The whole of the stanza in which we find it, sounds so strangely fresh in the midst of its antiquated tones, that we can hardly help asking whether it can be only the quaintness of the expression that makes the feeling appear more real, or whether in very truth men were not in those days nearer in heart, as well as in time, to the marvel of the Nativity.

Though but a copy, it had all the quaintness and feeling of the antique original, and, above all, it was fragrant with the spirit of the giver.

The fancy of some odd quaintnesses have put him clean beside his nature; he cannot be that he would, and hath lost what he was.

And the verse is indeed curious for its quaintness:" + VIRGO .

Every moral act derives its character (says a Schoolman with an unusual combination of profundity with quaintness) 'aut voluntate originis aut origine voluntatis'.

And, as the habit grew upon me thereafter of dropping in to listen to the remote, restful, unworldly quaintnesses of his philosophy, fragments, dropped here and there, built up the outline of the tragedy which had left him stranded in our little backwater of quiet.

When this Passion is represented by Writers, it is common with them to endeavour at certain Quaintnesses and Turns of Imagination, which are apparently the Work of a Mind at ease; but the Men of true Taste can easily distinguish the Exertion of a Mind which overflows with tender Sentiments, and the Labour of one which is only describing Distress.

They are, no doubt, almost verbally reported as he was told them, and as he wrote his history first in the Aztec tongue, they preserve all the quaintness of the original tales.

We have no room left for violent catastrophes; for grotesque quaintnesses; for wizard spells.

Farther it may be said, that Mr. Gifford hazarded his first poetical attempts under all the disadvantages of a neglected education: but the same circumstance, together with a few unpruned redundancies of fancy and quaintnesses of expression, was made the plea on which Mr. Keats was hooted out of the world, and his fine talents and wounded sensibilities consigned to an early grave.

It can hardly have undergone any perceptible change with in three centuries; but the garden, into which its old windows look, has probably put off a great many eccentricities and quaintnesses, in the way of cunningly clipped shrubbery, since the gardener of Queen Elizabeth's reign threw down his rusty shears and took his departure.

To Mr. Sommerville he added, laughing, "Isn't it the quaintest combinationsuch radiant girlhood and her absurd book-learning!" Mr. Sommerville gave his assent to the quaintness by silence, as he rose and prepared to retreat.

Morrison said laughingly: "Isn't it the very quintessence of quaintness to visit him there!

No comment, therefore, was made on the quaintness of the rich man's interest in earning capacity.

If one reads Lamb's earlier essays and prose pieces one can see the process at workwatch him consciously imitating Fuller, or Burton, or Browne, mirroring their idiosyncrasies, making their quaintnesses and graces his own.

Only compare the topographical works of Mr. Britton with those of his predecessorshis highly-finished line engravings, excellent antiquarian pieces on wood, and erudite descriptions, with the wretched prints and the quaintnesses of old topographersor even with the lumber of some of our county histories.

Some of them have all the quaintness of Herbert, some the simple subjective fervor of the German hymns, and some the glow of Wesley.

In the "Elegy on Cromwell," and the "Annus Mirabilis," Dryden followed Davenant, who abridged, if he did not explode, the quaintnesses of his predecessors.

George Hotel," etc. Knutsford still retains the air of old-world quaintness which Mrs. Gaskell has made so familiar in her delightful Cranford.

Then inside, what dear old quaintnesses! which I began to look at with delight, even when I was so crude a member of the congregation that my nurse found it necessary to provide for the reinforcement of my devotional patience by smuggling bread-and-butter into the sacred edifice.

When this Passion is represented by Writers, it is common with them to endeavour at certain Quaintnesses and Turns of Imagination, which are apparently the Work of a Mind at ease; but the Men of true Taste can easily distinguish the Exertion of a Mind which overflows with tender Sentiments, and the Labour of one which is only describing Distress.

It is only the great master who can represent a powerful personality in the purest state, that is, with the maximum of character and the minimum of individual distinction; while small artists, with a feeble hold upon character, habitually resort to extreme quaintnesses and singularities of circumstance, in order to confer upon their weak portraitures some vigor of outline.

Yet in this respect the Waverley Novels are singularly and admirably healthful, comparing to infinite advantage with the rank and file of novels, wherein the "characters" are but bundles of quaintnesses, and the action is impossible.

There are in him no quaintnesses, no crotchets, no conceits, and no involutions or affectationsall is transparent, masculine, and energetic.

" We might apply these remarks in some measure to the Scottish pulpit ministrations of an older school, in which a minuteness of detail and a quaintness of expression were quite common, but which could not now be tolerated.