The epithet bastard was, so to speak, incorporated with his name; and we cannot be astonished that it lived in history, for, in the height of his power, he sometimes accepted it proudly, calling himself, in several of his charters, William the Bastard (Gulielmus Notlzus).

For the epithet bear applied to Johnson see ante, ii. 66, 269, note i, and iv.

419)hence the origin of the French epithet coquard, which would be now expressed by the word dandy.

Yet the epithets dog and hound, are there set apart to express the uttermost contempt.

The contemporaries of Shakspeare, who for the most part had little comprehension of his unrivalled genius, expressed their sense of his personal qualities by the epithet gentle, which was generally applied to him,a word which meant rather more then than it does now, comprising sweetness, courtesy, and kindliness.

" Time having always the whip-hand, the advantage; but he now reverts to the other emendation; though, as he modestly hints, the epithet whip-hand (which he still regards with parental fondness) will perhaps be thought to have much of the manner of Shakespeare.

Our theologians forget that the objection applies equally to the possibility of the divine will; but if they reply that prescience applied to an eternal, 'Entis absoluti tota et simultanea fruitio', is but an anthropomorphism, or term of accommodation, the same answer serves in respect of the human will; for the epithet human does not enter into the syllogism.

The relation of the tense is before the past, but the epithet pluperfect is not necessarily limited to this relation, any more than what is perfect is necessarily past.

But from the effect which a perusal of the tragedy here condemned had upon myself, and from the opinions of some eminent criticks, I venture to pronounce that it has much poetical merit; and its authour has distinguished himself by several performances which shew that the epithet poetaster was, in the present instance, much misapplied.

As for the epithet probabili, he 'never reflected upon it without almost a triumphant feeling in its felicity.'

We shall refer again to Seneca's wealth; but we may here admit that it was undoubtedly ungraceful and incongruous in a philosopher who was perpetually dwelling on the praises of poverty, and that even in his own age it attracted unfavourable notice, as we may see from the epithet Proedives, "the over-wealthy," which is applied to him alike by a satiric poet and by a grave historian.

If the whole force of the distinction which lies in that epithet prose be fairly appreciated, no one, we think, will dispute the compliment; for out of Shakspere it would be difficult to find characters so typical yet so nicely demarcated within the limits of their kind.

By later transcribers the epithet richo, so properly here bestowed on the Florentine noble, was changed into iudio (giudeo), and having been transferred in that shape into Sanuto, has formed the groundwork of a serious error, which has now existed for more than three centuries and a half.

She was always the lady, notwithstanding her dialect, and to none could the epithet vulgar be less appropriately applied.