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AMOROUS AMUSE.

Amorous. Worthy of love.

The which peace as I declared is mighty and virtuous, it is fair and gracious, it is sweet and amorous.-Letter of Henry V (1420).

A Dane is the excess and extravagance of a Dutchman. His understanding is alive only to the useful and profitable, his faculties seem to be drenched and slackened by the eternal fogs in which he resides. He is never alert nor elastic. In all the operations of his understanding he must have time. He loves arithmetic better than lyric poetry, and affects Croker rather than Pindar. He is slow to speak of fountains and amorous maidens, but he will make profound and extensive combinations of thought if you pay him for it and do not insist that he shall be either brisk or brief.-SYDNEY SMITH.

Amuse. Once, to engage or occupy seriously, as well as to divert.

He was amused how to render up his accounts to the Athenians of their money.-HOLLAND, Plutarch.

Men commonly take a view of Nature as from a remote eminence, and are too much amused with generalities, whereas if they would descend and approach nearer to particulars, and more exactly and considerately examine into things themselves, they might make more solid and useful discoveries.BACON.

The terms we sent were terms of weight,
Of hard contents and full of force urged home,
Such as we might perceive amused them all,

And stumbled many.-MILTON, Paradise Lost, Bk. vi. Therefore King James politely preferred that heretics hereafter, though condemned, should silently and privily waste themselves away in prison, rather than grace them, and amuse others by a public execution.-Fuller.

Reason would contrive such a religion as should afford both sad and solemn thoughts to amuse and affect the pensive part of the soul.-Dr. SOUTH.

Perhaps if we have ever been able to afford the reader amuse

ANCIENT-ANGEL.

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ment, it is owing in a great degree to this cause, that we never found ourselves in company with the stupidest of all possible companions in a post-chaise, or with the most arrant cumber-corner that ever occupied a place in a mail-coach, without finding that in the course of conversation with him we had some ideas suggested to us either grave or gay, that we should have regretted not to have heard.-Sir WALTER SCOTT.

Ancient. This word, which was applied equally to the bearers of military colours and to the standard itself, was probably a corruption of ensign. In another sense it was used for the old in age as well as in time. 'Tis one Iago, ancient to the general.

SHAKSPEARE, Othello, v. I.

She cheered her soldiers that foughten for life
With ancient and standard, with drum and with fife,
With brave clanging trumpets, that sounded so free;
Was not this a brave bonny lass, Mary Ambree ?

Old Ballad.

Halting is the stateliest march of the soldier, and 'tis a brave sight to see the flesh of an ancient as much torn as his colours. He that mocks at the marks of valour in a soldier's face is likely to have the brands of justice on his own shoulders.FULLER.

Frost is as proper for winter as flowers for spring; gravity becomes the ancient, and a green Christmas is neither becoming nor healthful.-FULLER.

Our ancestors up to the Conquest were children in arms, chubby boys in the time of Edward the First, striplings under Elizabeth, men in the reign of Queen Anne, and we only are the white-bearded silver-headed ancients who have treasured up and are prepared to profit by all the experience which human life can supply.-SYDNEY SMITH, On the Wisdom of Our Ancestors.

Angel. Once retained its original Greek meaning of 'a messenger.' Now used only in a spiritual sense. The dear good angel of the Spring [the nightingale].

B. JONSON.

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ANIMOSITY-ANON.

But at last I spied

An ancient angel coming down the hill,

Will serve the turn.

SHAKSPEARE, Taming of the Shrew, iv. 2.

The Roman angel's [eagle] wings shall melt,

And Cæsar's diadem be from his head

Spurned by base feet.-MASSINGER, Virgin Martyr.

It is related of the monk Basle, that being excommunicated by the Pope he was at his death sent in charge of an angel to find a fit place of suffering in hell. But such was the eloquence and good humour of the monk that wherever he went he was received gladly, and civilly treated even by the most uncivil angels, for such was his contented spirit that he found something to praise in every place. At last, the escorting angel returned with his prisoner, saying that no phlegethon would burn him, for that, in whatever condition, Basle remained incorrigibly Basle.-EMERSON.

Animosity. Spirit or energy; once in a good, now only in a bad sense.

The Queen [Mary Stuart] with incredible animosity was mounted en croupe behind Sir Arthur Erskine upon a beautiful gelding.-Letter of Anthony Standen.

His animosities were numerous and bitter. He hated Frenchmen and Italians, Scotchmen and Irishmen, Papists and Presbyterians, Independents and Baptists, Quakers and Jews. Towards London and Londoners he felt an aversion which more than once produced important political effects. Unlettered as he was, and unpolished, he was still in some important points a gentleman. He was a member of a proud and powerful aristocracy, his family pride was beyond a Talbot or a Howard, he knew the genealogies and coats of arms of all his neighbours, he was a magistrate, and as such administered to those who dwelt around him a rude patriarchal justice.-MACAULAY, On the Country Gentleman of the Seventeenth Century.

Anon. In one, continuously, immediately: but now, like 'presently,' it implies a future more remote.

The king of Northumberland was king I understande
Of all the land beyond Humber anon into Scotlande.

Old Poem (1315).

ANSWER-ANTICS.

For hope is but the dream of those who wake;
But looking back we see the dreadful train

Of woes anon, which were we to sustain

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We should refuse to tread the path again.-FLETCHER.
As a little snow, tumbled about,

Anon becomes a mountain.

SHAKSPEARE, King John, iii. 4.

I love to pore upon old china and to speculate from the images on Cathay. I can fancy that the Chinese manners portray themselves, like the drunkards, in their cups. Lo, here the blooming Hyson is pencilling and curving the cross-bows of her eyebrows, a musical instrument is at her almost invisible feet. Are such little extremities likely to be tasked with laborious offices? By her side the obsequious Ham is pouring his soft flatteries into her ear. When she walketh abroad, anon he shadeth her at two miles off with his umbrella. It is like an allegory of Love triumphing over time and space.-T. HOOD.

Answer. Once, to speak or address: now, only to reply.

And Jesus answered and said unto it [the fig-tree]: No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever.-Authorised Version, Mark xi. 13.

If you have written anything to me which I should have received last night, I beg your pardon that I cannot answer it till the next post. Your son at the present writing is mighty well employed in tumbling on the floor of the room and sweeping the sand with a feather, he grows a most delightful child, and is full of play and spirit.-STEELE.

Antics. Once, the performers of odd gestures.

Behold, distraction, frenzy, and amazement,
Like witless antics, one another meet.

SHAKSPEARE, Troilus and Cressida, v. 3. If there be never a servant monster in the fair nor a nest of antics.-B. JONSON.

The pagan African is commonly a merry dancing animal, given to every species of antic and apish amusement, and as he

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APOLOGY-APPAREL.

is unacquainted with the future and promised delights of the Arabian prophet, he enjoys the bad music and imperfect beauty of this world with a most eager and undisturbed relish.— SYDNEY SMITH.

Apology. Formerly used in its original Greek sense (anoλoyía) of a justification or vindication: now generally an excuse.

For in the book which is called my apology, it is not required by the nature of that name that it be any answer or defence for mine own self at all: but it sufficeth that it be of mine own making an answer or defence for some other.-Sir T. MORE.

The next great event in Bonaparte's history was his usurpation of the supreme power of the State and the establishment of military despotism in France. For this crime but one apology can be offered. Napoleon, it is said, seized the reins when, had he let them slip, they would have fallen into other hands; he enslaved France when, had he spared her, she would have found another tyrant. Admitting the truth of the plea, what is it but the reasoning of the highwayman who robs and murders the traveller because the booty was about to be seized by another hand?-W. E. CHANNING.

Apparel. Once used for preparation as well as clothing.

For Tullius saith, that longe appareilling tofore the bataille, maketh short victorie.-CHAUCER, Tale of Melibæus.

He said to his country mote him saile,

And there he would her wedding apparaile.-CHAUCER.

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy;

But not express'd in fancy: rich, not gaudy:

For the apparel oft proclaims the man.

SHAKSPEARE, Hamlet, i. 3.

Lucceius has learning, wit and humour, eloquence, but no ambitious projects to pursue. With these advantages therefore to the ordinary world, he is perhaps thought to want spirit. He desires no man's admiration, is in no need of pomp, his apparel pleases him if it is fashionable and warm, his com