The church, to which our Lord premises stability and a final conquest over the power of the grave, is the building raised by himself, as the master-builder.

STABLE, n. STA'BLE, V. STA'BLING, N.

STA'BLERESS.

Bp. Horsley, vol. i. Ser. 13. Fr. Estable; It. Stilla; Sp. Establia; Lat. Stabulum, a stando.

A standing or station for cattle, &c., or a place where cattle stand. See STALL.

And that hous of Malmesbury, that an old hous was tho,
Of tuo hondred ger and seuenty yrerd ther byuore,
He made yt stable to ys hors, at yt were alle vorlore.
R. Gloucester, p. 280.
Ful many a deinte hors hadde he in stable.
Chaucer. Prol. to the Canterbury Tales, v. 168.
For whan the great stede

Is stole. than he taketh hede,
And maketh the stable dore fast.-Gower Con. A. b. iv.
And so alyghted and entred into ye village, and were
about to stable theyr horses.
Berners. Froissart. Cronycle, vol. i. c. 208.
Wheresoever they [asses] hee stabled, they love to lie at
large and have roume ynough.
Holland. Plinie, b. viii. c. 43.

As soon as you alight at the inn, deliver your horses to the stable-boy, and let him gallop them to the next pond. Swift Directions to Servants.

Smit with the calm,

The dead serene of prosperous fortune, pin'd.
Nought now her weighty legions could oppose;
Her terrour once on Afric's tawny shore,
Now smok'd in dust, a stabling now for wolves.

First see it well fenced, ere hewers begin,
Then see it well stadled, without and within.
Tusser. Husbandry. April.
Leave growing for stadles, the likest and best,
Though seller and buyer dispatched the rest.

Id. Ib. For it is commonlie seene that those yoong staddles which we leaue standing at one & twentie yeeres fall, are vsuallie at the next sale cut downe.

Holinshed. Description of England, b. ii. c. 22.

Like to coppice woods, that if you leaue in them staddles too thicke, they will runne to bushes and briars, and haue little cleane vnder-wood.-Bacon. Hen. VII. p. 74.

So towards old Sylvanus they her bring;
Who, with the noyse awaked, commeth out
To weet the cause, his weake steps governing
And aged limbs on cypresse stadle stout;
And with an yvie twyne his waste is girt about.
Spenser. Faerie Queene, b. i. c. 6.
Inwardly smiling, the proud farmer views
The rising pyramids that grace his yard,
And counts his large increase; his barns are stor'd
And groaning staddles bend beneath their load.
Somervile. The Chace, b. ii.

STAD-HOLDER. STA'DHOLDERship.

Dut. Stad-houder, locum tenens, one holding the stead or place (sc. of another). The stadholders were stewards, or vicegerents to the various princes who possessed the sovereignty.

Neither stadtholder or governor, or any person in military charge, has session in the States-general. Sir W. Temple. Works, vol. i. p. 107.

In Holland, soon after the exaltation of the late prince of Orange to the stadtholdership, a tax of two per cent. or the fiftieth penny, as it was called, was imposed upon the whole substance of every citizen.

STAFF. STAVE, n. STAVE, V. STA'FFER.

With rapid speed
Back to his lord return'd the faithfull steed.
Wondrous to see! and stabled there remain'd,
Till the strong spell no more its power retain'd.

Hoole. Orlando Furioso, b. xxii.

Any thing stiff, strong or firma prop or support; a stick used to walk with; used as a badge of office. See TIP-STAFF.

A staff of officers,—a set or established number.

A staff or stave, in poetry or musick,—a set, established, regular series or succession of verse or lines.

To stave, to do any thing with staves; to make with staves, to part or fence off (with staves); { to strike with, to break or separate, to burst

Stack pease upon hovell, abroad in the yard,
To cover it quickly let owner regard.

Tusser. Husbandry. August.

In stacking of bavin, and piling of logs,
Make under thy bavin, a hovel for hogs.-Id. Ib.

And though in winter we to moisture much incline,
Yet those that he our own, and dwell upon our land,
When twixt their burly stacks and full-stuft barns they
stand.-Drayton. Poly-Olbion, s. 14

The Indians (I meane the sect of their wise men) lay themselves quietly upon a stacke of wood, and so sacrifice themselves by fire.-Bucon. Ess. Of Custom & Education.

While the marquess (Buckingham] and his servant (being both on foot) were chasing the kid about the stack, the prince from horseback killed him in the head with a Scottish pistol. Reliquiæ Wotton. p. 216.

His prædia in like maner were tributes, tolles, portage, bankage, stackage, coinage, profits by saltpits, milles, water courses (and whatsoeuer emoluments grew by them) and such like.-Holinshed. Description of England, b. ii.

By being obliged to sell his corn by retail, he was obliged to keep a great part of his capital in his granaries and stackyard through the year, and could not therefore cultivate so well as with the same capital he might otherwise have done. Smith. Wealth of Nations, b. iv. c. 5.

STA'DDLE, n. Į A. S. Stath-ol, (stad-dal,) STA'DDLE, V. stede, a place, a standing place. That on which any thing stands or has stood the bottom, the foundation; any thing that remains standing, as young trees left uncut, and (as in Spenser) a staff cut from such trees.

And mid staues of hegges, defondede hem a boute, And slow of this luther men monyon in the route. R. Gloucester, p. 126. He taughte Thomme Stone. to take two staves And fetche Felice home. Piers Ploukman, p. 82. And Jhesus answerde and seide to hem; as to a theef ye han gon out with swerdis and staves to take me. Wiclif. Mark, c. 14. And Jesus answered and sayd vnto them: ye bee come out as vnto a thefe with sweardes & with staues, for to take me.-Bible, 1551. Ib.

Ful longe were his legges, and ful lene,
Ylike a staff, ther was no calf ysene.

Chaucer. Prol, to the Canterbury Tales, v. 573.

Sire Thopas drow abak ful fast;
This geaunt at him stones cast
Out of a fel staffe sling.-Id. The Rime of Sire Thopas.
For if the wolfe come in the waie
Their gostly staffe is then awaie,
Wherof thei shuld their flocke defende.

Gower. Con. A. Prol.

The hunting staues with their brod heads of steele. Surrey. Virgile. Eneis, b. iv. A witte in youth, that is not over dulle, heavie, knottie, and lumpishe, but hard, tough, though somewhat staffishe. Ascham. The Schole-master, b. i.

If the searchers find any irreverent expressions] in the cargo, let them be staved or forfeited like contraband goods. Id. Preface to the Fables. A cask in one place and a cask in another; some on the shore, and some half a mile in the woods; and some stav'd Dampier. Voyages, vol. ii. pt. iii. c. 6. But it is high time now to come to antiquity; which has been so long staved off.-Waterland. Works, vol. iii. p. 67. "The fox, the wicked fox!" was all the cry; Out from his house ran every neighbour nigh; The vicar first, and after him the crew With forks and staves, the felon to pursue.

against the trees and leek'd out.

Dryden. The Cock and the Fox. But I saw, with regret, that the attempt could not be made at either place, unless at the risk of having our boats filled with water, or even staved to pieces. Cook. Second Voyage, b. ii. c. 1. Seems now the sad requiem, loads the gale; Last, o'er the warrior's closing grave, Rung the full choir in choral stave.

Scott. Lay of the Last Minstrel, c. 5. STAG. Skinner suggests Stig-an, to stick, pungere, from the sharp horns. Junius,-the Gr. Στειχ- ειν, Tooke believes it to to go in order. be "the past part. of the A. S. Stig-an, to raise; the raised and lofty head of the animal being the most striking circumstance at the first sight of him." See STAGE; and see the quotation from Drayton and Milton.

The bucke or stag, albeit that he be the most gentle and mild beast in the world, yet is he as envious as the rest, and loth to part with that which is good for others.

Holland. Plinie, b. viii. c. 32. When as those fallow deer, and huge-haunch'd stags that graz'd

Upon her shaggy heaths, the passenger amaz'd
To see their mighty herds, with high palm'd heads to threat
The woods of o'ergrown oaks; as though they meant to set
Their horns to the other's heights.

Drayton. Poly-Olbion, s. 12.

At last, with creeping crooked pace forth came
An old old man, with beard as white as snow;
That on a staffe his feeble steps did frame,
And guyde his wearie gate both too and fro.

Stager, one accustomed to act a part on the stage; an experienced performer or person.

Staged man, (Holinshed),-a performer on a stage.

And a ghoung man Euticus bi name sat on the wyndowe whanne he was fallun into an heuy sleep while Poul disputide longe, al slepynge he fel doun fro the thridde stage. Wiclif. Dedis, c. 20.

Than syr Henry, and iiii. with hym, issued out and came to syr Bartilmewe, and to John de Guystelles, and they brought hym to the myne, and there shewed hym how the great toure stode but on stages of tymbre.

Berners. Froissart. Cronycle, vol. i. c. 208.

But yet as a siaged man can not alwaies dissemble and cloke himselfe, so this man, who to haue his will ouer me & to depraue me, inueigheth against the second point, thinking and meaning by reproouing me to be a lier therein, to condemne all the rest.

Holinshed. The Conquest of Ireland, Pref.
A bedde where I laie,

Me thought I seighe vpon a stage,
Where stoode a wonder strange image.

Gower. Con. A. Prol.

Aloft if thou do liue, as one appointed here
A stately part on stage of worldly state to bere,
Thy freind, as only free from fraude, wil thee aduise,
To rest within the rule of meane, as do the wise.

Vncertaine Auctors. The Praise of a True Frende.

O if my temples were distain'd with wine,
And girt in girlonds of wilde yvie twine,
How I could reare the muse on stately stage,
And teach her tread aloft in buskin fine,
With queint Bellona in her equipage!

Spenser. The Shepheard's Calender. October

This world they'd think a fable, e'en as we
Do think the story of the golden age;
Or as some sensual spirits 'mongst us be,
Which hold the world to come, a feigned stage.

Davies. Immortality of the Soul, s. 32. Your prince, I say, may beat you, so far forth as his dominion reacheth, that's for the distance, the time, ten miles a day, I take it.

2. Brother, you err, 'tis fifteen miles a day, His stage is ten, his beatings are fifteen.

Beaum. & Fletch. A King and no King, Act iv.

Nor may this be called an histrionick parada, or stagely visard and hypocrysy, while women seek to appear advantaged in stature, or in beauty.

Bp. Taylor. Artificial Handsomeness, p. 168.

And safe in your stage-cloaths

Dare quit upon your oaths,

The stagers, and the stage-wrights too (your peers)
Of larding your large ears
With their soul comic socks.

B. Jonson. The just Indignation of the Author.

While he is so over greedy to fix a name of ill sound upon another, note how stupid he is to expose himself or his own friends to the same ignominy; likening those grave controversies to a piece of stagery, or scene-work.

Milton. An Apology for Smectymnuns.

'Tis true, some stagers of the wiser sort Made all these idle wonderments their sport.

Dryden. The Hind and the Panther.

The clause in the beginning of it ("without a series of action") distinguishes satire properly from stage-plays, which are all of one action, and one continued series of action-Id. Juvenal, Ded.

To pay my duty to sweet Mrs. Page,

A place was taken in the Stamford stage.

Our coachman Dick, the shades of night to shun,
Had yok'd his horses long before the sun.

Fawkes. The Stage Coach.

O sweet retirement, who would balk the thought,
That could afford retirement, or could not?
'Tis such an easy walk, so smooth and straight,
The second milestone fronts the garden gate;
A step, if fair, and, if a show'r approach,
You find safe shelter in the next stage-coach.

Cowper. Retirement.

She riste her vp, and stakkereth here & there.
Chaucer. Legende of Hypermestre.

Than sir Bouciquaut, to acoplisshe sir Peters desire, came forthe, and ran and met eche other in ye myddes of their sheldes so rudely, yt both their horses stakered in the place. Berners. Froissart. Cronycle, vol. ii. c. 168.

Then the disciples and apostles (because they were yet but fieble in the faythe) must nedes haue woondered, stonned, and staggered, and haue been more inquisitiue therin then they were.-Sir T. More. Workes, p. 1112.

My writhled cheekes beuraye, that pride of heate is past,
My slagring steppes eke tell the trueth, that nature fadeth
fast.
Gascoigne. Diuorce of a Louer.

If sundrie of our predecessours, or elders haue donne certaine thinges, which at that time might wel be donne without hurte, and afterwarde are turned into errour, and superstition, withoute any staggeringe, and with greate authoritie let them be destroled, and abolished by the successours.-Jewell. Defence of the Apologie, p. 309.

"Thrise happy man." said then the father grave, "Whose staggering steps thy steady hand doth lead, And shewes the way his sinfull soule to save!" Spenser. Faerie Queene, b i. c. 10.

Tydides rais'd a stone,

With his one hand, of wondrous weight, and pour'd it manly on

The hip of Anchisiades, wherein the ioynt doth moue The thigh, tis cald the huckle bone, which all in sherds it drove ;

Brake both the nerves, and with the edge, cut all the flesh away:

It staggerd him upon his knees, and made th' Heroe stay His strooke-blind temples on his hand, his elbow on the earth. Chapman. Homer. Iliad, b. v. Cym. Does the world go round? Posth. How comes these staggers on mee? Shakespeare. Cymbeline, Act v. sc. 5. While we are but staggeringly evil, we are not left without parentheses of consideration. thoughtful rebukes, and merciful interventions to recall us to ourselves.

Brown. Christian Morals, vol. i. p. 30. The immediate forerunners of an apoplexy are commonly a vertigo, staggering, loss of memory, stupor, &c. Arbuthnot. On Diet, c. 5. At this they were so much staggered, that they plainly discovered their ignorance of the effect of fire arms. Cook. Third Voyage, b. iv. c. 3.

To fly for refuge from distracting thought
To such amusements, as ingenious woe
Contrives, hard-shifting, and without her tools-
To read engraven on the mouldy walls,
In stagg'ring types, his predecessor's tale,
A sad memorial, and subjoin his own.

STAGNANT.
STA'GNANCY.
STAGNANTLY.

STA'GNATE, V.
STAGNATION.

Cowper. Task, b. v.

Fr. Stagnant; It. Stagnante; Lat. Stagnans, from Stagnum, which Vossius derives from the Gr. Σreyvov, and this from σrey-ew, continere,

non sinere elabi, to hold or keep in; to stay, to prevent from flowing or moving.

Held or retained from motion; still, calm, motionless, inert.

Though the country people are so wise

To call these rivers, they're but stagnancies,
Left by the flood.-Id. Wonders of the Peake, (1681,) p. 55.

They run, they fly, till flying on obscure,
Night-founder'd in town-ditches stagnant gurge,
Soph rowls on Soph promiscuous.-J. Philips. Cerealia.

They remain here till the water drains off from the land; and then confine themselves to the stagnant ponds; and when they are dry, they ramble away to some creek or river. Dampier. Voyages, an. 1676. Unexercised reason will melt away in sloth and idleness, and all its vital powers freeze for want of motion, and, like standing water, stagnate and gather mire, and by degrees corrupt and putrify.-Scott. Christian Life, pt. i. c. 3.

If the water runneth, it holdeth clear, sweet, and fresh ; but stagnation turneth it into a noisome puddle. Barrow, vol. iii. Ser. 18. The divers affirmed to him, that sometimes at the bottom of the deep waters, there seemed to be a stagnation of the sea for a great depth.-Boyle. Works, vol. iii. p. 354.

nant, putrid air of the country, All but Tupia fell a sacrifice to the unwholesome, stag

Cook. First Voyage, b. iii. c. 10.

STAIN, v. STAIN, n. STA'INER. STAINLESS.

My Tirians eke for thee

Ar wroth; by thee my shamefastnes eke stained,
And good renoume, wherby vp to the starres
Perelesse I clame.

Surrey. Virgile. Eneis, b. iv. With which infami he wold not haue his honoure stayned for any crowne.-Sir T. More. Workes, p. 65.

The phoenix wings are not so rare
For faultless length, and stainless heu.

Sidney. Arcadia, b. ii. "But if she had her least helpe to thee lent,

T' adorne thy forme according thy desart,
Their blazing pride thou wouldest soone have blent,
And staynd their prayses with thy least good part.'
Spenser. Faerie Queene, b. ii. e. 4.

For from thy wombe a famous progenee
Shall spring out of the auncient Trojan blood
Which shall revive the sleeping memoree
Of those same antique peres, the Hevens brood,
Which Greeke and Asian rivers stayned with their blood.
Id. Ib. b. iii. c. 3.

The hare-belle for her stainlesse azur'd hue,
Claimes to be worne of none but those are true.
Browne. Britannia's Pastorals, b. li. s. 3.

See what reward the grateful senate yield,
For the lost blood which stains your northern field;
For wounds, for winter camps, for Alpine snow,
And all the deaths the brave can undergo.

Rowe. Lucan's Pharsalia b. i.
Hirco, who knows not Hirco? stains the bed
Of that kind master who first gave him bread.
Churchill. The Conference.

Yet not entirely from their censure free,
Who judge our failings with severity:
The very care he took to keep his name
Stainless, with some was evidence of shame.

Crabbe. Tales of the Hall, b. viii.

STAIR, n. Dut. Steghe, stegher; Ger. Steg; Sw. Steg; A. S. Stag-er; from Dut. Steghen; Ger. Steigen; A. S. Stig-an, to go up, to ascend, (Skinner.) And see Tooke, and STIE. (or as Chaucer and Fabyan write, steyer,) means An ascender, that which or that by which we ascend, go or come up, climb, mount.

But by a venturous grace,

I rise and walkt, sought pace and pace, Till I a winding staire found.

Stair,

Chaucer. Dreame.

It is so hie from thens I lie, and the common yerth, there ne is cable in no land maked, that might stretche to me, to drawe me into blisse, ne steyers to steye on is none, so that without recouer endlesse, here to endure I wote well I purueide.-Id. The Testament of Love, b. i.

At Bedforde this yere at the keping of a shire daie by the falling of a steyer, were xviii murdered and slaine. Fabyan. Chronycle, vol. ii. p. 434. But, ere my hoped day of spousall shone, My dearest lord fell from high honors staire Into the hands of hys accursed fone, And cruelly was slaine.-Spenser. Faerie Queene, b. i. c.2. The Thames, by water when I took the air, That danc'd my barge, in lanching from the stair? Drayton. Elenor Cobham to Duke Humphry

To make a compleat stair-case, is a curious piece of archi. tecture; the vulgar cautions are these: that it have a very liberal light; that the space above the head be large and aery; that the half paces be well distributed; that the whole stair-case have no nigard latitude.

Reliquia Wolloniana, p. 35,

The troop retires, the lovers close the rear,

With forward faces not confessing fear:

Backward they move, but scorn their pace to mend,
Then seek the stairs, and with slow haste descend.

Dryden. Cymon & Iphigenia.

STAKE, n. STAKE, V. Skinner, from the verb to stick ;-Dut. Steken, Ger. Steken; A. S. Stican; and of this verb Tooke considers stake to be the past participle. STEAK.

Stake, sudes, and stake, pignus depositum, are both derived by

See

A stake in a hedge; stack or stuck there,-to which beasts are fastened to be baited; i. e. any thing stuck or fixed in the ground for that purpose; a deposit, paid down or fixed to answer the event; (met.) a risk, any thing fixed or engaged to answer an event. To stake, formed upon the

noun,

To do any thing with stakes; to pledge, to risk.

First the nemnid alle the, the purale suld make, That thorgh the reame suld go, the boundes forto stake. R. Brunne, p. 309. After many examinations, at the last they condemned him by vertue of the emperours decree made in the assembly at Ausbrough, and shortly after brought him forth to the place of execution, and there tyed him to a stake, where with a feruent zeale, and a loud voyce hee cried, Lord open the eyes of the king of Englande.-Fox. Life of Tyndall, p. 10. Thou weart that only stake, whereby I ment to stay. Gascoigne. In Trust is Treason.

Th' increasing sound is borne to either shore,
And for their stakes the throwing nations fear
Their passions double with the cannon's roar,
And with warm wishes each man combats there.
Dryden. Annus Mirabilis.

Dam. To bring it to the trial, will you dare
Our pipes, our skill, our voices, to compare?
My brinded heifer to the stake I lay;
Two thriving calves she suckles twice a day.

Id. Virgil, Past. 3. The desperate gamester, who had staked his person and liberty on a last throw of the dice, patiently submitted to the decision of fortune, and suffered himself to be bound, chastised, and sold into remote slavery, by his weaker but more lucky antagonist.-Gibbon. Decline & Fall, c. 9.

STALACTICAL. Gr. EraλAKTIKOS, from σraλağ-ew, stillare, to drop. Applied to

Dropping or dripping water-congealed; an icicle.

Hard by the cave is one or more vast stones, which (if I mistake not) are incrustrated with this sparry, stalactical substance, if not wholly made of it.

Derham. Physico-Theology, b. iii. c. 1.

STALE. Dut. Stallen; Ger. Stallen; It. Stallàre, from stabulum, quia quum recenter veniunt in stabulum, quod stallam vocant Germani, tunc fere urinam solent emittere, (Scaliger.) Junius thinks Dut. Stel bier, vetus cerevisia et defecata; Eng. Stale beer, originates from this source. Their [mares] staling is no hinderance to their pace in running their carriere, as it doth the horse, who must needs then stand still.-Holland. Plinie, b. viii. c. 42.

Thou did'st drinke

The stale of horses, and the gilded puddle

Which beasts would cough at.

Shakespeare. Anthony & Cleopatra, Aet i. sc. 4.

STALE, adj. STALE, n. STALE, v. STA'LELY.

Dut. Stal; Ger. Stal; A.S. Stal, steal, is a place,—a place in which things are exposed for sale. The Dut. Stullen, staellen; Fr. Estaller, is-to set upon a stall, to expose unto the view (as Cotgrave expresses) of all passengers, comers, or customers.

STA'LENESS.

Stale then is,

Exposed (sc.) till seen by every one; till become a common sight or spectacle; till it has lost its youth, novelty or freshness; and hence, old or aged, obsolete.

Stale, n. any thing exposed, held out or offered, (sc. as a lure or enticement; a decoy, Fr. Estalon,) any thing much used or worn. To stale, to expose, to make public or common, old or obsolete; to wear out.

No, this thrise worthy and right valiant Lord,
Must not so staule his palme, nobly acquir'd,
Not by my will assubiugate his merit,
As amply titled as Achilles is.

Here wont the dean, when he's to seek,
To spunge a breakfast once a week;
To cry the bread was stale, and mutter
Complaints against the royal butter.

STALK, v. STALK, n. STA'LKY.

Swift. Past. Dialogue

A. S. Stalc-an, to go warily, fairly, and softly; to stalke as fowlers do: also,-to go on stilts, (Somner.) See the quotation from Drayton; whence it appears that walking on stilts over ditches was the common practice in pursuit of moor-fowl G. Douglas uses stalker for pastor agens telis, (En. 4.) The A. S. verb Stalc-an seems to have been formed upon the verb stæl-an, (stal-ig-an, stælg- or stælc-an,) to steal or creep upon; and the modern application to-lofty, stately walking, to have been derived from walking upon stilts.

Stalk, the noun,-Tooke thinks should be written stawk, and that the I may have been introduced (see the quotations from Chaucer) for Shakespeare. Troyl. & Cres. Act ii. sc. 3. the sake of the rhime to balkes; he concludes it to

Age cannot wither her, nor custome stale
Her infinite variety: other women cloy
The appetites they feede, but she makes hungry,
Where most she satisfies.

Id. Anthony & Cleopatra, Act ii. sc. 2.

He's grown a stranger to all due respect,
Forgetful of his friends; and not content
To stale himself in all societies,
He makes my house here common as a mart,
A theatre, a public receptacle

For giddy humour, and diseased riot.

B. Jonson. Every Man in his Humour, Act ii. sc. 1. I'll go tell all the argument of his play afore-hand, and so stale his invention to the auditory, before it come forth. Id. Cynthia's Revels, Induction.

The lard of Drumlanrig lieng all this while in ambush with seuen hundred men, forbeare to breake out to giue anie charge vpon his enimies, least the earle of Lennox had kept a stale behind.-Holinshed. Hist, of Scotland, an. 1547.

Still, as he went, he craftie stales did lay,
With cunning traynes him to entrap unwares,
And privy spyals plast in all the way,

To weete what course he takes, and how he fares;
To ketch him at a vauntage in his snares.

Spenser. Faerie Queene, b. li. c. 1.
Do you bring me liveries?
Stales to catch kites?
Beaum. & Fletch. Humourous Lieutenant, Act iii. sc. 2.
Kate. I pray your sir, is it your will

To make a stale of me amongst these mates?
Shakespeare. Taming of the Shrew, Act i. sc. 1.
Was this your drift, to use Ferneze's name,
Was he your fittest stale?

B. Jonson. The Case is altered, Act v. sc. 3.

In bashfulnesse the spirits do a little go and come; but with bold men, upon like occasion, they stand at a stay ; like a stale at chesse, where it is no mate, but yet the game cannot stir.-Bacon. Ess. Of Boldness.

So Fabius thought, that putting these fellows out for a prey to Hannibal (as a stale to draw him from those quarters) he should pluck him by this means from Tarentum; and so it came to pass.--North. Plutarch, p. 160.

Nappy ale, good and state, in a browne bowle,
Which did about the board merrilye trowle.
Percy. Ancient Poems.

I stink like a stal-fish shambles, or an oyle-shop.
Beaum. & Fletch. Rule a Wife & have a Wife, Act iii. sc. 1.

The proof hath been, that both the beer, and the wine, (as well within water, as above,) have not been palled or deaded at all; but as good or somewhat better than bottles of the same drinks, and staleness, kept in a celler.

Bacon. Naturall Historie, § 385.

So that more than necessitie compelled him he could not eat, by reason that the stalenesse tooke awaie the pleasant tast thereof, and lesse prouoked his appetite.

Holinshed. Historie of England, b. iv. c. 20.

All your promis'd mountains
And seas I am so stalely acquainted with.-B. Jonson.

This easie fool must be my stale, set up
To catch the people's eyes; he's tame and merciful,
Him I can manage, till I make him odious
By some unpopular act, and then dethrone him.
Dryden. Don Sebastian, Act i. sc. 1.

I'd rather read Orlando's comic tale,
Than a dull author always stiff, and stale,
Who thinks himself dishonour'd in his style,
If on his works the Graces do but smile.

Id. Art of Poetry.

1

be the past part. of Stig-an, to ascend, to climb. We now apply it only to plants; Chaucer,-to the rounds, steps or stairs of a ladder.

To move or go warily, or creepingly; to go with or behind (a horse painted on cloth, used to conceal and deceive, and called) a stalking horse; to walk as if on stilts, with lofty, stately steps. Stalk, n.-the rising (stem of plants). The night was short, and faste by the day, That nedes cost he moste himselven hide. And to a grove faste ther beside With dredful foot than stalketh Palamon

Chaucer. The Knightes Tale, v. 1478.

His owen hond than made he ladders three,
To climben by the renges and the stalkes
Unto the tubbes honging in the baulkes.

Id. The Milleres Tale, v. 3624.

But ere he could his armour on him dight,
Or gett his shield, his monstrous enimy
With sturdie steps came stalking in his sigh

Spenser. Faerie Queene, b. i. c. 7.

Come hither Leonato, what was it you told me of to day, that your niece Beatrice was in loue with signior Benedicke? Cla. O 1, stalke on, stalke on, the foule sits. I did neuer thinke that lady would haue loued any man.

Shakespeare. Much Adoe about Nothing, Act ii. sc. 3.
His frank tongue

Being lent the reins, would take away all thought
Of malice, in your course against the rest;
We must keep him to stalk with.

B. Jonson. Sejanus, Act iii. sc. 2.

Like as the seeded field greene grasse first showes, Then from greene grasse into a stalke doth spring, And from a stalke into an eare forth-growes, Which eare the frutefull graine doth shortly bring. Spenser. The Ruines of Rome. These cranes if they be made tame and gentle, are very playfull and wanton birds; and they will one by one dance (as it were) and run the round with their long shankes staulking full untowardly.-Holland. Plinie, b. x. c. 23.

The fowler is employed his limed twigs to set.
One underneath his horse, to get a shoot doth stalk;
Another over dykes upon his stills doth walk

Drayton, Poly-Olbion, s. 25.

Let the counsellour shew that hee beleeues it, by gluing counsell rather wholsome then pleasing, not for faction but for conscience, and by forbearing to make the good of the state the stalking horse of his private ends.

Hakewell. Apologie, b. iv. c. 14.

At least where vetches, pulse and tares have stood,
And stalks of lupines grew, (a stubborn wood)
Th' ensuing season, in return, may bear

The bearded product of the golden year.

Dryden. Virgil. Georgics, b. 1. It grows upon a round stalk, and at the top bears a great stalky head.-Mortimer.

Protestant dissenters were therefore to serve as stalking horses, that papists might creep behind them, and have hopes of being some time or other admitted with them. Bolingbroke. Dissert. upon Parties, Let. 2.