Familiar Quotations / A Collection of Passages, Phrases, and Proverbs Traced to / Their Sources in Ancient and Modern Literature

by Unknown

King Henry IV. Part I. Act i. Sc. 3.

And telling me, the sovereign'st thing on earth

Was parmaceti for an inward bruise;

And that it was great pity, so it was,

This villanous saltpetre should be digg'd

Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,

Which many a good tall fellow had destroy'd

So cowardly; and but for these vile guns,

He would himself have been a soldier.

King Henry IV. Part I. Act i. Sc. 3.