Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

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

Secrecy

1.You’ll be secret, Thomas?
2.As a coach-horse.
Sheridan.—The Rivals, Act I. Scene 1.

When I am in danger of bursting, I will go and whisper among the reeds.
Swift.—Letter of the Drapier, No. 7.

[Alluding no doubt to Chaucer’s Wife of Bath, Line 6549, where she runs to the marsh and whispereth her secret to the water.]

Know not what you know, and see not what you see.
Plautus.—Miles Glor. Act II. Scene 6. Line 89.

A secret is seldom safe in more than one breast.
Swift.—Four last years of Queen Anne. (On the Earl of Godolphin.)