Of silver, gold, and polished elephant.
Chapman, The Odysseis of Homer, b. xxiii. l. 306.
Elevate. There are two intentions with which anything may be lifted from the place which it occupies; either with that of setting it in a more conspicuous position; or else of removing it out of the way, or, figuratively, of withdrawing all importance and significance from it. We employ ‘to elevate’ now in the former intention; our ancestors for the most part, especially those whose style was influenced by their Latin studies, in the latter.
Withal, he forgat not to elevate as much as he could the fame of the foresaid unhappy field fought, saying, That if all had been true, there would have been messengers coming thick one after another upon their flight to bring fresh tidings still thereof.—Holland, Livy, p. 1199.
Audience he had with great assent and applause; not more for elevating the fault and trespass of the common people, than for laying the weight upon those that were the authors culpable.—Id., ib. p. 1207.
Tully in his oration Pro Flacco, to elevate or lessen that conceit which many Romans had of the nation of the Jews, objects little less unto them than our Saviour in this place doth, to wit that they were in bondage to the Romans.—Jackson, Of the Primeval Estate of Man, b. x. c. 14.
Embezzle. A man can now only ‘embezzle’ another man’s property; he might once ‘embezzle’ his own. Thus, while we might now say that the Unjust Steward ‘embezzled’ his lord’s goods (Luke xvi. 1), we could not say that the Prodigal Son ‘embezzled’ the portion which he had received from his father, and which had thus become his own (Luke xv. 13); but the one would have been as free to our early writers as the other. There is a form, ‘to imbecile,’ used by Jeremy Taylor and others, which has the same meaning as this word.
Mr. Hackluit died, leaving a fair estate to an unthrift son, who embezzled it.—Fuller, Worthies of England: Herefordshire.
The collection of these various readings [is] a testimony even of the faithfulness of these later ages of the Church, and of the high reverence they had of these records, in that they would not so much as embesell the various readings of them, but keep them still on foot for the prudent to judge of.—H. More, Grand Mystery of Godliness, b. vii. c. 11.
If we are ambitious of having a property in somewhat, or affect to call anything our own, ’tis only by nobly giving that we can accomplish our desire; that will certainly appropriate our goods to our use and benefit; but from basely keeping or vainly embezzling them, they become not our possession and enjoyment, but our theft and our bane.—Barrow, The Duty and Reward of Bounty to the Poor.