"_Stick at Nothing._"--The expression "stop at nothing" occurs in the
following couplet in Dryden's _Aurengzebe_:
"The world is made for the bold impious man,
Who _stops at nothing_, seizes all he can."
And Pope, in one of his letters, has the expression "stick at nothing,"
where he says:
"The three chief qualifications of party-writers are, to _stick at
nothing_, to delight in flinging dirt, and to slander in the dark by
guess."
Can any of your correspondents explain the origin of the word "stick" in
the sense in which it is used by Pope; and how it came to supplant
altogether the more intelligible word "stop," as employed by Dryden?