" Old Ruth was far from being as nattle and querulous as the famous ill-natured grumbler so racily pictured by Benjamin Preston, of Bradford; but, like most of the dwellers upon earth, she was a little bit touched with the same complaint.

This can redeem a drizzle; but this cannot redeem a grumbler.

In argument, therefore, the grumbler has the best of it.

If you lose your temper with the grumbler, and turn upon him suddenly, saying, "Oh, do not spoil all our pleasure.

Of course, we do not suppose he thinks we are to blame; we do not take him to be a fool as well as a grumbler.

One grumbler in a family is as pestilent a thing as a diseased animal in a herd: if he be not shut up or killed, the herd is lost.

But the grumbler cannot be shut up or killed, since grumbling is not held to be a proof of insanity, nor a capital offence,more's the pity.

The Grumbler, a Comedy of three acts, scene Paris.

In truth, he was a born grumbler, and a censorious critic.

Adams was a grumbler, and looked at the motives of the act rather than the act itself, and was disposed to forget the obligation altogether, because it was conferred from other views than pure generosity.

[person who is discontented] malcontent, grumbler, growler, croaker, dissident, dissenter, laudator temporis acti

; languishment^; condolence &c 915. mourning, weeds, willow, cypress, crape, deep mourning; sackcloth and ashes; lachrymatory^; knell &c 363; deep death song, dirge, coronach^, nenia^, requiem, elegy, epicedium^; threne^; monody, threnody; jeremiad, jeremiade^; ullalulla^. mourner; grumbler &c (discontent) 832; Noobe; Heraclitus.

No soldier is a loyal soldier who is a knocker or a grumbler or a shirker.

'Ah, old grumbler,' said he, 'you were one of my Egyptian grenadiers, were you not, and had your musket of honour at Marengo.

His face was ardent, his pantaloons were of white flannel, his expression of countenance was that of habitual discontent, but with a twinkle of geniality in the eye which redeemed the Grumbler from the usual tedium of his tribe.

[Illustration: Born Grumbler.

The Grumbler was the production of the Antiquary Grose, and appeared in the English Chronicle, 1791.

Sweet Mr. Idler, if you did but know all, you would give no encouragement to such an unreasonable grumbler.

Bog laughed, and explained this outburst, by saying to Pet, "It's only aunt's rheumatics;" but the old lady rejected the explanation, and went on scolding and faultfinding with such increased fierceness, that Pet hastily put on her bonnet and shawl, and bade the rheumatic grumbler "good-by," saying (which was true) that her father would be anxious about her.

* * COUNT EBERHARD, THE GRUMBLER, OF WURTEMBERG.

Willie Thomson, of harsh and meagre upbringing, was the grumbler of his billet.

He is not a grumbler, not a dissatisfied extremist, not unpatriotic, but possesses a breadth of outlook patriotic in the highest sense.

" Another negro, a story above, heard the complaint and dropped a brick on the grumbler's head.

A grumbler: "But is turkey food?

When a decent working-man takes himself and his work critically, people call him grumbler, idler, bore; but when an idle scoundrel shouts that it is necessary to work, he is applauded.