"Fourscore" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at the waaste: theer warn't not fead for a cow: Nowt at all but bracken an' fuzz, an' looak at it now— Warn't worth nowt a haacre, an' now theer's lots o' fead, Fourscore yows upon it an' some on ...
— Enoch Arden, &c. • Alfred Tennyson
... made of Mr. Caskie, the dreaded school-master of the long ago, caused a momentary commotion in the audience, and immediately a man of white hairs and bowed by the weight of more than fourscore years, was lifted to the front of the platform. With arm about my neck, he earnestly inquired: "Adlai, I came twenty miles to hear you speak; don't you remember me?" The audience apparently appreciated the instant reply: "Yes, Mr. Caskie, I still have a ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... Most men of "fourscore and upwards," like Lear, and who, like Lear, have been "mightily abused" in their day, are found, upon diligent inquiry, to have long outlived themselves, like the Archbishop of Granada; but here is a man, or was but the other day, in his eighty-second year, with the temper and edge and "bright ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... with rigour hot Came bravely on the other side, Soon he drove down his fore-mast tree, And killed fourscore men beside. Now, out alas! Sir Andrew cried, What may a man now think, or say? Yonder merchant thief, that pierceth me, ...
— The Book of Brave Old Ballads • Unknown
... the distance of fourscore miles from the Persian Gulf, the Euphrates and Tigris unite in a broad and direct current. In the midway, between the junction and the mouth of these famous streams, the new settlement of Bussorah was planted on the ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... having in reversion above fifty thousand crowns yearly revenue, died necessitous and overwhelmed with debt at above fifty years of age; his mother in her extremest decrepitude being yet in possession of all his property by the will of his father, who had, for his part, lived till near fourscore years old. This appears to me by no means reasonable. And therefore I think it of very little advantage to a man, whose affairs are well enough, to seek a wife who encumbers his estate with a very great fortune; there ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... Walter Ewbank. He had as white a head and fresh a cheek As ever were produc'd by youth and age Engendering in the blood of hale fourscore. For five long generations had the heart Of Walter's forefathers o'erflow'd the bounds Of their inheritance, that single cottage, You see it yonder, and those few green fields. They toil'd and wrought, and still, from sire to son, Each struggled, and each yielded as before A little—yet a ...
— Lyrical Ballads with Other Poems, 1800, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... the presence of book-plates—quite a pretty collection at times—on the shelves of men who possess no such toys of their own? When I was a girl I had access to a small and well-chosen library (not greatly exceeding Montaigne's fourscore volumes), each book enriched with an appropriate device of scaly dragon guarding the apples of Hesperides. Beneath the dragon was the motto (Johnsonian in form if not in substance), "Honour and Obligation demand the prompt ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... German families, consisting of about fifty persons, arrived, April 17th, in Virginia, and were therein settled near the Rappahannock river. That in 1717, seventeen Protestant German families, consisting of about fourscore persons, came and set down near their countrymen. And many more, both German and Swiss families, are likely to ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... does not exceed two hundred thousand crowns; and that Rome produces not only the most learned men, but also the most refined politicians in the universe. To one of them talking in this strain, I replied, that instead of three hundred palaces, the number did not exceed fourscore; that I had been informed, on good authority, there were not six individuals in Rome who had so much as forty thousand crowns a year, about ten thousand pounds sterling; and that to say their princes ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... kettle to sing by our hob. Warm her old stomach with nut-brown ale and a toast laid in the fire. Be kind to the poor old school-girl of ninety, who has had leave to come out for a day of Christmas holiday. Shall there be many more Christmases for thee? Think of the ninety she has seen already; the fourscore and ten cold, cheerless, ...
— Some Roundabout Papers • W. M. Thackeray
... thirty five thousand Years, and the most abandon'd Egyptian has never been as yet so impious as to gain-say it. Ay, Sir, an hundred thirty five thousand Years, say you, surely you must be out a little in your Calculation. 'Tis but about fourscore thousand Years, since India was first inhabited. Sure I am, we are a more antient People than you are, and our Brama prohibited the eating of Beef long before your Nation ever erected an Altar in Honour of the Ox, or ever put one upon a Spit. ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire
... Jehonadab the son of Rechab, into the house of Baal, and said unto the worshippers of Baal, Search, and look that there be here with you none of the servants of the Lord, but the worshippers of Baal only. 24. And when they went in to offer sacrifices and burnt offerings, Jehu appointed fourscore men without, and said, If any of the men whom I have brought into your hands escape, he that letteth him go, his life shall be for the life of him. 25. And it came to pass, as soon as he had made an end of offering the burnt offering, that Jehu said to the guard and to the captains, Go in, and slay ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... thirty thousand men. And he sent them to Lebanon, ten thousand a month by courses: a month they were in Lebanon, and two months at home: and Adoniram was over the levy. And Solomon had three score and ten thousand that bare burdens, and fourscore thousand hewers in the mountains beside the chief of Solomon's officers which were over the work, three thousand and three-hundred, which ruled over the people that wrought in the work. And the king commanded and they brought great stones, costly stones, ...
— The Dore Gallery of Bible Illustrations, Complete • Anonymous
... seeing a hobby-horse near, caught him and jumped on. He launched into a treatise upon the vitality of human beings, and proved that it is the mind which keeps the body of a man alive for so great a length of time as fourscore years; for that he had in the earlier part of his studies carefully dissected a multitude of animals,—frogs, rabbits, dogs, men, horses, sheep, squirrels, foxes, cats, etc.,—and discovered no peculiarity in man's organs to account for ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... where I was present, that in France as soon as a man of fashion marries, he takes an opera girl into keeping; and this he mentioned as a general custom. 'Pray, Sir, (said I,) how many opera girls may there be?' He answered, 'About fourscore.' Well then, Sir, (said I,) you see there can be no more than fourscore men of ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... certain thoughts in the soul? Whence comes it that the thoughts of the soul, so suddenly and so infallibly, occasion certain motions in the body? Whence proceeds so regular a society, for seventy or fourscore years, without any interruption? How comes it to pass that this union of two beings, and two operations, so very different, make up so exact a compound, that many are tempted to believe it to be a simple and indivisible whole? What hand had the skill to unite and tie together ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon
... warm smell of blistering varnish brought to Governour's Lane the first tokens of returning summer, might have been seen sexagenarians and septuagenarians, and some so strong that they had come to fourscore years, standing paint-pot and paint-brush in hand, while they gave a new coat to the woodwork ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... not, Time and Space so intervene, Whether, still waiting with a trust serene, Thou bearest up thy fourscore years and ten, Or, called at last, art now Heaven's citizen; But, here or there, a pleasant thought of thee, Like an old friend, all day has been with me. The shy, still boy, for whom thy kindly hand Smoothed his hard pathway to the wonder-land Of ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... heard, as of forty cannon discharged together, and again repeated at about eight minutes distance. This alarmed and raised all the neighbourhood; who, coming into their Honours' rooms, gathered up the great stones, fourscore in number, and laid them in the corner of a field, where, in Dr. Plot's time, who reported this story, they were to be seen. This noise, like the discharge of cannon, was heard through all the country for sixteen miles round. During these ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... himself in the den of the angry lion. But Louis persisted, despite the persuasions of his councillors, sent to Charles for a letter of safe-conduct, and under its assurance sought the Duke of Burgundy in his fortified town of Peronne, having with him as escort only fourscore of his ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... He fourscore thousand of his Nubian power, One hundred and two footmen, in a day To horsemen changes, who wide Afric scour, And, upon every side, sack, burn, and slay. Agramant had intrusted town and tower, Till his return, to king Branzardo's ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... faith," said Robin, "thou art a right saucy varlet, sirrah; yet I will stoop to thee as I never stooped to man before. Good Stutely, cut thou a fair white piece of bark four fingers in breadth, and set it fourscore yards distant on yonder oak. Now, stranger, hit that fairly with a gray goose shaft ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... young people off the premises when I began my notes referring to old age. I must be equally fair with old people now. They are earnestly requested to leave this paper to young persons from the age of twelve to that of fourscore years and ten, at which latter period of life I am sure that I shall have at least one youthful reader. You know well enough what I mean by youth and age;—something in the soul, which has no more to do with the color of the hair than the vein of gold ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... thei to be also betwen the Drumme and the Ansigne: this is thorder, with the whiche I would dispose a maine battaile, whiche should bee the disposyng of halfe the armie, and it should take in breadth three hundred fourscore and twoo yardes, and in length as moche as above is saied, not accomptyng the space, that thesame parte of the extraordinarie Pikes will take, whiche muste make a defence for the unarmed, whiche will bee aboute lxxv. yardes: ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... years. Sennacherib's army, of nearly two hundred thousand men, was almost totally destroyed in one night. "The angel of the Lord went forth," says the contemporary writer, Isaiah, "and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and fourscore and five thousand; and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses" (Isa. xxxvii. 36). Whatever the agency employed in this remarkable destruction—whether it was caused by a simoon, or a pestilence, or by a direct visitation of the Almighty, ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... order to appease Hardicanute, (whose brother he had been instrumental in murdering,) made him a magnificent present of a galley with a gilt stern, rowed by fourscore men, who wore each of them a golden bracelet on his arm, weighing sixteen ounces, and were clothed and armed in the most sumptuous manner. Hardicanute pleased with the splendour of the spectacle, quickly forgot his brother's murder, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 383, August 1, 1829 • Various
... eldest born, is gone, you say, little Anne, Ruddy and white, and strong on his legs, he looks like a man; He was only fourscore years, quite young, when he died; I ought to have gone before, but must ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... was reduced to poverty, or rather to actual beggary; for shortly before his death, when fourscore years old, he was permitted, by royal letters patent, to become a mendicant. This curious document is printed in Mr. Bolton Corney's Curiosities of Literature Illustrated, and ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 19, Saturday, March 9, 1850 • Various
... old and sad and poor, To our shame, not to his—so he lived on, Till man's allotted fourscore years were gone, And scarcely then had leave ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... not close your eyes and see them—the mighty giant of fourscore, with his whitened locks, and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... big-bellied Ben, He ate more meat than fourscore men; He ate a cow, he ate a calf, He ate a butcher and a half; He ate a church, he ate a steeple, He ate the priest and all the people! A cow and a calf, An ox and a half, A church and a steeple, And all the good people, And yet he complained that his ...
— The Nursery Rhyme Book • Unknown
... city Sent up her tale of men; The foot are fourscore thousand, The horse are thousands ten. Before the gates of Sutrium Is met the great array. A proud man was Lars ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... not able to give the least attention to this compliment. The moment he cast his eyes on the forty trays, full of the most precious, brilliant, and beautiful jewels he had ever seen, and the fourscore slaves, who appeared by the elegance of their persons, and the richness and magnificence of their dress, like so many princes, he was so struck, that he could not recover from his admiration. Instead of answering ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... this,' says the Colonel, turnin' to Dan. 'At the age of seventeen, me an' eight or nine of my intimate brave comrades founds what we-all denom'nates as the "Chevy Chase Huntin' Club." Each of us maintains a passel of odds an' ends of dogs, an' at stated intervals we convenes on hosses, an' with these fourscore curs at our tails goes yellin' an' skally-hootin' up an' down the countryside allowin' we're shore a ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... Thriving," 1697, p. 8, are directions for preparing fourscore noble and wholesome dishes, upon most of which a man may live excellently well for two-pence a day; the author's Obs. on water gruel is, that "essence of oatmeal makes a noble and ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... and yet (it is conceived) are to be seen, thus sometime throwing stones, and sometime making thundering noise for two hours space it ceast, and all was quiet till the morn. After their rising, and the maid come in to make the fire, they looked about the rooms; they found fourscore stones brought in that night, and going to lay them together in the corner where the glass (before mentioned) had been swept up, they found that every piece of glass had been carried away that night. Many people came next day to see the stones, and all observed that they were not of such kind of ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... close to Ingolby's house she heard marching footsteps, and in the near distance she saw fourscore or more men tramping in military order. "Who are they?" she ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Hall Caine and Mr Anstey; Mrs Oliphant and Miss Edna Lyall. Not everybody can peruse all of these very diverse authors with pleasure. He began his poem on the Roman gladiatorial combats; indeed his years, fourscore and one, left his intellectual eagerness as unimpaired as that of Goethe. "A crooked share," he said to the Princess Louise, "may make a straight furrow." "One afternoon he had a long waltz with M- in the ballroom." ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... Moreover they that were come out of the captivity offered sacrifice unto the Lord God of Israel, even twelve bullocks for all Israel, fourscore and ...
— Deuteronomical Books of the Bible - Apocrypha • Anonymous
... and care's incumbent cloud, into that flow of thought and brightness of expression, which subjects so polite require;" yet is it more like the production of untamed, unbridled youth, than of jaded fourscore. Some sevenfold volumes put him in mind of Ovid's sevenfold channels of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... before the prophets of the world. Some seer he seemed, that came not from the crimson Past or the gray To-come, but from the pulsing Now,—that mocking world which seemed to me at once so light and dark, so splendid and sordid. Fourscore years had he wandered in this same world of mine, within ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... me great wealth, and soon after his death I married one of the richest men of Baghdad. At the end of a year he too died and I inherited from him fourscore thousand dinars, being my lawful share of his property; so that I became passing rich and the report of my wealth spread abroad, for I got me half a score suits of clothes, each worth a thousand dinars. One day, as I was sitting alone, there came in to me an old woman with sunken cheeks and worn ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... a' my warnin', Death? I'm fourscore year an' four, Yet niver a drogue has crossed my lips Nor a ...
— The Auld Doctor and other Poems and Songs in Scots • David Rorie
... sought to "magnify the law, and make it honorable." Faithfully did he accomplish the work given him of God, and glorious were the results which he was permitted to behold. At the close of his long life of more than fourscore years—above half a century spent in itinerant ministry—his avowed adherents numbered more than half a million souls. But the multitude that through his labors had been lifted from the ruin and degradation of sin to a higher and a purer life, and the number who by his teaching ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... through the new marks and shoals of once familiar ports. And as the storms subsided men perceived that everywhere the days were hotter than of yore, and the sun larger, and the moon, shrunk to a third of its former size, took now fourscore days ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... Coliseo, which would swallow that of pretty Verona; it is four times as large I am told, and would hold fourscore thousand spectators. After all the depredations of all the Goths, and afterwards of the Farnese family, the ruin is gloriously beautiful; possibly more beautiful than when it was quite whole; there is enough left now for Truth to repose upon, and a ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... Fourscore and five times has the gradual year Risen and fulfilled its days of youth and eld Since first the child's eyes opening first beheld Light, who now leaves behind to help us here Light shed from song as starlight from a sphere Serene as summer; song whose charm compelled ...
— Poems and Ballads (Third Series) - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... hours, without perceiving they made any offer to stir; when about two hours before night, they came down directly upon us; and, though we had not perceived it, we found they had been joined by some more of the same, so that they were near fourscore horse, whereof, however, we fancied some were women. They came in till they were within half a shot of our little wood, when we fired one musket without ball, and called to them in the Russian tongue, to know what they wanted, and bid them keep off; but, as if they knew nothing ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... Who with peculiar grace his station fill'd; By deeds of hospitality endear'd, Serv'd from affection, for his worth rever'd; A happy offspring blest his plenteous board, His fields were fruitful, and his harm well stor'd, And fourscore ewes he fed, a sturdy team, And lowing kine that grazed beside the stream: Unceasing industry he kept in view; And never lack'd a job ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield
... intention your lady should have a clear five hundred a year jointure out the estate afore any of my debts are paid.' 'Oh, please your honour,' says I, 'I can't expect to live to see that time, being now upwards of fourscore years of age, and you a young man, and likely to continue so, ...
— Castle Rackrent • Maria Edgeworth
... to moralize upon. In front, just on the edge of the unpaved sidewalk, grew the Pyncheon-elm, which, in reference to such trees as one usually meets with, might well be termed gigantic. It had been planted by a great-grandson of the first Pyncheon, and, though now fourscore years of age, or perhaps nearer a hundred, was still in its strong and broad maturity, throwing its shadow from side to side of the street, overtopping the seven gables, and sweeping the whole black roof with its pendent foliage. It gave beauty to the old edifice, ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... words rise mid wrath of the battle Into wrangle unheeded of clanging and rattle, And no man shall note then the gold on the sword When the runes have no meaning, the mouth-cry no word, When all mingled together, the war-sea of men Shall toss up the steel-spray round fourscore ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris
... sometime 't appears like a lord; sometime like a lawyer; sometime like a philosopher with two stones more than 's artificial one: he is very often like a knight; and, generally, in all shapes that man goes up and down in, from fourscore to thirteen, this spirit ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... Years past, lived on nothing but Chocolate and Biscuit. He sometimes indeed had a little Soop at Dinner, but never any Fish, Flesh, or other Victuals: He was, nevertheless, so vigorous and nimble, that at fourscore and five, he could get on horseback ...
— The Natural History of Chocolate • D. de Quelus
... themselves adherents of what was called "the New England way"; and a year later saw in London alone the rise of "fourscore congregations of several sectaries," as Bishop Hall scornfully tells us, "instructed by guides fit for them, cobblers, tailors, felt-makers, and such-like trash." But little religious weight however could be attributed as yet to the Congregational movement. ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... Ouranaquoy gained two advantages, for first he involved the English in a war with the people with whom they had entertained a friendship for twenty years, and in the next place gained time, while the English army were so employed, to enter twenty-five miles within their country, destroying fourscore whites and three hundred Indians and negroes. But this insult did not remain long unrevenged, for the troops in which Weaver served arriving immediately after from Europe, the army (who before they had done any considerable ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... an old man's memory every meager and jealous motive. An intricate and, of a necessity, a somewhat didactic argument, delivered in the open air, does not become the simplest of tasks in the hands of an old gentleman who has turned his back upon the fourscore mark. He was brave and he was most obliging to undertake a speech of any character, and now his payment seems to be in ...
— The Onlooker, Volume 1, Part 2 • Various
... unfrequently remaining up twenty hours out of the twenty-four, and the daily use of cold shower baths, winter and summer,—these contradictions to the usual habits of men, when their age approaches to fourscore, bespeak no ordinary carelessness of ease, and a singular determination of purpose. Well, indeed, has he been named the ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
... the public, who presently distinguish him with a most amusing respect: and this lets us into the secret, that the venerable forms that so awed our childhood were just such impostors. Nature is full of freaks, and now puts an old head on young shoulders, and then a young heart beating under fourscore winters. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... cloistral quiet and piety, from the old Irish gardener with whom I spent a large part of my happier days, the days from seven to seventeen. Lawrence lost his life doing a "retreat" morning after morning on the cold stone floor of a Vincentian church, not in any sudden repentance at fourscore and three for the sins of his youth for they had been fewer than those of almost all I know, but in the usual way of his austere life. Yet Lawrence was just as much himself when he was telling me stories of Dean Swift that were full of malice and ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... hand of Colonel Burr, and who, when she heard of his union with another, wrung her hands and shed tears! A feeling of that nature can seldom, since the creation of man, have been excited by the marriage of a man on the verge of fourscore. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... seemed to destine him to a station second to none among the public characters of his time; and if, instead of being cut off by the hand of violence in the morning of life, he had been permitted to attain a length of days at all approaching to the fourscore years of his father, it is probable that the votary of letters would have been lost to us in the statesman or the soldier. Queen Mary, who sought by her favor and confidence to revive the almost extinguished energies of his father, ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... bent their bows, Their hearts were good and true. At the first flight of arrows sent, Full fourscore Scots they slew. ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... Kendall (Carver), Mr. Martyn (Ranger of the Forests), and Mr. Stradling (Sewer). Besides these eighteen Placemen, Pallaphilos had many other mock officers, whose names are not recorded, and he was attended by a body-guard of fourscore ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... with us, also Colonel Russell. What a man for fourscore or thereby is Old Haly—an Indian too. He ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are ...
— Our Holidays - Their Meaning and Spirit; retold from St. Nicholas • Various
... now hath every city Sent up her tale[3-5] of men: The foot are fourscore thousand, The horse are thousand ten. Before the gates of Sutrium[3-6] Is met the great array. A proud man was Lars Porsena ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... France and Germany each sent out six expeditions; twenty-six stations were in Russian, twelve in English, eight in American, three in Italian, one in Dutch occupation. In all, at a cost of nearly a quarter of a million, some fourscore distinct posts of observation were provided; among them such inhospitable, and all but inaccessible rocks in the bleak Southern Ocean, as St. Paul's and Campbell Islands, swept by hurricanes, and fitted only for the habitation of seabirds, where the daring votaries of science, in the ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... Kekataugh, having received some kindness of me at the Fort, kindly invited me to feast at his house, the people from all places flocked to see me, each shewing to content me. By this the great King hath foure or five houses, each containing fourscore or an hundred foote in length, pleasantly seated upon an high sandy hill, from whence you may see westerly a goodly low country, the river before the which his crooked course causeth many great Marshes of exceeding good ground. An hundred houses, and many large plaines are here together inhabited, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... myght, Slew Jack Straw in Kyng Richard's sight. For which act done, and trew entent, The Kyng made him knyght incontinent And gave him armes, as here you see, To declare his fact and chivaldrie. He left this lyff the yere of our God Thirteen hundred fourscore and three odd. ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... said, They commonly acted like mortals, till about thirty years old, after which, by degrees, they grew melancholy and dejected, increasing in both till they came to fourscore. This he learned from their own confession: for otherwise there not being above two or three of that species born in an age, they were too few to form a general observation by. When they came to fourscore years, which is reckoned the extremity of ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Johnson said, she could not conceal her resentment at him, for saying to Young, that 'an old man should not resign himself to the management of any body.' I asked him, if there was any improper connection between them. 'No, sir, no more than between two statues. He was past fourscore, and she a very coarse woman. She read to him, and, I suppose, made his coffee, and frothed his chocolate, and did such things as an old man wishes to have ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... king, worn out with age and the fatigues of government, he being more than fourscore years old, determined to take no further part in state affairs, but to leave the management to younger strengths, that he might have time to prepare for death, which must at no long period ensue. With this intent he called his three daughters to him, to know from their own lips which of them ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... and when she was honourably pensioned and retired, she used to boast, in her prim way, that she was not unacquainted with the airs and graces of the higher powers. She must at least have reached the age of fourscore when on one occasion she had lingered at my mother's house until darkness fell. The cottage she lived in was a mile away and was approached by a somewhat lonely road. My brother Tom, at that time a stalwart lad of eighteen, was suggested to her as an escort. ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... in front of the troop. He was well advanced in years—at least fourscore, as I afterwards learned—but he sat erect in his saddle, and his ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx
... of him so His good old thoughts employin; Fourscore years and one ago Beside the ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... continued old Betty, caressing the child, and rather mourning over it than speaking to it, 'your old Granny Betty is nigher fourscore year than threescore and ten. She never begged nor had a penny of the Union money in all her life. She paid scot and she paid lot when she had money to pay; she worked when she could, and she starved when she must. You pray that your Granny ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... book-print, Not to one scene its hero stint; But, in the distance, take occasion To draw him in some other station. Here this prepost'rous union seems A kind of meeting of extremes. Ye may not live together. Mean ye To pass that gulf that lies between ye Of fourscore years, as we skip ages In turning o'er historic pages? Thou dost not to this age belong: Thou art three generations wrong: Old Time has miss'd thee: there he tarries! Go on to thy contemporaries! Give the child up. To see thee kiss him Is a compleat anachronism. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Gomorrah, and other guilty cities; one angel smote the first-born, and rolled away the great stone from the mouth of the tomb. One angel had power to lay hold of that old dragon, the devil (Rev. 20:2, 10); one angel smote a hundred and fourscore and five thousand Assyrians (Isa. 37:36). Their power is delegated; they are the angels of His might (2 Thess. 1:7), the ministers through whom God's might is manifested. They are mighty, ...
— The Great Doctrines of the Bible • Rev. William Evans
... of such a long-lived stock, and lived himself to be fourscore, suffered much physical trouble during his life. On account of a wound which he had received when he was a youth, some of the bones of his skull had to be removed, and from this time forth he never dared to remain long with his head uncovered. When he was fifty-nine he swallowed a certain ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... fit only to be huddled into its dishonorable grave. But the wrecks of precious virtues, which had been covered with the waves of prosperity, came up also. And all sorts of unexpected and unheard-of things, which had lain unseen during our national life of fourscore years, came up and are coming up daily, shaken from their bed by the concussions of ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Manifesto rang through the civilized world. In all lands it was hailed as the end of despotism and the triumph of democracy and freedom. The joy of the Russian people was unbounded. At last, after fourscore years of heroic struggle and sacrifice by countless heroes, named and nameless, the goal of freedom was attained. Men, women, and children sang in the streets to express their joy. Red flags were displayed everywhere and solemnly saluted by the officers and men of the Czar's army. ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... father and five other men in the boat, and have not heard one word of English spoke in the boat for a week together. I never saw a Cornish book. I learned Cornish going to sea with old men. There is not more than four or five in our town can talk Cornish now,—old people fourscore years old. Cornish is all forgot ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... a boon? If so, it must befall That Death, whene'er he call, Must call too soon. Though fourscore years he give, Yet one would pray to live Another moon! What kind of plaint have I, Who perish in July, who perish in July? I might have had to die, Perchance, in June! I might have had ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... That strong man chose fourscore Spaniards, armed them and departed. By boat and through thick forest he reached Quibian's village, descended upon it like a hurricane and seized Quibian, much as long ago—long, long ago it seemed to us—Alonso ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... strength, books also increase his manhood and multiply his brain forces. With them, a man of fourscore years ends his career wiser than, without them, he could have been, though he had lived and wrought through ten thousand summers and winters. This is what Emerson means when he says, "Give me a book, health and a June day, and I will make the pomp of kings ridiculous." When ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... the Portuguese had been continued for nearly fourscore years before any of their neighbours seem to have entertained the most distant idea of engaging in foreign discoveries, even viewing their endeavours as downright knight-errantry, proceeding from a distempered imagination, as well in the first ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... afterwards bound Apprentice to a Waterman of London, a Laborious Trade: and yet though it be said, that Ease is the Nurse of Poetry, yet did he not only follow his Calling, but also plyed his Writings, which in time produced above fourscore Books, which I have seen; besides several others unknown to me; some of which were dedicated to King James, and King Charles the First, and by them well accepted, considering the meanness of his Education to produce ...
— The Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687) • William Winstanley
... Lincoln green who answered Robin Hood's horn meant them no harm, but despoiled the oppressor to relieve the oppressed, they 'gan to have great liking for them. And the band increased by other stout hearts till by the end of the summer fourscore good men ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... Behind the chancel of the parish church of Daylesford, in earth which already held the bones of many chiefs of the House of Hastings, was laid the coffin of the greatest man who has ever borne that ancient and widely extended name. On that very spot probably, fourscore years before, the little Warren, meanly clad and scantily fed, had played with the children of ploughmen. Even then his young mind had revolved plans which might be called romantic. Yet, however romantic, it is not likely that they had been ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... revenged its finder. If Musa had lied in this case, he had lied in all. So held the angry caliph, who turned upon him with bitter abuse, calling him thief and liar, and swearing by Allah that he would crucify him. In the end he ordered the old man, fourscore years of age, corpulent and asthmatic, to be exposed to the fierce sun of Syria for a whole summer's day, and bade his brother Omar to see that ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... confines of Thuringia. The Thuringians served in the army of Attila: they traversed, both in their march and in their return, the territories of the Franks; and it was perhaps in this war that they exercised the cruelties which, about fourscore years afterward, were revenged by the son of Clovis. They massacred their hostages, as well as their captives: two hundred young maidens were tortured with exquisite and unrelenting rage; their bodies were torn asunder by wild horses or their bones were crushed under the weight of rolling wagons, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... not mock me: I am a very foolish fond old man, Fourscore and upward; Not an hour more, nor less: and, to deal plainly, I fear, I am not in my perfect mind. Methinks, I shou'd know you, and know this man; Yet I am doubtful: for I am mainly ignorant What place this ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... first glance, I thought I had before me some Indian hieroglyphics; but bringing back from the place of its long obscurity the little knowledge of the French language that I held in possession, I deciphered, that, "fourscore years before, beside the froth of the Huron Water, Father Kino had performed the marriage-rite upon Luella, daughter of Uncas, of the Dacotahs, and Richard Monten, of Montreal." Below the certificate of the priest of the Church were strange characters beyond ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... Boone, had preceded his father in his emigration to the Upper Louisiana, as it was then called, and had taken up his residence in the Femme Osage settlement. He became a man of influence and comparative wealth, and attained the advanced age of fourscore. Jesse, the fourth son, also emigrated to Upper Louisiana about the year 1806, where he died a few years after. The youngest son, Nathan, whose privilege it was to close his father's eyes in death, had found ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... making ready to land he looked towards the shore, and there came down some fourscore of the men of Colonsay. Fair-haired sons of the North they were, all well armed and ready to resist the strangers with a shower of their swift arrows. Then Kenric knew that there was to be no chance of a peaceful ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... Well, all is worthy of us, were it more, Who with our riots, pride, and civil hate, Have so provok'd the justice of the gods: We, that, within these fourscore years, were born Free, equal lords of the triumphed world, And knew no masters, but affections; To which betraying first our liberties, We since became the slaves to one man's lusts; And now to many: every minist'ring spy That will accuse and swear, is ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... duties that can be delegated to man, had made a quick journey to Fredericksburg, the residence of his mother, to bid her, what both of them considered, and what proved to be, a final adieu. She was then about fourscore years of age, and suffering from an acute and incurable malady. Their meeting was tender, and their parting peculiarly touching. "The people, madam," said Washington to his mother, "have been pleased, with the most flattering unanimity, ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... father:—"It was his painful lot to follow to the grave his only remaining son, in the forty-fourth year of his age, a man of much ability and reputation, worthy to have supported the honour of his name. Notwithstanding these repeated sorrows, and the weight of nearly fourscore years, Evelyn still enjoyed uninterrupted health, and unimpaired faculties; he enjoyed also the friendship of the wise and the good, and the general esteem beyond any ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... the very western edge of fourscore years, ended this long and industrious, this peaceful and beautiful life. In our land of busy and constant action there have been few like it,—surely none happier. Serene at the close as it was placid ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... them hanging across from one tree to another, and in a manner fenced us in. About two hours before night they came down directly upon us; and though we had not perceived it, we found they had been joined by some more, so that they were near fourscore horse; whereof, however, we fancied some were women. They came on till they were within half-shot of our little wood, when we fired one musket without ball, and called to them in the Russian tongue ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... sufferings, we are told, must have been greatly lightened about the time of St. Louis, who forbade private wars among the nobles. My own opinion is quite the reverse. During the fourscore or hundred years that elapsed between his prohibition and the wars with England (1240-1340), the great lords being debarred from the accustomed sport of burning and plundering their neighbours' lands, became ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... began now, like a true orator, to rouse other passions to its assistance. "My lord," says she, in a graver voice, "you will be pleased to remember, you mentioned this matter to me first; for I would not appear to you in the light of one who is endeavouring to put off my cousin upon you. Fourscore thousand pounds do not stand in need of an advocate to recommend them." "Nor doth Miss Western," said he, "require any recommendation from her fortune; for, in my opinion, no woman ever had half her charms." "Yes, yes, my lord," replied the lady, looking in the ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... buried in the chapter-house of the Priory, where Dr. Stukely discovered the stone already named, to his memory. "By a general survey taken at the death of Robert, it appears that he was in possession of fourscore lordships: many of which, by uninterrupted succession, continue still to be the property of the Duke of Rutland. In Lincolnshire his domains were still more numerous. In Northamptonshire he had nine lordships; one of which, Stoke, acquired the additional name of Albini, when it came ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 564, September 1, 1832 • Various
... what is best, and He has a reason for keeping us on earth," answered the dame. "He has kept me well-nigh fourscore years, and given me health and strength, and good courage to bear whatever I have had to bear, and He will give you strength, Nelly, according ...
— Michael Penguyne - Fisher Life on the Cornish Coast • William H. G. Kingston
... fell on the ground, and let fall the Host from his hands. I shall never forget how the earth shook; it made us all sick; and the houses and walls reeled like drunkards. Since that happened I have seen fourscore years pass by me, yet I was older ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... Charles: he has a fine estate in Leicestershire." "Mortgaged for half its value," said his lordship. "A large personal property!" "All gone in annuity bills," said the Exquisite. "A rich uncle upwards of fourscore!" "He'll cut him off with a shilling," ...
— English Satires • Various
... which brings in a great revenue. For it produces every year, in round numbers, fourscore tomans of gold; and the toman is worth 70,000 saggi of gold, so that the total value of the fourscore tomans will be five millions and six hundred thousand saggi of gold, each saggio being worth more than a gold florin or ducat; in sooth, a vast sum of money! [This province, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... love beauty, in all its forms, and above all, moral beauty, and God, the infinite perfection of moral beauty,—no, this mind can never die. Its moral progress must go on in an unending existence, of which its life of fourscore years on earth is scarce the childhood. Let us beware then of raising these objects of ambition, wealth, learning, honor, and influence, worthy though they be, into an undue importance; nor in the too ardent pursuit of what are only means, lose sight of the ...
— An Essay on Professional Ethics - Second Edition • George Sharswood
... competition arose amongst a host of claimants, for the estate and honours of that ancient House. After a most protracted and severe litigation, which forms one of the Causes Celebres in the law-books of Scotland, Sir James Norcliffe Innes was preferred. When approaching fourscore, he was installed Duke of Roxburghe, and put on a coronet at an age, long before which most part of mankind have put on their shrouds. He put it on—ay, and for many years wore it stout and stark—nobly, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... of the frontiersman was, he could not have discerned that the procedure by which he executed the most formidable operation in surgery came so near perfection that it would successfully challenge improvement for more than fourscore years. ...
— Pioneer Surgery in Kentucky - A Sketch • David W. Yandell
... desire, I gave thee such counsel as I thought apt to enable thee to have my life and not lose thine own; and therefore I tell thee once more and pray thee, an it please thee, take it and satisfy thyself thereof. I know not how I may better bestow it. These fourscore years have I occupied it and used it about my pleasures and my diversions, and I know that in the course of nature, according as it fareth with other men and with things in general, it can now be left me but a little while longer; wherefore I hold it far ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... my Mother, on whose knee I learnt love-lore that is not troublesome; Whose service is my special dignity, And she my loadstar while I go and come. And so because you love me, and because I love you, Mother, I have woven a wreath Of rhymes wherewith to crown your honored name: In you not fourscore years can dim the flame Of love, whose blessed glow transcends the laws Of time and change and mortal life ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... still erect, a column in a scene of ruins. At a distance from the sea, forgotten by the emperors, encompassed on all sides by the Turks, her valiant citizens defended their religion and their freedom above fourscore years, and at length capitulated with the proudest of the Ottomans." Philadelphia is still the seat of an archbishop, and contains from six hundred to seven hundred Greek houses, and several places of Christian worship. "The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations," ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss
... Late in the afternoon fourscore of these youthful devotees swing out along the Rue St. Jean to the Ste. Foye road for recreation. They go in orderly rows, from the youngest and smallest back to the two priests, in black soutanes and broad-brimmed hats, who bring up the rear. Regimes ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... There have been several Arabian poets of the name of Nabegat. The author of these verses was descended from the family of Jaid. As he died in the fortieth year of the Hegira, aged one hundred and twenty, he must have been fourscore at the promulgation of Islamism; he, however, declared himself an early convert ...
— Oriental Literature - The Literature of Arabia • Anonymous
... knighthood, for its diet, all the term- time, and tell tales for it in the vacation to the hostess; or it knighthood shall do worse, take sanctuary in Cole-harbour, and fast. It shall fright all its friends with borrowing letters; and when one of the fourscore hath brought it knighthood ten shillings, it knighthood shall go to the Cranes, or the Bear at the Bridge-foot, and be drunk in fear: it shall not have money to discharge one tavern-reckoning, to invite the old creditors to forbear it knighthood, or the new, that should be, to trust ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson
... that endless ocean of ice, one wonders if one has one's self ever attempted anything heroic. But Uncle Rube thought only of one thing that morning—of foiling his arch enemy on the Red Island Shoals; and though nearly fourscore years had passed over him, he felt like a lad of twenty as he strode rapidly along towards ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... great deeds of great men live on and on, through all time, and it is a joy to know that though the fourscore and nine years of the life of this artist had much of care and sorrow in them, his name and memory are still cherished, and must continue to be, while from his life many lessons may be drawn to benefit and encourage others—lessons which we cannot here write out; but they teach patience, industry, ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement
... Bank of England by passing forged notes, and I did my best to assist him. We attended races and fairs in all kinds of disguises; my father was a first-rate hand at a disguise, and could appear of all ages from twenty to fourscore; he was, however, grabbed at last. He had said, as I have told you, that he should be my ruin, but I was the cause of his, and all owing to the misfortune of this here eye of mine. We came to this very place of Horncastle, where my father purchased two ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... however, had no inclination for trade, the summit of his ambition was to be a country gentleman, to found a family, and to pass the remainder of his days in rural ease and dignity, and all this he managed to accomplish; he disposed of his business, purchased a beautiful and extensive estate for fourscore thousand pounds, built upon it the mansion to which I had the honour of welcoming you to-day, married the daughter of a neighbouring squire, who brought him a fortune of five thousand pounds, became a magistrate, and only wanted a son and ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... consumed to ashes. There were two or three executions soon after, but of a more moderate kind. Yet I hope I need not tell you, that I shall never attend another; and would feign have made my escape from this, but it was impossible.—Here, too, I saw upwards of fourscore criminals linked together, by one long chain, and so they were to continue till they arrived in the galleys at Marseilles. Now I am sure you will be, as I was, astonished to think, an old woman, the mother of the executioner, should willingly assist in a business ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... but the idea of the castle grew in Aunt Marcia's brain. Towns and villages were spreading up the river, and one day she was offered what seemed a fabulous sum for her old home of rocky woodlands. She was still shrewd, if she had come to fourscore, and offered them half, on her own terms, holding off with the most provoking indifference until they came to an agreement. Then she announced her intention of building a home for Floyd, who was to ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... a prophetess, daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of great age, and had lived with a husband seven years from her virginity; (37)and she was a widow of about fourscore and four years, who departed not from the temple, serving day and night with fastings and prayers. (38)And she, coming up at that very time, likewise gave thanks to the Lord, and spoke of him to all that were looking for the redemption ...
— The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. • Various
... going to give up her efforts in behalf of that for which she had struggled so long, and concluded: "I am grateful to this association; I am grateful to you all, and to the world, for the great kindness which has been mine. To-morrow I will have finished fourscore years. I have lived to rise from the most despised and hated woman in all the world of fifty years ago, until now it seems as if I am loved by you all. If this is true, ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... the foreign trade of the Franks and Armenians. Philadelphia alone has been saved by prophecy or courage. At a distance from the sea, forgotten by the emperors, encompassed on all sides by the Turks, her valiant sons defended their religion and freedom above fourscore years, and at length capitulated with the proudest of the Ottomans. Among the Greek colonies of Asia, Philadelphia is still erect—a column in a scene of ruins—a pleasing example that the path of honor and safety may sometimes be the same." Vol. ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... resembling an ill-shaped chariot, only with the door opening before, instead of the side; three horses draw it, one between the shafts, and the other two on each side, on one of which the postillion rides and drives, too. This vehicle will, upon occasion, go fourscore miles a day; but Mr. Walpole, being in no hurry, chooses to make easy journeys of it, and we go about six miles an hour. They are no very graceful steeds, but they go well, and through roads which they say are bad for France, but to me they seem gravel walks and bowling greens. In short, it would ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... of which he often spoke truth to his own knowledge, and sometimes in both, though of the same man. He lived to a hundred, never lost his eyesight, but always writ and read without spectacles, and got to horse without help. Until past fourscore he rode to the death of a stag as ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... full oft, indeed of late I have sat up on purpose all the night,[bn][153] Which hastens, as physicians say, one's fate; And so all ye, who would be in the right In health and purse, begin your day to date From daybreak, and when coffined at fourscore, Engrave upon the plate, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... length would be a matter of remark, and point me out at once as being an Englishman, seeing that the French archers carry no bows of such length; so I have, even as you see, wrapped it round with straw, and fastened it to the saddle beneath my leg. I have also put fourscore arrows among the valises ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... capture of Therouenne, we were besieged in Hesdin. There was a clear stream of running water within shot of our cannon, and about it were fourscore or an hundred of the enemy's rabble, drawing water. I was on a rampart watching the enemy pitch their camp; and, seeing the crowd of idlers round the stream, I asked M. du Pont, commissary of the artillery, to send one cannon-shot among this canaille: he gave me a flat refusal, saying ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... of honour lost; I and my discontents shall rest together, What hurt is there in this? But death against The will is but a slovenly kind of potion; And though prescribed by Heaven, it goes against men's stomachs. So does it at fourscore too, when the soul's Mewed up in narrow darkness: neither sees nor hears. Pish! 'tis mere fondness in our nature. A certain clownish cowardice that still Would stay at home and dares not venture Into foreign countries, though better than Its own. ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... confident, I saw several thousands in the street, and counted at least seventeen, who were upon their knees, and seemed in actual devotion. Eleven of them, indeed, appeared to be old women of about fourscore; the six others were men in advanced life, but (as I could guess) two of them ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... Without a sabbath's rest? (For in these times, All sanctity is scoff'd at by the great, And heaven's just wrath defy'd.) An honest master, Scarcely a month beyond his fiftieth year, (Heart-rent with trouble at these sad proceedings,) Wears to the eye a visage of fourscore: Nor ...
— The Female Gamester • Gorges Edmond Howard
... and substantial growth in the feeling for international responsibility and justice among the great civilized nations during the past threescore or fourscore years. There has been a real growth of recognition of the fact that moral turpitude is involved in the wronging of one nation by another, and that in most cases war is an evil method of settling international difficulties. ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... all the region round about followed the old man to his long home, all our public buildings hung their flags half-mast high, all our little world told queer stories of the dead old man. But our own hearts grew tender with thoughts of this life finished at fourscore years with its longing of almost half a century unfulfilled. "Philip Nolan" we often called the old man, who sometimes said to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... rights of human intelligence. Another might well have said of him what he magnanimously said of his famous contemporary, Montesquieu, that humanity had lost its title-deeds, and he had recovered them. The fourscore volumes which he wrote are the monument, as they were in some sort the instrument, of a new renaissance. They are the fruit and representation of a spirit of encyclopaedic curiosity and productiveness. Hardly a page of all these countless leaves ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... all mouth and eyes, with a great towzled mass of chestnut hair, which (off the stage) was as often as not half tumbled over her shoulder. But a quicker little baggage at mimicry (she would play any part, from an urchin of ten to a crone of fourscore), or a livelier at dancing of Brantles or the single Coranto never was, I do think, and as merry as a grig. Of Ned Herring I need only here say that he was the most tearing villain imaginable on the stage, and off it the most civil-spoken, honest-seeming ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... kissed the gardener's hand and said, "O my father, even as thou hast brought me glad tidings, so I also have great good news for thee,' and told him anent his discovery of the vault; whereat the gardener rejoiced and said, "O my son, fourscore years have I dwelt in this garden and have never hit on aught whilst thou, who hast not sojourned with me a year, hast discovered this thing; wherefore it is Heaven's gift to thee, which shall end thy crosses and aid thee to rejoin thy folk and foregather with her thou lovest." Quoth Kamar al-Zaman, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... I felt at reading that. I did not know how to contain my elevation of spirits. I thought myself one of the greatest geniuses in Europe. I thought I could write all sorts of books, and work at all handicraft trades. I imagined that I had fourscore millions of money out at interest, and that I should actually be chosen Pope at the next election. I obtest you, my friend, in the warmest spirit of love to return to her Ladyship my most sincere thanks, and tell her that when the planets ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... numerous body of Abyssins had posted themselves in a narrow pass with an intent to surround and destroy them; therefore, without long deliberation, I assembled my friends, both Portuguese and Abyssins, to the number of fourscore, and went to their rescue, carrying with me provisions and refreshments, of which I knew they were in great need. These glorious confessors I met as they were just entering the pass designed for the place of their destruction, and doubly ...
— A Voyage to Abyssinia • Jerome Lobo
... the fight lasted; it seemed short, we were so busy, and yet long, deadly long. It is no joke to have to defend one's life, and the lives of those one loves best, against fourscore bloodthirsty Spaniards, and that with only half a dozen rifles for arms, and a few palisades for shelter. When it was over we were so dog-tired that we fell down where we were, like overdriven oxen, and without minding the blood which lay like water on the ground. Seven ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... my mentioning, some months ago, the Marquis Moncada—a Spaniard of distinction and fourscore years, my summer neighbour at La Mira? Well, about six weeks ago, he fell in love with a Venetian girl of family, and no fortune or character; took her into his mansion; quarrelled with all his former friends for giving him advice (except ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... no blast he died, But fell like autumn-fruit that mellowed long; Even wondered at, because he dropt no sooner. Fate seemed to wind him up for fourscore years; Yet freshly ran he on ten winters more: Till, like a clock worn out with eating time, The wheels of weary ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... with these were boys that carried dishes of silver and gold. After these was brought the gold coin, which was divided into vessels that weighed three talents each, similar to those that contained the silver; they were in number fourscore, wanting three. These were followed by those that brought the consecrated bowl which Emil'ius caused to be made, that weighed ten talents, and was adorned with precious stones. Then were exposed to view the cups of Antig'onus and Seleu'cus, and such ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... pseudonym of "R. B." (later expanded to "Richard Burton"), published as early as 1688 (not 1706, as says the Dict. Nat. Biog.) The Kingdom of Darkness: or The History of Daemons, Specters, Witches, ... Containing near Fourscore memorable Relations, ... Together with a Preface obviating the common Objections and Allegations of the Sadduces [sic] and Atheists of the Age, ... with Pictures. Edward Stephens, first lawyer, then clergyman, but always a pamphleteer, brought out in 1693 A Collection of ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... of homeliness into the forum. The phrase "a great public character," once common, seems to be going out of fashion, perhaps because there are fewer examples of the thing. It fits Josiah Quincy exactly. Active in civic and academic duties till beyond the ordinary period of man, at fourscore and ten his pen, voice, and venerable presence were still efficient in public affairs. A score of years after the energies of even vigorous men are declining or spent, his mind and character made themselves felt as in their prime. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... absence peace was made betweene the french & the Iroquoits, which was the reason I stayed not long in a place. The yeare before, the French began a new plantation [Footnote: "Began a new plantation," at Onondaga.] in the upper Country of the Iroquoits, which is distant from the Low Iroquois Country som fourscore leagues, where I was prisoner, & been in the warrs of that country. I tooke great notice of it, as I mentioned in my formest voyage, which made me have mind to goe thither againe, by the reason ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson
... Shewing the line of life, and Venus mount, Nor yet no more would I of them account, Then what that tells me, since what that so ere Might promise man long life: of care and feare, By nature freed, a conscience cleare, and quiet, His health, his constitution, and his diet; 120 Counting a hundred, fourscore at the least, Propt vp by prayers, yet more to be encreast, All these should faile, and in his fiftieth yeare He should expire, henceforth let none be deare, To me at all, lest for my haplesse sake, Before their time heauen from the world them take, And leaue me wretched ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... equivocally. When Kant therefore was importuned to settle the disputes of his commentators himself, by declaring what he meant, how could he decline the honours of martyrdom with less offence, than by simply replying, "I meant what I said, and at the age of near fourscore, I have something else, and more important to do, than to write a commentary on my ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... blew into their faces, a sudden gust—no more, and these declared that some one was burning cedarwood there. Men had dreamed that there is a witch there, walking alone through the cold courts and corridors of marmorean palaces, fearfully beautiful and still for all her fourscore centuries, singing the second oldest song, which was taught her by the sea, shedding tears for loneliness from eyes that would madden armies, yet will she not call her dragons home—Carcassonne is terribly guarded. Sometimes she swims in a marble bath through whose deeps a river tumbles, ...
— A Dreamer's Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... soon as Aladdin's mother had retired, the sultan put an end to the audience; and rising from his throne ordered that the princess's attendants should come and carry the trays into their mistress's apartment, whither he went himself to examine them with her at his leisure. The fourscore slaves were conducted into the palace; and the sultan, telling the princess of their magnificent apparel, ordered them to be brought before her apartment, that she might see through the lattices he had not exaggerated in his ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... discharged a piece at me with two bullets of gold, each being in value worth eleven shillings white money; and I was creditably informed, that within the compass of one year, there was shipped away from that only port of Leith, fourscore thousand boles of wheat, oats, and barley into Spain, France, and other foreign parts, and every bole contains the measure of four English bushels, so that from Leith only hath been transported three hundred and twenty thousand bushels ...
— The Pennyles Pilgrimage - Or The Money-lesse Perambulation of John Taylor • John Taylor
... they and his comrades had plucked, and then his remains were borne to his native town, where burial-rites were again performed in the old church of Dorchester. Read his published journal, and find how a noble youth can live fourscore years in a little more than one score. One high privilege was accorded to him. He lived to hear of the immortal edict of the twenty-second of September, by which the freedom of his people was to be secured for all ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... was regretted by every one as a serious loss to the State, though he had attained very nearly to the age of fourscore. He had failed, from the entire want of social and sympathetic attributes in the composition of his nature, to fasten himself upon the affections of any one, though he commanded the respect of all for the high qualities of his intellect, his public services, and the ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... voice resounded: "O thou wicked man, son of a wicked man, and descendant of Nimrod the wicked, who incited the world to rebel against God! Behold, the days of the years of a man are threescore years and ten, or perhaps by reason of strength fourscore years. It takes five hundred years to traverse the distance of the earth from the first heaven, and as long a time to penetrate from the bottom to the top of the first heaven, and not less are the distances from one of the seven heavens ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... often stirred about with rosemary. He lived to be an hundred, and never lost his eyesight, nor used spectacles. He got on horseback without help, and rode to the death of the stag till he was past fourscore." Gilpin's Forest Scenery, vol. ii., pp. 23, 26. I should add, from the same authority, that Hastings was a neighbour of Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury, with whom (as was likely enough) he ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... I was not thinking so much of myself, Pastor—I've had my life: I'm two-and-fourscore this day; and if I am called on to lay it down for the Lord, it will only be a few months at the furthest that I have to give Him. It wouldn't take so much to kill me, neither. An old man dies ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... threatening through the rigging; the ship vibrated to the concussive voice of the minute-gun. No murmurs but those of wind and water were heard among the throng; they drove forward in awful, pallid silence. Suddenly the shriek of one voice, but from fourscore throats, rent the agonized quiet. A red light was running along the deck, a tongue of flame lapping round the forecastle, a spire shooting aloft. Marguerite hid her face in Mr. Raleigh's arm; a great sob seemed to go up from all the people. The ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... HIS fourscore years have bent a back of oak, His earth-brown cheeks are full of hollow pits; His gnarled hands wander idly as he sits Bending above the hearthstone's feeble smoke. Threescore and ten slow years he tilled the land; He wrung his bread from out the stubborn ...
— Silhouettes • Arthur Symons
... governments in fourscore years when Ferdinand Foch came to study in that old building which had once been the college of Navarre. Houses of cards rather than houses of permanence seemed ...
— Foch the Man - A Life of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Armies • Clara E. Laughlin
... loggerheads amongst three or fourscore hogsheads. I have sounded the very base-string of humility. Sirrah, I am sworn brother to a leash of drawers; and can call them all by their Christian names, as, Tom, Dick, and Francis. They take it already upon their salvation, that though ...
— King Henry IV, The First Part • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... in the family of sir Eowland de Boys. At the age of fourscore, he voluntarily accompanied his young master Orlando into exile, and offered to give him his little savings. He has given birth to the phrase, "A Faithful Adam" [or man-servant].—Shakespeare, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. |
