Orthodoxy is my doxy, Heterodoxy is another man's doxy. "I have heard frequent use," said the late Lord Sandwich, in a debate on the Test Laws, "of the words 'orthodoxy' and 'heterodoxy;' but I confess myself at a loss to know precisely what they mean." "Orthodoxy, my Lord," said Bishop Warburton, in a whisper, - "orthodoxy is my doxy, - heterodoxy is another man's doxy."— Priestley's Memoirs. Vol. i. p. 372. No one is a hero to his valet. This phrase is commonly attributed to Madame de Sévigné, but, on the authority of Madame Aisse, belongs to Madame Cornuel. - Lettres édit. J. Ravenal. 1853. Few men are admired by their servants. When Hermodotus in his poems described An- Greatest happiness of the greatest number. Priestley was the first (unless it was Beccaria) who taught my lips to pronounce this sacred truth, that the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation. -Bentham's Works. Vol. x. p. 142. The expression is used by Beccaria in the introduction to his Essay on Crimes and Punish ments. The Guard dies, but never surrenders. This phrase, attributed to Cambronne, who was Fournier, The wisdom of many and the wit of one. A definition of a proverb which Lord John Russell gave one morning at breakfast, at Mardock's, "One man's wit, and all men's wisdom.” — Memoirs of Mackintosh. Vol. ii. p. 473. Ridicule the test of truth.1 How comes it to pass, then, that we appear such cowards in reasoning, and are so afraid to stand the test of ridicule ?-Shaftesbury, Characteristicks. A Letter concerning Enthusiasm. Sec. 2. Truth, 't is supposed, may bear all lights; and one of those principal lights or natural mediums by which things are to be viewed, in order to a thorough recognition, is ridicule itself. — Shaftesbury, Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour. Sec. 1. 'Twas the saying of an ancient sage, that humour was the only test of gravity; and gravity, of humour. For a subject which would not bear raillery was suspicious; and a jest which would not bear a serious examination was certainly false wit. - Ibid. Sec. 5. 1 We have, oftener than once, endeavoured to attach some meaning to that aphorism, vulgarly imputed to Shaftesbury, which, however, we can find nowhere in his works, that ridicule is the test of truth.- Carlyle, Miscellanies. Voltaire. 2 Gorgias Leontinus, apud Arist. Rhetor, lib. 3, cap. 18. Art and Part. A Scotch law phrase, - an accessory before and after the fact. A man is said to be art and part of a crime when he contrives the manner of the deed, and concurs with and encourages those who commit the crime, although he does not put his own hand to the actual execution of it. Scott, Tales of a Grandfather. Ch. xxii. Execution of Morton. Better to wear out than to rust out. When a friend told Bishop Cumberland he would wear himself out by his incessant application, "It is better," replied the Bishop, "to wear out than to rust out."- Bishop Horne, Sermon on the Duty of Contending for the Truth. Before you could say Jack Robinson. This current phrase is derived from a humorous song by Hudson, a tobacconist in Shoe Lane, London. He was a professional song-writer and vocalist, who used to be engaged to sing at supper-rooms and theatrical houses. Order reigns in Warsaw. General Sebastiani announced the fall of Warsaw in the Chamber of Deputies, Sept. 16, 1831 Des lettres que je reçois de Pologne m'annoncent que la tranquillité règne à Varsovie. Dumas, Mémoires, 2nd Series. Vol. iv. Ch. 3. A foreign nation is a contemporaneous posterity. Byron's European fame is the best earnest of his immortality, for a foreign nation is a kind of contemporaneous posterity. — Stanley, or The Recollections of a Man of the World. Vol. ii. Sardonic smile. The island of Sardinia, consisting chiefly of marshes or of mountains, has, from the earliest period to the present, been cursed with a nox. ious air, an ill-cultivated soil, and a scanty population. The convulsions produced by its poisonous plants gave rise to the expression of sardonic smile, which is as old as Homer (Odyss. lib. xx. v. 302).—Mahon, History of England. Vol. i. p. 287. Consistency is a jewel. This is one of those popular sayings, like "Be good, and you will be happy," or "Virtue is its own reward," that, like Topsy, never was born, only jist growed." From the earliest times it has been the popular tendency to call this or that cardinal virtue, or bright and shining excellence, a jewel, by way of emphasis. For example, Iago says: "Good name, in man or woman, dear my lord, Is the immediate jewel of their souls." Shakespeare elsewhere calls "Experience a jew el;" Miranda says her Modesty is the jewel in her dower; and in "All's Well that Ends Well," Diana terms her chastity the jewel of her house. We might go on to quote John Heywood's "Plain dealing 's a jewel," and many others, but we think these examples are enough. R. A. Wight. Dead as Chelsea. · To get Chelsea; to obtain the benefit of that hospital. "Dead as Chelsea, by G-d!" an exclamation uttered by a grenadier at Fontenoy, on having his leg carried away by a cannon ball. Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1758, quoted by Brady (Var. of Lit. 1826). PROVERBIAL EXPRESSIONS, FOUND IN THE WORKS OF ENGLISH WRITERS, WHICH ARE OF COMMON ORIGIN. All is fish that cometh to net. Heywood's Proverbs, 1546. Tusser, Five Hun- All that glisters is not gold. Gascoigne's Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice, ii. 7. Heywood's Proverbs, 1546. Herbert, Jacula Prudentum. Googe's Eglogs, Epitaphs, &c., 1563. All is not gold that glisteneth. Middleton, A Fair Quarrel, v. I. All thing, which that shineth as the gold Chaucer, The Chanones Yemannes Tale, Line 243. All is not golde that outward shewith bright. Lydgate, On the Mutability of Human Affairs. Gold all is not that doth golden seem. Spenser, Faerie Queene, Book ii. C. 8. St. 14. All, as they say, that glitters is not gold. Dryden, Hind and Panther. Que tout n'est pas ors c'on voit luise. Li Diz de freire Denise cordelier, circa 1300. Another, yet the same. Pope, Dunciad, Book iii. Tickell, From a Lady in England. Johnson, Life of Dryden. Darwin, Botanic Garden, Pt. i. C. 4, 1. 380. Wordsworth, The Excursion, Book ix. Scott, The Abbot, Ch. 1. Horace, Carm. Sec. l. 10. |