Grocott & Ward, comps. Grocott’s Familiar Quotations, 6th ed. 189-?.
Minister
Nature too unkind,
That made no medicine for a troubled mind!
Beaumont and Fletcher.—Philaster, Act III. Scene 1.
1.Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas’d?
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow;
Raze out the written troubles of the brain;
And, with some sweet oblivious antidote,
Cleanse the stuff’d bosom of that perilous stuff,
Which weighs upon the heart?
2.Therein the patient
Must minister to himself.
1.Throw physic to the dogs, I’ll none of it.
Shakespeare.—Macbeth, Act V. Scene 3.