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COMPLEMENTS-COMPOSE.

my riding-coat and had stroll'd off a few yards from it, but the dogs in the mean time found her. Such likewise is the fury of the Pope (with Satan) that he destroys even the souls that have been saved.-COLERIDGE.

Complements. Formerly used for 'accomplishments,' as well as in its modern sense of filling up an entire number.

These three on men all gracious gifts bestow,
Which decke the body and adorne the minde,
To make them lovely or well-favoured showe:
As comely carriage, entertainment kind,
Sweet semblant, friendly offices that binde,
And all the complements of courtesie.

SPENSER, Fairy Queen, Bk. vi.

A man of complements, whom right and wrong
Have chose as umpire of their mutiny.

SHAKSPEARE, Love's Labour's Lost, i. 1.

As if only younger brothers came into the world to work, the elder to complement. These are the tops of the houses indeed, like cock-lofts, highest and emptiest.-FULLER.

Compose. The following examples indicate a change of meaning in this word.

It is hard to compose two swarms of bees in one hive.FULLER.

How in safety best we may

Compose our present evils, with regard

Of what we are and were.

MILTON, Paradise Lost, Bk. ii. Minor Theatres. No Theatre Royal oppresses the imagination and entombs it in a mausoleum of massy pride; no manager's pompous pretensions choke up the lively current of our blood; no long-announced performance, big with expectation, comes to nothing, and yet compels us to record its failure and compose its epitaph. We have here ample scope and verge enough, we pick and choose as we will. Light where we please, and stay no longer than we have a mind, saying, 'This I like, that I loathe,' as one picks pears.-HAZLITT.

CONCEIT

-CONDESCEND.

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Conceit. Once identical with 'to conceive.'

I conceit him to be near akin to him in profaneness that set forth a Passion-sermon with a formal dedication to our Saviour. -MILTON.

A fashion of pink-coloured hose for the ladies coming up at the juncture, we pronounced, in reference to the stockings, that, modesty taking her final leave of mortals, her last blush was visible in her ascent to the heavens by the track of the glowing instep. This might be called the crowning conceit, and was esteemed tolerable writing in those days.-C. LAMB.

Conclude. To include.

Who undoubtedly had been concluded and involved by our laws in the same sentence.-King CHARLES I.

A Scotch metaphysician has declared that Dr. Beattie had talents for a poet, but not for a philosopher. It is amusing to learn another result of his ungenial metaphysics. This sage demonstrates and concludes in these words: It will therefore be found, with little exception, that a great poet is but an ordinary genius.' Let this sturdy Scotchman never approach Pegasus: he has to fear, not his wings, but his heels. I. DISRAELI.

Condescend.

Used by Chaucer in its modern Scotch sense of 'lighting upon.' Later, to yield.

And when that he on her was condescended,

He thought his choice it might not be amended.

CHAUCER.

The mutual condescentions of all parties was towards the establishment of peace.-FULLER.

I shall tell Mr. B. nothing about war or peace. We have a fleet mighty enough to take, aye, and bring home, Peru and Mexico, and deposit them in a West India warehouse. Tho' we should come by them a little more honestly than we did by the diamonds of Bengal, I shall not be sorry if we make peace and condescend to leave the new world where it is.-HORACE WALPOLE.

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CONJUGATION-CONJURE.

Conjugation. No longer applied to a matrimonial union, or parental relations, as in the following example.

He enquireth the nature of a commonwealth, first in a family and the simple conjugation of man and wife, parent and child, master and servant, which are in every cottage.-BACON.

Too much Latin and Greek. If a young classic were to meet the greatest chemist, or the greatest mathematician, or the most profound political economist in company with the greatest Greek scholar, would the slightest comparison between them ever cross his mind? Would he ever dream that such men as Adam Smith and Lavoisier were equal in dignity to Bentley and Heyne? We are inclined to think that the feeling excited would be a good deal like that which was expressed by Dr. George Young about the praises of the great King of Prussia, who entertained considerable doubts whether the king with all his victories knew how to conjugate a Greek verb.-SYDNEY SMITH.

Conjure.

Has now lost its old meaning of Conjuration. Sa conspiracy.

I call him a good counsaylor, which (as Cæsar sayth in the conjuration of Catiline) whiles he consulteth in doubtful matters, is voyde of all hate, friendshyppe, displeasure, or pitie.—Sir T. ELYOT, The Governour, Bk. iii.

He in proud rebellious arms

Drew after him the third part of Heaven's sons,
Conjured against the Highest.

MILTON, Paradise Lost, Bk. ii.

The famous Doctor in Moorfields who gained so much reputation for his predictions is said to have had in his parlour different ropes and bells which hung in the room above stairs, when he administered his conjurations. The levée of a great man is laid after the same manner, and twenty whispers, false alarms, and private intimations, pass backwards and forwards from the porter, the valet, and the patron himself, before the gaping crew who are to pay their court. When the scene is ready, the doors fly open and discover his Lordship.-STEELE,

Connive. literal sense of

CONNIVE-CONSORT.

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Occurs in the following instance in its

winking.'

And hast thou undone us

By thy connivance, nodding in a corner?

B. JONSON, The Magnetic Lady, iv. 4. This artist is to teach them how to nod judiciously, to connive with either eye.-Spectator.

Cowardice on the Stage. We saw all the symptoms of the malady upon him—the quivering lip, the cowering knees, the teeth chattering—and could have sworn the man was frightened. But we forgot all the while that he never lost his self-possession, that he let out by a thousand droll looks and gestures meant at us that his confidence in his own resources never deserted him. Was this a genuine picture of a coward, or rather, a likeness which the clever artist contrived, while we secretly connived at the delusion?-C. LAMB.

Consequentially. Would now be used only as a law term, in the sense in which it is employed by Fuller.

They were not immediately but indirectly and consequentially banished the realm.-FUller.

There is nothing we receive with so much reluctance as advice; we look upon the man who gives it us as offering an affront to our understanding, we consider the instruction as an implicit censure, and the zeal which any one shows for our good as a piece of presumption and impertinence. The truth is, that the person who advises us does in that particular exercise a superiority over us, and consequentially comparing us with himself, he thinks us defective either in our conduct or our understanding. For these reasons there is nothing so difficult as the art of making advice agreeable.-ADDISON.

Consort. Occurs in the sense of 'concert.'

A consort of music in a banquet of wine is as a signet of carbuncle set in gold.-Bible, 1551.

I heard that stupendous violin, Sig. Nicholdo: he had a strike so sweet that he made it speak like the voice of a man, and, when he pleased, like a consort of several instruments.JOHN EVELYN.

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CONSTANTLY-CONTINENT.

Queen Charlotte, consort of George III. She had no beauty, was not remarkable for talent, and had none of the charm of conversation or coquetry of manner which in exalted stations so often leads women to the perilous borders of captivation and corruption. Yet must history record the inestimable service she rendered, not only to public morals, but to the stability of the Constitution, by the unvarying correctness of her private life and the care that she took to preserve the Court from that contamination which in so many of the countries of Europe was shaking at once the throne and the altar.—ALISON.

Constantly. Firmly, fixedly; and so, continually. Whereby before the foundations of the earth were laid, he hath constantly decreed.—Book of Common Prayer.

Nine-tenths of us all, as regarding our time and talents, are no better than reckless spendthrift profligates. We are afraid to examine our condition, to look into it with considerate eyes. It is, notwithstanding, by subjecting ourselves constantly to review that we must attain to any high degree of mental discipline; if the eye of the master be not there, order is abroad, and service runs wholly into riot.—J. TAYLOR.

Continent. Occurs in its literal sense of that which contains.'

Hark how the Greeks laugh, who did take

Thy fair form for a continent of parts as fair.-CHAPMAN. Archimedes prayed his kinsmen that after his death they would put up a cylinder upon his tomb, containing a massy sphere, with an inscription of the proportion whereof the continent exceedeth the thing contained.-NORTH.

Napoleon. The narrowest strait was to his power what it was of old believed a running stream was to the sorceries of a witch. While his army entered every metropolis from Moscow to Lisbon, the English fleet blockaded every port from Dantzic to Trieste. Sicily, Sardinia, Majorca, Guernsey enjoyed security through the whole course of a war which endangered every throne on the continent.-MACAULAY.

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