Thomas Babington Macaulay

He [Goldsmith] was one of the nine original members of that celebrated fraternity which has sometimes been called the Literary Club, but which has always disclaimed that epithet, and still glories in the simple name of the Club.

Coalition

The coalition between the religious and worldly enemies of popery.

Cock

They cocked their hats in each other's faces.

Cockney

A cockney in a rural village was stared at as much as if he had entered a kraal of Hottentots.

Cockpit

Henry the Eighth had built . . . a cockpit.

Coffeehouse

The coffeehouse must not be dismissed with a cursory mention. It might indeed, at that time, have been not improperly called a most important political institution. . . . The coffeehouses were the chief organs through which the public opinion of the metropolis vented itself. . . . Every man of the upper or middle class went daily to his coffeehouse to learn the news and discuss it. Every coffeehouse had one or more orators, to whose eloquence the crowd listened with admiration, and who soon became what the journalists of our own time have been called -- a fourth estate of the realm.

Coiner

Precautions such as are employed by coiners and receivers of stolen goods.

Collateral

That he [Attebury] was altogether in the wrong on the main question, and on all the collateral questions springing out of it, . . . is true.

Collect

The noble poem on the massacres of Piedmont is strictly a collect in verse.

Colloquial

His [Johnson's] colloquial talents were, indeed, of the highest order.

Comedy

With all the vivacity of comedy.

Comfort

He had the means of living in comfort.

Command

Monmouth commanded the English auxiliaries.

Commerce

Fifteen years of thought, observation, and commerce with the world had made him [Bunyan] wiser.

Commissioner

To another address which requested that a commission might be sent to examine into the state of things in Ireland, William returned a gracious answer, and desired the Commons to name the commissioners.

Herbert was first commissioner of the Admiralty.

Commute

The utmost that could be obtained was that her sentence should be commuted from burning to beheading.

Compact

Wedlock is described as the indissoluble compact.

Comparison

As sharp legal practitioners, no class of human beings can bear comparison with them.

Compassion

Womanly ingenuity set to work by womanly compassion.

Compilation

His [Goldsmith's] compilations are widely distinguished from the compilations of ordinary bookmakers.

Compile

He [Goldsmith] compiled for the use of schools a History of Rome.

Compliance

Ready compliance with the wishes of his people.

Complication

A complication of diseases.

Conclave

The verdicts pronounced by this conclave (Johnson's Club) on new books, were speedily known over all London.

Concordance

His knowledge of the Bible was such, that he might have been called a living concordance.

Condemned

Richard Savage . . . had lain with fifty pounds weight of irons on his legs in the condemned ward of Newgate.

Condensation

He [Goldsmith] was a great and perhaps an unequaled master of the arts of selection and condensation.

Condolence

A special mission of condolence.

Conduce

He was sensible how much such a union would conduce to the happiness of both.

Conduct

All these difficulties were increased by the conduct of Shrewsbury.

The book of Job, in conduct and diction.

Confederate

He found some of his confederates in gaol.

Confidence

A cheerful confidence in the mercy of God.

Confine

On the confines of the city and the Temple.

Conflict

As soon as he [Atterbury] was himself again, he became eager for action and conflict.

Conform

About two thousand ministers whose consciences did not suffer them to conform were driven from their benefices in a day.

Confound

They [the tinkers] were generally vagrants and pilferers, and were often confounded with the gypsies.

Confront

It was impossible at once to confront the might of France and to trample on the liberties of England.

Congregation

He [Bunyan] rode every year to London, and preached there to large and attentive congregations.

Conjuncture

He [Chesterfield] had recently governed Ireland, at a momentous conjuncture, with eminent firmness, wisdom, and humanity.

Connection

At the head of a strong parliamentary connection.

Whose names, forces, connections, and characters were perfectly known to him.

Connive

The government thought it expedient, occasionally, to connive at the violation of this rule.

Consider

Considered as plays, his works are absurd.

Consideration

Some considerations which are necessary to the forming of a correct judgment.

Consistent

It was utterly to be at once a consistent Quaker and a conspirator.

Conspicuous

A man who holds a conspicuous place in the political, ecclesiastical, and literary history of England.

Constituent

To appeal from the representatives to the constituents.

Constitution

Our constitution had begun to exist in times when statesmen were not much accustomed to frame exact definitions.

Constitutional

The anient constitutional traditions of the state.

Constitutionally

Nothing would indue them to acknowledge that [such] an assembly . . . was constitutionally a Parliament.

Contempt

Criminal contempt of public feeling.

Contemptuous

Savage invective and contemptuous sarcasm.

Contentious

Despotic and contentious temper.

Contest

It was fully expected that the contest there would be long and fierce.

Continuation

Preventing the continuation of the royal line.

Contravention

Warrants in contravention of the acts of Parliament.

Control

The House of Commons should exercise a control over all the departments of the executive administration.

Controversial

Whole libraries of controversial books.

Controversialist

He [Johnson] was both intellectually and morally of the stuff of which controversialists are made.

Controvert

Some controverted points had decided according to the sense of the best jurists.

Convention

Our gratitude is due . . . to the Long Parliament, to the Convention, and to William of Orange.

Conversation

The influence exercised by his [Johnson's] conversation was altogether without a parallel.

Convict

He [Baxter] . . . had been convicted by a jury.

Convoy

To obtain the convoy of a man-of-war.

Convulse

With emotions which checked his voice and convulsed his powerful frame.

The world is convulsed by the agonies of great nations.

Corant

Dancing a coranto with him upon the heath.

Correspond

After having been long in indirect communication with the exiled family, he [Atterbury] began to correspond directly with the Pretender.

Correspondence

To facilitate correspondence between one part of London and another, was not originally one of the objects of the post office.

Coshering

Sometimes he contrived, in deflance of the law, to live by coshering, that is to say, by quartering himself on the old tentants of his family, who, wretched as was their own condition, could not refuse a portion of their pittance to one whom they still regarded as their rightful lord.

Counsel

The King found his counsel as refractory as his judges.

Count

In a journey of forty miles, Avaux counted only three miserable cabins.

He was brewer to the palace; and it was apprehended that the government counted on his voice.

Counterfeit

Some of these counterfeits are fabricated with such exquisite taste and skill, that it is the achievement of criticism to distinguish them from originals.

Countermarch

The two armies marched and countermarched, drew near and receded.

Country

Only very great men were in the habit of dividing the year between town and country.

Country-dance

He had introduced the English country-dance to the knowledge of the Dutch ladies.

County

Every county, every town, every family, was in agitation.

Course

He [Goldsmith] wore fine clothes, gave dinners of several courses, paid court to venal beauties.

Court

Goldsmith took a garret in a miserable court.

The princesses held their court within the fortress.

By one person, hovever, Portland was still assiduously courted.

Courtier

This courtier got a frigate, and that a company.

Covenant

He [Wharton] was born in the days of the Covenant, and was the heir of a covenanted house.

Cowardice

Moderation was despised as cowardice.

Cozen

He had cozened the world by fine phrases.

Crash

Roofs were blazing and walls crashing in every part of the city.

Cravat

While his wig was combed and his cravat tied.

Craven

In craven fear of the sarcasm of Dorset.

Crazy

Piles of mean andcrazy houses.

Creature

Both Charles himself and his creature, Laud.

Credence

An assertion which might easily find credence.

Credo

He repeated Aves and Credos.

Criminate

Impelled by the strongest pressure of hope and fear to criminate him.

Crimination

The criminations and recriminations of the adverse parties.

Cripple

An incumbrance which would permanently cripple the body politic.

Critic

The opininon of the most skillful critics was, that nothing finer [than Goldsmith's “Traveler”] had appeared in verse since the fourth book of the “Dunciad.”

Criticism

About the plan of “Rasselas” little was said by the critics; and yet the faults of the plan might seem to invite severe criticism.

Crowd

Images came crowding on his mind faster than he could put them into words.

The crowd of Vanity Fair.

Crown

Large arrears of pay were due to the civil and military servants of the crown.

Cruelty

Cruelties worthy of the dungeons of the Inquisition.

Cruise

Ships of war were sent to cruise near the isle of Bute.

Crush

Politics leave very little time for the bow window at White's in the day, or for the crush room of the opera at night.

Crust

They . . . made the crust for the venison pasty.

Cry

Again that cry was found to have been as unreasonable as ever.

cæsar

Marlborough anticipated the day when he would be servilely flattered and courted by Cæsar on one side and by Louis the Great on the other.

Culverin

Trump, and drum, and roaring culverin.

Curious

A multitude of curious analogies.

Curtail

Our incomes have been curtailed; his salary has been doubled.

Cynic

He could obtain from one morose cynic, whose opinion it was impossible to despise, scarcely any not acidulated with scorn.

Daily

Bunyan has told us . . . that in New England his dream was the daily subject of the conversation of thousands.

Damp

The failure of his enterprise damped the spirit of the soldiers.

Dangerous

It is dangerous to assert a negative.

Dare

Why then did not the ministers use their new law? Bacause they durst not, because they could not.

Dark

A deep melancholy took possesion of him, and gave a dark tinge to all his views of human nature.

Dear

His dearest wish was to escape from the bustle and glitter of Whitehall.

Debruised

The lion of England and the lilies of France without the baton sinister, under which, according to the laws of heraldry, they where debruised in token of his illegitimate birth.

Decay

His [Johnson's] failure was not to be ascribed to intellectual decay.

Declamation

The public listened with little emotion, but with much civility, to five acts of monotonous declamation.

Defect

Among boys little tenderness is shown to personal defects.

Deficient

The style was indeed deficient in ease and variety.

Degradation

The . . . degradation of a needy man of letters.

Degrade

Her pride . . . struggled hard against this degrading passion.

Degree

The youth attained his bachelor's degree, and left the university.

Deign

Round turned he, as not deigning Those craven ranks to see.

Delay

The government ought to be settled without the delay of a day.

Delicacy

That Augustan delicacy of taste which is the boast of the great public schools of England.

Demand

In 1678 came forth a second edition [Pilgrim's Progress] with additions; and then the demand became immense.

Demeanor

His demeanor was singularly pleasing.

Dent

The houses dented with bullets.

Department

Superior to Pope in Pope's own peculiar department of literature.

Depend

The conclusion . . . that our happiness depends little on political institutions, and much on the temper and regulation of our own minds.

Dependent

England, long dependent and degraded, was again a power of the first rank.

Deprive

It was seldom that anger deprived him of power over himself.

Depute

Some persons, deputed by a meeting.

derogatory

His language was severely censured by some of his brother peers as derogatory to their other.

Description

The plates were all of the meanest description.

Design

How little he could guess the secret designs of the court!

Despair

Before he [Bunyan] was ten, his sports were interrupted by fits of remorse and despair.

Desperate

The most desperate of reprobates.

Despoil

A law which restored to them an immense domain of which they had been despoiled.

Despondency

The unhappy prince seemed, during some days, to be sunk in despondency.

Desultory

He [Goldsmith] knew nothing accurately; his reading had been desultory.

Detractor

His detractors were noisy and scurrilous.

Devastate

Whole countries . . . were devastated.

Devotion

Genius animated by a fervent spirit of devotion.

Diagnostics

His rare skill in diagnostics.

Diametrically

Whose principles were diametrically opposed to his.

Dictate

Pages dictated by the Holy Spirit.

Who presumed to dictate to the sovereign.

Dictator

Invested with the authority of a dictator, nay, of a pope, over our language.

Didactic

The finest didactic poem in any language.

Die

To die by the roadside of grief and hunger.

Differ

Minds differ, as rivers differ.

Severely punished, not for differing from us in opinion, but for committing a nuisance.

Diffidence

It is good to speak on such questions with diffidence.

Dignity

A letter written with singular energy and dignity of thought and language.

Diplomatist

In ability, Avaux had no superior among the numerous able diplomatists whom his country then possessed.

Disappoint

I was disappointed, but very agreeably.

Disburse

The duty of collecting and disbursing his revenues.

Discernible

The effect of the privations and sufferings . . . was discernible to the last in his temper and deportment.

Discharge

The order for Daly's attendance was discharged.

Discipline

A sharp discipline of half a century had sufficed to educate us.

His mind . . . imperfectly disciplined by nature.

Disclosure

Were the disclosures of 1695 forgotten?

Discomfiture

A hope destined to end . . . in discomfiture and disgrace.

Discussion

The liberty of discussion is the great safeguard of all other liberties.

Disease

He was diseased in body and mind.

Disgrace

Flatterers of the disgraced minister.

Disguise

Bunyan was forced to disguise himself as a wagoner.

Disgust

Alarmed and disgusted by the proceedings of the convention.

In a vulgar hack writer such oddities would have excited only disgust.

Dishearten

Regiments . . . utterly disorganized and disheartened.

Disinterestedness

That perfect disinterestedness and self-devotion of which man seems to be incapable, but which is sometimes found in woman.

Dismantle

A dismantled house, without windows or shutters to keep out the rain.

Dismay

I . . . can not think of such a battle without dismay.

Dismemberment

The Castilians would doubtless have resented the dismemberment of the unwieldy body of which they formed the head.

Disorder

A man whose judgment was so much disordered by party spirit.

Disparity

The disparity of numbers was not such as ought to cause any uneasiness.

Dispense

It was resolved that all members of the House who held commissions, should be dispensed from parliamentary attendance.

disputant

A singularly eager, acute, and pertinacious disputant.

Disquisition

For accurate research or grave disquisition he was not well qualified.

Divinely

Divinely set apart . . . to be a preacher of righteousness.

Division

The motion passed without a division.

Dizzy

To climb from the brink of Fleet Ditch by a dizzy ladder.

do

It [“Pilgrim's Progress”] has been done into verse: it has been done into modern English.

Rarely . . . did the wrongs of individuals to the knowledge of the public.

Doggerel

The ill-spelt lines of doggerel in which he expressed his reverence for the brave sufferers.

Domestic

His fortitude is the more extraordinary, because his domestic feelings were unusually strong.

Dominant

The member of a dominant race is, in his dealings with the subject race, seldom indeed fraudulent, . . . but imperious, insolent, and cruel.

Doom

A man of genius . . . doomed to struggle with difficulties.

Dotage

Capable of distinguishing between the infancy and the dotage of Greek literature.

Doubtful

The strife between the two principles had been long, fierce, and doubtful.

Dragoon

Lewis the Fourteenth is justly censured for trying to dragoon his subjects to heaven.

Drapery

People who ought to be weighing out grocery or measuring out drapery.

Draught

A draught of a Toleration Act was offered to the Parliament by a private member.

Drawing-room

He [Johnson] would amaze a drawing-room by suddenly ejaculating a clause of the Lord's Prayer.

Dread

When at length the moment dreaded through so many years came close, the dark cloud passed away from Johnson's mind.

Dreary

Johnson entered on his vocation in the most dreary part of that dreary interval which separated two ages of prosperity.

Drill

He [Frederic the Great] drilled his people, as he drilled his grenadiers.

Drollery

The rich drollery of “She Stoops to Conquer.”

Drudge

He gradually rose in the estimation of the booksellers for whom he drudged.

Drudgery

The drudgery of penning definitions.

Drunk

Drunk with recent prosperity.

dungeon

Year after year he lay patiently in a dungeon.

Duration

It was proposed that the duration of Parliament should be limited.

Each

It is a bad thing that men should hate each other; but it is far worse that they should contract the habit of cutting one another's throats without hatred.

Echo

They would have echoed the praises of the men whom they envied, and then have sent to the newspaper anonymous libels upon them.

Effectual

Effectual steps for the suppression of the rebellion.

Eke

He eked out by his wits an income of barely fifty pounds.

Elbow

They [the Dutch] would elbow our own aldermen off the Royal Exchange.

Electioneer

A master of the whole art of electioneering.

Electrify

If the sovereign were now to immure a subject in defiance of the writ of habeas corpus . . . the whole nation would be instantly electrified by the news.

Eloquence

The hearts of men are their books; events are their tutors; great actions are their eloquence.

Embark

Slow to embark in such an undertaking.

Emigrate

Forced to emigrate in a body to America.

emphatically

He was indeed emphatically a popular writer.

Emporium

That wonderful emporium [Manchester] . . . was then a mean and ill-built market town.

Enemy

It was difficult in such a country to track the enemy. It was impossible to drive him to bay.

Enervate

A man . . . enervated by licentiousness.

Englishry

A general massacre of the Englishry.

Enviable

One of most enviable of human beings.

Envy

This constitution in former days used to be the envy of the world.

Epoch

The acquittal of the bishops was not the only event which makes the 30th of June, 1688, a great epoch in history.

Equality

A footing of equality with nobles.

Equitable

No two . . . had exactly the same notion of what was equitable.

Equity

Equity had been gradually shaping itself into a refined science which no human faculties could master without long and intense application.

Equivalent

He owned that, if the Test Act were repealed, the Protestants were entitled to some equivalent. . . . During some weeks the word equivalent, then lately imported from France, was in the mouths of all the coffeehouse orators.

erudition

The gay young gentleman whose erudition sat so easily upon him.

Escape

Such heretics . . . would have been thought fortunate, if they escaped with life.

Estrange

He . . . had pretended to be estranged from the Whigs, and had promised to act as a spy upon them.

evasive

Stammered out a few evasive phrases.

Every

Every door and window was adorned with wreaths of flowers.

Exactness

He had . . . that sort of exactness which would have made him a respectable antiquary.

Examination

He neglected the studies, . . . stood low at the examinations.

Expect

The Somersetshire or yellow regiment . . . was expected to arrive on the following day.

Expend

They go elsewhere to enjoy and to expend.

Explosion

A formidable explosion of high-church fanaticism.

Exposure

The exposure of Fuller . . . put an end to the practices of that vile tribe.

Fabric

The whole vast fabric of society.

Fancy

This anxiety never degenerated into a monomania, like that which led his [Frederick the Great's] father to pay fancy prices for giants.

Fawn

Courtiers who fawn on a master while they betray him.

fealty

Swore fealty to the new government.

Feebly

The restored church . . . contended feebly, and with half a heart.

Feeling

Tenderness for the feelings of others.

Feminine

Her letters are remarkably deficient in feminine ease and grace.

Fence

Of dauntless courage and consummate skill in fence.

Ferocity

The pride and ferocity of a Highland chief.

Fervent

A fervent desire to promote the happiness of mankind.

Fester

Hatred . . . festered in the hearts of the children of the soil.

Fetch

Our native horses were held in small esteem, and fetched low prices.

Fiction

When it could no longer be denied that her flight had been voluntary, numerous fictions were invented to account for it.

Fidelity

Whose courageous fidelity was proof to all danger.

Field

Afforded a clear field for moral experiments.

Fight

He had to fight his way through the world.

Figure

To represent the imagination under the figure of a wing.

Fit

The very situation for which he was peculiarly fitted by nature.

The English, however, were on this subject prone to fits of jealously.

Fitful

The victorious trumpet peal Dies fitfully away.

Flagitious

A sentence so flagitiously unjust.

Flagon

A trencher of mutton chops, and a flagon of ale.

Flail

No citizen thought himself safe unless he carried under his coat a small flail, loaded with lead, to brain the Popish assassins.

Flame

He flamed with indignation.

Flesher

A flesher on a block had laid his whittle down.

Flexibility

All the flexibility of a veteran courtier.

Flight

His highest flights were indeed far below those of Taylor.

Flirtation

The flirtations and jealousies of our ball rooms.

Floating

Trade was at an end. Floating capital had been withdrawn in great masses from the island.

Fluency

The art of expressing with fluency and perspicuity.

Fluster

His habit or flustering himself daily with claret.

Footing

As soon as he had obtained a footing at court, the charms of his manner . . . made him a favorite.

Lived on a footing of equality with nobles.

Force

He was, in the full force of the words, a good man.

Forge

Forged certificates of his . . . moral character.

Forgive

He forgive injures so readily that he might be said to invite them.

Foundation

He was entered on the foundation of Westminster.

Frankpledge

The servants of the crown were not, as now, bound in frankpledge for each other.

Frantic

Torrents of frantic abuse.

Fretwork

Banqueting on the turf in the fretwork of shade and sunshine.

Friendly

In friendly relations with his moderate opponents.

Frivolous

His personal tastes were low and frivolous.

Front

The inhabitants showed a bold front.

Fruit

The fruits of this education became visible.

Function

The malady which made him incapable of performing his regal functions.

Fund

An inexhaustible fund of stories.

Furnish

His writings and his life furnish abundant proofs that he was not a man of strong sense.

Futile

His reasoning . . . was singularly futile.

Garret

The tottering garrets which overhung the streets of Rome.

genuine

The evidence, both internal and external, against the genuineness of these letters, is overwhelming.

Ghastly

His face was so ghastly that it could scarcely be recognized.

Glance

And all along the forum and up the sacred seat, His vulture eye pursued the trip of those small glancing feet.

Glut

A glut of those talents which raise men to eminence.

Go

It is not easy to make a simile go on all fours.

Goad

The daily goad urging him to the daily toil.

Goer

This antechamber has been filled with comers and goers.

Good

Distinguished by good humor and good breeding.

The good nature and generosity which belonged to his character.

Grace

What might have been done with a good grace would at least be done with a bad grace.

Graduate

He was brought to their bar and asked where he had graduated.

Grammar

The original bad grammar and bad spelling.

Gravitate

Politicians who naturally gravitate towards the stronger party.

Grocery

The shops at which the best families of the neighborhood bought grocery and millinery.

Gross

The terms which are delicate in one age become gross in the next.

Guarantee

His interest seemed to be a guarantee for his zeal.

Guidance

His studies were without guidance and without plan.

Gutter

Gutters running with ale.

Head

Men who had lost both head and heart.

Healthful

A mind . . . healthful and so well-proportioned.

Healthy

His mind was now in a firm and healthy state.

Hear

He had been heard to utter an ominous growl.

Hear him, . . . a cry indicative, according to the tone, of admiration, acquiescence, indignation, or derision.

Hearth

He had been importuned by the common people to relieve them from the . . . burden of the hearth money.

Helpmate

A waiting woman was generally considered as the most suitable helpmate for a parson.

Hobby

Not one of them has any hobbyhorse, to use the phrase of Sterne.

Hold

He had not sufficient judgment and self-command to hold his tongue.

Hope

A young gentleman of great hopes, whose love of learning was highly commendable.

Householder

Towns in which almost every householder was an English Protestant.

Hubbub

This hubbub of unmeaning words.

Humble

The genius which humbled six marshals of France.

Hurrah

Hurrah! hurrah! for Ivry and Henry of Navarre.

Hyperbole

Somebody has said of the boldest figure in rhetoric, the hyperbole, that it lies without deceiving.

Hypochondriac

He had become an incurable hypochondriac.

Hypocritical

Hypocritical professions of friendship and of pacific intentions were not spared.

Hypothecate

He had found the treasury empty and the pay of the navy in arrear. He had no power to hypothecate any part of the public revenue. Those who lent him money lent it on no security but his bare word.

Idle

This idle story became important.

Impartial

A comprehensive and impartial view.

Impatient

Dryden was poor and impatient of poverty.

Imperious

His bold, contemptuous, and imperious spirit soon made him conspicuous.

Impervious

The minds of these zealots were absolutely impervious.

Implacable

An object of implacable enmity.

Impost

Even the ship money . . . Johnson could not pronounce to have been an unconstitutional impost.

Impute

One vice of a darker shade was imputed to him -- envy.

In

Matter for censure in every page.

Incompetent

Incompetent to perform the duties of the place.

Indecisive

The campaign had everywhere been indecisive.

Indefeasible

That the king had a divine and an indefeasible right to the regal power.

Inebriate

The inebriating effect of popular applause.

Inebriation

Preserve him from the inebriation of prosperity.

Inequality

Sympathy is rarely strong where there is a great inequality of condition.

Inert

The inert and desponding party of the court.

Inexhaustible

An inexhaustible store of anecdotes.

Insolent

Their insolent triumph excited . . . indignation.

Iron

Four of the sufferers were left to rot in irons.

Jack Ketch

[Monmouth] then accosted John Ketch, the executioner, a wretch who had butchered many brave and noble victims, and whose name has, during a century and a half, been vulgarly given to all who have succeeded him in his odious office.

Jesting

He will find that these are no jesting matters.

Joke

He laughed, shouted, joked, and swore.

Juice

Letters which Edward Digby wrote in lemon juice.

Kick

He [Frederick the Great] kicked the shins of his judges.

Laches

It ill became him to take advantage of such a laches with the eagerness of a shrewd attorney.

Laity

A rising up of the laity against the sacerdotal caste.

Lampoon

Ribald poets had lampooned him.

Landscape

The landscape of his native country had taken hold on his heart.

Latinist

He left school a good Latinist.

Laughingstock

When he talked, he talked nonsense, and made himself the laughingstock of his hearers.

Lax

The discipline was lax.

Legitimacy

The doctrine of Divine Right, which has now come back to us, like a thief from transportation, under the alias of Legitimacy.

Legitimate

Tillotson still keeps his place as a legitimate English classic.

Lenity

His exceeding lenity disposes us to be somewhat too severe.

Liberty

He was repeatedly provoked into striking those who had taken liberties with him.

Light

And the largest lamp is lit.

Likeness

[How he looked] the likenesses of him which still remain enable us to imagine.

Linguist

There too were Gibbon, the greatest historian, and Jones, the greatest linguist, of the age.

Litter

A desert . . . where the she-wolf still littered.

Living

He could not get a deanery, a prebend, or even a living

Loathing

The mutual fear and loathing of the hostile races.

Loathsome

The most loathsome and deadly forms of infection.

Low-minded

Low-minded and immoral.

Lucid

A lucid and interesting abstract of the debate.

Machination

His ingenious machinations had failed.

Machinery

An indispensable part of the machinery of state.

Majesty

No sovereign has ever represented the majesty of a great state with more dignity and grace.

Mannerism

Mannerism is pardonable,and is sometimes even agreeable, when the manner, though vicious, is natural . . . . But a mannerism which does not sit easy on the mannerist, which has been adopted on principle, and which can be sustained only by constant effort, is always offensive.

Massacre

If James should be pleased to massacre them all, as Maximian had massacred the Theban legion.

Master

Great masters of ridicule.

Masterfully

A lawless and rebellious man who held lands masterfully and in high contempt of the royal authority.

Memory

The Nonconformists . . . have, as a body, always venerated her [Elizabeth's] memory.

Mode

The easy, apathetic graces of a man of the mode.

Monarchy

In those days he had affected zeal for monarchy.

Monopoly

Raleigh held a monopoly of cards, Essex a monopoly of sweet wines.

Moral

We protest against the principle that the world of pure comedy is one into which no moral enters.

Mumper

Deceived by the tales of a Lincoln's Inn mumper.

Muscular

Great muscular strength, accompanied by much awkwardness.

Muster

Of the temporal grandees of the realm, mentof their wives and daughters, the muster was great and splendid.

Mutinous

The city was becoming mutinous.

Mutiny

In every mutiny against the discipline of the college, he was the ringleader.

Mythic

Hengist and Horsa, Vortigern and Rowena, Arthur and Mordred, are mythical persons, whose very existence may be questioned.

Natural

With strong natural sense, and rare force of will.

Nature

Nature has caprices which art can not imitate.

Negotiation

An important negotiation with foreign powers.

Nickname

I altogether disclaim what has been nicknamed the doctrine of finality.

Nullity

Was it not absurd to say that the convention was supreme in the state, and yet a nullity?

Object

The object of their bitterest hatred.

obscurity

They were now brought forth from obscurity, to be contemplated by artists with admiration and despair.

Odious

The odious side of that polity.

Oracle

The country rectors . . . thought him an oracle on points of learning.

Orderly

Orderlies were appointed to watch the palace.

Ordinary

An ordinary lad would have acquired little or no useful knowledge in such a way.

Oriflamb

And be your oriflamme to-day the helmet of Navarre.

Oscillation

His mind oscillated, undoubtedly; but the extreme points of the oscillation were not very remote.

Ostentatious

The ostentatious professions of many years.

Overflowing

He was ready to bestow the overflowings of his full mind on anybody who would start a subject.

Paramour

The seducer appeared with dauntless front, accompanied by his paramour

parody

The lively parody which he wrote . . . on Dryden's “Hind and Panther” was received with great applause.

Parole

This man had forfeited his military parole.

Part

He owned that he had parted from the duke only a few hours before.

Passage

The ship in which he had taken passage.

Patron

Let him who works the client wrong Beware the patron's ire.

Peculiarity

The smallest peculiarity of temper or manner.

Pensioner

Old pensioners . . . of Chelsea Hospital.

Perfidy

The ambition and perfidy of tyrants.

Personality

Sharp personalities were exchanged.

Pettifogger

A pettifogger was lord chancellor.

Phalanx

At present they formed a united phalanx.

Physical

A society sunk in ignorance, and ruled by mere physical force.

Pillage

They were suffered to pillage wherever they went.

Pittance

One half only of this pittance was ever given him in money.

Play

I, with two more to help me, Will hold the foe in play.

Pleasantry

The keen observation and ironical pleasantry of a finished man of the world.

Pluralist

Of the parochial clergy, a large proportion were pluralists.

Ply

The czar's mind had taken a strange ply, which it retained to the last.

Pocket

He pocketed pay in the names of men who had long been dead.

Poetaster

The talk of forgotten poetasters.

Polemic

The sarcasms and invectives of the young polemic.

Popularity

A popularity which has lasted down to our time.

Portend

Many signs portended a dark and stormy day.

Portentous

Victories of strange and almost portentous splendor.

Precisian

The most dissolute cavaliers stood aghast at the dissoluteness of the emancipated precisian.

Preferment

Neither royal blandishments nor promises of valuable preferment had been spared.

Prejudice

Though often misled by prejudice and passion, he was emphatically an honest man.

Preponderance

In a few weeks he had changed the relative position of all the states in Europe, and had restored the equilibrium which the preponderance of one power had destroyed.

Prerogative

An unconstitutional exercise of his prerogative.

Prescription

That profound reverence for law and prescription which has long been characteristic of Englishmen.

Pressure

Where the pressure of danger was not felt.

Pretension

The arrogant pretensions of Glengarry contributed to protract the discussion.

Pride

A people which takes no pride in the noble achievements of remote ancestors will never achieve anything worthy to be remembered with pride by remote descendants.

Priestcraft

It is better that men should be governed by priestcraft than by violence.

Prig

The queer prig of a doctor.

Privateer

Kidd soon threw off the character of a privateer and became a pirate.

Proceeding

The proceedings of the high commission.

Produce

The greatest jurist his country had produced.

Profession

Hi tried five or six professions in turn.

Prognostic

That choice would inevitably be considered by the country as a prognostic of the highest import.

Proportion

Documents are authentic and facts are true precisely in proportion to the support which they afford to his theory.

Prorogue

The Parliament was again prorogued to a distant day.

Proscription

Every victory by either party had been followed by a sanguinary proscription.

Protection

He . . . gave them protections under his hand.

Publicist

The Whig leaders, however, were much more desirous to get rid of Episcopacy than to prove themselves consummate publicists and logicians.

Pure

Such was the origin of a friendship as warm and pure as any that ancient or modern history records.

Purist

He [Fox] . . . purified vocabulary with a scrupulosity unknown to any purist.

Puritanic

Paritanical circles, from which plays and novels were strictly excluded.

Purlieu

brokers had been incessantly plying for custom in the purlieus of the court.

Purpose

I purpose to write the history of England from the accession of King James the Second down to a time which is within the memory of men still living.

Pursuivant

One pursuivant who attempted to execute a warrant there was murdered.

Quaint

Some stroke of quaint yet simple pleasantry.

Qualify

He had qualified himself for municipal office by taking the oaths to the sovereigns in possession.

Quantity

The quantity of extensive and curious information which he had picked up during many months of desultory, but not unprofitable, study.

Quell

The nation obeyed the call, rallied round the sovereign, and enabled him to quell the disaffected minority.

Querulous

Enmity can hardly be more annoying that querulous, jealous, exacting fondness.

Quest

If his questing had been unsuccessful, he appeased the rage of hunger with some scraps of broken meat.

Question

He that was in question for the robbery. Shak. The Scottish privy council had power to put state prisoners to the question.

Quickness

His mind had, indeed, great quickness and vigor.

Rack

During the troubles of the fifteenth century, a rack was introduced into the Tower, and was occasionally used under the plea of political necessity.

Radical

In politics they [the Independents] were, to use the phrase of their own time, “Root-and-Branch men,” or, to use the kindred phrase of our own, Radicals.

Rage

He appeased the rage of hunger with some scraps of broken meat.

Rake

An illiterate and frivolous old rake.

Rakish

The arduous task of converting a rakish lover.

Rapine

Men who were impelled to war quite as much by the desire of rapine as by the desire of glory.

Rattle

It may seem strange that a man who wrote with so much perspicuity, vivacity, and grace, should have been, whenever he took a part in conversation, an empty, noisy, blundering rattle.

Ravage

His lands were daily ravaged, his cattle driven away.

Rave

The mingled torrent of redcoats and tartans went raving down the valley to the gorge of Killiecrankie.

Reaction

The new king had, at the very moment at which his fame and fortune reached the highest point, predicted the coming reaction.

Realize

Knighthood was not beyond the reach of any man who could by diligent thrift realize a good estate.

Reaper

The sun-burned reapers wiping their foreheads.

Reasoning

His reasoning was sufficiently profound.

Recess

The recess of . . . Parliament lasted six weeks.

Reckoning

He quitted London, never to return till the day of a terrible and memorable reckoning had arrived.

Reconstruct

Regiments had been dissolved and reconstructed.

Recrimination

Accusations and recriminations passed backward and forward between the contending parties.

Reek

The coffee rooms reeked with tobacco.

Reel

The wagons reeling under the yellow sheaves.

Reformed

The town was one of the strongholds of the Reformed faith.

Refutation

Same of his blunders seem rather to deserve a flogging than a refutation.

Regard

His associates seem to have regarded him with kindness.

Regret

What man does not remember with regret the first time he read Robinson Crusoe?

In a few hours they [the Israelites] began to regret their slavery, and to murmur against their leader.

Recruits who regretted the plow from which they had been violently taken.

Regulate

The laws which regulate the successions of the seasons.

Regulation

The temper and regulation of our own minds.

Reliance

In reliance on promises which proved to be of very little value.

Relish

A relish for whatever was excellent in arts.

Remodel

The corporation had been remodeled.

Renegade

James justly regarded these renegades as the most serviceable tools that he could employ.

Repel

They repelled each other strongly, and yet attracted each other strongly.

Reprimand

Goldsmith gave his landlady a sharp reprimand for her treatment of him.

Reprisal

Debatable ground, on which incursions and reprisals continued to take place.

Reproach

No reproaches even, even when pointed and barbed with the sharpest wit, appeared to give him pain.

Reprobate

Every scheme, every person, recommended by one of them, was reprobated by the other.

Republican

The Roman emperors were republican magistrates named by the senate.

Research

The dearest interests of parties have frequently been staked on the results of the researches of antiquaries.

Residence

Johnson took up his residence in London.

Resource

Scotland by no means escaped the fate ordained for every country which is connected, but not incorporated, with another country of greater resources.

Restive

The people remarked with awe and wonder that the beasts which were to drag him [Abraham Holmes] to the gallows became restive, and went back.

Restraint

No man was altogether above the restrains of law, and no man altogether below its protection.

Retrospective

Inflicting death by a retrospective enactment.

Revolution

The ability . . . of the great philosopher speedily produced a complete revolution throughout the department.

The violence of revolutions is generally proportioned to the degree of the maladministration which has produced them.

Revulsion

A sudden and violent revulsion of feeling, both in the Parliament and the country, followed.

Ribaldry

The ribaldry of his conversation moved stonishment even in that age.

Ride

The richest inhabitants exhibited their wealth, not by riding in gilden carriages, but by walking the streets with trains of servants.

Rider

After the third reading, a foolish man stood up to propose a rider.

Ringleader

The ringleaders were apprehended, tried, fined, and imprisoned.

Rise

It was near nine . . . before the House rose.

Risk

The imminent and constant risk of assassination, a risk which has shaken very strong nerves.

Rite

He looked with indifference on rites, names, and forms of ecclesiastical polity.

Rival

The strenuous conflicts and alternate victories of two rival confederacies of statesmen.

River

Transparent and sparkling rivers, from which it is delightful to drink as they flow.

Roar

Pit, boxes, and galleries were in a constant roar of laughter.

Roisterer

If two roisterers met, they cocked their hats in each other faces.

Rot

Four of the sufferers were left to rot in irons.

Run

A canting, mawkish play . . . had an immense run.

Sacerdotal

The ascendency of the sacerdotal order was long the ascendency which naturally and properly belongs to intellectual superiority.

Saker

On the bastions were planted culverins and sakers.

Saloon

The gilden saloons in which the first magnates of the realm . . . gave banquets and balls.

Same

[He] held the same political opinions with his illustrious friend.

Sanctity

To sanctity she made no pretense, and, indeed, narrowly escaped the imputation of irreligion.

Sate

Crowds of wanderers sated with the business and pleasure of great cities.

Satirist

The mighty satirist, who . . . had spread terror through the Whig ranks.

Saturate

Innumerable flocks and herds covered that vast expanse of emerald meadow saturated with the moisture of the Atlantic.

Scantily

His mind was very scantily stored with materials.

Scar

His cheeks were deeply scarred.

Scheme

The Revolution came and changed his whole scheme of life.

Scholiast

No . . . quotations from Talmudists and scholiasts . . . ever marred the effect of his grave temperate discourses.

School

At Cambridge the philosophy of Descartes was still dominant in the schools.

Score

At length the queen took upon herself to grant patents of monopoly by scores.

Scourer

In those days of highwaymen and scourers.

Scrawl

His name, scrawled by himself.

Screen

They were encouraged and screened by some who were in high commands.

Scruple

He was made miserable by the conflict between his tastes and his scruples.

Scurrility

Interrupting prayers and sermons with clamor and scurrility.

Scurrilous

The absurd and scurrilous sermon which had very unwisely been honored with impeachment.

Scutcheon

The corpse lay in state, with all the pomp of scutcheons, wax lights, black hangings, and mutes.

Sea

All the space . . . was one sea of heads.

Sear

It was in vain that the amiable divine tried to give salutary pain to that seared conscience.

Seared

A seared conscience and a remorseless heart.

Seat

A seat of plenty, content, and tranquillity.

Section

The extreme section of one class consists of bigoted dotards, the extreme section of the other consists of shallow and reckless empirics.

Security

Those who lent him money lent it on no security but his bare word.

Sedition

Noisy demagogues who had been accused of sedition.

Select

A few select spirits had separated from the crowd, and formed a fit audience round a far greater teacher.

Sense

The municipal council of the city had ceased to speak the sense of the citizens.

Sensitive

She was too sensitive to abuse and calumny.

Sentinel

The sentinels who paced the ramparts.

Separatist

Heavy fines on divines who should preach in any meeting of separatist .

Series

During some years his life a series of triumphs.

Serious

He is always serious, yet there is about his manner a graceful ease.

Service

To go on the forlorn hope is a service of peril; who will understake it if it be not also a service of honor?

Session

It was resolved that the convocation should meet at the beginning of the next session of Parliament.

Set

On these three objects his heart was set.

Sever

They claimed the right of severing in their challenge.

Shabby

Wearing shabby coats and dirty shirts.

Shade

Every shade of religious and political opinion has its own headquarters.

Sham

Wondering . . . whether those who lectured him were such fools as they professed to be, or were only shamming.

Shoot

A pit into which the dead carts had nightly shot corpses by scores.

Sign

The shops were, therefore, distinguished by painted signs, which gave a gay and grotesque aspect to the streets.

Simulate

The Puritans, even in the depths of the dungeons to which she had sent them, prayed, and with no simulated fervor, that she might be kept from the dagger of the assassin.

Sinecure

A lucrative sinecure in the Excise.

Sitting

The sitting closed in great agitation.

Sizar

The sizar paid nothing for food and tuition, and very little for lodging.

Slope

buildings the summit and slope of a hill.

Sloven

He became a confirmed sloven.

So

No country suffered so much as England.

Sophistic

His argument . . . is altogether sophistical.

Speak

During the century and a half which followed the Conquest, there is, to speak strictly, no English history.

Specific

His parents were weak enough to believe that the royal touch was a specific for this malady.

Specious

Misled for a moment by the specious names of religion, liberty, and property.

Speculation

To his speculations on these subjects he gave the lofty name of the “Oracles of Reason.”

Speculator

A speculator who had dared to affirm that the human soul is by nature mortal.

Spur

The roads leading to the capital were covered with multitudes of yeomen, spurring hard to Westminster.

Squalid

Those squalid dens, which are the reproach of large capitals.

Squatter

In such a tract, squatters and trespassers were tolerated to an extent now unknown.

Stage

Such a polity is suited only to a particular stage in the progress of society.

Staple

Whitehall naturally became the chief staple of news. Whenever there was a rumor that any thing important had happened or was about to happen, people hastened thither to obtain intelligence from the fountain head.

Stepping-stone

These obstacles his genius had turned into stepping-stones.

Stimulant

His feelings had been exasperated by the constant application of stimulants.

Street

His deserted mansion in Duke Street.

Stringent

They must be subject to a sharper penal code, and to a more stringent code of procedure.

Strip

Opinions which . . . no clergyman could have avowed without imminent risk of being stripped of his gown.

Stud

He had the finest stud in England, and his delight was to win plates from Tories.

Stutter

Trembling, stuttering, calling for his confessor.

Submit

We submit that a wooden spoon of our day would not be justified in calling Galileo and Napier blockheads because they never heard of the differential calculus.

Succession

He was in the succession to an earldom.

The animosity of these factions did not really arise from the dispute about the succession.

Such

His misery was such that none of the bystanders could refrain from weeping.

Temple sprung from a family which . . . long after his death produced so many eminent men, and formed such distinguished alliances, that, etc.

Symptomatic

Symptomatic of a shallow understanding and an unamiable temper.

Synonym

His name has thus become, throughout all civilized countries, a synonym for probity and philanthropy.

Taciturnity

The taciturnity and the short answers which gave so much offense.

Tack

Monk, . . . when he wanted his ship to tack to larboard, moved the mirth of his crew by calling out, “Wheel to the left.”

Tacksman

The tacksmen, who formed what may be called the “peerage” of the little community, must be the captains.

Tact

He had formed plans not inferior in grandeur and boldness to those of Richelieu, and had carried them into effect with a tact and wariness worthy of Mazarin.

A tact which surpassed the tact of her sex as much as the tact of her sex surpassed the tact of ours.

Tag

He learned to make long-tagged thread laces.

Taint

He had inherited from his parents a scrofulous taint, which it was beyond the power of medicine to remove.

Talebearer

Spies and talebearers, encouraged by her father, did their best to inflame her resentment.

Talent

His talents, his accomplishments, his graceful manners, made him generally popular.

Talk

Their talk, when it was not made up of nautical phrases, was too commonly made up of oaths and curses.

Talker

There probably were never four talkers more admirable in four different ways than Johnson, Burke, Beauclerk, and Garrick.

Tame

They had not been tamed into submission, but baited into savegeness and stubbornness.

Tapestry

The Trosachs wound, as now, between gigantic walls of rock tapestried with broom and wild roses.

Taproom

The ambassador was put one night into a miserable taproom, full of soldiers smoking.

Tarpaulin

To a landsman, these tarpaulins, as they were called, seemed a strange and half-savage race.

Tartan

The sight of the tartan inflamed the populace of London with hatred.

Tax

A farmer of taxes is, of all creditors, proverbially the most rapacious.

Team

It happened almost every day that coaches stuck fast, until a team of cattle could be procured from some neighboring farm to tug them out of the slough.

Tease

He . . . suffered them to tease him into acts directly opposed to his strongest inclinations.

Temper

The perfect lawgiver is a just temper between the mere man of theory, who can see nothing but general principles, and the mere man of business, who can see nothing but particular circumstances.

Tendency

In every experimental science, there is a tendency toward perfection.

Tenet

The religious tenets of his family he had early renounced with contempt.

Tennis

His easy bow, his good stories, his style of dancing and playing tennis, . . . were familiar to all London.

Termagant

The slave of an imperious and reckless termagant.

Terse

Terse, luminous, and dignified eloquence.

Tessellate

The floors are sometimes of wood, tessellated after the fashion of France.

Thumb

He gravely informed the enemy that all his cards had been thumbed to pieces, and begged them to let him have a few more packs.

Till

There was no outbreak till the regiment arrived.

Tincture

Every man had a slight tincture of soldiership, and scarcely any man more than a slight tincture.

Tinge

His notions, too, respecting the government of the state, took a tinge from his notions respecting the government of the church.

Tipcat

In the middle of a game at tipcat, he paused, and stood staring wildly upward with his stick in his hand.

Tipple

Few of those who were summoned left their homes, and those few generally found it more agreeable to tipple in alehouses than to pace the streets.

Tome

A more childish expedient than that to which he now resorted is not to be found in all the tomes of the casuists.

Tortuous

The badger made his dark and tortuous hole on the side of every hill where the copsewood grew thick.

That course became somewhat lesstortuous, when the battle of the Boyne had cowed the spirit of the Jakobites.

Torture

Torture, which had always been deciared illegal, and which had recently been declared illegal even by the servile judges of that age, was inflicted for the last time in England in the month of May, 1640.

Track

It was often found impossible to track the robbers to their retreats among the hills and morasses.

Traffic

The traffic in honors, places, and pardons.

Tragi-comedy

The noble tragi-comedy of “Measure for Measure.”

Trainband

He felt that, without some better protection than that of the trainbands and Beefeaters, his palace and person would hardly be secure.

Translate

Translating into his own clear, pure, and flowing language, what he found in books well known to the world, but too bulky or too dry for boys and girls.

Treachery

In the council chamber at Edinburgh, he had contracted a deep taint of treachery and corruption.

Treatise

He published a treatise in which he maintained that a marriage between a member of the Church of England and a dissenter was a nullity.

Trepan

He had been from the beginning a spy and a trepan.

Trick

They are simple, but majestic, records of the feelings of the poet; as little tricked out for the public eye as his diary would have been.

Trimmer

Thus Halifax was a trimmer on principle.

Triumph

On this occasion, however, genius triumphed.

Troop

His troops moved to victory with the precision of machines.

Truck

Goods were conveyed about the town almost exclusively in trucks drawn by dogs.

Trust

Merchants were not willing to trust precious cargoes to any custody but that of a man-of-war.

Trysting

And named a trysting day, And bade his messengers ride forth East and west and south and north, To summon his array.

Tumultuary

A tumultuary attack of the Celtic peasantry.

Tumultuous

The flight became wild and tumultuous.

Turn

At length his complaint took a favorable turn.

Tutelage

The childhood of the European nations was passed under the tutelage of the clergy.

Unexceptionable

Chesterfield is an unexceptionable witness.

Ungainly

His ungainly figure and eccentric manners.

Usage

It has now been, during many years, the grave and decorous usage of Parliaments to hear, in respectful silence, all expressions, acceptable or unacceptable, which are uttered from the throne.

Utility

The utility of the enterprises was, however, so great and obvious that all opposition proved useless.

Vacillation

His vacillations, always exhibited most pitiably in emergencies.

Vagrant

While leading this vagrant and miserable life, Johnson fell in love.

Valetudinarian

The virtue which the world wants is a healthful virtue, not a valetudinarian virtue.

Vanity

The exquisitely sensitive vanity of Garrick was galled.

Varnish

The varnish of the holly and ivy.

Verdict

Two generations have since confirmed the verdict which was pronounced on that night.

Versatile

Conspicuous among the youths of high promise . . . was the quick and versatile [Charles] Montagu.

Versed

These men were versed in the details of business.

Veteran

The insinuating eloquence and delicate flattery of veteran diplomatists and courtiers.

Vexation

Those who saw him after a defeat looked in vain for any trace of vexation.

Vicissitude

This man had, after many vicissitudes of fortune, sunk at last into abject and hopeless poverty.

Villanage

Some faint traces of villanage were detected by the curious so late as the days of the Stuarts.

Visitatorial

The queen, however, still had over the church a visitatorial power of vast and undefined extent.

Vocabulary

His vocabulary seems to have been no larger than was necessary for the transaction of business.

Vulcanian

Ingenious allusions to the Vulcanian panoply which Achilles lent to his feebler friend.

Vulnerable

His skill in finding out the vulnerable parts of strong minds was consummate.

Weal

Never was there a time when it more concerned the public weal that the character of the Parliament should stand high.

Well-intentioned

Dutchmen who had sold themselves to France, as the wellintentioned party.

What

What followed was in perfect harmony with this beginning.

Whiten

The broad stream of the Foyle then whitened by vast flocks of wild swans.

Wiredraw

Such twisting, such wiredrawing, was never seen in a court of justice.

Wreak

Now was the time to be avenged on his old enemy, to wreak a grudge of seventeen years.

Wrest

They instantly wrested the government out of the hands of Hastings.

Write

I purpose to write the history of England from the accession of King James the Second down to a time within the memory of men still living.

Writhe

After every attempt, he felt that he had failed, and writhed with shame and vexation.

Yesterday

The proudest royal houses are but of yesterday, when compared with the line of supreme pontiffs.

Zealot

In Ayrshire, Clydesdale, Nithisdale, Annandale, every parish was visited by these turbulent zealots.

Zenith

It was during those civil troubles . . . this aspiring family reached the zenith.