Grocott & Ward, comps. Grocott’s Familiar Quotations, 6th ed. 189-?.
People
And what the people but a herd confused,
A miscellaneous rabble, who extol
Things vulgar, and, well weigh’d, scarce worth the praise.
They praise and they admire they know not what,
And know not whom, but as one leads the other;
And what delight to be by such extoll’d,
To live upon their tongues, and be their talk,
Of whom to be dispraised were no small praise!
Milton.—Paradise Regained, Book III.
Was ever feather so lightly blown to and fro as this multitude?
Shakespeare.—King Henry VI., Part II. Act IV. Scene 8.
The people are a many-headed beast.
Pope.—Horace, Epi. I. Book I. Line 121. Ben Jonson, Discoveries, The Rascal Many. Spenser.—The Fairy Queen, Book I. Canto XII. Stanza 9.
God’s pamper’d people, whom, debauch’d with ease,
No king could govern, nor no God could please.
Dryden.—Absalom and Achitophel.