Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1882-10-23
ORIGIN OF POPULAR PHRASES.

Scott, upon what was evidently careless
reading, to apply them to the British bard.
With Our Own Feathers are we Smitten.
Lord Byron, in "English Bards and
Scotch Reviewers, beginning with line
S26, wrote:
Twas thine own genius gave the final blow,
ana ne ID TO plant the wound that laid thee low
81 the struck eagle, stretched upon the plain,
No more through rolling clouds to soar again,
viewed bis own feather on the fatal dart
And wing I'd the shaft that quiyered in his heart
Keen were his pangs, but keener far to feel
He nursed the pnon which impelrd the steel
While the same plum &c that had warm'l his nest
Drank the last life drop of his bleeding breast.
Fully $50 years before Byron wrote the
above beautiful lines, Edmund Waller had
composed the following: &. .a
That eagles fate and mine are one
, Which on the shaft that made him die,
Espisd a feather of his own,
Wherewith he wont to soar SO high
After Lord Byron came Thomas Moore
with:
Like young eagle who has lent his plume
To Hedge the shaft by which he meets his DOOM
See their own feathers plUck'd to wing the dart
"hioh rank corruption destines for their heart
But fschylus, the Greek poet, more than
1000 years before Waller, Byron or Burke
origins ted the fable from which the quota.
ton, With our own feathers are we smit
ten, Is taken, though the rendering does
not accord with the original, which, as
translated, reads
So in the Libyan fable it is told
That once an eagle, stricken with a dart,
SAID, when he saw the fashion & the shaft
With our own feathers, not by others hands,
Are we now smitten."
Skylarking. term originated by sail.
ors fer games or tricks upon each other in
the rlgglngs and tops of shipe. Skylark-
ing thence became general term for mis-.
ehIevous froiicking, and has been abrevi-
ated to lsrking.
Land o Cakes.--This phrase was first ap.
piled to Scotland by Burns, in 1889. in his
poem, Captain Crosses Peregrinations
Through Scotland, which beg ms with the
eouplet
Hear, Land o Cakes and brighter Scots.
From Maidenkirk to Johnny Gfoat's.
Maidenkirk is an inversion of the name
OF the most southerly parish of Scotland,
kirkmaiden.
Angel.vlsits. The simile by Campbell ia
MS Pleasures of Hope" published in
1899,
what, though my winged hours of hiss have been
Like angel-visits, few and far between
Is one of the most proverbial of all the
popular quotations. The idea was not
original with Campbell, fact which most
people who express it in the latter poets
words are not aware of. Roland Blair. in
l743, expressed the thought better, in our
Judgment. than Campbell. when he wrote .
Alas too well he Sped the good he scorn'd
Stalk oft reluctant, like an il-us'd ghost
Not to return or, If it did, in visits
Like those Of angels, short and far between.
The originator of the idea, however, was
neither Blair nor Campbell, but was one
John Norris, who wrote, twenty-five wears
before the former was born, poem entitled
The Parting, in which occurs the follow.
ing verse:
How fading are the joys dote upon,
Like apparitions seen and gone
But those which soonest take their flight
Are the most exquisite and strong
Like angels visits, short and bright,
Mortalitys too weak to bear them long.
The came author, in some lines to the
memory OF his niece, writes
No wonder Such noble mind
Her way again to Heaven 30 soon could find.
Angels, as It's but seldom they appear
So neither do they make long stay
They do but visit and away
It's pain for them tendure our too gross saere
We could not hope for a reprieve,
She must die soon, that made such hast G to live
Wasting Sweetness on the Desert Air
This saying originated from the following
lines by Gray
And waste its sweetness on the desert aia.
The elegy which contains it We begun
in l742 ard finished in l749. lin 1894
Charles Churchill, then very young poet,
wrote " Gotham" and in book I'D, line
20, reads:
Nor waste their sweetness in the desert air
The one line is often mistaken for the
other, firm which it is an unconscious
plagiarism. aa-
The Course Of True Love Never Did Run
Smooth. 1t is from Shakespeare's "Mid-
summer Nights Dream" and occurs in
Act l., sc. l
For aught that ever could read,
Could ever hear by tale or history &
The course OF true love never did run smooth
The Minds the Standard of the Man =
THIS quotation occurs in Watts Hole
L1ric9. In his estimate of False Great.
ness he wrote
Were i 80 tall to reach the pole,
Or grasp the ocean with my spar.
| must be measured by my sIuf
The minds the standard of the man.
As Queer as Dicks Hatband. = This
proyerbial saying is said TO allude to Rich.
ard Cromwell, who found the crown I'M
suitable to his head. Another, origin OF the
expression is found in the following, given
on the authority of that reliabre" news
paper, the New York Journal Of ConNerce,
which relates it at length in its department
of Questions and Answers ~ There was
character called Silly Dick Dick Wheel
baut). His hatband went seven times
around his hat, but wouldn't tiel But in
process the description was changed to one
| that "went half round and tucked under, f"
and another still more strange, which
went half round and tied in a double
bow"
! By Dint. This expression is very COM
mon. The word "dint" is the Anglo.
Saxon dynt, force, as of blow A dint is
blow strong enough to make dent
Milton speaks Of "thas mortal lint" and
Addison has "by dint of arms. p
Ilk.-This word, commonly used in
Scotland and the North of England, has
two distinct meanings, 7" eachs9' as in the
phrase, |" Tx one of you, ands' the same, y
as in the phrase, Mackenzie Of that ilk, I"
| where it means Mackenzie of Macken-
| Zle, LnS iaetrf Dciuy Tine name OF Aidckeu-
zie's ancestral estate. An improper use of
the phrase has, however, become common
in the newspapers of this country where
that sort. OF that party, of that class, etc.,
have given place to the Incorrect ex.
preston +" of that ilk."
Imp.-This word originally signified a
child or progeny. In an old WORK, Path.
way Unto Prayer" reprinted by the Par
ker Society of London, the following pas
sage occurs: "Let US pray for the
preservation of the Kings most excellent
Majesty, aud for the prosperous success of
his son, Edward. our Prince, that most
angelic imp" Speuser, in the 81 Faerie
" Ye sacred MPs that in Paruassus dwell"
And another old writer, North "He
took upon him TO protect them all, and not
to suffer go goodly az imp to lose the good
| fruit OF his youth. The word limp" is
| from the Anglo Saxon impan, to plume
| [Ss. Louis Globe Democrat.
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