"Scrivener" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the Wealth of Nations has not yet made pass current as truths. The paper contained, moreover, charges of jobbery against 'great men,' though no one was named. It was at once voted a malicious and scandalous libel, and the author, William Cooley, a scrivener, was committed to Newgate. With him was sent the printer of the Daily Post, in which part of the Considerations had been published. After seven weeks' imprisonment in the depth of winter in that miserable den, 'without sufficient sustenance to support life,' Cooley ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... the matter pertinent this hour Involves the honor of our party's name. When first I reached these shores, one Seldonskip, As scrivener, did bear me company. Alas! he captive fell to woman's wiles And with a former gallant measured arms Hence I was forced, if peace were to be kept, To send him "kiting" to his distant home. This strippling came of Democratic stock, Hence, ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... replied the canonico. 'With thy own?' interrogated sharply the Tunisian. 'I must not tempt God,' said, in tears, the religious man. 'Let us be plain,' said the master. 'Thou knowest thy money is safe; I myself counted it before thee when I brought it from the scrivener's; thou hast sixty broad gold pieces; wilt thou be answerable, to the whole amount of them, for the lives of thy two countrymen if they drink this water?' 'O sir!' said the canonico, 'I will give it, if, only for these few days of voyage, you vouchsafe ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... with infinite life and gaiety, and sometimes we are half-inclined to say, with fidelity in the departure, by the same matchless pen. Good old father Chaucer! Can it be true that century rolling after century thickens the dust upon Adam Scrivener's vellum! Can it be true that proceeding time widens the gulf yawning betwixt thee and ourselves, thy compatriots of another day, thy poetical posterity! The supposition is unnatural—un-English—un-Scottish. Thou hast been the one popular poet of England. Shakspeare ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... inscription &c. (record) 551; superscription &c. (indication) 550; graphology. composition, authorship; cacoethes scribendi[Lat]; graphoidea[obs3], graphomania[obs3]; phrenoia[obs3]. writer, scribe, amanuensis, scrivener, secretary, clerk, penman, copyist, transcriber, quill driver; stenographer, typewriter, typist; writer for the press &c. (author) 593. V. write, pen; copy, engross; write out, write out fair; transcribe; scribble, scrawl, scrabble, scratch; interline; stain paper; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... would make him a neighbour of the novelist. [Footnote: Lord Thurlow was accustomed to find a later likeness to Fielding's hero in his protege, the poet Crabbe.] Another tradition connects Mr. Peter Pounce with the scrivener and usurer Peter Walter, whom Pope had satirised, and whom Hogarth is thought to have introduced into Plate i. of Marriage a-la-Mode. His sister lived at Salisbury; and he himself had an estate at Stalbridge Park, ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... and, by the discourse we had together, I found that his merits far exceeded the account his sister had given me of him. When she saw that we were satisfied one with another, she clapped her hands a second time, and out came a cadi, or scrivener, who wrote our contract of marriage, signed it himself, and caused it to be attested by four witnesses he brought along with him. The only thing that my new spouse made me promise was, that I should not be seen nor speak with any other man but himself; and he vowed to ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... of propriety, that they will support you for a while in prison, until you get white-washed. In all this experience, and with such a long list of acquaintances, it will be hard if some will not give you a lift at getting over your difficulties. Then you start again as a nominal Land-surveyor, Money-scrivener, Horse-dealer, or as a Sleeping-partner in some mercantile concern—such, for instance, as coals, wine, &c. Your popularity and extensive acquaintance will get your Partner a number of customers, and then if you don't succeed, you have only to become a Bankrupt, secure your certificate, ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... coo'd and bill'd as long as he was able; she (sweet Hypocrite) seeming to bemoan his Misfortunes; which he took so kindly, that when he left her, which was about three in the Afternoon, he caus'd a Scrivener to draw up an Instrument, wherein he settled a hundred Pounds a Year on Lucy for her Life, and gave her a hundred Guineas more against her Lying-in: (For she told him, and indeed 'twas true, that she was with child, and knew her self to be so from a very good Reason—) And indeed she ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... Jahann, his wife, plucked him by the sleeve. "Prithee, my lord," said she, "bethink thee of the Brokah or scrivener who besought thee but yesterday to share thy stokh with him and gave thee his bond for fifty thousand sequins." But the noble Prince Bulleboye, raising his head, said, "Shall I sell to him for fifty thousand sequins that which I know is not worth a Soo Markee? For is not all the Brokah's wealth, ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... engaged as courier in a noble family, and in the situation made many journeys and learned to know the world, and also to lay by some money. In September 1757 he married the daughter of the magistrate (Schultheiss) of Dotzheim, and he obtained appointment under him as scrivener. By his wife he had seven children. On the death of his father-in-law, and the appointment of a new magistrate, the aspect of his affairs changed. He was detected in attempts to appropriate trust-money to his own use, and was dismissed his office. He sank deeper and deeper, ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... recognised how dangerous it was, and bade my servants and young men dismount and lead their horses. So I got across without accident, and rode on talking with one of the Frenchmen, whose condition was that of a gentleman. The other, who was a scrivener, lagged a little way behind, jeering the French gentleman and me because we had been so frightened by nothing at all as to give ourselves the trouble of walking. I turned round, and seeing him upon the middle of the bridge, begged him to ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... be long, ere he come, For the conveyance was made, ere I came from the scrivener's, And in good time here he comes. God ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... higher grade in the ranks of the witnesses, in the shape of 'l'honorable homme Nicolas Bailly.' Bailly was a man of sixty; he had been employed by the English in 1430, and by Cauchon—he was a scrivener (tabellion) by profession—to make investigations into the character of ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower
... offices and to each of them, according as our High Admiral in the Admiralty of our kingdoms levies and is accustomed to levy them. And by this our patent, or by the transcript thereof signed by a public scrivener, we command Prince Don Juan, our very dear and well beloved son, and the Infantes, dukes, prelates, marquises, counts, masters of orders, priors, commanders, and members of our council, and auditors of our audiencia, alcaldes, and ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... the Happy Life," is serious, and even very serious. The best proof of their importance in Augustin's eyes is, that after taking care to have them reported in shorthand, he eventually published them. The notarii attended these discussions and let nothing be lost. The rise of the scrivener, of the notary, dates from this period. The administration of the Lower-Empire was frightfully given to scribbling. By contact with it, the Church became so too. Let us not press our complaints about it, since this craze for writing has procured for us, with a good deal of shot-rubbish, ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... a scrivener, a husband and a father. He made copies of all kinds of documents for a living. He also copied maps. It has been said that scriveners have to get drunk at least twice a week in order to preserve their sanity; but the person whose miserable employment ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... Declaration[281] were appointed "a permanent Committee of Vigilance, for this city and liberties, and to carry into immediate and practical effect the resolutions of this meeting for the effectual organization of the Reformers of Upper Canada." John Elliott, a Toronto scrivener, who was also Assistant Clerk of the City Council, was requested to continue to act as Secretary-in-Ordinary, and Mackenzie to act as "Agent and Corresponding Secretary." Both of these requests were assented to. A resolution, doubtless adopted in emulation of similar resolutions at meetings ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... traders and chafferers, of hermits and solitaries, of minstrels, "japers and jinglers," bidders and beggars, ploughmen that "in setting and in sowing swonken (toil) full hard," pilgrims "with their wenches after," weavers and labourers, burgess and bondman, lawyer and scrivener, court-haunting bishops, friars, and pardoners "parting the silver" with the parish priest. Their pilgrimage is not to Canterbury but to Truth; their guide to Truth neither clerk nor priest but Peterkin the Ploughman, whom they find ploughing ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green
... other Attendants; two Gentlemen, a Pursuivant, Scrivener, Citizens, Murderers, Messengers, Ghosts, ...
— The Life and Death of King Richard III • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... price. To this good-natured beauty, Euphrasia by name, an unbounded ambition had led a notary's clerk to aspire. In short, the second clerk in the office of Maitre Crottat, notary, had fallen in love with her, as youth at two and twenty can fall in love. The scrivener would have murdered the Pope and run amuck through the whole sacred college to procure the miserable sum of a hundred louis to pay for a shawl which had turned Euphrasia's head, at which price her waiting woman ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... eyes, younker. I do see it, now that you point it out. It's a fox, and caught, too, as I'm a scrivener." ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... art wise enough, I wot thou *n'ilt it dignely endite* *wilt not write it haughtily* Or make it with these argumentes tough, Nor scrivener-like, nor craftily it write; Beblot it with thy tears also a lite;* *little And if thou write a goodly word all soft, Though it be good, rehearse ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... I, "'tis thus. I'll sign on as sea-lawyer and scrivener, as well as purser for the ship. Yes, I'll sign articles and voyage with you for a week or a month, or two months, or three. I'll provender the ship and pay all bills of libel or demurrage in any port of call; and by my fateful gift of ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... remaining thirty-five are devoted to Milton. They are dull and plodding, the punctuation and expression showing that the author was ill-educated and little accustomed to write; and, from the frequent use of scrivener- like or attorney-like phrases and illustrations, one soon comes to conjecture the pamphlet to have been written by some one in a small way of law-business. Occasionally there is a little hit of personal reference, proving that the writer knew ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... altering copies') amongst the transcribers of former times, may appear by Chaucer; who (I am confident) tooke as greate care as any man to be served with the best and heedfullest scribes, and yet we finde him complayning against Adam, his scrivener, for the very same: ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... although in divers places they may seem to us to stand of unequal measures, yet a skilful reader that can scan them in their nature, shall find it otherwise. And if a verse here and there fal out a sillable shorter or longer than another, I rather aret it to the negligence and rape of Adam Scrivener, that I may speak as Chaucer doth, than to any unconning or oversight in the Author. For how fearful he was to have his works miswritten, or his verse mismeasured, may appear in the end of his fifth book of Troilus and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... stopped and taken up by the watch. I asked the watchman what authority he had to stop me, travelling peacefully on the highway: he told me he would show me his authority, and in order thereunto, had me into a house hard by, where dwelt a scrivener whose name was Pepys. To him he gave the order which he had received from the constables, which directed him to take up all rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars. I asked him for which of these he stopped me, but he ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... of my handwriting is explained, alas! by scrivener's cramp. This also explains how long I have let ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... provided him with a geomantic tablet of gold,[FN299] with a set of astrological instruments and with an astrolabe of silver, plated with gold. Then he said to him, "Arise, O my lord, and take thy stand under the walls of the King's palace and cry out, 'I am the ready Reckoner; I am the Scrivener; I am he who weeteth the Sought and the Seeker; I am the finished man of Science; I am the Astrologer accomplished in experience! Where then is he that seeketh?' As soon as the King heareth this, he will send after thee and carry thee in to his daughter the Princess Budur, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... that to Bacon could retreat afford, Become the portion of a booby lord; And Helmsley, once proud Buckingham's delight, Slides to a scrivener and city knight. Let lands and houses have what lords they will, Let us be fix'd, and our own ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... monastic scrivener in his cell, Sensing a chill along the stony crypt, Might labour yet more gorgeously to spell The final, splendid entries of his script,— So with bright rubrics has the Autumn writ A coloured chronicle of things that pass, Thumbing a yellow parchment that is lit With brief, illumined ...
— Ships in Harbour • David Morton
... unquestionable that he sprang from a humble rank. His father was a butcher and grazier; and Shakespeare himself is supposed to have been in early life a woolcomber; whilst others aver that he was an usher in a school and afterwards a scrivener's clerk. He truly seems to have been "not one, but all mankind's epitome." For such is the accuracy of his sea phrases that a naval writer alleges that he must have been a sailor; whilst a clergyman infers, from internal evidence in his writings, that he was probably a parson's clerk; ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... beer. But meantime our spiritual friend was poaching on the manors of the following people—of the chamber counsel, of the attorney, of the professional accountant, of the printer and compositor, of the notary public, of the scrivener, and sometimes, we fear, of the sheriff's officer in arranging for special bail. These very uncanonical services one might have fancied sufficient, with spinning and spelling, for filling up the temporal cares of any one man's time. ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... beforehand he would have taken the man for a fussy, inoffensive little scrivener who would never do more than he was bid—or less. But when they were seated in the private room above the shop, in which Guy kept some of the finest of his gold and silver work, Simon's restless eyes began to glitter, and he reminded Alan of a ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... and privately, and if I pleased, could relate divers histories, at which good-natured gentlemen might smile, and sentimental souls might weep. But I waive the biographies of all other scriveners for a few passages in the life of Bartleby, who was a scrivener of the strangest I ever saw or heard of. While of other law-copyists I might write the complete life, of Bartleby nothing of that sort can be done. I believe that no materials exist for a full and satisfactory biography of this man. It is an irreparable loss to literature. Bartleby ...
— Bartleby, The Scrivener - A Story of Wall-Street • Herman Melville
... following specimens of ancient manuscripts are taken from Scrivener's Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament. No. (1) is from Tischendorf s Novum Testamentum Graece ex Sinaitico Codice; Nos. (2) and (11) from Smith's Dictionary of the Bible; and No. (5) ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... to the commons the consideration of proper means for lessening the national debt, was a prelude to the famous South-Sea act, which became productive of so much mischief and infatuation The scheme was projected by sir John Blunt, who had been bred a scrivener, and was possessed of all the cunning, plausibility, and boldness requisite for such an undertaking. He communicated his plan to Mr. Aislaby, the chancellor of the exchequer, as well as to one of the secretaries of state. He answered ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... &c., &c. Munroe showed me the letter, which certainly was not an amiable one. In this distress, then, I beg you, when you have more histories and lectures to print, to have the manuscript copied by a scrivener before you print at home, and send it out to me, and I will keep all Appletons and Corsairs whatsoever out of the lists. Not only these men made a book (of which, by the by, Munroe sends you by this steamer a copy, which you will find at John Green's, Newgate Street), but the New York newspapers ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... I have accepted Father Mestienne's reversion. One gets to be a philosopher when one has nearly completed his classes. To the labor of the hand I join the labor of the arm. I have my scrivener's stall in the market of the Rue de Sevres. You know? the Umbrella Market. All the cooks of the Red Cross apply to me. I scribble their declarations of love to the raw soldiers. In the morning I write love letters; in the evening I dig graves. Such ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... the right kind of father, amiable, accomplished, and well-to-do. He was by business what was then called a scrivener, a term which has received judicial interpretation, and imported a person who arranged loans on mortgage, receiving a commission for so doing. The poet's mother, whose baptismal name was Sarah (his father was, like himself, John), was a lady of good extraction, and approved excellence and virtue. ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... solemnity of this ceremony of friendship and peace, and by his side he stationed the ensign with the royal standard. Then the Governor began asking each [cacique] in turn his name and that of the land of which he was the lord, and he ordered that it be taken down by his secretary and scrivener, and there were as many as fifty caciques and chiefs. Then, facing all those people, he told them that D. Carlos our lord of whom they were servants and vassals who were in his company, had sent him to that land in order to give them understanding and to preach to them of ...
— An Account of the Conquest of Peru • Pedro Sancho |
