the meaning is not “full of wise sayings and modern illustrations,” but full of proverbial maxims of conduct and of trivial arguments; i.e., of petty distinctions that never touch the point at issue. “Instances” is from instantia, which the monkish and scholastic writers always used in the sense of an argument. When in “Julius Cæsar” we read,—
“And come down
With fearful bravery, thinking by this face
To fasten in our thoughts that they have courage,”
we must not attach to “bravery” its modern sense; and the same remark applies to the word “extravagant” in the following passage from “Hamlet”:
“Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,
The extravagant and erring spirit hies
To his confine,” etc.
“Courage” is “good heart.” “Anecdote,”—from the Greek ἀν (not), ἐκ (out), and δότα (given),—meant once a fact not given out or published; now it means a short, amusing story. Procopius, a Greek historian in the reign of Justinian, is said to have coined the word. Not daring, for fear of torture and death, to speak of some living persons as they deserved, he wrote a work which he called “Anecdotes,” or a “Secret History.” The instant an anecdote is published, it belies its title; it is no longer an anecdote. “Allowance” formerly was used to denote praise or approval; as when Shakespeare says in “Troilus and Cressida,”
“A stirring dwarf we do allowance give