117. I shall be glad to understand your news, but none rather than some overture wherein I may do you service.

And even so I wish your lordship all happiness, and to myself means and occasion to be added to my faithful desire to do you service. (Let. to Lord Treasurer Burghley, 1590.)

What would my lord but that he may not have
Wherein Olivia may seem serviceable? (Tw. N. v. 1.)
How fare you?

Ever at the best, hearing well of your lordship.

(Tim. Ath. iii. 6.)

118. Ceremonies and green rushes are for strangers.

Where's the cook? Is supper ready, the house trimmed, rushes strewed? . . . . Every officer with his wedding garment on ? &c. (Tam. Sh. iv. 1.)

Use a more spacious ceremony to the noble lords. . . . For they do wear themselves in the cap of the time, &c. (All's Well, i. 1.)

4.)

From home the sauce to meat is ceremony. (Macb. iii. The appurtenance of welcome is fashion and ceremony. (Ham. ii. 2. See also H. V. iv. 1, 255, 275.)

Enter two Grooms, strewing rushes.

First G. More rushes, more rushes.

Sec. G. The trumpets have sounded twice.

First G. "Twill be two o'clock ere they come from the coronation. (2 Hen. IV. v. 5.)

Gaoler. Look tenderly to the two prisoners; I can tell you they are princes.

Daugh. These strewings are for their chamber.

(Tw. Noble Kin. ii. 1.)

119. How do you? They have a better question in Cheapside-What lack you?

How do you? (Tw. Noble Kin. ii. 2.)

Still and anon cheered up the heavy time,

Saying, 'What lack you?' and 'Where lies your grief?'

(John iv. 1.)

120. Poore and trew; not poore, therefore not trew.

Clo. I am a poor fellow.

Countess. Well, sir.

Clo. No, madam, 'tis not so well that I am poor, though many of the rich are damned. . . . My friends were poor, but honest. (All's Well, i. 3.)

Flav. An honest poor servant of yours.

Tim. Then I know thee not;

I never had an honest man about me, I; all
I kept were knaves, to serve in meat to villains.
Flav. The gods are witness,

Never did poor steward wear a truer grief
For his undone lord than mine eyes for you.

Tim. Look thee, 'tis so!
Here, take the gods out of
Have sent thee treasure.

Thou singly honest man, my misery

Go, live rich and happy.

(Tim. Ath. iv. 3. See also 490–532.)

Fear not my truth; the moral of my wit

Is plain and true; there's all the reach of it. (Tr. Cr. iv. 4.)

121. Tuque invidiosa vetustas.-Ovid. Met. 15, 234. (And thou envious (odious) old age.)

Sycorax, who with age and envy was grown into a hoop.

The oppression of aged tyranny. (Lear, i. 2.)

Age, I do abhor thee.

(Temp. i. 2.)

You can no more separate age and covetousness. (2 Hen. IV. i. 2.)

Crabbed age and youth cannot live together.

Age I do abhor thee. . . . Age I do defy thee.
Age I do defy thee. (Pass. Pil. xii.)

122. Licentia sumus omnes deteriores.

-

Terence,

Heaut. iii. 1, 74. (We are all made worse by licence.)

Quoted in Apophthegms as being used in a pun by Sir Nicholas Bacon to Queen Elizabeth: 'Licentia sumus omnes deteriores ' (We are all the worse for licences.)

Too much liberty, my Lucio, liberty:
As surfeit is the father of much fast,
So every scope by the immoderate use
Turns to restraint. Our natures do

pursue,

Like rats that ravin down their proper bane,

A thirsty evil; and when we drink we die. (M. M. i. 2.)

123. Qui dat nivem sicut lanam.-Ps. cxlvii. 16. (Who giveth snow like wool.)

His shroud as the mountain snow. (Ham. iv. 5,
When snow the pasture sheets. (Ant. Cl. i. 4.)

song.)

124. Lilia agri non laborant neque nent.-Matt. vi. 28. (The lilies of the field toil not, neither spin.)

Like the lily that was once the mistress of the field, I hang my head and perish. (H. VIII. iii.)

125. Mors omnia solvit. (Death dissolves all things.)

Let me be boiled to death with melancholy. (Tw. N. ii. 5.)
Let me not live, quoth he. I after him wish too

I quickly were dissolved from my hive. (All's Well, i. 3.)
Alas! Dissolve my life! (Tw. Noble Kins. iii. 2.)
Let heaven dissolve my life.

(Ant. Cl. iii. 2.)

Let thy tongue tang arguments.

(Tw. N. ii. 5, and iii. 4.)

126. A quavering tong.

She had a tongue with a tang. (Temp. ii. 2.)
His tongue is the clapper. (M. Ado, iii. 1.)

127. Like a countryman curseth the almanac.

What says the almanack to that? (2 H. IV. ii. 4.) Greater tempests than almanacks can report. (Ant. Cl. i. 2.) (Mid. N. D. iii. 1; Com. Er. i. 2.)

128. Ecce duo gladii hic.-Luke xxii. 38. (Behold here are two swords.)

129. A majore ad minorem.-Heb. viii. 11. (From the greatest even to the least.)

She as far surpasseth Sycorax

As great'st does least. (Temp. iii. 2.)

130. In circuitu ambulant impii.-Ps. xii. 9. (The ungodly walk around on every side.)

To be direct and honest is not safe. (Oth. iii. 3.)

(See No. 3.)

131. Exigit sermo inter fratres quod discipulus non moritur.-John xxi. 23. (Then went this saying abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not die.)

132. Omne majus continet in se minus. (Every greater contains the less.)

(Quoted in Discourse on the Union of the Church.)

There was a dispute whether great heads or little heads had the better wit. And one said it must needs be the little; for that it is a maxim, Omne majus continet in se minus.— Apophthegms.

Item. She hath more hairs on her head than wit.

The greater hides the less. (Tw. G. Ver. iii. 1.)
When that this body did contain a spirit
A kingdom for it was too small a bound;
But now two paces of the vilest earth
Is room enough. (1 Hen. IV. v. 5.)
(Compare No. 1258.)

133. Sine ulla controversia quod minus est majore benedictione. (Without all contradiction that which is least is the greater blessing.-? Heb. vii. 7, changed.)

...

Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament. . . . adversity of the New, which carrieth the greater benediction.

(Ess. Of Adversity.)

Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel. (As. Y. L. ii. 1.)
In poison there's physic. (2 Hen. IV. i. 1.)

There is some good in things evil,

Would men observingly distil it out. (Hen. V. iv. 1.)

Most poor matters point to most rich ends. (Temp. iii. 1.)

O benefit of ill! now I find true,

That better is by evil still made better. (Son. cxix.)

(See also Ant. Cl. ii. 1, 1–8.)

(Compare No. 1381.)

134. She is bright. She may be taken in play.

Fair is my love, but not so fair as fickle;

Mild as a dove, but neither true nor trusty;

Brighter than glass, and yet as glass is brittle. (Pass. Pilgrim.) She is too bright to be looked against. (Mer. W. ii. 2.)

135. He may goe by water, for he is sure to be well landed.

Pro. Go, go, be gone, to save your ship from wreck,
Which cannot perish having thee aboard,

Being destined to a drier death ashore. (Tw. G. Ver. i. 2.)
The pretty vaulting sea refused to drown me,

Knowing that thou wouldst have me drowned on shore, &c.
(2 Hen. VI. iii. 2.)

136. Small matters need solicitation.

membered of themselves.

Great are re

Lep. Small to greater matters must give way.
Eno. Not if the small come first. (Ant. Cl. ii. 2.)

137. The matter goeth too slowly forward, that I have almost forgot it myself, so as I marvaile not if my friends forgett.

138. Not like a crabb, though like a snail.

Snail-slow in profit. (Mer. Ven. ii. 5.)

Snail-paced beggary. (R. III. iv. 3.)

Yourself, sir, should be as old as I am, if like a crab you could go backward. (Ham. ii. 2.)

This neglection of degree it is

That by a pace goes backward with a purpose it hath to climb.

(Tr. Cl. i. 3.)