Mr. Craik suggests, also, that quick and wicked may be etymologically identical, because he fancies a relationship between busy and the German böse, though wicked is evidently the participial form of A.S. wacan, (German weichen,) to bend, to yield, meaning one who has given way to temptation, while quick seems as clearly related to wegan, meaning to move, a different word, even if radically the same.

Thus does it always happen that the wickedest of men are also the meanest, and therefore the most dastardly.

The half-wicked of the earth are the leaks through which wickedness is eventually swamped; compromises forerun absolute surrender in most matters, and fools and cowards are, in such cases, the instruments of Providence for their own defeat.

After all, is not the sawdust ring with its strange people, its giants, fairies, hobgoblins, and clowns, a fairy land, not really real, and therefore no more wicked than fairy land?

The laws of some States in relation to people of color are more wicked than others; and the spirit of persecution is not in every place equally active and malignant.

So fast, so cheery, so delightfully satirical, and as wicked as Sin!" Maud went home in the brougham by herself.