BOYHOOD -see Children.

The whining school-boy, with his satchel,
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school.

472

Shaks.: As You Like It. Act ii Sc. 7
O, 'tis a parlous boy;

Bold, quick, ingenious, forward, capable;
He's all the mother's from the top to toe.

Shaks.: Richard III. Act iii. Sc. 1

473 Ah! happy years! once more who would not be a boy? 474 Byron: Ch. Harold. Canto ii. St. 23.

A little curly-headed, good-for-nothing,

And mischief-making monkey from his birth.

475

BRAGGART

Byron: Don Juan. Canto i. St. 25.

see Boasting.

Who art thou? Have not I

An arm as big as thine? a heart as big?

Thy words, I grant, are bigger, for I wear not
My dagger in my mouth.

476

Shaks.: Cymbeline. Act iv. Sc. 2.

Shaks.: All's Well. Act iv. Sc. 3.

Who knows himself a braggart,
Let him fear this: for it will come to pass
That ev'ry braggart shall be found an ass.
477
Conceit, more rich in matter than in words,
Brags of his substance, not of ornament:
They are but beggars that can count their worth.
478
Shaks.: Rom. and Jul. Act ii. Sc. 6.
I know them, yea,

And what they weigh, even to the utmost scruple:
Scrambling, outfacing, fashion-monging boys,
That lie, and cog, and flout, deprave, and slander,
Go anticly, and show outward hideousness,
And speak off half a dozen dangerous words,
How they might hurt their enemies if they durst;
And this is all.

479

Shaks.: Much Ado. Act v. Sc. 1.

Why, then, the world's mine oyster,

Which I with sword will open.

480

BRAINS.

Shaks.: Mer. W. of W. Act ii. Sc 2

The times have been

That, when the brains were out, the man would die,
And there an end; but now they rise again,

With twenty mortal murders on their crowns,

And push us from our stools.

481

Shaks.: Macbeth. Act iii. Sc. 4

With curious art the brain, too finely wrought, Preys on herself, and is destroyed by thought. 482

Churchill: Epis. to Hogarth

BRAVERY - see Courage, Daring.

'Tis more brave

To live, than to die.

483

Owen Meredith: Lucile. Pt. ii. Canto vi. St. 11

A brave soul is a thing which all things serve. 484

Alexander Smith: A Life Drama. Sc. 4

Dryden: Alex. Feast. St. 1

None but the brave deserves the fair.
485
How sleep the brave, who sink to rest,
By all their country's wishes blest!

By fairy hands their knell is sung,
By forms unseen their dirge is rung.

486

Collins Lines in 1746.

His breast with wounds unnumber'd riven,
His back to earth, his face to heaven.

487

Byron: Giaour. Line 675.
The truly brave,

When they behold the brave oppress'd with odds,
Are touch'd with a desire to shield and save.

Byron: Don Juan. Canto viii. St. 106

488 Fate made me what I am- may make me nothing, But either that or nothing must I be;

I will not live degraded.

489

BREEZES.

Byron: Sardanapalus. Acti. Sc. 2.

A breeze came wandering from the sky,
Light as the whispers of a dream;

He put the o'erhanging grasses by,

And softly stooped to kiss the stream,

The pretty stream, the flattered stream,

The shy, yet unreluctant stream.

490

William Cullen Bryant: The Wind and Stream
Breezes of the South!

-ye have played

Who toss the golden and the flame-like flowers,
And pass the prairie-hawk that, poised on high,
Flaps his broad wings, yet moves not
Among the palms of Mexico and vines
Of Texas, and have crisped the limpid brooks
That from the fountains of Sonora glide
Into the calm Pacific-have ye fanned

A nobler or a lovelier scene than this?

491

William Cullen Bryant: The Prairies

Spirit that breathest through my lattice, thou
That cool'st the twilight of the sultry day,
Gratefully flows thy freshness round my brow:
Thou hast been out upon the deep at play,
Riding all day the wild blue waves till now,

Roughening their crests, and scattering high their spray
And swelling the white sail. I welcome thee

To the scorched land, thou wanderer of the sea!

492

William Cullen Bryant: Evening Wind

SHEVITY.

Since brevity is the soul of wit,

Shaks.: Hamlet. Act ii Sc. 2

And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes
I will be brief.

493

For brevity is very good,

When we are, or are not, understood.

494

Butler: Hudibras. Pt. i. Canto i. Line 669

Stop not, unthinking, every friend you meet
To spin your wordy fabric in the street;

While you are emptying your colloquial pack,

The fiend Lumbago jumps upon his back.

495 Oliver Wendell Holmes: Rhymed Lesson. Line 441 BRIBES.

What! shall one of us,

That struck the foremost man of all this world,
But for supporting robbers; - shall we now
Contaminate our fingers with base bribes?
And sell the mighty space of our large honors
For so much trash as may be grasped thus?
I'd rather be a dog, and bay the moon,
Than such a Roman.

496

Shaks.: Jul. Cæsar. Act iv. Sc. 3

Dead falls the cause, if once the hand be mute;
But let that speak, the client gets the suit.

497
Herrick Aph. Bribes and Gifts Get All
Judges and senates have been bought for gold;
Esteem and love were never to be sold.

498

Pope: Essay on Man. Epis. iv. Line 187.

But the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that Honor

499

feels.

Tennyson: Locksley Hall. St. 53.

Let us be back'd with God, and with the seas,
Which he hath given for fence impregnable,
And with their helps only defend ourselves;
In them, and in ourselves, our safety lies.

500

Shaks.: 3 Henry VI. Act iv. Sc. 1

Be England what she will,

With all her faults she is my country still.

501

Be Britain still to Britain true,
Amang oursels united;

For never but by British hands
Maun British wrangs be righted.

Churchill: Farewell

Burns: Dumfries Volunteers

502 Without one friend, above all foes, Britannia gives the world repose.

503 Oh! when shall Britain, conscicus of her claim, Stand emulous of Greek and Roman fame;

Cowper: To Sir J. Reynolds

In living Medals see her wars enroll'd,

And vanquish'd realms supply recording gold?

504 BROOKS.

Pope: Moral Essays. Epis. v. Line 53.

A silvery brook comes stealing

From the shadow of its trees,

Where slender herbs of the forest stoop

Before the entering breeze.

505

BROOM.

William Cullen Bryant: The Unknown Way.

Their groves of sweet myrtle let foreign lands reckon,
Where bright-beaming summers exalt the perfume;
Far dearer to me yon lone glen o' green breckan,
Wi' the burn stealing under the lang yellow broom.

506 BUILDING.

Old houses mended,

Cost little less than new before they're ended.

Burns: Song.

507 Colley Cibber: Double Gallant. Prol The man who builds, and wants wherewith to pay, Provides a home from which to run away.

508

BURKE (Edmund).

Young: Love of Fame. Satire i. Line 163.

Here lies our good Edmund, whose genius was such,
We scarcely can praise it, or blame it too much;
Who, born for the universe, narrow'd his mind,
And to party gave up what was meant for mankind.
509

Goldsmith: Retaliation. Line 2. see Industry.

BUSY BUSINESS ·
Let thy mind still be bent, still plotting, where
And when, and how thy business may be done,
Slackness breeds worms; but the sure traveller,
Though he alights sometimes, still goeth ou.

510

Herbert: Temple. Church Porch. St. 57

To business that we love, we rise betimes,
And go to it with delight.

511

BUTTERCUPS.

Shaks.: Ant. and Cleo. Act iv. Sc. 4

All will be gay when noontide wakes anew

The buttercups, the little children's dower.

512

BUT YET.

Robert Browning: Home-Thoughts, From Abroad

But yet, madam,

I do not like "but yet." It does allay

The good precedence; fie upon ..but yet!"
"But yet" is as a jailor to bring forth
Some monstrous malefactor.
513

Shaks.: Ant. and Cleo. Act ii. Sc. 5

Pure was the temp'rate air, an even calm
Perpetual reign'd, save what the zephyrs bland
Breath'd o'er the blue expanse.

515

Thomson: Seasons. Spring. Line 323

So calm, the waters scarcely seem to stray,
And yet they glide like happiness away.

516

Byron: Lara. Canto i. St. 10

The wind breathed soft as lovers sigh,
And oft renew'd, seem'd oft to die,
With breathless pause between,
O who with speech of war and woes,
Would wish to break the soft repose
Of such enchanting scene!

517

Scott: Lord of the Isles. Canto iv. St. 13

How calm, how beautiful comes on
The stilly hour, when storms are gone;
When warring winds have died away,
And clouds, beneath the glancing ray,
Melt off, and leave the land and sea
Sleeping in bright tranquillity!

518

Moore: Lalla Rookh. Fire Worshippers