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PREFACE.

I HAVE now the satisfaction of presenting to the public the third of the series of Dictionaries of English Literature originally projected about a quarter of a century since. In these works I have had the great advantage of profiting by the labours of my predecessors in the same fertile fields. The Dictionaries of Johnson, Webster, and Worcester, and the excellent compilation of Henry Southgate entitled "Many Thoughts of Many Minds," First Series, have furnished me with many quotations; but the most valuable portions of the present volume have been derived from the "Tatlers" and "Spectators" of Addison and Steele, "The Rambler" of Dr. Johnson, the works of Sir Thomas Browne, Edmund Burke, Robert Hall, and Montaigne, and the vigorous, brilliant, and thoughtful "Essays" of Lord Macaulay. I would especially recommend to the attention of the intelligent reader the subjects, AUTHORS, AUTHORSHIP, Bible, Books, CHRIST, CHRISTIANITY, CONSCIENCE, CONVERSATION, CRITICISM, DEATH, DRAMA, EDUCATION, ENGLAND, FREEDOM, FRIENDSHIP, GOD, GOVERNMENT, HISTORY, INDEXES, INSANITY, JUDGES, LAW, LAWYERS, LIFE, LITERATURE, LOVE, MAN, MANNERS, MATRIMONY, MEMORY, ORATORY, PARTY, PATRIOTISM, PHILOSOPHY, POETRY, POLITICS, PREACHING, REAding, ReLIGION, SIN, STATES, STUDIES, STYLE, TALKING, TRANSLATION, TRUTH, VIRTUE, WAR, WISDOM, WIT, WORDS, and YOUTH. To no student who has devoted the best years of his life to anxious and assiduous labour are 'success and miscarriage empty sounds;" and no author-Dr. Johnson to the contrary notwithstanding-" dismisses" the result of such labour "with frigid tranquillity, having little to fear or hope from censure or from praise; but I can truly affirm that I aim rather to instruct than to amuse my readers, and that I greatly prefer the hope of usefulness to the certainty of fame.

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DICTIONARY

OF

PROSE QUOTATIONS.

ABRIDGMENTS.

We love, we own, to read the great productions of the human mind as they were written. We have this feeling even about scientific treatises, though we know that the sciences are always in a state of progression, and that the alterations made by a modern editor in an old book on any branch of natural or political philosophy are likely to be improvements. Some errors have been detected by writers of this generation in the speculations of Adam Smith. A short cut has been made to much knowledge at which Sir Isaac Newton arrived through arduous and circuitous paths. Yet we still look with peculiar veneration on the Wealth of Nations and on the Principia, and should regret to see either of these great works garbled even by the ablest hands. But in works which owe much of their interest to the character and situation of the writers, the case is infinitely stronger. What man of taste and feeling can endure rifacimenti, harmonies, abridgments, expurgated editions? Who ever reads a stage copy of a play when he can procure the original? Who ever cut open Mrs. Siddons's Milton? Who ever got through ten pages of Mr. Gilpin's translation of John Bunyan's Pilgrim into modern English? Who would lose, in the confusion of a Diatessaron, the peculiar charm which belongs to the narrative of the disciple whom Jesus loved? The feeling of a reader who has become intimate with any great original work is that which Adam expressed

towards his bride:

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No skilful reader of the plays of Shakspeare can endure to see what are called the best things taken out, under the name of "Beauties" or of

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Elegant Extracts," or to hear any single passage, "To be or not to be," for example, quoted as a sample of the great poet. "To be or not to be" has merit undoubtedly as a composition. It would have merit if put into the mouth of a chorus. But its merit as a composition vanishes when compared with its merit as belonging to Hamlet. It is not too much to say that the great plays of Shakspeare would lose less by being called the fine passages than those passages lose deprived of all the passages which are commonly by being read separately from the play. This is perhaps the highest praise which can be given

to a dramatist.

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Outward actions can never give a just estimate of us, since there are many perfections of a man which are not capable of appearing in actions. ADDISON.

He was particularly pleased with Sallust for his entering into internal principles of action. ADDISON.

A superior capacity for business, and a more extensive knowledge, are steps by which a new man often mounts to favour and outshines the rest of his contemporaries. ADDISON.

There is no greater wisdom than well to time the beginnings and onsets of things.

LORD BACON.

pate the occasion, and to live by a rule more general. BURKE: Letter to R. Shackleton, May 25, 1779. The only things in which we can be said to have any property are our actions. Our thoughts may be bad, yet produce no poison; they may be good, yet produce no fruit. Our riches may be taken from us by misfortune, our reputation by malice, our spirits by calamity, our health by disease, our friends by death. But our actions must follow us beyond the grave: with respect to them alone we cannot say that we shall carry nothing with us when we die, neither that we shall go naked out of the world. Our actions must clothe us with an immortality, loathsome or glorious: these are the only title-deeds of which we cannot be disinherited; they will have their full weight in the balance of eternity, when everything else is as nothing; and their value will be confirmed and established by those two sure and sateless destroyers of all other earthly things,-Time and Death. COLTON: Lacon.

When young we trust ourselves too much, and we trust others too little when old. Rashness is the error of youth, timid caution of age. Manhood is the isthmus between the two extremes: the ripe and fertile season of action, when alone we can hope to find the head to contrive united with the hand to execute.

COLTON: Lacon.

No two things differ more than hurry and despatch. Hurry is the mark of a weak mind,

When things are come to the execution, there despatch of a strong one. is no secrecy comparable to celerity.

LORD BACON.

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COLTON: Lacon.

Hurry and Cunning are the two apprentices of Despatch and of Skill, but neither of them ever learn their master's trade.

COLTON: Lacon.

The causes and designs of an action are the beginning; the effects of these causes, and the difficulties met with in the execution of these designs, are the middle; and the unravelling and resolution of these difficulties are the end. DRYDEN.

The actions of men are oftener determined by their character than their interest: their conduct takes its colour more from their acquired tastes, inclinations, and habits, than from a deliberate regard to their greatest good. It is only on great occasions the mind awakes to take an extended survey of her whole course, and that she suffers the dictates of reason to impress a new bias upon her movements. The actions of each day are, for the most part, links which follow each other in the chain of custom. Hence the great effort of practical wisdom is to imbue the mind with right tastes, affections, and habits;

the elements of character and masters of action.

ROBERT HALL: Modern Infidelity.

The ways of well-doing are in number even as many as are the kinds of voluntary actions: so that whatsoever we do in this world, and may do it ill, we show ourselves therein by welldoing to be wise. HOOKER.

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