pre-eminent

As, in the serious style, Homer is pre-eminent among poets, for he alone combined dramatic form with excellence of imitation, so he too first laid down the main lines of Comedy, by dramatising the ludicrous instead of writing personal satire.

In the first case this liberality is dangerous, in the second it is very necessary to be considered liberal; and Caesar was one of those who wished to become pre-eminent in Rome; but if he had survived after becoming so, and had not moderated his expenses, he would have destroyed his government.

Quickly the steward learned Michael's pre-eminent teachableness.

and these things being its "chief" delights-and then the pre-eminent beauty and naturalness of the concluding lines, whose very hyperbole only renders them more true to nature when we consider the innocence, the artlessness, the enthusiasm, the passionate girl, and more passionate admiration of the bereaved child--

The next morning an article appeared in a daily paper of pre-eminent honesty and truth, and talents, in the following words:--

He was finally to triumph wherever pre-eminent talents win admirers.

"Theogony" 963 ff.) with some such passage as this: `But now, ye Muses, sing of the tribes of women with whom the Sons of Heaven were joined in love, women pre-eminent above their fellows in beauty, such as was Niobe (?).' Each succeeding heroine was then introduced by the formula `Or such as was...' (cp.

I am not the one to undermine the propriety of Senor Don Quixote, for it strikes me that among his many virtues the one that is pre-eminent is that of modesty.

The bell was about to strike, and it was a matter of absolute and pre-eminent necessity that every body should look well at his watch.

Her manner had all the charm which fine breeding can confer--exquisitely polite, easily cordial; showing that perfect yet unobtrusive confidence in herself which (in England) seems to be the natural outgrowth of pre-eminent social rank.

(Cheers.) Every gentleman who hears me, is probably acquainted with the reply made by an individual, who --to use an ordinary figure of speech--"hung out" in a tub, to the emperor Alexander:--"if I were not Diogenes," said he, "I would be Alexander." I can well imagine these gentlemen to say, "If I were not Dumkins I would be Luffey; if I were not Podder I would be Struggles." (Enthusiasm.) But, gentlemen of Muggleton, is it in cricket alone that your fellow-townsmen stand pre-eminent? Have you never heard of Dumkins and determination?

His school studies had not much modified that opinion, for though he "did" his classics and mathematics, he was not pre-eminent in them.