AWE.—The roaring cataract, the snow-topt hill,
Inspiring awe, till breath itself stands still.
Bloomfield.—Farmer’s Boy, Spring.
I cannot tell what you and other men
Think of this life; but, for my single self,
I had as lief not be, as live to
be
In awe of such a thing as I myself.
Shakespeare.—Julius Cæsar, Act I. Scene 2. (Cassio to Brutus.)
AY.—Ay, marry is’t.
Shakespeare.—Hamlet, Act I. Scene 4. (Hamlet to Horatio.)
Ay, there’s the rub!
Shakespeare.—Hamlet, Act III. Scene 1.
BABE.—Bent o’er her babe, her eye dissolved in dew;
The big drops mingling with the milk he drew,
Gave
the sad presage of his future years,
The child of misery, baptiz’d in tears!
Langhorne.—The Country Justice.
BACHELOR.—When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.
Shakespeare.—Much Ado About Nothing, Act II. Scene 3. (Benedick to himself.)
BACKING.—Call you that backing of your friends?
A plague upon such backing!
Shakespeare.—King Henry IV. Part I. Act II. Scene 4. (Falstaff to Poins.)
BACON.—If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shined,
The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind.
Pope.—Essay on Man, Epistle IV. Line 281.