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BEFALL- -BEHAVE.

Thy Temple wol I worship evermo,

And on the Auten wher I ride or go

I wol do sacrifice and fyres beet.—CHAUCER.

How children feel a predisposition for the studies of astronomy or mechanics, is that secret of nature we have not guessed. La Caille was the son of the parish clerk of a village. His father sent him every evening to ring the church bell, but the boy always returned home late and was beaten for his misconduct. At length he confessed that the pleasure he took from watching the stars from the steeple was the real cause that he was detained from home.-SYDNEY SMITH.

Befall. Once, to belong to.

Thilke herbe also which him befalleth,

Cicorea the boke him calleth.-GOWER.

Which of the million of creatures that press upon our sight is unhappy in its natural state? Which of them does not by every movement declare that to the full measure of its capacity it is happy? Even among men there is much less misery than is commonly imagined. Many persons can recount every period of their life in which they were unhappy; others can scarcely mention a single misfortune which ever befell them, and those to whom afflictive dispensations have fallen how distinctly are they marked in their memory! We notice an eclipse, but we do not so much observe the daily splendour of the sun.-Dr. SOUTHWOOD SMITH.

Begone. Formerly, far gone, sunk deep.

Iris her rainy cope did on,

The which was wonderly begone

With colours of diversé hew.-CHAUCER.

Away, begone, and give a whirlwind room,

Or I may blow you up like dust. Avaunt!-NATH. LEE. Behave. Once, to govern, manage, or control: now only relates to personal conduct.

How well my stars behave their influence.-DAvenant.
He did behave his anger ere 'twas spent,

As if he had but proved an argument.

SHAKSPEARE, Timon of Athens, iii. 5.

BELDAM-BETAKE.

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Sir Roger de Coverley. When I came to the Assizes, a beautiful creature in a widow's habit sat in Court to hear the event of a cause concerning her dower. This commanding creature put on such a resignation in her countenance, and bore the whispers of all around the Court with such pretty uneasiness, I warrant you, and then removed herself from one eye to another till she was perfectly confused. During the time her cause was upon the trial she behaved herself with such a deep attention that not only I but the whole Court was prejudiced in her favour, and all that the next heir to her husband had to urge was thought groundless and frivolous.-ADDISON.

Beldam.

Grandmother.

In Spenser it has the

original meaning of belle dame, fair lady; since applied to a sorceress, or fortune-teller.

To give her errand good success,

She took on her the shape of beldam Rhæa.-CHAPMAN.

Then sing of secret things that came to pass,

When Beldam Nature in her cradle was.-MILTON.

Sir Roger observing that I listened with great attention to his account of a people so entirely new to me [Gipsies] told me that if I would, they should tell us our fortunes. Sweethearts, said he, are the things they live upon; a beldam of the crew after having examined my lines told me that I loved a pretty maid, and that I was a good woman's man.-SPECTATOR.

Bent. Used by Spenser for 'grass' in general : later, a particular kind of plant.

Like as the bird that having close imbar'd
Her tender young ones in the springing bent.
SPENSER.

June is drawn in a mantle of dark grass green; upon his head is a garland of bents, king-cups, and maiden-hair.— РЕАСНАМ.

Betake. Once, to assign or deliver to: now, always to take oneself, or resort to.

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BIBLE-BICKERING.

Planet Saturn. This herbé which is him betake,

I note Heleborem the blake.-GOWER.

Judas Scariot went forth to the princis of prestis, and seide to him, what wolen ye give to me and I schall bitake him to you.-WICLIF, Matt. xxvi.

Pope then formed part of the Addisonian court for a short time, and describes himself in his letters as sitting with that coterie until two o'clock in the morning over punch and Burgundy. Amidst the fumes of tobacco it was too hard, too coarse a life for the sensitive poet. With regard to his own manners, they were singularly refined and polished. Bolingbroke, writing to Swift from Dawley, dating his letters at six in the morning, and rising refreshed, serene, and calm, calls to mind the time of his London life, when about that hour he used to betake himself to rest.-THACKERAY.

to

Bible. Applied by Chaucer in its literal meaning kind of book.

any

To tell all would passen any bible

That o where is.-CHAUCER, The Canon's Tale.

At the time when that odious style which deforms the writings of Hall and of Lord Bacon was almost universal, had appeared that stupendous work the English Bible, a book which if everything else in our language should perish, would alone suffice to show its beauty and power. The respect which the translators felt for the original prevented them from adding any of the hideous decorations then in fashion.-MACAULAY.

Bickering. Formerly, open fighting: now, confined to words without blows.

The bickering was doubtful and intricate, part on the water, part on the sands, not without loss of some eminent men on the English side.-MILTON.

That if the lord privie seal his footmen had not with their swords kept them off, they in the coach had been brought in danger of their lives, having after long and continual bickerings much ado to recover their lodgings.-Rejection of King Charles Service Book by the Scots.

We house together, my cousin Bridget and I, in a sort of double singleness. We agree pretty well in our tastes and habits, yet so as with a difference. We are generally in harmony, with occasional bickerings—as it should be among near relations. Our sympathies are rather understood than expressed, and once upon my dissembling a tone in my voice more kind than ordinary my cousin burst into tears and complained that I was altered.-C. LAMB.

Bid. To 'bid beads' was to say prayers. The 'bidding prayer' exhorts or directs to pray.

When that he should bid his bead,

He doth his theft in holie stede.-GowER.

This carpenter said his devotion,
And still he sit and biddeth his prayer,

Awaiting on the rain, if it he heare.

CHAUCER, The Miller's Tale.

The bid stood at five hundred guineas: A thousand guineas,' said Earl Spencer: 'and ten,' added the Marquis of Blandford. The contest proceeded until the Marquis said Two thousand pounds': two thousand two hundred and fifty was bid by Earl Spencer and ten,' added the Marquis. There ended the strife. The ivory instrument swept the air-the spectators stood dumb. When the hammer fell the stroke of its fall sounded to the furthest shores of Italy: the tap of that hammer was heard in the libraries of Rome, Milan, and Venice. Boccaccio stirred in his sleep of five hundred years, and M. Van Praet groped in vain among the royal alcoves in Paris to detect a copy of the famed Valdarfen Boccaccio.-EMERSON.

Biggin. A covering for the head worn by children, nuns, and old women: since applied to a bowl, as in 'coffee-biggin.'

A biggin he had got about his braine,

For in his head-piece he gat a sore pain.-CHAUCER,

How many dangers meet

Betwixt the biggin and the winding-sheet.—QUARLES.

D

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BLACK-GUARD-BLESS.

Black-guard. Originally, the inferior retainers of a house, engaged in menial occupations.

It is a faith

That we will die in, since from the black guard

To the grim Sir in office there are few

Hold other tenets.-BEAUMONT and FLETCHER.

It is quite clear from a very early age Bunyan was a man of a strict life and tender conscience. He had been, says Mr. Southey, a blackguard: bell-ringing and playing at hockey on Sunday seem to be the worst vices of this depraved tinker. But it is surely unfair to apply so strong a term to one who is only what the great mass of every community must necessarily be.MACAULAY.

Blank. Formerly, white: now, void. Donne uses 'blank charter' for carte blanche.

To the blank moon

Her office they prescribed: to the other five
Their planetary motion.-MILTON.

Men do not stand

In so ill case, that God hath with his hand

Signed king's blank-charters, to kill whom they hate.

DONNE, Sat. iii.

There is no giving an account how she delivered the disguised story of her love for Orsino. It was no set speech. When she had declared her sister's history to be a blank, and that she never told her love, there was a pause, as if the story had ended. And then the image of the worm in the bud came up as a new suggestion, and the heightened image of the Patience' still followed upon that, as if by some growing process of thought, I would say as if it were watered by her tears.-C. LAMB, Mrs. Jordan's Viola.

Bless. Used by Spenser in the sense of waving or brandishing.

Whom when the Prince to battle new address'd,
And threat'ning high his dreadful stroke did see,