NOW.—Now is the winter of our discontent,
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
And all the clouds
that lower’d upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
Shakespeare.—Richard III. Act I. Scene 1. (Gloster on his own deformities.)
Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,
Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,
And while the
bubbling and loud-hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups,
That cheer but not inebriate,
wait on each,
So let us welcome peaceful evening in.
Cowper.—The Task, Book IV. Line 36.
Now up, now down, as bucket in a well.
Saunders’ Chaucer, Vol. I. Page 32.
NUMBERS.—As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame,
I lisp’d in numbers, for the numbers came.
Pope.—Prol. to Sat. To Arbuthnot, Line 127.
NUNNERY.—Get thee to a nunnery.
Shakespeare.—Hamlet, Act III. Scene 1. (To Ophelia.)
NURSED.—Nursed in whirling storms,
And cradled in the winds.
Kirke White.—Ode to a Primrose.
NURSING.—While we sit bousing at the nappy,
And gettin’ fu’ and unco happy,
We think na on the lang
Scots miles,
The mosses, waters, slaps, and stiles,
That lie between us and our hame,
Whare sits our
sulky, sullen dame,
Gathering her brows like gathering storm,
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.
Burns.—Tam O’Shanter, Line 5.
NUT-BROWN MAID.—Hall’s British Ballads, A.D. 1847; and a Poem by Prior.
Merry swains, who quaff the nut-brown ale,
And sing, enamour’d, of the nut-brown maid.
Beattie.—The Minstrel, Book I. Verse 44. Line 1.
OAK.—Thou wast a bauble once, a cup and ball,
Which babes might play with.
Cowper.—Yardley Oak, Line 17.
The oak, when living, monarch of the wood;
The English oak, which, dead, commands the flood.
Churchill.—Gotham, Book I. Line 303.
A study oak, which nature forms
To brave a hundred winters’ storms,
While round its head the whirlwinds
blow,
Remains with root infix’d below:
When fell’d to earth, a ship it sails
Through dashing waves and driving
gales;
And now at sea, again defies
The threat’ning clouds and howling skies.
Hoole’s Metastatio, Adrian in Syria, Act I. Scene 3.
OAK.—The monarch oak, the patriarch of the trees,
Shoots rising up, and spreads by slow degrees:
Three
centuries he grows, and three he stays
Supreme in state; and in three more decays.
Dryden.—Palamon and Arcite, Line 1058.