Worst.-Would Heaven this mourning were past!

One may have better luck at last;
Matters at WORST are sure to mend,
The Devil's wife was but a fiend.

PRIOR, Turtle and Sparrow, 1. 414.

Worth.-And very wisely would lay forth
No more upon it than 'twas WORTH.

BUTLER, Hudibras, pt. i. canto i. 1. 491.

I know my price: I am WORTH no worse a place.

SHAKESPERE, Othello, act i. sc. 1.

This mournful truth is everywhere confess'd,
Slow rises WORTH by poverty depress'd.

What is WORTH in anything,
So much money as 'twill bring?

Dr. JOHNSON, London, 1. 176.

BUTLER, Hudibras, pt. ii. canto i. l. 465.

What it's WORTH, ask death-beds; they can tell.

YOUNG, Night ii. 1. 51.

WORTH makes the man, and want of it the fellow;
The rest is all but leather or prunello.

POPE, Essay on Man, ep. iv. 1. 203.

Wound. The private WOUND is deepest.

--

SHAKESPERE, Two Gentlemen of Verona, act iv. sc. 4.

Willing to WOUND, and yet afraid to strike,
Just hint a fault and hesitate dislike.

POPE, Epistle to Arbuthnot.

Wounds. When WOUNDS are mortal they admit no cure.

POMFRET, The Fortunate Complaint.

Wranglers. I burn to set the imprison'd WRANGLERS free,
And give them voice and utterance once again.
Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast.

COWPER, The Task, bk. iv.

Wreath.-I sent thee late a rosy WREATH,
Not so much honouring thee,
As giving it a hope that there
It could not withered be.

BEN JONSON, Song, Drink to Me Only.

Wretched.-The WRETCHED have no friends.

DRYDEN, All for Love, act iii. sc. 1.

Wrinkles.-WRINKLES, the d-d democrats, won't flatter.

BYRON, Don Juan, canto x. st. 24.

Writ. What is WRIT is writ;

Would it were worthier.-BYRON, Childe Harold, canto iv. st. 115.

Write. And shame to WRITE what all men blush to read.

COTTON, To E. W., 1. 10.

Smith. He can WRITE and read and cast accompt.
Cade. O monstrous!

Smith. We took him setting of boys' copies.

Cade. Here's a villain!

SHAKESPERE, Henry V1., Part ii. act iv. sc. 2.

I lived to WRITE, and wrote to live.

ROGERS, Italy, A Character, 1. 16.

To be a well-favoured man is the gift of fortune, but to read and WRITE comes by nature.

SHAKESPERE, Much Ado about Nothing, act iii. sc. 3.

Who can WRITE so fast as men run mad?

DR. YOUNG, Satire i.

You WRITE with ease to show your breeding,

But easy writing's curst hard reading.

Clio's Protest. MOORE, Life of Sheridan, vol. i. p. 155.

Writing. At first one omits WRITING for a little while, and then one stays a while longer to consider of excuses, and at last it grows desperate, and one does not write at all.

SWIFT, To the Rev. Mr. Winder.

Of all those arts in which the wise excel,
Nature's chief master-piece is WRITING well.

BUCKINGHAM, Essay on Poetry.

Their manner of WRITING is very peculiar, being neither from the left to the right, like the Europeans; nor from the right to the left, like the Arabians; nor up and down, like the Chinese; but aslant, from one corner of the paper to the other, like ladies in England.-SWIFT, Gulliver's Voyage to Lilliput, chap. vi.

True ease in WRITING comes from art, not chance,

As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance.

'Tis not enough no harshness gives offence;

The sound must seem an echo to the sense.
Soft is the strain when zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,
The hoarse rough verse should like the torrent roar.
When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line, too, labours, and the words move slow;
Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o'er the unbending corn, and skims along the main.
POPE, Essay on Criticism, part ii. 1. 102.

Written. By labour and intent study (which I take to be my portion in this life), joined with the strong propensity of nature, I might perhaps leave something so WRITTEN to after times, as they should not willingly let die.-MILTON, Church Government.

Wrong. And if we do but watch the hour,
There never yet was human power
Which could evade, if unforgiven,
The patient search and vigil long

Of him who treasures up a WRONG.-BYRON, Mazeppa.

Brother, brother, we are both in the WRONG.

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

It may be right, but you are in the WRONG

To speak before your time.

SHAKESPERE, Measure for Measure, act v. sc. 1.

Most wretched men

Are cradled into poetry by WRONG;

They learn in suffering what they teach in song.

SHELLEY, Julian and Maddalo.

You have a WRONG Sow by the ear.

BUTLER, Hudibras, part ii. canto iii.

Wrongs. On adamant our WRONGS we all engrave,
But write our benefits upon the wave.

KING, Art of Love, 1. 971.

Y.

Yankee. A term in America for New Englanders, and applied by foreigners to all natives of the United States. The most feasible origin is that the Indians, when speaking of the English settlers, called them "Yenghees," corrupted afterwards to "YANKEE."

Year. Full knee-deep lies the winter snow,
And the winter winds are wearily sighing;
Toll ye the church-bell sad and slow,

And tread softly and speak low,

For the Old YEAR lies a-dying.

TENNYSON, Death of the Old Year.

Year. These as they change, Almighty Father! these
Are but the varied God. The rolling YEAR

Is full of Thee.-THOMSON, Hymn.

Years.

I am declined

Into the vale of YEARS.—SHAKESPERE, Othello, act iii. sc. 3.

Jumping o'er times

Turning the accomplishment of many YEARS
Into an hour-glass.—Ibid., Henry V., chorus.

YEARS following years steal something every day;
At last they steal us from curselves away.

POPE, Horace, epistle ii. book ii. 1. 72.

YEARS steal

Fire from the mind as vigour from the limb;

And life's enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim.

BYRON, Childe Harold, canto iii. st. 8.

Yellow. All seems infected that the infected spy,
As all looks YELLOW to the jaundiced eye.

POPE, Essay on Criticism, part ii. 1. 358.

Yellow Jack.-Among sailors, a common personification of the yellow fever. Although used as a proper name, it is probable that the original meaning of the appellation was nothing more than yellow flag, a flag being termed a jack by seamen, and yellow being the colour of that customarily displayed from lazarettos, or naval hospitals, and from vessels in quarantine.

Yesterday.--The same dull sound: the same dull lack

Of future in the level gray:

It seems like YESTERDAY come back
With his old things, and not to-day.

OWEN MEREDITH, Wanderer.

Yorick. Alas, poor YORICK! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar?-SHAKESPERE, Hamlet, act v. sc. 1.

Young." Whom the gods love die YOUNG," was said of yore.

BYRON, Don Juan, canto iv. st. 12.

YOUNG fellows will be young fellows. -Is. BICKERSTAFF.

YOUNG men think old men fools, and old men know young men to be so.-Quoted by CAMDEN as a saying of one DR. METCALF.

Young England.—A collective designation given some thirty years ago to a number of persons of rank and character, in England, who were engaged in a social movement, having for its aim the revival of the manners of medieval times, which they held to have been greatly injured by the growth of a commercial spirit among the higher classes. Their cry was:

Let wealth and commerce, laws and learning, die,

But give us back our old nobility.-Lord John Manners.

YOUNG ENGLAND was gentlemanly and cleanly, its leaders
being of the patrician order; and it looked to the Middle Ages
for patterns of conduct. Its chiefs wore white waistcoats, gave
red cloaks and broken meat to old women, and would have lopped
off three hundred years from Old England's life, by pushing her
back to the early days of Henry VIII.
Some of the

cleverest of the younger members of the aristocracy belonged to the
new organization, and a great genius (B. Disraeli) wrote some
delightful novels to show their purpose, and to illustrate their
manner of how-not-to-do-it in grappling with the grand social
questions of the age.
Young England went out as soberly
and steadily as it had lived. The select few who had composed it
died like gentlemen, and were as polite as Lord Chesterfield in the
act of death. Some of them turned Whigs, and have held office
under Lord Palmerston; and others are Tories, and expect to hold
office under Lord Derby, when he shall form his third ministry.—
C. C. HAZEWELL.

Young Idea.-Delightful task! to rear the tender thought,
To teach the YOUNG IDEA how to shoot.

THOMSON, The Seasons, Spring, 1. 1149.

Young Ireland.-A name adopted by a party of Irish malcontents, about the year 1840, who were in sympathy with the progressive movements instigated by O'Connell-himself a member of the organization-but who ridiculed his renunciation of physical force in seeking political reforms, and who were impatient to inaugurate insurrection and war.

Young Man.—The atrocious crime of being a YOUNG MAN.

PITT, Speech, March 6, 1741.

Youth.-A YOUTH of frolics, an old age of cards.

POPE, Moral Essay, To a Lady, ep. ii. 1. 241.

And made YOUTH younger, and taught age to liye.

He wears the rose

DR. YOUNG, Night v. 1. 796.

Of YOUTH upon him: from which the world should note
Something particular.

SHAKESPERE, Antony and Cleopatra, act iii. sc. 4.