Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Grocott & Ward, comps. Grocott’s Familiar Quotations, 6th ed. 189-?.

Chickens

What, all my pretty chickens, and their dam,
At one fell swoop?
Shakespeare.—Macbeth, Act IV. Scene 3. (Macduff to Malcolm.)

To swallow gudgeons ’ere they’re catch’d,
And count their chickens ’ere they’re hatch’d.
Butler.—Hudibras, Part II. Canto III. Line 923.