In short, ’twas his fate, unemployed or in place, sir,
To eat mutton cold, and cut blocks with a razor.
Goldsmith, Retaliation (“Burke” is referred to, 1774).
Whims (Queen), the monarch of Whimdom, or country of whims, fancies, and literary speculations. Her subjects were alchemists, astrologers, fortune-tellers, rhymers, projectors, schoolmen, and so forth. The best way of reaching this empire is “to trust to the whirlwind and the current.” When Pantagruel’s ship ran aground, it was towed off by 7,000,000 drums quite easily. These drums are the vain imaginings of whimsyists. Whenever a person is perplexed at any knotty point of science or doctrine, some drum will serve for a nostrum to pull him through.--Rabelais, Pantagruel, v. 18, etc. (1545).
Whim´sey, a whimsical, kind-hearted old man, father to Charlotte and “young” Whimsey.
As suspicious of everybody above him, as if he had been bred a rogue himself.--Act i. 1.
Charlotte Whimsey, the pretty daughter of old Whimsey; in love with Monford.--James Cobb, The First Floor.
Whip with Six Lashes, the “Six Articles” of Henry VIII. (1539).
Whipping Boy. A boy kept to be whipped when a prince deserved chastisement.
Barnaby Fitzpatrick stood for Edward VI.