_Endeavour_.--I have just found the following instance of "endeavour"
used as an active verb, in Dryden's translation of Maimbourg's
_History of the League_, 1684.
"On the one side the majestique House of Bourbon,... and on
the other side, that of two eminent families which endeavour'd
their own advancement by its destruction; the one is already
debas'd to the lowest degree, and the other almost reduc'd to
nothing."--p. 3.