| Assure, | } |
| Assurance. |
Used often in our elder writers in the sense of ‘to betroth,’ or ‘to affiance.’ See ‘Ensure,’ ‘Sure.’
King Philip. Young princes, close your hands.
Austria. And your lips too; for I am well assured
That I did so, when I was first assured.
Shakespeare, King John, act ii. sc. 2.
I myself have seen Lollia Paulina, only when she was to go unto a wedding supper, or rather to a feast when the assurance was made, so beset and bedeckt all over with emeralds and pearls.—Holland, Pliny, vol. i. p. 256.
But though few days were before the day of assurance appointed, yet Love, that saw he had a great journey to make in a short time, hasted so himself, that before her word could tie her to Demagoras, her heart hath vowed her to Argalus.—Sir Philip Sidney, Arcadia, p. 17.
Astonish. ‘To astonish’ has now loosened itself altogether from its etymology. The man ‘astonished’ can now be hardly said to be ‘thunderstruck,’ either in a literal or a figurative sense. But continually in our early literature we shall quite fall below the writer’s intention unless we read this meaning into the word.[5]
Stone-still, astonished with this deadly deed,