Enob. Speak you of Cæsar? How? the nonpareil!
Agrip. O Antony! O thou Arabian bird!”
And in Cymbeline (act i. sc. 6, l. 15, vol. ix. p. 183), on being welcomed by Imogen, Iachimo says, aside,—
“All of her that is out of door most rich!
If she be furnish’d with a mind so rare.
She is alone th’ Arabian Bird, and I
Have lost the wager.”
But the fullest and most remarkable example is from Henry VIII. (act v. sc. 5, l. 28, vol. vi. p. 114). Cranmer assumes the gift of inspiration, and prophesies of the new-born child of the king and of Anne Bullen an increase of blessings and of all princely graces,—
“Truth shall nurse her,
Holy and heavenly thoughts still counsel her: