His youthful hose, well sav'd, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

SHAKESPERE, As you Like It, act ii. sc. 7.

The world's a theatre, the earth a STAGE
Which God and nature do with actors fill.

Stairs.

T. HEYWOOD, Apology for Actors, 1612. The great world's altar-STAIRS,

That slope through darkness up to God.

TENNYSON, In Memoriam, liv.

Stalking Horse.-A decoy. Horses and other animals are trained to pretend to be eating while sportsmen shoot at their game from the off-side.

Star.-The STAR that bids the shepherd fold,

Now the top of heaven doth hold.-MILTON, Comus.

Thy soul was like a STAR, and dwelt apart.

Stars.

WORDSWORTH, London, 1802.

At whose sight all the STARS

Hide their diminish'd heads. -MILTON, Paradise Lost, bk. iv. 1. 34
Ye little STARS! hide your diminish'd rays.

POPE, Moral Essays.
The sentinel STARS set their watch in the sky.
THOMAS CAMPBELL, The Soldier's Dream.

State. A thousand years scarce serve to form a STATE;
An hour may lay it in the dust.-BYRON, Childe Harold.
Greatest scandal waits on greatest STATE.

-

SHAKESPERE, Lucrece.

I have done the STATE some service, and they know it :-
No more of that. I pray you, in your letters,
When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,
Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,

Nor set down aught in malice: then, must you speak

Of one that lov'd, not wisely, but too well;

Of one not easily jealous, but, being wrought,
Perplex'd in the extreme; of one, whose hand,
Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away,

Richer than all his tribe; of one, whose subdu'd eyes,
Albeit unused to the melting mood,

Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees

Their med'cinable gum.-Ibid., Othello, act v. sc. 2.

State. What constitutes a STATE?

Men who their duties know,

But know their rights, and, knowing, dare maintain.

And sovereign law, that state's collected will,
O'er thrones and globes elate,

Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill.

SIR W. JONES, Ode in Imitation of Alcæus.

Steal.-Convey, the wise it call. STEAL? foh! a fico for the phrase ! SHAKESPERE, Merry Wives, act i. sc. 3.

STEAL! to be sure they may, and, egad, serve your best thoughts as gypsies do stolen children, disfigure them to make 'em pass for their own.-SHERIDAN, The Critic, act i. sc. 1.

Steel. My man's as true as STEEL.

SHAKESPERE, Romeo and Juliet, act ii. sc. 4.

Stenches. I counted two-and-seventy STENCHES,

All well defined, and several stinks.-COLERIDGE, Cologne.

Stephen. King STEPHEN was a worthy peer,

His breeches cost him but a crown;
He held them sixpence all too dear,
With that he called the tailor lown.

SHAKESPERE, Othello, act ii, sc. 3.

Stone. The hand that rounded Peter's dome,
And groined the aisles of Christian Rome,
Wrought in a sad sincerity;

Himself from God he could not free;
He builded better than he knew ;-
The conscious STONE to beauty grew.

EMERSON, The Problem.

The STONE that is rolling can gather no moss.

TUSSER, Good Husbandry.

Storm.-Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless STORM,
How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these?

SHAKESPERE, King Lear, act iii. sc. 4

Story.-Aye free, aff-han' your STORY tell,
When wi' a bosom crony;

But still keep something to yoursel

Ye scarcely tell to ony.-BURNS, To a Young Friend.

Story.-STORY! God bless you! I have none to tell, sir.

G. CANNING, The Friend of Humanity and the Knife- Grinder.

Stranger. He that is surety for a STRANGER shall smart for it.

Streamlet.-No check, no stay, this STREAMLET fears

How merrily it goes!

'Twill murmu" on a thousand years

Proverbs xi. 15.

And flow as now it flows.-WORDSWORTH, The Fountain.

Streams.-You'd scarce expect one of my age

To speak in public on the stage;

And if I chance to fall below

Demosthenes or Cicero,

Don't view me with a critic's eye,

But pass my imperfections by.

Large STREAMS from little fountains flow,

Tall oaks from little acorns grow.

Strength.

D. EVERETT, Lines written for a School Declamation.

O! it is excellent

To have a giant's STRENGTH; but it is tyrannous
To use it like a giant.

SHAKESPERE, Measure for Measure, act ii. sc. 2.

Strike.-STRIKE-for your altars and your fires;
Strike-for the green graves of your sires;
God, and your native land!

FITZ-GREENE HALLECK, Marco Bozzaris. STRIKE, but hear. Eurybiades lifting up his staff as if he was going to strike, Themistocles said, "Strike, if you will, but hear."-PLUTARCH, Life of Themistocles.

STRIKE while the iron is hot.-JOHN WEBSTER, Westward Ho, act ii. sc. 1. FARQUHAR, The Beaux Strategem, act iv. sc. 1.

Strings.-'Tis good in every case, you know,

To have two STRINGS unto your bow.

CHURCHILL, The Ghost, book iv.

Strokes. Many STROKES, though with a little axe,

Hew down and fell the hardest-timber'd oak.

SHAKESPERE, King Henry VI., part iii. act ii. sc. 1.

Stump Orator.-A vulgar speaker. An American expression, derived from Congress candidates addressing the electors from the stumps of trees. The tub-orators, who spoke from inverted casks in Swift's time, is an equivalent English phrase.

Style-STYLE is the dress of thoughts.—CHESTERFIELD, Letter, Nov. 24, 1749.

Style. Such laboured nothings, in so strange a STYLE,

Amazed th' unlearned, and make the learned smile.
POPE, Essay on Criticism, part ii. 1. 126.

Sublime. The SUBLIME and the ridiculous are often so nearly related that it is difficult to class them separately. One step above the sublime makes the ridiculous, and one step above the ridiculous makes the sublime again.-T. PAINE, Age of Reason, part ii,

Success. 'Tis not in mortals to command SUCCESS,

But we'll do more, Sempronius; we'll deserve it.

ADDISON, Cato, act i. sc. 2.

Sunbeams. He had been eight years upon a project for extracting SUNBEAMS Out of cucumbers, which were to be put in phials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw, inclement summers.-SWIFT, Gulliver's Travels.

Sunless. How fast has brother followed brother,
From sunshine to the SUNLESS land!

WORDSWORTH, On the Death of Hogg.

MOORE, The Fire Worshippers.

Sunshine. SUNSHINE, broken in the rill,
Though turned astray, is sunshine still.

Sweetness. The two noblest things, which are SWEETNESS and light.

Sweets.-SWEETS to the sweet: farewell!

SWIFT, Battle of the Books.

SHAKESPERE, Hamlet, act v. sc. 1.

The fly that sips treacle is lost in the SWEETS.

GAY, The Beggars' Opera, act ii. sc. 2.

Swithin, St.-Bishop of Winchester, and tutor to King Alfred, canonized by the Roman Catholic Church. He is said to have wrought many miracles, the most celebrated being a rain of forty days' continuance, by which he testified his displeasure at an attempt of the monks to bury him in the chancel of the minster, instead of the open churchyard, as he had directed. Hence the popular superstition, that if it rain on St. Swithin's day (July 15), it will rain for forty days thereafter.

Swore. "Our armies SWORE terribly in Flanders," cried my uncle Toby, "but nothing to this."-STERNE, Tristram Shandy, vol. iii. chap. xi.

Syllables.-SYLLABLES govern the world.-SELDEN, Power.

T.

Taffy.-A sobriquet for a Welshman, or for the Welsh collectively. The word is a corruption of David, one of the most common of Welsh names.

Taken.-When TAKEN

To be well shaken.—G. COLMAN, The Newcastle Apothecary.

Tale. And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe,

-

And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot,

And thereby hangs a TALE.

SHAKESPERE, As You Like It, act ii. sc. 7.

And thereby hangs a TALE.

Ibid., Taming of the Shrew, act iv. sc. 1.

And what so tedious as a twice-told TALE?

POPE, Odyssey, bk. xii. last line.

I could a TALE unfold, whose lightest word

Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres.
Thy knotted and combinèd locks to part,

And each particular hair to stand on end,
Like quills upon the fretful porcupine:
But this eternal blazon must not be

To ears of flesh and blood. List, list, Olist!

SHAKESPERE, Hamlet, act. i. sc. 5.

O Reader! had you in your mind

Such stores as silent thought can bring,

O gentle Reader! you would find

A TALE in everything.-WORDSWORTH, Simon Lee.

Task. And now my TASK is smoothly done,

I can fly, or I can run. -MILTON, Comus, line 1012.

Each morning sees some TASK begun,
Each evening sees it close;

Something attempted, something done,
Has earned a night's repose.

LONGFELLOW, The Village Blacksmith.

Tea.-TEA! thou soft, thou sober sage and venerable liquid; thou female-tongue-running, smile-smoothing, heart-opening, wink-tippling cordial, to whose glorious insipidity I owe the happiest moments of my life, let me fall prostrate.-COLLEY CIBBER, The Lady's Last Stake, act i. sc. 1.