صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

UNEASY-UNEQUAL.

The Tragedis divers and uncouth of moral sense.

GOWER.

295

Of Christe's gospel he gan the seeds to sewe,
Uncouth miracles wroughte with his handes.-LYDGATE.

I am surprised with an uncouth fear.

SHAKSPEARE, Titus Andronicus, ii. 4.

All cleane dismayed to see so uncouth sight.

SPENSER, Fairy Queen, i. 50.

Thus sang the uncouth swain to the oaks and rills,
Whilst the still morn went out with sandals gray;
He touched the tender stops of various quills,

With eager thought warbling his Doric lay.-MILTON. Mr. North and Dr. Clarke and all the great company being gone, I found myself very uncouth all this day for want thereof.S. PEPYS.

Swift. But there were other inmates of Moor Park-an eccentric, uncouth, disagreeable young Irishman attended Sir William Temple as an amanuensis. Little did Temple imagine that the coarse exterior of his dependent concealed a genius equally suited to politics and to letters.-MACAULAY.

Uneasy. Occurs in the sense of 'difficult': now rather, uncomfortable.

It was presently counted a place very hardly and uneasily to be inhabited for the great cold.-HACKLUYT, Voyages, vol. iii.

There is a class of street-readers whom I can never contemplate without affection—the poor gentry who, not having wherewithal to buy or hire a book, fetch a little learning at the open stalls, the man with his hard eye casting envious looks at them all the while and thinking when they will have done. Martin B. on his way by daily fragments got through two volumes of Clarissa; he declares that under no circumstances of his life did he ever peruse a book with half the satisfaction which he took in these uneasy snatches.-C. LAMB.

Unequal. Unjust.

You are unequal to me.-BEN JONSON.

296

UNEXPRESSIVE-UNKIND.

Unequal to myself.-MASSINGER.

It might afford an illustration of the fallaciousness of political speculations, to contrast the hopes and inquietudes that agitated the minds of men concerning the inheritance of the crown during Elizabeth's lifetime, while no less than fourteen titles were idly or mischievously reckoned up, with the perfect tranquillity that accompanied the accession of her successor. The House of Suffolk, whose claim was legally indisputable, if we admit the testament of Henry the Eighth, appears to have lost ground in public opinion through an unequal marriage of Lord Beauchamp with a private gentlewoman.-HALLAM.

[blocks in formation]

A shrewd knave, and an unhappy.

SHAKSPEARE, All's Well that Ends Well, iv. 5.

Prince Rupert, I hear, is to go this day to command this fleet going to Guinea against the Dutch. I doubt few will be pleased at his going, being accounted an unhappy man.— S. PEPYS.

Byron's Funeral. We well remember that on that day rigid moralists could not refrain from weeping for one so young, so unhappy, gifted with such rare gifts and tried by such strong temptations.-MACAULAY.

Unkind. Ungrateful, unfortunate.

Unkindly they slew him that holp them oft at need:
He was their bulwark, their pavice, and their wall;
Yet shamefully they slew him, that shame might them

befall.-SKELTON.

Some would have it that the Duke and all were lost, others that all were saved and the ship only lost, but all generally con

UNQUESTIONABLE-UNVALUED.

297

cluded it a very unfortunate and unkind disaster.-Letter from Hewer to Samuel Pepys.

Windham. His conversation, or grave, or gay, or argumentative, or discursive, whether sifting a difficult subject or painting an interesting character, or pursuing a merely playful fancy, or lively to very drollery, or pensive and pathetic, or losing itself in the clouds of metaphysics, or vexed with paradox, or plain and homely and all but common-place, was that which, to be understood, must have been listened to: and while over the whole was flung a veil of unrent classical elegance, through no crevice, had there been any, would ever an unkind or ill-conditioned sentiment have found entrance.-BROUGHAM.

Unquestionable. Uninquisitive.

An unquestionable spirit, which you have not.

SHAKSPEARE, As You Like It, iii. 2.

You and I, my friend, left happiness when we deviated from the beaten track, the turnpike road of life;-wives, children, alliances, visits, the ordinary employments of the world, are all necessary ingredients of happiness; a man may unquestionably be miserable with them, but without them he cannot be happy. -SHENSTONE.

Unvalued.

Invaluable, inestimable.

'Mongst which, there in a silver dish did lye
Two golden apples of unvalew'd price.

SPENSER, Sonnets.

Chryses the priest came to the fleet to buy,

For presents of unvalued price, his daughter's liberty.

CHAPMAN, Iliad, Bk. i.

Where then are all thy death-borne shafts and that unvalued

bow

Apollo gave thee ?—Id.

I thought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks,

Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels.

SHAKSPEARE, Richard III, i. 4.

[blocks in formation]

Hath from the lines of thy unvalued book
The Delphic lines of deep impression took.
MILTON, Epitaph on Shakspeare.

Bruce sank into his grave defrauded of that just fame which his pride and vivacity perhaps too dearly prized. Mortified and indignant at the reception of his great labour, unvalued by the cold-hearted scepticism of little minds and the maliciousness of idling wits, he could not endure the laugh and scorn of public opinion. For Bruce there was a simoon more dreadful than the Arabian, and from which genius cannot hide his head.-I. DISRAELI.

Usury. Formerly interest for money lent, but now excessive or illegal interest.

Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury.-Authorised Version, Matt. xxv. 27.

Usury, stock-jobbing, extortion, and oppression have their seed in the dread of want, and vanity, riot, and prodigality from the shame of it; but both these excesses are infinitely below the pursuit of a reasonable creature.—ADDISON.

Utter. To send out, to sell: now, to express.

Gardeners, taking their seeds and slips and rearing them first into plants, and so uttering them in pots when they are in flower and in their best state.-BACON.

Here sleeps he soundly all the night,

Forgetting morrow's cares,

Nor fears the blasting of his corn

Or uttering of his wares.-Old Ballad.

So that at present several young men of the town, and particularly such as have been polished in France, make use of the most coarse uncivilized words in our language, and utter themselves often in such a manner as a clown would blush to hear.ADDISON.

In fact the colonists left them no mark that baptized men had set foot in Darien except a few Anglo-Saxon curses, which

VACANT-VALIANT.

299

having been uttered more frequently and with greater energy than any other words in our language, had caught the ear of the native population of the Isthmus of Darien.—MACAULAY.

ས.

Vacant. Free from care.

Duke of Buckingham. The Duke had a pleasant and vacant face, proceeding from a singular assurance in his temper.WOTTON.

Who always vacant, always amiable,
Hopes thee of flattering gales unmindful.

MILTON.

The Congreve muse is dead, and her song choked in Time's ashes. We gaze at the skeleton and wonder at the life which once revelled in its mad veins; we take the skull up and muse over the frolic and daring, the wit, scorn, passion, hope, desire, with which that empty bowl once fermented. We think of the glances that allured, the tears that melted, of the bright eyes that shone in those vacant sockets, and of lips whispering love, and cheeks dimpling with smiles, that once covered that ghastly frame-work.-THACKERAY.

[blocks in formation]

Do you think that men of business never vacate to admire the works of nature because they possess so many works of art? -JOHN EVELYN.

The Trombone. I had not practised more than twenty-four hours upon this instrument than my landlady intimated to me that I must vacate my apartments.--The Musician.

[blocks in formation]

Sturdy and valiant beggars to be whipped at the cart's tail. -Statute of Edward III.

« السابقةمتابعة »