" "So are we like to be crushed 'twixt hammer and anvil," quoth Sir Hacon, tightening the lacing of his battered casque.

"In the struggle between Nationalities," writes Prince Bülow, in defence of his Polish policy, putting into a cruder form the philosophy of Wilamowitz, "one nation is the hammer and the other the anvil; one is the victor and the other the vanquished.

How all the ancient North was alive in its Troll-haunted hillocks, where clanged the anvil of the faery hill-smith, and danced and banqueted the Gnome and Troll,and in its streams and springs, musical with the harps of moist-haired Elle-women and mermaids, who, ethnic daemons though they were, yet cherished a hope of salvation!

In ancient times it was necessary to be either anvil or hammer; and in the final struggle between the victors victory remained with the Romans.

Nevertheless, for that envy is preferred before pity, let slip not fair occasion: guide with just helm thy people and forge the sword of thy speech on an anvil whereof cometh no lie.

nay, an infiniture of creatures which, century after century, in never-ending flow, Nature sends bubbling up from her inexhaustible springs; as generous with them as the smith with the useless sparks that fly around his anvil.

It put me in mind of the firing of cannons as an accompaniment to the Anvil Chorus.

Here is no sounding anvil, no dusky shop, with the sparks from the heated iron lighting up its dim recesses.

Then taking up an axe he cut through the anvil at one blow down to the ground.

"I can do that still better," said the youth, and went to another anvil, while the old man followed him and watched him, with his long beard hanging down.

Then the youth took up an axe, and, splitting the anvil at one blow, wedged the old man's beard in it.

Once when he had a bad head he shouted down to them not to make so much noise, and in the morning he found an old guinea left on the anvil as an apology.

Pliny says it is so hard a substance, that, if one should be laid on an anvil and struck with a hammer, look out for the hammer!

Thus at the flaming forge of life Our fortunes must be wrought; Thus on its sounding anvil shaped Each burning deed and thought! H.W. LONGFLLLOW.

Thus at the flaming forge of life, &c. = As iron is softened at the forge and beaten into shape on the anvil, so by the trials and circumstances of life, our thoughts and actions are influenced and our characters and destinies decided.

We may be right or wrong in our estimate of Mr. Carlyle, but we cannot be mistaken in supposing that on this kind of anvil have all truly great men been fashioned, and of metal thus honest and enduring.

A few strokes of the hammer in connexion with some trifling moulds and measures, attached to the anvil, perfect, in two or three minutes the blade and its tang or shank.

There are several other fine paintings hereone of them said to be the best performance of Quintin Matsys, who, under the inspiration of love, deserted the anvil for the pallet; and another by his father-in-law, Flors, supposed to be the identical picture upon which the ci devant blacksmith painted a bee, with such skill as to obtain the old artist's cordial consent to the marriage of Matsys with his daughter.

Fixing a kind of movable anvil behind the convict's back, the fetter that encircled his neck was brought with its joint upon it, and half a dozen blows of the sledge riveted the captive inextricably to the main chain and to his twenty-nine comrades.

He was late to mature, and all his younger energies were used for what he had believed to be the world's work, but what he now perceived were the activities of a vain, ego-driven intellect, that delighted to attract the passing eye by the ring of the anvil and a great show of unsleeved muscle.

The blacksmith held his pipe in his hand, and regarded the narrator with the steadiness and impassiveness of an anvil.

When she asked me to come up to see the Elder and Grandma Thorndyke, and I told her I was a prisoner, Jim paroled me to her, and made her give him a receipt for me which he wrote out on the anvil on the leaf of his pass-book, and had her sign it.

When struck upon an anvil, it wore the files and hammers, itself remaining intact.

This stone was surmounted by a ponderous anvil, in which the blade of a sword was deeply sunk.

He found the house closed; yet, being determined to secure a sword for his foster brother, he strode hastily into the churchyard, and easily drew from the anvil the weapon which all had vainly tried to secure.