The proper significance of the term, oi course, as is well known, is the grace of baptism as considered apart from the outward form, the gift of the Holy Spirit, and is sometimes used to designate martyrdom, especially that undergone at the stake.

John Langhorne also shows how the Christian sacrament may be turned to metaphorical use:

Cold on Canadian hills or Minden's plain,
Perhaps that parent mourned her soldier slain;
Bent o'er her Dabe, her eye dissolved in dew.
The big drops mingling with the milk he drew
Gave the sad pTesage of his future years,—
The child of misery, baptized in tears.

The Country Justice, Part i.

This allusion to the dead soldier and his widow on the field of battle was made the subject of a print by Bunbury, under which were engraved the pathetic lines of Langhorne. Sir Walter Scott has mentioned that the only time he saw Burns, this picture was in the room. Burns shed tears over it; and Scott, then a lad of fifteen, was the only person present who could tell him where the lines were to be found.—Lockhart: Life of Scott, vol. i., ch. iv.

First an Englishman, and then a "Whig. This phrase appears in a speech made by Lord Macaulay (January 29, 1840), avowedly as a parody of **an old Venetian proverb." The proverb in question ran as follows: •' Prima Veneziani, e poi Cristiani" (" First Venetians, and then Christians"). It was in use at the time of the Interdict. Thomas Francis Meagher, the Irish patriot, made a freer paraphrase when he said, " If the altar comes between me and my country, perish the altar I" The Venetian motto is an inversion of the saying imputed to Socrates, "I am not an Athenian nor a Greek, but a citizen of the world."

Fe'nelon was accustomed to say, "I love my family better than myself; my country better than my family; and mankind better than my country; for I am more a Frenchman than a Fenelon; and more a man than a Frenchman." Patrick Henry said, "I am not a Virginian, but an American" (Speech in the Virginia Convention, 1765); and Webster, in a speech delivered July 17, 1850, *• I was born an American; I will live an American; I shall die an American!"

First catch your hare. It is an article of general belief that "Mrs. Glasse's Cookery-Book," in giving directions for roasting a hare, began the recipe, "First catch your hare." Some have credited "Mrs. Glasse" with an excellent joke, others have learnedly sought to prove that what she really wrote was scotch (skin), or scotch (cut up), or other semi-obsolete word which the printer misinterpreted. At last it occurred to a critic of unusual intelligence to look up the passage in the book itself. And, lo! it turned out that what the author wrote, and what the printer printed, was, "Take your hare when it is cas'd, and make a pudding," etc. Case is an old English word which, in this connection, means to take off the skin. So Mrs. Glasse's reputation is saved from any suspicion of unseemly levity in treating a great subject ^ But though the phrase was not hers, it did exist; indeed, it was a current jest many hundreds of years before Mrs. Glasse's cook-book was heard of, and seems to have been used, as at present, to curb ingenuous and unsophisticated ambition. Thus, Bracton, in the early part of the thirteenth century, writes (Book iv., tit i., ch. 21, §4), "Et vulgariter dicitur, quod primo oportet cervum capere, et postea, cum captus fueiit, ilium excoriarc" (" And it is vulgarly said that you must first catch your deer, and then, when it is caught, skin it." It may be interesting to add that the "cookery-book" in question was first published under the title "The Art of Cookery by a Lady" (1747). The name of" Mrs. Glass," not Glasse, was added in the succeeding editions. But the real author was Dr. John Hill (1716-1775).

First gentleman of Europe, the title which his admirers, during his lifetime, gave to George IV oi England, as a tribute to his position, his imposing manners, and his gorgeous clothes.

He the first gentleman of Europe! There is no stronger satire on the proud English society of that day than that they admired George. No, thank God, we can tell of better gentlemen; and whilst our eyes turn away, shocked, from this monstrous image of pride, vanity, weakness, they may see in that England, over which the last George pretended to reign, some who merit indeed the title of gentlemen, some who make our hearts beat when we hear their names, and whose memory we fondly salute whea that of yonder imperial manikin is tumbled into oblivion.—Thackekay: George the Fourth.

First in a village rather than second in Rome. Plutarch is authority for the following story, which appears to be given as a rumor or tradition : " It is said when he came to a little town in passing the Alps, his friends, by way of mirth, took occasion to say, * Can there here be any disputes for offices, any contentions for precedence, or such envy and ambition as we see among the great?' To which Caesar answered, with great seriousness, * I assure you I had rather be the first man here than the second man in Rome.'" But Plutarch does not mention the name of the village.

Lacordaire, in his "Conferences," says of Caesar's exclamation, "It is the true cry of nature: wherever we are, we wish to be first." So undoubtedly thought Milton's Lucifer:

Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.

Paradise Lost, Book i., 1. 263.

But Milton was anticipated by Stafford, in whose "Niobe" (1611) the devil is made to speak as follows: "Now, forasmuch as I was an Angel of Light, it was the will of Wisdom to confine me to Darkness, and make me Prince thereof; so that I, that could not obey in Heaven, might command in Hell; and believe me, I had rather rule within my dark domain than to reinhabit Ccelum imperium, and there live in subjection under check, a slave of the Most High." There is also a parallel passage in Fletcher's "Purple Island," Canto vii.:

In heaven they scorned to serve, so now in hell they reign.

Cassar Borgia's motto, " Aut Caesar aut nullus" (" Either Caesar or nobody"), which he caused to be engraved under a head of Caesar, expresses a similar yearning for pre-eminence.

First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his fellowcitizens, a phrase applied by Colonel Henry Lee to Washington, and now usually quoted with the substitution of the more euphonious "countrymen" for "fellow-citizens." The phrase was originally written as we have quoted it in the resolutions offered by John Marshall in the United States House of Representatives when announcing the death of Washington, December, 1799. Marshall, in his " Life of Washington," vol. v. p. 767, note, informs us that these resolutions were prepared by Colonel Lee, though he was not in his place to read them. A week later, December 26, Lee delivered the funeral oration or "Eulogy" on Washington. Whether he then did or did not make the now accepted substitution is a moot point. By a curious oversight, it is left unsettled in the Memoir of Lee, which his son, the still more famous General Robert E. Lee, prefixed to the report of Colonel Lee's " Memoirs of the War of the Revolution." On page 5 he gives the expression "fellowcitizens." But on page 52 he says, "There is a line, a single line, in the works of Lee which would hand him over to immortality, though he had never written another: * First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen/ will last while language lasts."

First letter of the name begins, etc. It is a common and timehonored jest to blurt out the whole name or whole word, when only its first letter is promised, as for example in Lyly's "Euphues," "There is not far hence a gentlewoman whom I have long time loved, the first letter of whose name is Camilla." And, again, Middleton says, "Her name begins with Mistress Page, does it not?" {Family ofLove\ II. iii.) Nor is the jest an obsolete one. So recently as February 21, 1886, the English sporting paper The Referee said in regard to an amateur sporting-match, "I have no space to describe the rounds in detail, nor can I say who won, seeing that the referee (the first letter of whose name is said to be John L. Shine) declined to give a decision." Nor, again, is the jest an exclusively English one. It may be found, for example, in Balzac: "Et la premiere lettre de son nom est Maxime de Trailles" (Un Homme d^ Affaires, 1855). Yet in the face of all these examples an absurd conjectural emendation made by Collier in the text of Marlowe's "Doctor Faustus" has been allowed to stand in all the editions down to the latest. Lechery, one of the Seven Deadly Sins, says to Faustus, "I am one that loves an inch of raw mutton better than an ell of fried stockfish; and the first letter of my name begins with Lechery." This is the reading of the quartoes. Collier proposed to substitute for the last word the letter L, and the suggestion has been generally adopted.

Fish. All's fish that comes to his net, meaning that he is not at all discriminating or scrupulous, is an old English proverb which may be found in Heywood and elsewhere.

All's fish they get that cometh to net.

Tussbr: Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry:
February Abstract.
Where all is fish that cometh to net.

Gascoignh: Stele Glas, /J7S

Fish. To be neither fish nor flesh, a colloquial term of dissatisfaction, if not contempt, applied to people of uncertain and wavering minds, trimmers, nondescripts, etc. Thus, Shakespeare makes Falstaff cry, •• Why, she's neither fish nor flesh; a man knows not where to have her" (Henry IV., Part II., Act iv., Scene 3). The phrase is probably a survival from Catholic times, when every Friday it became a question of interest to decide what was fish and what flesh meat in the eyes of the Lord. The further extension, "neither fish nor flesh nor good red herring," which is found in Heywood's "Proverbs," Part I., ch. x., and in numerous sixteenth- and seventeenth-century authors, is a mere bit of humorous extravagance.

Fish out of water, a proverbial English phrase applied to a person or thing out of place, out of his or its element.

Lord Kellie was recounting a sermon he had heard in Italy on the miracle of St. Anthony preaching to the fishes, which in order to listen to his pious discourse held their heads out of the water. "I can credit the miracle," said Henry Erskine, "if your lordship was at church." "I was certainly there," said the peer. "Then," rejoined Erskine, " there was at least one fish out of water .''—Enchiridion of Wit.

Pish story, a colloquial English term for an absurd or impossible tale, a gasconade. The allusion is to the boastful stories of their luck credited to fishermen, whose romances frequently lead to the conclusion that better fish have been caught than ever were in the sea.

"You doubt me!" he exclaimed. "Have I not told you over and over again that I love you and you only? and did 1 ever yet lull you an uiuruth, Kailierine?"

"I would that I could have absolute faith in you/' she replied^ •tiding a sob, "but—bat I heard you tell uncle that you once caught a brook-trout that weighed three pounds and six ounces." And the tears flowed down her fair young face, while he tapped the ground with bis foot and solemnly gazed o'er the wide blue sea.—Puck.

Fishing-Rod. The description of a fishing-rod as a worm at one end and a fool at the other, which has been ascribed to Dr. Johnson or Dean Swift, existed before their time in a less striking form. A French writer of the seventeenth century, named Guyet, has these lines:

La ligne avec sa canne est un long instrument,
Dont le plus mince bout tient un petit reptile,
Lt dont rautre est tenu par un grand irabeciile.

Flag. If any one attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot him on the spot. This famous phrase occurred in a telegram sent from Washington by John A. Dix, January 29, 1861, ordering the arrest at New Orleans of Captain Breshwood, commander of the revenue cutter McClernand, which it was surmised he intended to turn over to the secessionists. Dix was then Secretary of the Treasury. The despatch was intercepted at New Orleans and never reached its destination. But it reached the public, and that was better still, for it showed them that the policy of temporizing was at an end.

Flapdoodle. According to Dean Swift,—

'Tis an old maxim of the schools,
That flattery s the food of fools;
Yet now and then your man of wit
Will condescend to take a bit.

Cadenus and Vanessa,

And, by way of variety, he will sometimes take flapdoodle, which is the same thing spelt differently, for the syllable flap is derived from a root denoting the act of stroking, and doodle is another word for a fool. The word is used only humorously.

"The gentleman has eaten no small quantity of flapdoodle in his lifetime." "What's that?" "It's the stuff they feed fools on."—Marry At: Peter Simple, chap, xxviii.

Flapdoodle, they call it, what fools are led on.—T. Hughes: Tom Brown at Qjtfmrd, ch. xii.

Flapdoodle or Fopdoodle is also used to designate a foolish or contemptible fellow:

Where sturdy butchers broke your noddle
And handled you like a fopdoodle.

Butlbr: Hudibras.

Flat-footed, an Americanism for firm, downright, direct, firmly resolved, uncompromising, the metaphorical meaning being to set one's foot down flat or firmly. "The significance of this word in America," says R. A. Proctor, very truly, "is very different from that of the French word pUd-plat, identical though the words may be in their primary meaning. A French pkd-plain a contemptible fellow; but an American Hat-foot is a man who stands firmly for his party. When General Grant said he had 'put his foot down,' and meant to advance in that line if it took him all summer, he conveyed the American meaning of the expression flat-footed." (Americanisms: Knowledge% June I, 1887.)

Flea in his ear, a popular expression for disconcerted, rebuffed, used in such phrases as '«I sent him away with a flea in his ear," or "he went away with a flea in his ear." It is no modern slang, for it may be found in John Fletcher* "Love's Cure," Act iii., Sc. 3 ; in Rabelais's " Pantagruel," Book iii., ch. vii. and xxxi. (1533); in Nash's •« Pierce Penniless" (1592), etc In France the expressions "avoir la puce a l'oreille" and "mettre la puce a 1'orcilk" are at least ** old as the fourteenth century (Littre\ s. v. Puce\ and corresponding expressions are to be found in Italian, Spanish, German, and probably other languages. The metaphor undoubtedly arose from the physical fact that fleas do sometimes penetrate into the porches of the ear,—a fact noticed by so ancient an authority as Celsus, who writes (vi. 7, § 59) when treating of the car, " Si pulex intus est, compellendum eo lanae paululum est; quo ipse is subit, et simul extrahitur."

Flesh, To go the way of all, a euphemism for "to die." It is evidently a variation from Joshua xxiii. 14 (or I. Kings ii. 2), "And behold, this day I am going the way of all the earth." The substitution of flesh for the earth does not occur in any version of the Bible. Its first appearance in English literature is possibly in Webster's "Westward Hoe," Act ii., Sc. 2 : " I saw him now going the way of all flesh." But the fact that it appears almost simultaneously in T. Heywood's "The Golden Age" (1611), ("Whether I had better go home by land, or by sea? If I go by land and miscarry, then I go the way of all flesh") seems to indicate a common proverbial origin.

Fleshly School of Poetry. In October, 1871, an article bearing this title was published in the Contemporary Review. It proved to be a bitter attack upon Swinburne, Rossetti, and William Morris, whom it classed together as leaders of a school of poetical debauchery which found in Arthur O'Shaughnessy, John Payne, Philip Bourke Marston, and others, its humbler satellites. Rossetti was the chief object of attack. *' Mr. Swinburne," in Mr. Maitland's opinion, "was wilder, more outrageous, more blasphemous, and his subjects were more atrocious in themselves; yet the hysterical tone slew the animalism, the furiousness of epithet lowered the sensation, and the first feeling of disgust at such themes as * Laus Veneris* and 'An actor i a* faded away into comic amazement. It was only a little mad boy letting off squibs; not a great strong man who might be really dangerous to society. * I will be naughty!* screamed the little boy; but, after all, what did it matter? It is quite different, however, when a grown man, with the self-control and easy audacity of actual experience, comes forward to chronicle his amorous sensations, and, first proclaiming in a loud voice his literary maturity and consequent responsibility, shamelessly prints and publishes such a piece of writing as his sonnet on Nuptial Sleep." Here is another gem of criticism: "We get very weary of this protracted hankering after a person of the other sex; it seems meat, drink, thought, sinew, religion, for the fleshly school. There is no limit to the fleshliness, and Mr. Rossetti finds in it its own religious justification. Whether he is writing of the holy Damozel, or of the Virgin herself, or of Lilith, or of Helen, or of Dante, or of Jenny the street-walker, he is fleshly all over, from the roots of his hair to the tips of his toes; never a true lover merging his identity into that of the beloved one ; never spiritual, never tender; always self-conscious and aesthetic." As to the imitators of Rossetti and Swinburne, what is really most droll and puzzling in the matter is that they really seem to have no difficulty whatever in writing nearly if not quite as well as their masters. "It is not bad imitations they offer us, but poems which read just like the originals; the fact being that it is easy to reproduce sound when it has no strict connection with sense, and simple enough to cull phraseology not hopelessly interwoven with thought and spirit. The fact that these gentlemen are so easily imitated is the most damning proof of their inferiority. What meiits they have lie with their faults on the surface, and can be caught by any young gentleman as easily as the measles, only they are rather more difficult to get rid of. All young gentlemen have animal faculties, though few have brains; and if animal faculties without brains will make poems, nothing is easier in the world."