL"-at that time

in common use to denote a junto or set of men united for political purposes-having been popularly applied to this ministry as a term of reproach, it was soon discovered to be a sort of anagram made up of the initials of the names of the several members.

Cadmean Victory, A.-Greek Proverb. A CADMEAN VICTORY was one in which the victors suffered as much as their enemies.

Cæsar. But yesterday, the word of CÆSAR might
Have stood against the world: now lies he there,
And none so poor to do him reverence.

SHAKESPERE, Julius Cæsar.

CESAR had his Brutus-Charles the First, his Cromwell-and George the Third-("Treason!" cried the Speaker)-may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it.

P. HENRY.

Cæsar.-Conjure with them,

Brutus will start a spirit as soon as CÆSAR.
Now, in the names of all the gods at once,
Upon what meat doth this our Cæsar feed,
That he is grown so great? Age, thou art sham'd!
Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods.

SHAKESPERE, Julius Cæsar.

Imperial CÆSAR, dead, and turned to clay,

Might stop a hole to keep the wind away.-Ibid., Hamlet.

Not that I loved CÆSAR less, but that I loved Rome more.

Ibid., Julius Cæsar.

Cake -Would'st thou both eat thy CAKES and have it?

Cakes and Ale.-Sir To.

G. HERBERT, The Size.

Dost thou think, because thou art

virtuous, there shall be no more CAKES AND ALE?

Clo. Yes, by Saint Anne; and ginger shall be hot i' the mouth too. SHAKESPERE, Twelfth Night.

Calamity.-CALAMITY is man's true touchstone.

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

Times of general CALAMITY and confusion have ever been productive of the greatest minds. The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace, and the brightest thunderbolt from the darkest storm.-COLTON, Lacon.

Caledonia.--O CALEDONIA! stern and wild,

Meet nurse for a poetic child!

Land of brown heath and shaggy wood;
Land of the mountain and the flood.

SCOTT, Last Minstrel.

Calendar Rhyming.—Junius, Aprilis, Septénq; Nouemq; tricenos, Vnum plus reliqui, Februs tenet octo vicenos,

At si bissextus fuerit superadditur vnus.

Thirty dayes hath Nouember,

Aprill, June, and September,

February hath xxviii alone,

HOLINSHED's Chronicles, 1577.

And all the rest have xxxi.-GRAFTON'S Chronicles, 1590.

Thirty days hath September,

April, June, and November,

February eight-and-twenty all alone,
And all the rest have thirty-one;
Unless that leap-year doth combine,
And give to February twenty-nine.

Return from Parnassus.

Calm.-Ne'er saw I, never felt, a CALM so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will;
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

WORDSWORTH, Sonnets.

CALM is the morn without a sound,

Calm as to suit a calmer grief.-TENNYSON, In Memoriam. Calumny.--Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape CALUMNY.-SHAKESPERE, Hamlet.

CALUMNY will sear virtue itself.

Ibid., A Winter's Tale.

Candour.-CANDOUR is the brightest gem of criticism.-DISRAELI.
Capulets. I would rather sleep in the southern corner of a little
country churchyard than in the tomb of the CAPULETS.-EDMUND
BURKE.

Care. And is there CARE in Heaven ?--SPENSER, Faerie Queene.
CARE keeps his watch in every old man's eye.

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SHAKESPERE, Romeo and Juliet.

CARE'S an enemy to life.-Ibid., Twelfth Night.
CARE to our coffin adds a nail, no doubt,

And every grin, so merry, draws one out.-Dr. WOLCOT.
Cast all your CARE on God: that anchor holds.

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TENNYSON, Enoch Arden.

And therefore let's be merry.-G. WITHER.

I am sure CARE's an enemy to life.

SHAKESPERE, Twelfth Night.

Cares. And the night shall be filled with music,
And the CARES that infest the day
Shall fold their tents like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.

LONGFELLOW, The Day is Done.

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Castles.-CASTLES in the air cost a vast deal to keep up.-LYTTON. Catching a Tartar.-Encountering an opponent of unexpected strength. In a battle, an Irishman (according to Captain Grose) called out to his officer, "I have caught a Tartar. · Bring him here, then,' was the reply. "He won't let me," rejoined Pat. And as the Turk carried off his captor, the saying passed into a proverb. Censure. CENSURE is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent.-SWIFT.

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The villain's CENSURE is extorted praise.-POPE.

Cerberus. You are not like CERBERUS, three gentlemen at once, are you? (Mrs. Malaprop.)—SHERIDAN, The Rivals.

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