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Flags. Forty flags with their silver stars,
Forty flags with their crimson bars.

Flatteries.

WHITTIER, Barbara Frietchie, st. 7 He does me double wrong

That wounds me with the flatteries of his tongue.

SHAKESPEARE, King Richard II, ïïi, 2

Flattery.— Flattery is the bellows blows up sin.

SHAKESPEARE, Pericles, i, 2

SWIFT, Cadenus and Vanessa

Flattery's the food for fools.

Flea. That's a valiant flea that dare eat his breakfast on the

lip of a lion.

SHAKESPEARE, King Henry V, iii, 7

So, naturalists observe, a flea

Has smaller fleas that on him prey;

And these have smaller still to bite 'em;

And so proceed ad infinitum.—SWIFT, Poetry, a Rhapsody

Fleas. A reasonable amount o' fleas is good fer a dog keeps him from broodin' over bein' a dog.

Flesh.

2

E. N. WESTCOTT, David Harum, xxxii

Flesh of my flesh,

Bone of my bone thou art, and from thy state
Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe.

MILTON, Paradise Lost, IX, lines 914-9162

Oh, that this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!

Or that the Everlasting had not fixed
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter!

SHAKESPEARE, Hamit, i, 2

A pound of that same merchant's flesh is thine:
The court awards it, and the law doth give it.

Take then thy bond, take thou thy pound of flesh;
But, in the cutting of it, if thou dost shed

One drop of Christian blood, thy lands and goods
Are, by the laws of Venice, confiscate

Unto the state of Venice.

SHAKESPEARE, Merchant of Venice, iv, I

O flesh, flesh, how art thou fishified!

SHAKESPEARE, Romeo and Juliet, ii, 4

1Thou art a collop of my flesh.

SHAKESPEARE, King Henry VI, Part 1. v, 4

* See also Paradise Lost, IV, line 483; VIII, line 495. IX. lines 958, 959

Flibbertigibbet-Flunked

135

Flibbertigibbet.- This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet; he begins at curfew, and walks till the first cock; he gives the web and the pin, squints the eye, and makes the hare-lip; mildews the white wheat, and hurts the poor creature of earth. Shakespeare, King Lear, iii, 4

Flint.

The fire i' the flint

Shows not till it be struck.

SHAKESPEARE, Timon of Athens, i, 1

Flog.- O ye! who teach the ingenious youth of nations,
Holland, France, England, Germany, or Spain,

I pray ye flog them upon all occasions,

It mends their morals, never mind the pain.

BYRON, Don Juan, Canto ii, st. I

Flogging. There is now less flogging in our great schools than formerly, but then less is learned there; so that what the boys get at one end they lose at the other. SAMUEL JOHNSON, Life, by Boswell, 1775

Flood. You may as well go stand upon the beach
And bid the main flood bate his usual height.

SHAKESPEARE, Merchant of Venice, iv, 1

Flower.
But oh, how fondly dear!

'Tis but a little faded flower,

ELLEN C. HOWARTH, 'Tis but a Little Faded

One thing is certain, and the rest is Lies;

Flower, st. 1

The flower that once has blown for ever dies.

OMAR KHAYYÁM, Rubáiyát (trans. Fitzgerald), st. 63

Flower in the crannied wall,

I pluck you out of the crannies,

I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little Hower-but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.

Flowers.

TENNYSON, Flower in the Crannied Wall

He who hunts for flowers will find flowers; and he who loves weeds may find weeds.- H. W. Beecher,

Lectures to Young Men, Portrait Gallery, The Cynic

Flunked. A keerless man in his talk was Jim,
And an awkward hand in a row;

But he never flunked, and he never lied,-
I reckon he never knowed how.

JOHN HAY, Jim Bludso of the Prairie Belle, st. 2

Fly. His back against a rock he bore,
And firmly placed his foot before:-
"Come one, come all! this rock shall fly
From its firm base as soon as I."

SCOTT, Lady of the Lake, Canto v, st. 10

Foam. The cruel crawling foam.

Foe.

KINGSLEY, The Sands of Dee, st. 4

Whispering with white lips "The foe! They come! they come!"

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BYRON, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto iii, st. 25 Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot

That it do singe yourself.

SHAKESPEARE, King Henry VIII, i, 1

Folly. When lovely woman stoops to folly,
And finds too late that men betray,-
What charm can soothe her melancholy,
What art can wash her guilt away?
The only art her guilt to cover,
To hide her shame from every eye,
To give repentance to her lover
And wring his bosom, is - to die.

GOLDSMITH, The Vicar of Wakefield, II,

Shoot folly as it flies.

5

POPE, Essay on Man, Epistle i, line 13

Where lives a man that has not tried,
How mirth can into folly glide,

And folly into sin!

SCOTT, Bridal of Triermain, Canto i, st. 21

Folly in fools bears not so strong a note
As foolery in the wise," when wit doth dote.

SHAKESPEARE, Love's Labour's Lost, v, 2

Fool. A fool must now and then be right by chance.

COWPER, Conversation, line 96

A fool there was and he made his prayer

(Even as you and I)

To a rag and a bone and a hank of hair
(We called her the woman who did not care),
But the fool he called her his lady fair

(Even as you and I!).

KIPLING, The Vampire, st. I

'And the neigh of the steed and the multitude's hum,
And the clash and the shout, "They come! they come!"

BYRON, The Siege of Corinth, st. 22

2 So doth a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom and honor.

Ecclesiastes, x, I

No creature smarts so little as a fool.

POPE, Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, line 84

A fool, a fool! I met a fool i' the forest,

A motley fool.

"Good morrow, fool," quoth I. "No, sir," quoth he, 'Call me not fool till heaven hath sent me fortune."

66

O noble fool!

A worthy fool! Motley's the only wear.

SHAKESPEARE, As You Like It, ii, 7

Jaques. I was seeking for a fool when I found you.
Orlando. He is drowned in the brook: look but in,
and you shall see him.
Ibid., iii, 2

The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool. Ibid., V, I

They fool me to the top of my bent.

SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet, iii, 2

How ill white hairs become a fool and jester!

SHAKESPEARE, King Henry IV, Part II, v, 5

A fool's bolt is soon shot.

Lear.
Fool.

SHAKESPEARE, King Henry V, iii, 7

Dost thou call me fool, boy?

All thy other titles thou hast given away;

that thou wast born with.

SHAKESPEARE, King Lear, i, 4

Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.

SHAKESPEARE, Twelfth Night, i, 5

There's no fool like the old one.

TENNYSON, The Grandmother, st. 11
Be wise with speed,

A fool at forty is a fool indeed.

YOUNG, Love of Fame, Satire ii, lines 281, 282

Foolery. Thou little thinkest what a little foolery governs the world. JOHN SELDEN, Table Talk: Pope

Fools.- Fools for arguments use wagers.

BUTLER, Hudibras, II, i, line 298

We think our fathers fools, so wise we grow,
Our wiser sons, no doubt, will think us so.

POPE, Essay on Criticism, lines 438, 439

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.-Ibid., line 625

What fools these mortals be!

SHAKESPEARE, Midsummer-Night's Dream, iii, 2

She was a wight, if ever such wight were,-
To suckle fools and chronicle small beer.

...

SHAKESPEARE, Othello, ii, 1

Men may live fools, but fools they cannot die.

YOUNG, Night Thoughts, IV, line 843

Foot. Now as they bore him off the field,
Said he, "Let others shoot,

For here I leave my second leg,
And the Forty-Second Foot!"

His very foot has music in 't

As he comes up the stair.

HOOD, Faithless Nelly Gray

W. J. MICKLE, The Sailor's Wife, st. 5

My foot is on my native heath, and my name is MacGregor.

SCOTT, Rob Roy, xxxiv

Footprints. Lives of great men all remind us

We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;1

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,

A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.2

LONGFELLOW, Psalm of Life, st. 7, 8

Forbear. The kindest and the happiest pair

Will find occasion to forbear;

And something every day they live

To pity, and perhaps forgive.

COWPER, Mutual Forbearance, lines 37-40

Forbearance. There is, however, a limit at which forbear

ance ceases to be a virtue.

BURKE

1So from the bosom of darkness our days come roaring and gleaming, Chafe and break into foam, sink into darkness again.

But on the shores of Time each leaves some trace of its passage,
Though the succeeding wave washes it out from the sand.

2 So when a great man dies,

For years beyond our ken,

LONGFELLOW, A Fragment, August 4, 1856

The light he leaves behind him lies
Upon the paths of men.

LONGFELLOW, Charles Sumner, st. 9

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