book xi
. 390._
Ossa they pressed down with Pelion's weight, And on them both impos'd Olympus' hill.
FITZ-GEFFREY: _The Life and Death of Sir Francis Drake, stanza 99_ (1596).
Ter sunt conati imponere Pelio Ossam.--VIRGIL: _Georgics, i. 281._
[810-1] See Shakespeare, page 64.
[810-2] See Rabelais, page 771.
Æschines (Adv. Ctesiphon, c. 53) ascribes to Demosthenes the expression ypotetmêtai ta neura tôn pragmatôn, "The sinews of affairs are cut." Diogenes Laertius, in his Life of Bion (lib. iv. c. 7, sect. 3), represents that philosopher as saying, ton plouton einai neura pragmatôn,--"Riches were the sinews of business," or, as the phrase may mean, "of the state." Referring perhaps to this maxim of Bion, Plutarch says in his Life of Cleomenes (c. 27), "He who first called money the sinews of the state seems to have said this with special reference to war." Accordingly we find money called expressly ta neura tou polemou, "the sinews of war," in Libanius, Orat. xlvi. (vol. ii. p. 477, ed. Reiske), and by the scholiast on Pindar, Olymp. i. 4 (compare Photius, Lex. _s. v._ Meganoros plouton). So Cicero, Philipp. v. 2, "nervos belli, infinitam pecuniam."
[810-3] A placard of Aldus on the door of his printing-office.--DIBDIN: _Introduction, vol. i. p. 436._
[810-4] This saying occurs in Louis Napoleon's speech to the Chamber of Commerce in Bordeaux, Oct. 9, 1852.
[810-5] Words engraved upon the monument erected to Cambronne at Nantes.
This phrase, attributed to Cambronne, who was made prisoner at Waterloo, was vehemently denied by him. It was invented by Rougemont, a prolific author of _mots_, two days after the battle, in the "Indépendant."--FOURNIER: _L' Esprit dans l' Histoire._
[810-6] A motto adopted by Thiers for the "Nationale," July 1, 1803. In the beginning of the seventeenth century Jan Zamoyski in the Polish parliament said, "The king reigns, but does not govern."
[811-1] BUFFON: _Discours de Réception_ (Recueil de l'Académie, 1753). See Burton, page 186.
[811-2] PROCLUS: _Commentary on Euclid's Elements,