A CRABBED HISTORY.

Some, however, escape the fate intended for them, and in a few days begin to enjoy life in a crabbed sort of a way.

An exultant shout bubbles up in the water, and then the heroic defender of crabbed maidenhood leads his beloved to view the remains of this ravager of hard-shell rights.

The ancient coat and hat which had hung in the hall so long had perhaps served its purpose in keeping the burglars away, but this lifeless substitute had not prevented the crabbed gnomes of loneliness and discontent from stealing in.

All were ungrammatical, rude in versification, crabbed and obscure in thoughtthe rough-hewn blockings-out of poems rather than finished works of art, as it appeared to the scrupulous, decorous, elegant, and timorous Academician of a feebler age.

But whether the beginning of them might not be more insensibly instilled, and more advantageously obtained by reading philosophical as well as other ingenious Authors, than Janua linguarum, crabbed poems, and cross-grained prose, as it has been heretofore by others: so it ought to be afresh considered by all well-wishers, either to the Clergy or Learning.

Henceforth I write in crabbed oak-tree rynde, Search they that mean the secret meaning find.

The original, which is crabbed and pedantic, where it is not unintelligible from corruption, is here rendered with sufficient fidelity to the sense, but with such perspicuity, elegance, and sweetness, as to make Spenser's performance too good a poem to be called a translation.

difficult to deal with, hard to deal with; ill-conditioned, crabbed, crabby; not to be handled with kid gloves, not made with rose water.

glout^. Adj. sullen, sulky; ill-tempered, ill-humored, ill-affected, ill- disposed; grouty [U.S.]; in an ill temper, in a bad temper, in a shocking temper, in an ill humor, in a bad humor, in a shocking humor; out of temper, out of humor; knaggy^, torvous^, crusty, crabbed; sour, sour as a crab; surly &c (discourteous) 895. moody; spleenish^, spleenly^; splenetic, cankered.

Up to the time of Panaetius and the Scipionic circle the Roman idea and study of law had been of a crabbed practical character, wanting in breadth of treatment, destitute of any philosophical conception of the moral principles which lie behind all law and government.

The warlike habits of our ancestors are always attractive topics for inquirers into the history of mankind, and their study is not Dull and crabbed as some fools suppose, but a treasury or depository of useful knowledge, by enabling the inquirer to draw many valuable inferences from the comparative states of men in the several ages he seeks to illustrate.

" This old lady was rather crabbed, and had not quite believed Hermione sincere, so she did this to try her, and expected to see her pout and refuse.

The doorkeeper of the house, a crabbed individual who had only become mildly respectful when he learned that he was dealing with the police, had joined them, his crustiness tempered by curiosity.

"Crabbed age and youth," he remarked.

"But crabbed age makes an appeal to youth, if youth will kindly call to mind what crabbed age referred to some five minutes ago.

"But crabbed age makes an appeal to youth, if youth will kindly call to mind what crabbed age referred to some five minutes ago.

Captains is right crabbed.

And what can be more absurd than for a grammarian to insist upon forming a great parcel of these strange and crabbed words for which he can quote no good authority?

By the way, that crabbed old doctor had a son, had he not?" "Oh yes, that's Jim Horscroft, my best friend.

No wonder she was sour and crabbed.

Crabbed age and youth: the old men and women of the Restoration comedy of manners.

On the table are a few books and some letters, with foreign postmarks, and addressed in the crabbed handwriting of Continental scholars.

He saw this man, who had made what the world would call so great a sacrifice, apparently unconscious that he had made any sacrifice at all, gay, unceremonious, bright, full of play as a boy, ready with his pupils for any exercise, mental or muscularfor a hard ride, or a crabbed bit of Aeschylus, or a logic fence with disputatious and paradoxical undergraduates, giving and taking on even ground.

The reading of Italian, even very crabbed and ancient Italian which might have puzzled more than one "elegant scholar," became quite easy and familiar to me, but I have never attained a colloquial mastery over the language.