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Ye that have not chosen in humble wise,
Without repentyng, cheseth now your make,
Yet at the lest renoveleth your service,
And ye that have full chosen, as I devise,
Confermeth it perpetually to dure.

I consent, and confirme every del
Your wordes all, and your opinion.

Chaucer.

Away-there need no words, nor terms precise,
The paltry jargon of the marble mart,
Where Pedantry gulls Folly-we have eyes:
Blood-pulse-and breast, confirm the Dardan shep.
herd's prize.
Byron. Childe Haroid

CONFIRMATION, in law, a conveyance of an estate, or right in esse, from one man to another, Id. Cant. Tales. whereby a voidable estate is made sure and unavoidable, or a particular estate is increased, or a possession made perfect.

And to confirmin my resonne
Thou wotist wel that speche is sowne,
Or ellis no man might it here.

Id. House of Fame. and confirmed his right. Spenser's Faerie Queene. Confirm the crown to me and to mine heirs. Shakspeare. Henry VI.

So settled he his kingdome,

He only lived but till he was a man:
The which no sooner had his prowess confirmed,
But like a man he died.
Id. Macbeth.

Be these sad sighs confirmers of thy words?
Then speak again.
Id. King John.

Embrace and love this man.-
With brother's love I do it.-
And let heaven

Witness how dear I hold this confirmation!
Id. Henry VIII.
The sea-captains answered, that they would per-
form his command; and in confirmation thereof pro-
mised not to do any thing which bescemed not valiant
Knolles's History.

men.

So was his will
Pronounced among the gods, and by an oath,
Which shook heaven's whole circumference, confirmed.
Milton.

Confirmed then I resolve,

Adam shall share with me in bliss or woe.

Id.

CONFIRMATION, in the established church, is the ceremony of laying on of hands. In the primitive church it was administered, we are told, after baptism, if the bishop happened to be present. Throughout the East, it still accompanies baptism; but the Romanists make it a distinct independent sacrament; and the person to be confirmed, has a god-father and god-mother appointed him, as in baptism. CONFISCATE, v. a. & adj.CONFISCATION, n. 3.

Co'NFISCATOR,n. s.

CONFI'SCATORY, adj.

Fr. confis quer; It. con

fiscare; Span.

confiscar. To

confiscate is for the prince to seize, to his own use, the property of the subject, as the penalty of some crime, really or pretendedly committed. It is a common resource of tyrants, and numerous modern examples of it have been afforded by Spain, under the dominion of the worthless Ferdinand. The origin of the word is thus traced by Cowel. Confiscare, confisquer, i. e. in publicum addicere; from fiscus, which originally signifieth a hamper, pannier, basket, or freil; but metonymically the emperor's treasure, because it was anciently kept in such hampers.'

There wants herein the definitive confirmator, and Shakspeare uses the adjective, confiscate, with test of things uncertain, the sense of man. Browne.

Wanting frequent confirmation in a matter so confirmable, their affirmation carrieth but slow persua

sion.

Id.

It may receive a spurious inmate, as is confirmable by many examples. Id. What is prepared for in catechising, is, in the next place, performed by confirmation; a most profitable usage of the church, transcribed from the practice of the apostles.

Id.

The arguments brought by Christ for the confirmation of his doctrine, were in themselves sufficient.

South. If the difficulty arise from the confirmedness of habit, every resistance weakens the habit, abates the difficulty. Decay of Piety.

These divisions also have given occasion to the reading these epistles by parcels, and in scraps, which has farther confirmed the evil arising from such partitions. Locke.

Whilst all the stars that round her burn, And all the planets in their turn,

Confirm the tidings as they roll,

And spread the truth from pole to pole.

Addison's Spectator. That treaty, so prejudicial, ought to have been remitted rather than confirmed. Swift.

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Those terrible confiscatory periods.

He fished

For wandering merchant vessels, now and then,
And sometimes caught as many as he wished;
The cargoes he confiscated, and gain

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Id.

He sought in the slave-market too, and dished
Full many a morsel for that Turkish trade,
By which, no doubt, a good deal may be made.
Byron. Don Juan.

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CONFLAGRATION OF THE WORLD. The ancient Pythagoreans, Platonists, Epicureans, and Stoics, appear to have had a notion of the general conflagration though whence they should have derived it, unless from the sacred books, it is difficult to conceive; except, perhaps, from the Phoenicians, who had it from the Jews. Seneca says expressly, Tempus advenerit quo sidera sideribus incurrent, et omni flagrante materia uno igne, quicquid nunc ex deposito lucet ardebit. This general dissolution the Stoics call EKTUρWOL, ecpуrosis. Mention of the conflagration is also made in the books of the Sybils, Sophocles, Hystaspes, Ovid, Lucan, &c. Dr. Burnet says, the Siamese believe that the earth will at last be parched up with heat; the mountains melted down; the earth's whole surface reduced to a level, and then consumed with fire. And the brahmins of Siam not only hold that the world shall be destroyed by fire, but also that a new earth shall be made out of it. Various are the sentiments of authors on the subject of the conflagration; the cause whence it is to arise, and the effects it is to produce.

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And each one taking part in other's aide, This cruell conflict raised thereabout Whose dangerous successe depended yet in doubt. Spenser's Faerie Queene.

O! what a sight it was wistly to view
How she came stealing to the wayward boy;
To note the fighting conflict of her hue,
How white and red each other did destroy.
Shakspeare. Venus and Adonis.
Bare unhoused trunks,

To the conflicting elements exposed,
Answer mere nature.

Id. Timon. No assurance touching victories can make present conflicts so sweet and easy, but nature will shrink from them.

Hooker. You shall bear under the earth a horrible thundering of fire and water conflicting together.

nature.

Bacon's Natural History. Pour dephlegmed spirit of vinegar upon salt of tartar, and there will be such a conflict or ebullition, as if there were scarce two more contrary bodies in Boyle. A man would be content to strive with himself, and conflict with great difficulties, in hopes of a mighty reward. He perceived The unequal conflict then, as angels look On dying saints.

Tillotson.

Thomson.

Id.

Lashed into foam, the fierce conflicting brine Seems o'er a thousand raging waves to burn. He said no more, for in his breast Conflicting thoughts the voice suppressed: The fire of vengeance seemed to stream From his swol'n eyeballs' yellow gleam. These opposed and conflicting interests, which you considered as so great a blemish in your old and in our present constitution, interpose a salutary check to all precipitate revolutions.

Beattie.

Burke.

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CO'NFLOW, v. n.
CO'NFLUX, n. s.

Co'NFLUENT, adj.
CO'NFLUOUS, adj.

Fr. confluent; It. confluente; Sp. confluir, confluencia; Lat. confluere. HolCO'NFLUENCE, n. s. land, the translator, CONFLUXIBILITY, n. s. asthe Encyclopædia CONFLUXIBLENESS, n. s. Metropolitana observes, seems to be the only writer who has used the verb conflow; it was probably coined by him; and it deserves a place in our language. Confluence and conflux signify the junction of streams; the crowding of people to one spot; the multitude so formed; the concurring together of several circumstances to one end. Confluent and confluous mean running one into another. Boyle employs the word confluxibility to express a tendency to form a junction by flowing together.

You see this confluence, this great flood of visitors. Shakspeare.

Knots, by the conflux of meeting sap, Infect the sound pine aud divert his grain. Id. Nimrod, who usurped dominion over the rest, sat down in the very confluence of all those rivers which watered Paradise. Raleigh's History of the World. Some come to make merry, because of the confluence of all sorts. Bacon.

You had found by experience the trouble of all men's confluence, and for all matters to yourself. Bacon to Villiers.

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in conformity with, the agent by which the reduction has been effected. Conform, as an adjective, means having a similarity to; being in consonance with. Conformation indicates the act of fashioning, or ordering a thing; the particular texture and consistence of the parts of a body; and the act of producing suitableness to anything. A conformer, or conformist, is one who conforms, who submits to; the words are particularly used with reference to the established church.

And then conforming it unto the light, Which in itself it hath remaining still, Of that first sun, yet sparkling in his sight. Spenser. Demand of them wherefore they conform not themselves unto the order of the church? Hooker.

For all the kingdoms of the earth to yield themselves willingly conformable, in whatever should be required, it was their duty.

Id.

By the knowledge of truth, and exercise of virtue, man, amongst the creatures of this world, aspireth to the greatest conformity with God.

I've been to you a true and humble wife, At all times to your will conformable.

Id.

Shakspeare's Henry VIII. Then followed that most natural effect of conforming one's self to that which she did like. Sidney Variety of tunes doth dispose the spirits to variety of passions conform unto them.

Bacon's Natural History.
Judge not what is best

By pleasure, though to nature seeming meet;
Created as thou art to nobler end,
Holy and pure, conformity divine!

Milton's Paradise Lost. Conformity in building to other civil nations, hath disposed us to let our old wooden dark houses fall to decay. Graunt.

Whatsoever should thus be universally useful, as a standard to which men should conform their manners, must have its authority either from reason or revelation. Locke:

Printers, binders, sellers, and others that make a trade, and gain out of them (books), have universally so odd a turn and corruption of mind, that they have a way of dealing peculiar to themselves, and not conformed to the good of society, and the general fairness that cements mankind. Id,

Such a law of morality Jesus Christ hath given us in the New Testament, but by the latter of these ways, by revelation. We have from him a full and sufficient rule for our direction, and conformable to that of

reason.

So a

Id

man observe the agreement of his own imaginations, and talk conformably, it is all certainty. Id.

The dissenting congregations are supposed by their teachers to be more accurately instructed in the matters of faith, and better to understand the Christian religion, than the vulgar conformists, who are charged with great ignorance-how truly I will not here determine.

Id.

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I have treated of the sex conformably to this definition. Id. This metaphor would not have been so general, had there not been a conformity between the mental taste and the sensitive taste. Id.

Virtue and vice, sin and holiness, and the conformation of our hearts and lives to the duties of true religion and morality, are things of more consequence than the furniture of understanding. Watts.

It is not your fond desires or mine that can alter the nature of things; by contending against which, what have we got, or shall ever get, but defeat and shame? I did not obey your instructions: no, I conformed to the instructions of truth and nature, and maintained your interest against your opinions, with a constancy that became me.

Burke.

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Bacon's Natural History,

CONFOUND, v. a. Fr. confondre; CONFOUNDED, part. adj. Ital. confondere ; CONFOUNDEDLY, adv. Sp. confundir; CONFOUNDEDNESS, n. s. Lat. confundere. CONFOUNDER, n. s. 'à con and fundere, to powre out, i. e. to powre out one with another,' says Minsheu. To commingle things in such a manner that the separate parts can no longer be distinguished, is here the primary idea. Hence, to confound, means, to render indistinct, or unintelligible; to involve in perplexity; to deprive of the power of distinguishing; to astonish; to throw into consternation; to destroy; to subvert. Confounded and confoundedly are low words, never used but in familiar speech, or ludicrous composition. They indicate that which is hateful or shameful.

Let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. Gen. xi. 7. Let them be confounded in all their power and might, and let their strength be broken. Daniel, xxi.

O scathful harm, condition of poverte, With thirst, with cold, with hunger so confounded. Chaucer's Cant. Tales.

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So gan he to disclose the whole debate, Which that straunge knight for him sustained had, And these two Sarazins confounded late.

Spenser's Faerie Queene. But scone the knights with their bright burning blades

Broke their rude troupes, and orders did confound. Id.

The gods confound thee! dost thou hold there still? Shakspeare. The sweetest honey

Id.

Is loathsome in its own deliciousness, And in the taste confounds the appetite. Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight, And time, that gave, doth now his gift confound. Id. Sonnet lx.

Wrapt and confounded in a thousand fears, Like to a new-killed bird she trembling lies. Id. Rape of Lucrece.

A thousand sparkling stars about her shone; But she herself did sparkle more alone Than all those thousand beauties would have done, If they had been confounded all in one.

So deep a malice to confound the race Of mankind in one root.

Davies.

Milton.

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Sir, I have heard another story: He was a most confounded Tory; And grew, or he is much belied, Extremely dull before he died. Sighs from a breaking heart my voice confound; With trembling step, to join yon weeping train 1 haste, where gleams funereal glare around, And mixed with shrieks of woe, the knells of death

resound.

Beattie.

Under misfortunes it often happens that the nerves of the understanding are so relaxed, the pressing peril of the hour so completely confounds all the faculties, that no future danger can be properly provided for, can be justly estimated, can be so much as fully seen. Burke.

Cold, temperate, and torrid clime
Sees her infuriate lust of crime
Burst every social bond, confound
Order, spread insurrection round.

Huddesford.

But haughty still, and loth himself to blame, He called on Nature's self to share the shame, And charged all faults upon the fleshly form She gave to clog the soul, and feast the worm; Till he at last confounded good and ill, And half mistook for fate the acts of will.

Byron. Lara,

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Strength matched with strength, and power confronted Shakspeare. King John. We began to lay his unkindness unto him: he, seeing himself confronted by so many, went not to denial, but to justify his cruel falsehood.

Sidney.

He spoke, and then confronts the bull; And on his ample forehead, aiming full, The deadly stroke descended. Dryden's Virgil. When I confront a medal with a verse, I only shew you the same design executed by different hands. Addison on Medals.

The argument would require a great number of comparisons, confrontations, and combinations, to find out the connexion between the two manners. Swinburne. CONFUCIUS, or CONG-FU-TSE, the greatest of the Chinese philosophers, whose memory is cherished as that of a saint, was born in the kingdom of Lu, now the province of Changtong, about 550 years before the birth of Christ: by which he seems to have been prior to Socrates, and contemporary with Pythagoras and Solon. At a very early period of life he gave proofs of uncommon talents; and being a descendant of the imperial family of the Chang dynasty, he was put under the ablest tutors, for cultivating and improving them. He had scarcely arrived at the years of maturity, when he evinced his acquaintance with all the literature of that era, particularly the canonical and classical books, ascribed to the legislators Yao and Chun. He had naturally an agreeable temper; and was distinguished for humility, sincerity, and disinterestedness; moderating his appetites, and contemning riches. He embraced, we are told, every opportunity afforded by the important station which he occupied in the kingdom of Lu, to estimate exactly the state of morals among his countrymen, and though he found them extremely vicious, formed and succeeded in the idea of a general reformation of morals. The torrent of corruption and depravity however returned; or Confucius became like many other reformers unreasonable and impatient in his expectations. At any rate he left Lu, in

the hopes of succeeding better in some distant kingdom; but, finding virtue everywhere overwhelmed by vice, he adopted the more humble employment of a teacher of youth, and trained, it is said, above 3000 scholars. He divided his doctrines into four parts, and his disciples into four classes: 1. Those who studied the moral virtues; 2. Those who studied the art of reasoning and public speaking; 3. Those who studied law and government; 4. Those who studied eloquence. He terminated his career in the seventy-second year of his age.

His works are,

1. Tay-hio, i. e. The Grand Science, or school of adults, inculcating the duties of self-government, and obedience to the laws of right reason; 2. The Chong-yong, or the Immutable Medium; 3. Lung-yu, or Moral and Pithy Discourses; 4. Meng-tse, or the Book of Mencius; so named from one of the disciples, who is said to have completed it from his master's writings. There are also Hyau-king, treating of the respect due from children to their parents; and lastly, The Syau-hys, sentences, maxims, and examples, extracted from ancient and modern authors. His Numerous structures are raised to his honor in religion appears to have been that of pure theism. China: his books are regarded by the Chinese as the fountain of wisdom, and his descendants enjoy to this day the title of mandarins of the first order. See our article CHINA. CONFU'SE, v. a. & adj. CONFUSED, adj. CONFU'SEDLY, adv. CONFUSEDNESS, n. s. CONFU'SELY, adv. CONFUSION, n. s. CONFU'SIVE, adj.

Fr. confus; It. and Sp. confuso, Lat. confusus.Confuse is from

the same root as confound, and is closely allied to it in meaning. To confuse is to throw into disorder; to perplex; to render intricate; to deprive of the power of discerning and discriminating. Confusion signifies disorderly mixture; disarray; tumult; want of clearness in the ideas; hurry of ideas; amazement; distraction of mind; overthrow; destruction. The sense of the congenerous words is too obvious to require being defined.

Min herte may min harmes not bewrey;
I am so confuse that I cannot say.

Chaucer. Cant. Tales.

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