The Project Gutenberg EBook of Familiar Quotations, by John Bartlett
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Title: Familiar Quotations
A Collection of Passages, Phrases, and Proverbs Traced to
Their Sources in Ancient and Modern Literature
Author: John Bartlett
Release Date: January 25, 2009 [EBook #27889]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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[ii]
"I have gathered a posie of other men's flowers, and nothing but the
thread that binds them is mine own."
[iii]
[iv]
[v]
"Out of the old fieldes cometh al this new corne fro yere to yere,"
And out of the fresh woodes cometh al these new flowres here.
The small thin volume, the first to bear the title of this collection, after passing through eight editions, each enlarged, now culminates in its ninth,—and with it, closes its tentative life.
This extract from the Preface of the fourth edition is applicable to the present one:—
"It is not easy to determine in all cases the degree of familiarity that may belong to phrases and sentences which present themselves for admission; for what is familiar to one class of readers may be quite new to another. Many maxims of the most famous writers of our language, and numberless curious and happy turns from orators and poets, have knocked at the door, and it was hard to deny them. But to admit these simply on their own merits, without assurance that the general reader would readily recognize them as old friends, was aside from the purpose of this collection. Still, it has been thought better to incur the risk of erring on the side of fulness."
With the many additions to the English writers, the present edition contains selections from the French, and from the wit and wisdom of the ancients. A few passages have been admitted without a claim to familiarity, but solely on the ground of coincidence of thought.
[vi]I am under great obligations to M. H. Morgan, Ph. D., of Harvard University, for the translation of Marcus Aurelius, and for the translation and selections from the Greek tragic writers. I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. Daniel W. Wilder, of Kansas, for the quotations from Pilpay, with contributions from Diogenes Laertius, Montaigne, Burton, and Pope's Homer; to Dr. William J. Rolfe for quotations from Robert Browning; to Mr. James W. McIntyre for quotations from Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, Mrs. Browning, Robert Browning, and Tennyson. And I have incurred other obligations to friends for here a little and there a little.
It gives me pleasure to acknowledge the great assistance I have received from Mr. A. W. Stevens, the accomplished reader of the University Press, as this work was passing through the press.
In withdrawing from this very agreeable pursuit, I beg to offer my sincere thanks to all who have assisted me either in the way of suggestions or by contributions; and especially to those lovers of this subsidiary literature for their kind appreciation of former editions.
Accepted by scholars as an authoritative book of reference, it has grown with its growth in public estimation with each reissue. Of the last two editions forty thousand copies were printed, apart from the English reprints. The present enlargement of text equals three hundred and fifty pages of the previous edition, and the index is increased with upwards of ten thousand lines.
Cambridge, March, 1891.
[vii]
[xv]
| Page | |
| Annals of Sporting | 855 |
| Biographia Britannica, note | 282 |
| Biographia Dramatica, note | 347 |
| Book of Common Prayer | 850 |
| British Princes | 685 |
| Cupid's Whirligig, note | 446 |
| Deutsche Rechts Alterthümer | 858 |
| Drunken Barnaby's Four Journeys | 856 |
| Encyclopædia Britannica, note | 784 |
| Gesta Romanorum | 802 |
| Health to the Gentle Profession of Serving-men, note | 360 |
| History of the Family of Courtenay, note | 802 |
| Letters of Junius | 688 |
| Marriage of Wit and Wisdom | 859 |
| Menagiana, note | 793 |
| New England Primer | 687 |
| Pierre Patelin, note | 771 |
| Regimen Sanitatis Salernitanum, note | 293 |
| Return from Parnassus | 684 |
| Spectator | 857 |
| The Bible | 812 |
| The Examiner, May 31, 1829, note | 313 |
| The Mock Romance, note | 217 |
| The Nation, note | 532 |
| The Skylark | 854 |
| Wheeler's Magazine, note | 690 |
[1]
(From the text of Tyrwhitt.)
Whanne that April with his shoures sote
The droughte of March hath perced to the rote.
Canterbury Tales. Prologue. Line 1.
And smale foules maken melodie,
That slepen alle night with open eye,
So priketh hem nature in hir corages;
Than longen folk to gon on pilgrimages.
Canterbury Tales. Prologue. Line 9.
And of his port as meke as is a mayde.
Canterbury Tales. Prologue. Line 69.
He was a veray parfit gentil knight.
Canterbury Tales. Prologue. Line 72.
He coude songes make, and wel endite.
Canterbury Tales. Prologue. Line 95.
Ful wel she sange the service devine,
Entuned in hire nose ful swetely;
And Frenche she spake ful fayre and fetisly,
After the scole of Stratford atte bowe,
For Frenche of Paris was to hire unknowe.
Canterbury Tales. Prologue. Line 122.
A Clerk ther was of Oxenforde also.
Canterbury Tales. Prologue. Line 287.
For him was lever han at his beddes hed
A twenty bokes, clothed in black or red,
Of Aristotle, and his philosophie,
Than robes riche, or fidel, or sautrie.
But all be that he was a philosophre,
Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre.
Canterbury Tales. Prologue. Line 295.
[2]
And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche.
Canterbury Tales. Prologue. Line 310.
Nowher so besy a man as he ther n' as,
And yet he semed besier than he was.
Canterbury Tales. Prologue. Line 323.
His studie was but litel on the Bible.
Canterbury Tales. Prologue. Line 440.
For gold in phisike is a cordial;
Therefore he loved gold in special.
Canterbury Tales. Prologue. Line 445.
Wide was his parish, and houses fer asonder.
Canterbury Tales. Prologue. Line 493.
This noble ensample to his shepe he yaf,—
That first he wrought, and afterwards he taught.
Canterbury Tales. Prologue. Line 498.
But Cristes lore, and his apostles twelve,
He taught; but first he folwed it himselve.
Canterbury Tales. Prologue. Line 529.
And yet he had a thomb of gold parde.[2:1]
Canterbury Tales. Prologue. Line 565.
Who so shall telle a tale after a man,
He moste reherse, as neighe as ever he can,
Everich word, if it be in his charge,
All speke he never so rudely and so large;
Or elles he moste tellen his tale untrewe,
Or feinen thinges, or finden wordes newe.
Canterbury Tales. Prologue. Line 733.
For May wol have no slogardie a-night.
The seson priketh every gentil herte,
And maketh him out of his slepe to sterte.
Canterbury Tales. The Knightes Tale. Line 1044.
That field hath eyen, and the wood hath ears.[2:2]
Canterbury Tales. The Knightes Tale. Line 1524.
Up rose the sonne, and up rose Emelie.
Canterbury Tales. The Knightes Tale. Line 2275.
[3]
Min be the travaille, and thin be the glorie.
Canterbury Tales. The Knightes Tale. Line 2408.
To maken vertue of necessite.[3:1]
Canterbury Tales. The Knightes Tale. Line 3044.
And brought of mighty ale a large quart.
Canterbury Tales. The Milleres Tale. Line 3497.
Yet in our ashen cold is fire yreken.[3:4]
Canterbury Tales. The Reves Prologue. Line 3880.
The gretest clerkes ben not the wisest men.
Canterbury Tales. The Reves Tale. Line 4051.
So was hire joly whistle wel ywette.
Canterbury Tales. The Reves Tale. Line 4153.
In his owen grese I made him frie.[3:5]
Canterbury Tales. The Reves Tale. Line 6069.
And for to see, and eek for to be seie.[3:6]
Canterbury Tales. The Wif of Bathes Prologue. Line 6134.
[4]
I hold a mouses wit not worth a leke,
That hath but on hole for to sterten to.[4:1]
Canterbury Tales. The Wif of Bathes Prologue. Line 6154.
Loke who that is most vertuous alway,
Prive and apert, and most entendeth ay
To do the gentil dedes that he can,
And take him for the gretest gentilman.
Canterbury Tales. The Wif of Bathes Tale. Line 6695.
That he is gentil that doth gentil dedis.[4:2]
Canterbury Tales. The Wif of Bathes Tale. Line 6752.
This flour of wifly patience.
Canterbury Tales. The Clerkes Tale. Part v. Line 8797.
They demen gladly to the badder end.
Canterbury Tales. The Squieres Tale. Line 10538.
Therefore behoveth him a ful long spone,
That shall eat with a fend.[4:3]
Canterbury Tales. The Squieres Tale. Line 10916.
Fie on possession,
But if a man be vertuous withal.
Canterbury Tales. The Frankeleines Prologue. Line 10998.
Truth is the highest thing that man may keep.
Canterbury Tales. The Frankeleines Tale. Line 11789.
Full wise is he that can himselven knowe.[4:4]
Canterbury Tales. The Monkes Tale. Line 1449.
[5]
Mordre wol out, that see we day by day.[5:1]
Canterbury Tales. The Nonnes Preestes Tale. Line 15058.
But all thing which that shineth as the gold
Ne is no gold, as I have herd it told.[5:2]
Canterbury Tales. The Chanones Yemannes Tale. Line 16430.
The firste vertue, sone, if thou wilt lere,
Is to restreine and kepen wel thy tonge.
Canterbury Tales. The Manciples Tale. Line 17281.
The proverbe saith that many a smale maketh a grate.[5:3]
Canterbury Tales. Persones Tale.
Of harmes two the lesse is for to cheese.[5:4]
Troilus and Creseide. Book ii. Line 470.
Right as an aspen lefe she gan to quake.
Troilus and Creseide. Book ii. Line 1201.
For of fortunes sharpe adversite,
The worst kind of infortune is this,—
A man that hath been in prosperite,
And it remember whan it passed is.
Troilus and Creseide. Book iii. Line 1625.
[6]
He helde about him alway, out of drede,
A world of folke.
Troilus and Creseide. Book iii. Line 1721.
One eare it heard, at the other out it went.[6:1]
Troilus and Creseide. Book iv. Line 435.
Eke wonder last but nine deies never in toun.[6:2]
Troilus and Creseide. Book iv. Line 525.
I am right sorry for your heavinesse.
Troilus and Creseide. Book v. Line 146.
Go, little booke! go, my little tragedie!
Troilus and Creseide. Book v. Line 1798.
Your duty is, as ferre as I can gesse.
The Court of Love. Line 178.
The lyfe so short, the craft so long to lerne,[6:3]
Th' assay so hard, so sharpe the conquering.
The Assembly of Fowles. Line 1.
For out of the old fieldes, as men saithe,
Cometh al this new corne fro yere to yere;
And out of old bookes, in good faithe,
Cometh al this new science that men lere.
The Assembly of Fowles. Line 22.
Nature, the vicar of the Almightie Lord.
The Assembly of Fowles. Line 379.
O little booke, thou art so unconning,
How darst thou put thy-self in prees for drede?
The Flower and the Leaf. Line 59.
Of all the floures in the mede,
Than love I most these floures white and rede,
Soch that men callen daisies in our toun.
Prologue of the Legend of Good Women. Line 41.
That well by reason men it call may
The daisie, or els the eye of the day,
The emprise, and floure of floures all.
Prologue of the Legend of Good Women. Line 183.
For iii may keep a counsel if twain be away.[6:4]
The Ten Commandments of Love.
[2:1] In allusion to the proverb, "Every honest miller has a golden thumb."
[2:2] Fieldes have eies and woodes have eares.—Heywood: Proverbes, part ii. chap. v.
Wode has erys, felde has sigt.—King Edward and the Shepard, MS. Circa 1300.
Walls have ears.—Hazlitt: English Proverbs, etc. (ed. 1869) p. 446.
[3:1] Also in Troilus and Cresseide, line 1587.
To make a virtue of necessity.—Shakespeare: Two Gentlemen of Verona, act iv. sc. 2. Matthew Henry: Comm. on Ps. xxxvii. Dryden: Palamon and Arcite.
In the additions of Hadrianus Julius to the Adages of Erasmus, he remarks, under the head of Necessitatem edere, that a very familiar proverb was current among his countrymen,—"Necessitatem in virtutem commutare" (To make necessity a virtue).
Laudem virtutis necessitati damus (We give to necessity the praise of virtue).—Quintilian: Inst. Orat. i. 8. 14.
[3:2] Haste makes waste.—Heywood: Proverbs, part i. chap. ii.
Nothing can be done at once hastily and prudently.—Publius Syrus: Maxim 357.
[3:3] Ease and speed in doing a thing do not give the work lasting solidity or exactness of beauty.—Plutarch: Life of Pericles.
[3:4] E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires.—Gray: Elegy, Stanza 23.
[3:5] Frieth in her own grease.—Heywood: Proverbs, part i. chap. xi.
[3:6] To see and to be seen.—Ben Jonson: Epithalamion, st. iii. line 4. Goldsmith: Citizen of the World, letter 71.
Spectatum veniunt, veniunt spectentur ut ipsæ (They come to see; they come that they themselves may be seen).—Ovid: The Art of Love, i. 99.
[4:1] Consider the little mouse, how sagacious an animal it is which never entrusts his life to one hole only.—Plautus: Truculentus, act iv. sc. 4.
The mouse that always trusts to one poor hole
Can never be a mouse of any soul.
Pope: Paraphrase of the Prologue, line 298.
[4:2] Handsome is that handsome does.—Goldsmith: Vicar of Wakefield, chap. i.
[4:3] Hee must have a long spoon, shall eat with the devill.—Heywood: Proverbes, part ii. chap. v.
He must have a long spoon that must eat with the devil.—Shakespeare: Comedy of Errors, act iv. sc. 3.
[4:4] Thales was asked what was very difficult; he said, "To know one's self."—Diogenes Laertius: Thales, ix.
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;
The proper study of mankind is man.
Pope: Epistle ii. line 1.
Murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ.
Shakespeare: Hamlet, act ii. sc. 2.
[5:2] Tyrwhitt says this is taken from the Parabolae of Alanus de Insulis, who died in 1294,—Non teneas aurum totum quod splendet ut aurum (Do not hold everything as gold which shines like gold).
All is not golde that outward shewith bright.—Lydgate: On the Mutability of Human Affairs.
Gold all is not that doth golden seem.—Spenser: Faerie Queene, book ii. canto viii. st. 14.
All that glisters is not gold.—Shakespeare: Merchant of Venice, act ii. sc. 7. Googe: Eglogs, etc., 1563. Herbert: Jacula Prudentum.
All is not gold that glisteneth.—Middleton: A Fair Quarrel, verse 1.
All, as they say, that glitters is not gold.—Dryden: The Hind and the Panther.
Que tout n'est pas or c'on voit luire (Everything is not gold that one sees shining).—Li Diz de freire Denise Cordelier, circa 1300.
[5:3] Many small make a great.—Heywood: Proverbes. part i. chap. xi.
[5:4] Of two evils the less is always to be chosen.—Thomas à Kempis: Imitation of Christ, book ii. chap. xii. Hooker: Polity, book v. chap. lxxxi.
Of two evils I have chose the least.—Prior: Imitation of Horace.
E duobus malis minimum eligendum (Of two evils, the least should be chosen).—Erasmus: Adages. Cicero: De Officiis, iii. 1.
[6:1] Went in at the tone eare and out at the tother.—Heywood: Proverbes, part ii. chap. ix.
[6:2] This wonder lasted nine daies.—Heywood: Proverbes, part ii. chap. i.
[6:3] Ars longa, vita brevis (Art is long: life is brief).—Hippocrates: Aphorism i.
[6:4] Three may keepe counsayle, if two be away.—Heywood: Proverbes, part ii. chap. v.
[7]
Man proposes, but God disposes.[7:1]
Imitation of Christ. Book i. Chap. 19.
And when he is out of sight, quickly also is he out of mind.[7:2]
Imitation of Christ. Book i. Chap. 23.
Of two evils, the less is always to be chosen.[7:3]
Imitation of Christ. Book iii. Chap. 12.
[7:1] This expression is of much greater antiquity. It appears in the Chronicle of Battel Abbey, p. 27 (Lower's translation), and in The Vision of Piers Ploughman, line 13994. ed. 1550.
A man's heart deviseth his way; but the Lord directeth his steps.—Proverbs xvi. 9.
[7:2] Out of syght, out of mynd.—Googe: Eglogs. 1563.
And out of mind as soon as out of sight.
Lord Brooke: Sonnet lvi.
Fer from eze, fer from herte,
Quoth Hendyng.
Hendyng: Proverbs, MSS. Circa 1320.
I do perceive that the old proverbis be not alwaies trew, for I do finde that the absence of my Nath. doth breede in me the more continuall remembrance of him.—Anne Lady Bacon to Jane Lady Cornwallis, 1613.
On page 19 of The Private Correspondence of Lady Cornwallis, Sir Nathaniel Bacon speaks of the owlde proverbe, "Out of sighte, out of mynde."
Moche Crye and no Wull.[7:4]
De Laudibus Leg. Angliæ. Chap. x.
Comparisons are odious.[7:5]
De Laudibus Leg. Angliæ. Chap. xix.
[7:4] All cry and no wool.—Butler: Hudibras, part i. canto i. line 852.
[7:5] Cervantes: Don Quixote (Lockhart's ed.), part ii. chap. i. Lyly: Euphues, 1580. Marlowe: Lust's Dominion, act iii. sc. 4. Burton: Anatomy of Melancholy, part iii. sec. 3. Thomas Heywood: A Woman killed with Kindness (first ed. in 1607), act i. sc. 1. Donne: Elegy, viii. Herbert: Jacula Prudentum. Grange: Golden Aphrodite.
Comparisons are odorous.—Shakespeare: Much Ado about Nothing, act iii. sc. 5.
[8]
There is nothynge that more dyspleaseth God,
Than from theyr children to spare the rod.[8:1]
Magnyfycence. Line 1954.
He ruleth all the roste.[8:2]
Why Come ye not to Courte. Line 198.
In the spight of his teeth.[8:3]
Colyn Cloute. Line 939.
He knew what is what.[8:4]
Colyn Cloute. Line 1106.
By hoke ne by croke.[8:5]
Colyn Cloute. Line 1240.
The wolfe from the dore.
Colyn Cloute. Line 1531.
[8:1] He that spareth the rod hateth his son.—Proverbs xiii. 24.
They spare the rod and spoyl the child.—Ralph Venning: Mysteries and Revelations (second ed.), p. 5. 1649.
Spare the rod and spoil the child.—Butler: Hudibras, pt. ii. c. i. l. 843.
[8:2] Rule the rost.—Heywood: Proverbes, part i. chap. v.
Her that ruled the rost.—Thomas Heywood: History of Women.
Rules the roast.—Jonson, Chapman, Marston: Eastward Ho, act ii. sc. 1. Shakespeare: 2 Henry VI. act i. sc. 1.
[8:3] In spite of my teeth.—Middleton: A Trick to catch the Old One, act i. sc. 2. Fielding: Eurydice Hissed.
[8:4] He knew what 's what.—Butler: Hudibras, part i. canto i. line 149.
[8:5] In hope her to attain by hook or crook.—Spenser: Faerie Queene, book iii. canto i. st. 17.
[8:6] It is a foule byrd that fyleth his owne nest.—Heywood: Proverbes, part ii. chap. v.
The loss of wealth is loss of dirt,
As sages in all times assert;
The happy man 's without a shirt.
Be Merry Friends.
[9]
Let the world slide,[9:1] let the world go;
A fig for care, and a fig for woe!
If I can't pay, why I can owe,
And death makes equal the high and low.
Be Merry Friends.
All a green willow, willow,
All a green willow is my garland.
The Green Willow.
Haste maketh waste.
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. ii.
Beware of, Had I wist.[9:2]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. ii.
Good to be merie and wise.[9:3]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. ii.
Beaten with his owne rod.[9:4]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. ii.
Look ere ye leape.[9:5]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. ii.
The fat is in the fire.[9:7]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. iii.
[10]
When the sunne shineth, make hay.
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. iii.
When the iron is hot, strike.[10:1]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. iii.
The tide tarrieth no man.[10:2]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. iii.
Than catch and hold while I may, fast binde, fast finde.[10:3]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. iii.
And while I at length debate and beate the bush,
There shall steppe in other men and catch the burdes.[10:4]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. iii.
While betweene two stooles my taile goe to the ground.[10:5]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. iii.
So many heads so many wits.[10:6]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. iii.
[11]
Happy man, happy dole.[11:1]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. iii.
God never sends th' mouth but he sendeth meat.
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. iv.
Like will to like.
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. iv.
A hard beginning maketh a good ending.
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. iv.
When the skie falth we shall have Larkes.[11:2]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. iv.
More frayd then hurt.
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. iv.
Feare may force a man to cast beyond the moone.[11:3]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. iv.
Nothing is impossible to a willing hart.
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. iv.
The wise man sayth, store is no sore.
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. v.
Rule the rost.[11:6]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. v.
Hold their noses to grinstone.[11:7]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. v.
Better to give then to take.[11:8]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. v.
When all candles bee out, all cats be gray.
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. v.
No man ought to looke a given horse in the mouth.[11:9]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. v.
[12]
I perfectly feele even at my fingers end.[12:1]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. vi.
A sleveless errand.[12:2]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. vii.
We both be at our wittes end.[12:3]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. viii.
Reckeners without their host must recken twice.
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. viii.
A day after the faire.[12:4]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. viii.
Cut my cote after my cloth.[12:5]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. viii.
The neer to the church, the further from God.[12:6]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. ix.
Now for good lucke, cast an old shooe after me.
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. ix.
Better is to bow then breake.[12:7]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. ix.
It hurteth not the toung to give faire words.[12:8]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. ix.
Two heads are better then one.
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. ix.
A short horse is soone currid.[12:9]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. x.
To tell tales out of schoole.
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. x.
To hold with the hare and run with the hound.[12:10]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. x.
[13]
She is nether fish nor flesh, nor good red herring.[13:1]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. x.
All is well that endes well.[13:2]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. x.
Of a good beginning cometh a good end.[13:3]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. x.
Shee had seene far in a milstone.[13:4]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. x.
Better late than never.[13:5]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. x.
When the steede is stolne, shut the stable durre.[13:6]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. x.
Pryde will have a fall;
For pryde goeth before and shame commeth after.[13:7]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. x.
She looketh as butter would not melt in her mouth.[13:8]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. x.
The still sowe eats up all the draffe.[13:9]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. x.
Ill weede growth fast.[13:10]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. x.
[14]
Beggars should be no choosers.[14:2]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. x.
Every cocke is proud on his owne dunghill.[14:3]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. xi.
The rolling stone never gathereth mosse.[14:4]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. xi.
To robbe Peter and pay Poule.[14:5]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. xi.
A man may well bring a horse to the water,
But he cannot make him drinke without he will.
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. xi.
Men say, kinde will creepe where it may not goe.[14:6]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. xi.
The cat would eate fish, and would not wet her feete.[14:7]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. xi.
While the grasse groweth the horse starveth.[14:8]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. xi.
[15]
Better one byrde in hand than ten in the wood.[15:1]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. xi.
Rome was not built in one day.
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. xi.
Yee have many strings to your bowe.[15:2]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. xi.
Many small make a great.[15:3]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. xi.
Children learne to creepe ere they can learne to goe.
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. xi.
Better is halfe a lofe than no bread.
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. xi.
Nought venter nought have.[15:4]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. xi.
Children and fooles cannot lye.[15:5]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. xi.
Set all at sixe and seven.[15:6]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. xi.
All is fish that comth to net.[15:7]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. xi.
Who is worse shod than the shoemaker's wife?[15:8]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. xi.
One good turne asketh another.
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. xi.
By hooke or crooke.[15:9]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. xi.
[16]
She frieth in her owne grease.[16:1]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. xi.
Who waite for dead men shall goe long barefoote.
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. xi.
I pray thee let me and my fellow have
A haire of the dog that bit us last night.[16:2]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. xi.
But in deede,
A friend is never knowne till a man have neede.
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. xi.
This wonder (as wonders last) lasted nine daies.[16:3]
Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. i.
New brome swepth cleene.[16:4]
Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. i.
All thing is the woorse for the wearing.
Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. i.
Burnt child fire dredth.[16:5]
Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. ii.
All is not Gospell that thou doest speake.[16:6]
Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. ii.
Love me litle, love me long.[16:7]
Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. ii.
A fooles bolt is soone shot.[16:8]
Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. iii.
A woman hath nine lives like a cat.[16:9]
Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. iv.
A peny for your thought.[16:10]
Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. iv.
[17]
You stand in your owne light.
Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. iv.
Though chaunge be no robbry.
Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. iv.
Might have gone further and have fared worse.
Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. iv.
The grey mare is the better horse.[17:1]
Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. iv.
Three may keepe counsayle, if two be away.[17:2]
Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. v.
Small pitchers have wyde eares.[17:3]
Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. v.
Many hands make light warke.
Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. v.
The greatest Clerkes be not the wisest men.[17:4]
Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. v.
Out of Gods blessing into the warme Sunne.[17:5]
Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. v.
There is no fire without some smoke.[17:6]
Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. v.
One swallow maketh not summer.[17:7]
Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. v.
Fieldes have eies and woods have eares.[17:8]
Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. v.
A cat may looke on a King.
Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. v.
[18]
It is a foule byrd that fyleth his owne nest.[18:1]
Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. v.
Have yee him on the hip.[18:2]
Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. v.
Hee must have a long spoone, shall eat with the devill.[18:3]
Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. v.
It had need to bee
A wylie mouse that should breed in the cats eare.[18:4]
Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. v.
Leape out of the frying pan into the fyre.[18:5]
Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. v.
Time trieth troth in every doubt.[18:6]
Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. v.
Mad as a march hare.[18:7]
Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. v.
He must needes goe whom the devill doth drive.[18:9]
Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. vii.
Set the cart before the horse.[18:10]
Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. vii.
[19]
The moe the merrier.[19:1]
Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. vii.
To th' end of a shot and beginning of a fray.[19:2]
Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. vii.
It is better to be
An old man's derling than a yong man's werling.
Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. vii.
Be the day never so long,
Evermore at last they ring to evensong.[19:3]
Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. vii.
The moone is made of a greene cheese.[19:4]
Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. vii.
I know on which side my bread is buttred.
Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. vii.
It will not out of the flesh that is bred in the bone.[19:5]
Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. viii.
Who is so deafe or so blinde as is hee
That wilfully will neither heare nor see?[19:6]
Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. ix.
The wrong sow by th' eare.[19:7]
Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. ix.
Went in at the tone eare and out at the tother.[19:8]
Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. ix.
Love me, love my dog.[19:9]
Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. ix.
[20]
An ill winde that bloweth no man to good.[20:1]
Proverbes. Part i. Chap. ix.
For when I gave you an inch, you tooke an ell.[20:2]
Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. ix.
Would yee both eat your cake and have your cake?[20:3]
Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. ix.
Every man for himselfe and God for us all.[20:4]
Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. ix.
Though he love not to buy the pig in the poke.[20:5]
Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. ix.
This hitteth the naile on the hed.[20:6]
Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. xi.
Enough is as good as a feast.[20:7]
Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. xi.
[8:7] The Proverbes of John Heywood is the earliest collection of English colloquial sayings. It was first printed in 1546. The title of the edition of 1562 is, John Heywoodes Woorkes. A Dialogue conteyning the number of the effectuall proverbes in the English tounge, compact in a matter concernynge two maner of Maryages, etc. The selection here given is from the edition of 1874 (a reprint of 1598), edited by Julian Sharman.
[9:1] Let the world slide.—Towneley Mysteries, p. 101 (1420). Shakespeare: Taming of the Shrew, induc. 1. Beaumont and Fletcher: Wit without Money, act v. sc. 2.
[9:2] A common exclamation of regret occurring in Spenser, Harrington, and the older writers. An earlier instance of the phrase occurs in the Towneley Mysteries.
[9:3] 'T is good to be merry and wise.—Jonson, Chapman, Marston: Eastward Ho, act i. sc. 1. Burns: Here 's a health to them that 's awa'.
don fust
C'on kint souvent est-on batu.
(By his own stick the prudent one is often beaten.)
Roman du Renart, circa 1300.
[9:5] Look ere thou leap.—In Tottel's Miscellany, 1557; and in Tusser's Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry. Of Wiving and Thriving. 1573.
Thou shouldst have looked before thou hadst leapt.—Jonson, Chapman, Marston: Eastward Ho, act v. sc. 1.
Look before you ere you leap.—Butler: Hudibras, pt. ii. c. ii. l. 502.
He that will not when he may,
When he will he shall have nay.
Burton: Anatomy of Melancholy, pt. iii. sec. 2, mem. 5, subs. 5.
He that wold not when he might,
He shall not when he wolda.
The Baffled Knight. Percy: Reliques.
[9:7] All the fatt 's in the fire.—Marston: What You Will. 1607.
[10:1] You should hammer your iron when it is glowing hot.—Publius Syrus: Maxim 262.
Strike whilst the iron is hot.—Rabelais: book ii. chap. xxxi. Webster: Westward Hoe. Tom A'Lincolne. Farquhar: The Beaux' Stratagem, iv. 1.
Hoist up saile while gale doth last,
Tide and wind stay no man's pleasure.
Robert Southwell: St. Peter's Complaint. 1595.
Nae man can tether time or tide.—Burns: Tam O' Shanter.
Fast bind, fast find;
A proverb never stale in thrifty mind.
Shakespeare: Merchant of Venice, act ii. sc. 5.
Also in Jests of Scogin. 1565.
[10:4] It is this proverb which Henry V. is reported to have uttered at the siege of Orleans. "Shall I beat the bush and another take the bird?" said King Henry.
[10:5] Entre deux arcouns chet cul à terre (Between two stools one sits on the ground).—Les Proverbes del Vilain, MS. Bodleian. Circa 1303.
S'asseoir entre deux selles le cul à terre (One falls to the ground in trying to sit on two stools).—Rabelais: book i. chap. ii.
[10:6] As many men, so many minds.—Terence: Phormio, ii. 3.
As the saying is, So many heades, so many wittes.—Queen Elizabeth: Godly Meditacyon of the Christian Sowle. 1548.
So many men so many mindes.—Gascoigne: Glass of Government.
[10:7] Hanging and wiving go by destiny.—The Schole-hous for Women. 1541. Shakespeare: Merchant of Venice, act 2. sc. 9.
Marriage and hanging go by destiny; matches are made in heaven.—Burton: Anatomy of Melancholy, part iii. sec. 2, mem. 5, subs. 5.
[11:1] Happy man be his dole—Shakespeare: Merry Wives, act iii. sc. 4; Winter's Tale, act i. sc. 2. Butler: Hudibras, part i. canto iii. line 168.
[11:2] Si les nues tomboyent esperoyt prendre les alouettes (If the skies fall, one may hope to catch larks).—Rabelais: book i. chap. xi.
[11:3] To cast beyond the moon, is a phrase in frequent use by the old writers. Lyly: Euphues, p. 78. Thomas Heywood: A Woman Killed with Kindness.
[11:4] Let the world slide.—Shakespeare: Taming of the Shrew, ind. 1; and, Let the world slip, ind. 2.
[11:5] Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn?—Shakespeare: 1 Henry IV. act iii. sc. 2.
[11:6] See Skelton, page 8. Shakespeare: 2 Henry VI. act i. sc. 1. Thomas Heywood: History of Women.
[11:7] Hold their noses to the grindstone.—Middleton: Blurt, Master-Constable, act iii. sc. 3.
[11:8] It is more blessed to give than to receive.—John xx. 35.
[11:9] This proverb occurs in Rabelais, book i. chap. xi.; in Vulgaria Stambrigi, circa 1510; in Butler, part i. canto i. line 490. Archbishop Trench says this proverb is certainly as old as Jerome of the fourth century, who, when some found fault with certain writings of his, replied that they were free-will offerings, and that it did not behove to look a gift horse in the mouth.
[12:1] Rabelais: book iv. chap. liv. At my fingers' ends.—Shakespeare: Twelfth Night, act i. sc. 3.
[12:2] The origin of the word "sleveless," in the sense of unprofitable, has defied the most careful research. It is frequently found allied to other substantives. Bishop Hall speaks of the "sleveless tale of transubstantiation," and Milton writes of a "sleveless reason." Chaucer uses it in the Testament of Love.—Sharman.
[12:3] At their wit's end.—Psalm cvii. 27.
[12:4] Thomas Heywood: If you know not me, etc., 1605. Tarlton: Jests, 1611.
[12:5] A relic of the Sumptuary Laws. One of the earliest instances occurs, 1530, in the interlude of Godly Queene Hester.
[12:6] Qui est près de l'église est souvent loin de Dieu (He who is near the Church is often far from God).—Les Proverbes Communs. Circa 1500.
Rather to bowe than breke is profitable;
Humylite is a thing commendable.
The Morale Proverbs of Cristyne; translated from the French (1390) by Earl Rivers, and printed by Caxton in 1478.
[12:8] Fair words never hurt the tongue.—Jonson, Chapman, Marston: Eastward Ho, act iv. sc. 1.
[12:9] Fletcher: Valentinian, act ii. sc. 1.
[12:10] Humphrey Robert: Complaint for Reformation, 1572. Lyly: Euphues, 1579 (Arber's reprint), p. 107.
[13:1] Neither fish nor flesh, nor good red herring.—Sir H. Sheres: Satyr on the Sea Officers. Tom Brown: Æneus Sylvius's Letter. Dryden: Epilogue to the Duke of Guise.
[13:2] Si finis bonus est, totum bonum erit (If the end be well, all will be well).—Gestæ Romanorum. Tale lxvii.
Who that well his warke beginneth,
The rather a good ende he winneth.
Gower: Confessio Amantis.
[13:4] Lyly: Euphues (Arber's reprint), p. 288.
[13:5] Tusser: Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry, An Habitation Enforced. Bunyan: Pilgrim's Progress. Mathew Henry: Commentaries, Matthew xxi. Murphy: The School for Guardians.
Potius sero quam nunquam (Rather late than never).—Livy: iv. ii. 11.
[13:6] Quant le cheval est emblé dounke ferme fols l'estable (When the horse has been stolen, the fool shuts the stable).—Les Proverbes del Vilain.
[13:7] Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.—Proverbs xvi. 18.
Pryde goeth before, and shame cometh behynde.—Treatise of a Gallant. Circa 1510.
[13:8] She looks as if butter would not melt in her mouth.—Swift: Polite Conversation.
[13:9] 'T is old, but true, still swine eat all the draff.—Shakespeare: Merry Wives of Windsor, act iv. sc. 2.
[13:10] Ewyl weed ys sone y-growe.—MS. Harleian, circa 1490.
An ill weed grows apace.—Chapman: An Humorous Day's Mirth.
Great weeds do grow apace.—Shakespeare: Richard III. act ii. sc. 4. Beaumont and Fletcher: The Coxcomb, act iv. sc. 4.
[14:1] God knows thou art a collop of my flesh.—Shakespeare: 1 Henry VI. act v. sc. 4.
[14:2] Beggars must be no choosers.—Beaumont and Fletcher: The Scornful Lady, act v. sc. 3.
[14:3] Þet coc is kene on his owne mixenne.—Þe Ancren Riwle. Circa 1250.
[14:4] The stone that is rolling can gather no moss.—Tusser: Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry.
A rolling stone gathers no moss.—Publius Syrus: Maxim 524. Gosson: Ephemerides of Phialo. Marston: The Fawn.
Pierre volage ne queult mousse (A rolling stone gathers no moss).—De l'hermite qui se désespéra pour le larron que ala en paradis avant que lui, 13th century.
[14:5] To rob Peter and pay Paul is said to have derived its origin when, in the reign of Edward VI., the lands of St. Peter at Westminster were appropriated to raise money for the repair of St. Paul's in London.
You know that love
Will creep in service when it cannot go.
Shakespeare: Two Gentlemen of Verona, act iv. sc. 2.
[14:7] Shakespeare alludes to this proverb in Macbeth:—
Letting I dare not wait upon I would,
Like the poor cat i' the adage.
Cat lufat visch, ac he nele his feth wete.—MS. Trinity College, Cambridge, circa 1250.
[14:8] Whylst grass doth grow, oft sterves the seely steede.—Whetstone: Promos and Cassandra. 1578.
While the grass grows—
The proverb is something musty.
Shakespeare: Hamlet, act iii. sc. 4.
[15:1] An earlier instance occurs in Heywood, in his "Dialogue on Wit and Folly," circa 1530.
[15:2] Two strings to his bow.—Hooker: Polity, book v. chap. lxxx. Chapman: D'Ambois, act ii. sc. 3. Butler: Hudibras, part iii. canto i. line 1. Churchill: The Ghost, book iv. Fielding: Love in Several Masques, sc. 13.
[15:4] Naught venture naught have.—Tusser: Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry. October Abstract.
[15:5] 'T is an old saw, Children and fooles speake true.—Lyly: Endymion.
[15:6] Set all on sex and seven.—Chaucer: Troilus and Cresseide, book iv. line 623; also Towneley Mysteries.
At six and seven.—Shakespeare: Richard II. act ii. sc. 2.
[15:7] All 's fish they get that cometh to net.—Tusser: Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry. February Abstract.
Where all is fish that cometh to net.—Gascoigne: Steele Glas. 1575.
[15:8] Him that makes shoes go barefoot himself.—Burton: Anatomy of Melancholy. Democritus to the Reader.
[15:9] This phrase derives its origin from the custom of certain manors where tenants are authorized to take fire-bote by hook or by crook; that is, so much of the underwood as many be cut with a crook, and so much of the loose timber as may be collected from the boughs by means of a hook. One of the earliest citations of this proverb occurs in John Wycliffe's Controversial Tracts, circa 1370.—See Skelton, page 8. Rabelais: book v. chap. xiii. Du Bartas: The Map of Man. Spenser: Faerie Queene, book iii. canto i. st. 17. Beaumont and Fletcher: Women Pleased, act. i. sc. 3.
[16:2] In old receipt books we find it invariably advised that an inebriate should drink sparingly in the morning some of the same liquor which he had drunk to excess over-night.
[16:4] Ah, well I wot that a new broome sweepeth cleane—Lyly: Euphues (Arber's reprint), p. 89.
Brend child fur dredth,
Quoth Hendyng.
Proverbs of Hendyng. MSS.
A burnt child dreadeth the fire.—Lyly: Euphues (Arber's reprint), p. 319.
[16:6] You do not speak gospel.—Rabelais: book i. chap. xiii.
[16:7] Marlowe: Jew of Malta, act iv. sc. 6. Bacon: Formularies.
[16:8] Sottes bolt is sone shote.—Proverbs of Hendyng. MSS.
[16:9] It has been the Providence of Nature to give this creature nine lives instead of one.—Pilpay: The Greedy and Ambitious Cat, fable iii. b. c.
[16:10] Lyly: Euphues (Arber's reprint), p. 80.
[17:1] Pryde and Abuse of Women. 1550. The Marriage of True Wit and Science. Butler: Hudibras, part ii. canto i. line 698. Fielding: The Grub Street Opera, act ii. sc. 4. Prior: Epilogue to Lucius.
Lord Macaulay (History of England, vol. i. chap. iii.) thinks that this proverb originated in the preference generally given to the gray mares of Flanders over the finest coach-horses of England. Macaulay, however, is writing of the latter half of the seventeenth century, while the proverb was used a century earlier.
Two may keep counsel when the third 's away.—Shakespeare: Titus Andronicus, act iv. sc. 2.
[17:3] Pitchers have ears.—Shakespeare: Richard III. act ii. sc. 4.
[17:5] Thou shalt come out of a warme sunne into Gods blessing.—Lyly: Euphues.
Thou out of Heaven's benediction comest
To the warm sun.
Shakespeare: Lear, act ii. sc. 2.
[17:6] Ther can no great smoke arise, but there must be some fire.—Lyly: Euphues (Arber's reprint), p. 153.
[17:7] One swallowe prouveth not that summer is neare.—Northbrooke: Treatise against Dancing. 1577.
[18:2] I have thee on the hip.—Shakespeare: Merchant of Venice, act iv. sc. 1; Othello, act ii. sc. 7.
A hardy mouse that is bold to breede
In cattis eeris.
Order of Foles. MS. circa 1450.
[18:5] The same in Don Quixote (Lockhart's ed.), part i. book iii. chap. iv. Bunyan: Pilgrim's Progress. Fletcher: The Wild-Goose Chase, act iv. sc. 3.
[18:6] Time trieth truth.—Tottel's Miscellany, reprint 1867, p. 221.
Time tries the troth in everything.—Tusser: Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry. Author's Epistle, chap. i.
[18:7] I saye, thou madde March hare.—Skelton: Replycation against certayne yong scolers.
More water glideth by the mill
Than wots the miller of.
Shakespeare: Titus Andronicus, act ii. sc. 7.
[18:9] An earlier instance of this proverb occurs in Heywood's Johan the Husbande. 1533.
He must needs go whom the devil drives.—Shakespeare: All's Well that Ends Well, act i. sc. 3. Cervantes: Don Quixote, part i. book iv. chap. iv. Gosson: Ephemerides of Phialo. Peele: Edward I.
[18:10] Others set carts before the horses.—Rabelais: book v. chap. xxii.
[19:1] Gascoigne: Roses, 1575. Title of a Book of Epigrams, 1608. Beaumont and Fletcher: The Scornful Lady, act i. sc. 1; The Sea Voyage, act i. sc. 2.
[19:2] To the latter end of a fray and the beginning of a feast.—Shakespeare: 2 Henry IV. act iv. sc. 2.
Be the day short or never so long,
At length it ringeth to even song.
Quoted at the Stake by George Tankerfield (1555).
Fox: Book of Martyrs, chap. vii. p. 346.
[19:4] Jack Jugler, p. 46. Rabelais: book i. chap. xi. Blackloch: Hatchet of Heresies, 1565. Butler: Hudibras, part ii. canto iii. line 263.
[19:5] What is bred in the bone will never come out of the flesh.—Pilpay: The Two Fishermen, fable xiv.
It will never out of the flesh that 's bred in the bone.—Jonson: Every Man in his Humour, act i. sc. 1.
[19:6] None so deaf as those that will not hear.—Mathew Henry: Commentaries. Psalm lviii.
[19:7] He has the wrong sow by the ear.—Jonson: Every Man in his Humour, act ii. sc. 1.
[19:9] Chapman: Widow's Tears, 1612.
A proverb in the time of Saint Bernard was, Qui me amat, amet et canem meum (Who loves me will love my dog also).—Sermo Primus.
God sendeth and giveth both mouth and the meat.[20:8]
Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry.
Except wind stands as never it stood,
It is an ill wind turns none to good.
Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry. A Description of the Properties of Wind.
At Christmas play and make good cheer,
For Christmas comes but once a year.
Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry. The Farmer's Daily Diet.
[21]
Such, mistress, such Nan,
Such master, such man.[21:1]
Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry. April's Abstract.
Who goeth a borrowing
Goeth a sorrowing.
Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry. June's Abstract.
'T is merry in hall
Where beards wag all.[21:2]
Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry. August's Abstract.
Naught venture naught have.[21:3]
Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry. October's Abstract.
Falstaff. What wind blew you hither, Pistol?
Pistol. Not the ill wind which blows no man to good.
Shakespeare: 2 Henry IV. act v. sc. 3.
[20:2] Give an inch, he 'll take an ell.—Webster: Sir Thomas Wyatt.
[20:3] Wouldst thou both eat thy cake and have it?—Herbert: The Size.
[20:4] Every man for himself, his own ends, the devil for all.—Burton: Anatomy of Melancholy, part iii. sec. i. mem. iii.
[20:5] For buying or selling of pig in a poke.—Tusser: Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry. September Abstract.
[20:6] You have there hit the nail on the head.—Rabelais: bk. iii. ch. xxxi.
[20:7] Dives and Pauper, 1493. Gascoigne: Poesies, 1575. Pope: Horace, book i. Ep. vii. line 24. Fielding: Covent Garden Tragedy, act v. sc. 1. Bickerstaff: Love in a Village, act iii. sc. 1.
[20:8] God sends meat, and the Devil sends cooks.—John Taylor: Works, vol. ii. p. 85 (1630). Ray: Proverbs. Garrick: Epigram on Goldsmith's Retaliation.
[21:1] On the authority of M. Cimber, of the Bibliothèque Royale, we owe this proverb to Chevalier Bayard: "Tel maître, tel valet."
Merry swithe it is in halle,
When the beards waveth alle.
Life of Alexander, 1312.
This has been wrongly attributed to Adam Davie. There the line runs,—
Swithe mury hit is in halle,
When burdes waiven alle.
The fallyng out of faithfull frends is the renuyng of loue.[21:5]
The Paradise of Dainty Devices.
[21:5] The anger of lovers renews the strength of love.—Publius Syrus: Maxim 24.
Let the falling out of friends be a renewing of affection.—Lyly: Euphues.
The falling out of lovers is the renewing of love.—Burton: Anatomy of Melancholy, part iii. sec. 2.
Amantium iræ amoris integratiost (The quarrels of lovers are the renewal of love).—Terence: Andria, act iii. sc. 5.
[22]
My mind to me a kingdom is;
Such present joys therein I find,
That it excels all other bliss
That earth affords or grows by kind:
Though much I want which most would have,
Yet still my mind forbids to crave.
MS. Rawl. 85, p. 17.[22:1]
Some have too much, yet still do crave;
I little have, and seek no more:
They are but poor, though much they have,
And I am rich with little store:
They poor, I rich; they beg, I give;
They lack, I have; they pine, I live.
MS. Rawl. 85, p. 17.
[22:1] There is a very similar but anonymous copy in the British Museum. Additional MS. 15225, p. 85. And there is an imitation in J. Sylvester's Works, p. 651.—Hannah: Courtly Poets.
My mind to me a kingdom is;
Such perfect joy therein I find,
As far exceeds all earthly bliss
That God and Nature hath assigned.
Though much I want that most would have,
Yet still my mind forbids to crave.
Byrd: Psalmes, Sonnets, etc. 1588.
My mind to me an empire is,
While grace affordeth health.
Robert Southwell (1560-1595): Loo Home.
Mens regnum bona possidet (A good mind possesses a kingdom).—Seneca: Thyestes, ii. 380.
I cannot eat but little meat,
My stomach is not good;
But sure I think that I can drink
With him that wears a hood.
Gammer Gurton's Needle.[22:2] Act ii.
[23]
Back and side go bare, go bare,
Both foot and hand go cold;
But, belly, God send thee good ale enough,
Whether it be new or old.
Gammer Gurton's Needle. Act ii.
[22:2] Stated by Dyce to be from a MS. of older date than Gammer Gurton's Needle. See Skelton's Works (Dyce's ed.), vol. i. pp. vii-x, note.
The Lord descended from above
And bow'd the heavens high;
And underneath his feet he cast
The darkness of the sky.
On cherubs and on cherubims
Full royally he rode;
And on the wings of all the winds
Came flying all abroad.
A Metrical Version of Psalm civ.
A sweet attractive kinde of grace,
A full assurance given by lookes,
Continuall comfort in a face
The lineaments of Gospell bookes.
An Elegie; or Friend's Passion for his Astrophill.[23:1]
Was never eie did see that face,
Was never eare did heare that tong,
Was never minde did minde his grace,
That ever thought the travell long;
But eies and eares and ev'ry thought
Were with his sweete perfections caught.
An Elegie; or Friend's Passion for his Astrophill.
[23:1] This piece (ascribed to Spenser) was printed in The Phœnix' Nest, 4to, 1593, where it is anonymous. Todd has shown that it was written by Mathew Roydon.
[24]
The gladsome light of jurisprudence.
First Institute.
Reason is the life of the law; nay, the common law itself is nothing else but reason. . . . The law, which is perfection of reason.[24:1]
First Institute.
For a man's house is his castle, et domus sua cuique tutissimum refugium.[24:2]
Third Institute. Page 162.
The house of every one is to him as his castle and fortress, as well for his defence against injury and violence as for his repose.
Semayne's Case, 5 Rep. 91.
They (corporations) cannot commit treason, nor be outlawed nor excommunicate, for they have no souls.
Case of Sutton's Hospital, 10 Rep. 32.
Magna Charta is such a fellow that he will have no sovereign.
Debate in the Commons, May 17, 1628.
Six hours in sleep, in law's grave study six,
Four spend in prayer, the rest on Nature fix.[24:3]
Translation of lines quoted by Coke.
[24:1] Let us consider the reason of the case. For nothing is law that is not reason.—Sir John Powell: Coggs vs. Bernard, 2 Ld. Raym. Rep. p. 911.
[24:2] Pandects, lib. ii. tit. iv. De in Jus vocando.
Seven hours to law, to soothing slumber seven;
Ten to the world allot, and all to heaven.
Sir William Jones.
His golden locks time hath to silver turned;
O time too swift! Oh swiftness never ceasing!
His youth 'gainst time and age hath ever spurned,
But spurned in vain; youth waneth by encreasing.
Sonnet. Polyhymnia.
[25]
His helmet now shall make a hive for bees,
And lovers' songs be turned to holy psalms;
A man-at-arms must now serve on his knees,
And feed on prayers, which are old age's alms.
Sonnet. Polyhymnia.
My merry, merry, merry roundelay
Concludes with Cupid's curse:
They that do change old love for new,
Pray gods, they change for worse!
Cupid's Curse.
If all the world and love were young,
And truth in every shepherd's tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee, and be thy love.
The Nymph's Reply to the Passionate Shepherd.
Fain would I, but I dare not; I dare, and yet I may not;
I may, although I care not, for pleasure when I play not.
Fain Would I.
Passions are likened best to floods and streams:
The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb.[25:1]
The Silent Lover.
Silence in love bewrays more woe
Than words, though ne'er so witty:
A beggar that is dumb, you know,
May challenge double pity.
The Silent Lover.
Go, Soul, the body's guest,
Upon a thankless arrant:
Fear not to touch the best,
The truth shall be thy warrant:
Go, since I needs must die,
And give the world the lie.
The Lie.
[26]
Methought I saw the grave where Laura lay.[26:1]
Verses to Edmund Spenser.
Cowards [may] fear to die; but courage stout,
Rather than live in snuff, will be put out.
On the snuff of a candle the night before he died.—Raleigh's Remains, p. 258, ed. 1661.
Even such is time, that takes in trust
Our youth, our joys, our all we have,
And pays us but with age and dust;
Who in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wandered all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our days.
But from this earth, this grave, this dust,
My God shall raise me up, I trust!
Written the night before his death.—Found in his Bible in the Gate-house at Westminster.
Shall I, like an hermit, dwell
On a rock or in a cell?
Poem.
If she seem not chaste to me,
What care I how chaste she be?
Poem.
Fain would I climb, yet fear I to fall.[26:3]
[History] hath triumphed over time, which besides it nothing but eternity hath triumphed over.
Historie of the World. Preface.
O eloquent, just, and mightie Death! whom none could advise, thou hast perswaded; what none hath dared, thou hast done; and whom all the world hath flattered, [27]thou only hast cast out of the world and despised. Thou hast drawne together all the farre stretchèd greatnesse, all the pride, crueltie, and ambition of man, and covered it all over with these two narrow words, Hic jacet!
Historie of the World. Book v. Part 1.
[25:1] Altissima quæque flumina minimo sono labi (The deepest rivers flow with the least sound).—Q. Curtius, vii. 4. 13.
Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep.—Shakespeare: 2 Henry VI. act iii. sc. i.
[26:1] Methought I saw my late espoused saint.—Milton: Sonnet xxiii.
Methought I saw the footsteps of a throne.—Wordsworth: Sonnet.
If she be not so to me,
What care I how fair she be?
George Wither: The Shepherd's Resolution.
[26:3] Written in a glass window obvious to the Queen's eye. "Her Majesty, either espying or being shown it, did under-write, 'If thy heart fails thee, climb not at all.'"—Fuller: Worthies of England, vol. i. p. 419.
Fierce warres and faithful loves shall moralize my song.[27:1]
Faerie Queene. Introduction. St. 1.
A gentle knight was pricking on the plaine.
Faerie Queene. Book i. Canto i. St. 1.
O happy earth,
Whereon thy innocent feet doe ever tread!
Faerie Queene. Book i. Canto i. St. 9.
The noblest mind the best contentment has.
Faerie Queene. Book i. Canto i. St. 35.
A bold bad man.[27:2]
Faerie Queene. Book i. Canto i. St. 37.
Her angels face,
As the great eye of heaven, shyned bright,
And made a sunshine in the shady place.
Faerie Queene. Book i. Canto iii. St. 4.
Ay me, how many perils doe enfold
The righteous man, to make him daily fall![27:3]
Faerie Queene. Book i. Canto viii. St. 1.
As when in Cymbrian plaine
An heard of bulles, whom kindly rage doth sting,
Doe for the milky mothers want complaine,[27:4]
And fill the fieldes with troublous bellowing.
Faerie Queene. Book i. Canto viii. St. 11.
Entire affection hateth nicer hands.
Faerie Queene. Book i. Canto viii. St. 40.
[28]
That darksome cave they enter, where they find
That cursed man, low sitting on the ground,
Musing full sadly in his sullein mind.
Faerie Queene. Book i. Canto ix. St. 35.
No daintie flowre or herbe that growes on grownd,
No arborett with painted blossoms drest
And smelling sweete, but there it might be fownd
To bud out faire, and throwe her sweete smels al arownd.
Faerie Queene. Book ii. Canto vi. St. 12.
And is there care in Heaven? And is there love
In heavenly spirits to these Creatures bace?
Faerie Queene. Book ii. Canto viii. St. 1.
How oft do they their silver bowers leave
To come to succour us that succour want!
Faerie Queene. Book ii. Canto viii. St. 2.
Eftsoones they heard a most melodious sound.
Faerie Queene. Book ii. Canto xii. St. 70.
Her berth was of the wombe of morning dew,[28:3]
And her conception of the joyous Prime.
Faerie Queene. Book iii. Canto vi. St. 3.
Roses red and violets blew,
And all the sweetest flowres that in the forrest grew.
Faerie Queene. Book iii. Canto vi. St. 6.
Be bolde, Be bolde, and everywhere, Be bold.[28:4]
Faerie Queene. Book iii. Canto xi. St. 54.
Dan Chaucer, well of English undefyled,
On Fame's eternall beadroll worthie to be fyled.
Faerie Queene. Book iv. Canto ii. St. 32.
[29]
For all that Nature by her mother-wit[29:1]
Could frame in earth.
Faerie Queene. Book iv. Canto x. St. 21.
Ill can he rule the great that cannot reach the small.
Faerie Queene. Book v. Canto ii. St. 43.
Who will not mercie unto others show,
How can he mercy ever hope to have?[29:2]
Faerie Queene. Book v. Canto ii. St. 42.
The gentle minde by gentle deeds is knowne;
For a man by nothing is so well bewrayed
As by his manners.
Faerie Queene. Book vi. Canto iii. St. 1.
For we by conquest, of our soveraine might,
And by eternall doome of Fate's decree,
Have wonne the Empire of the Heavens bright.
Faerie Queene. Book vii. Canto xi. St. 33.
For of the soule the bodie forme doth take;
For soule is forme, and doth the bodie make.
An Hymne in Honour of Beautie. Line 132.
For all that faire is, is by nature good;[29:3]
That is a signe to know the gentle blood.
An Hymne in Honour of Beautie. Line 139.
To kerke the narre from God more farre,[29:4]
Has bene an old-sayd sawe;
And he that strives to touche a starre
Oft stombles at a strawe.
The Shepheardes Calender. July. Line 97.
Full little knowest thou that hast not tride,
What hell it is in suing long to bide:
To loose good dayes, that might be better spent;
To wast long nights in pensive discontent;
To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow;
To feed on hope, to pine with feare and sorrow.
. . . . . . . . .
[30]To fret thy soule with crosses and with cares;
To eate thy heart through comfortlesse dispaires;[30:1]
To fawne, to crowche, to waite, to ride, to ronne,
To spend, to give, to want, to be undonne.
Unhappie wight, borne to desastrous end,
That doth his life in so long tendance spend!
Mother Hubberds Tale. Line 895.
What more felicitie can fall to creature
Than to enjoy delight with libertie,
And to be lord of all the workes of Nature,
To raine in th' aire from earth to highest skie,
To feed on flowres and weeds of glorious feature.
Muiopotmos: or, The Fate of the Butterflie. Line 209.
I hate the day, because it lendeth light
To see all things, but not my love to see.
Daphnaida, v. 407.
Tell her the joyous Time will not be staid,
Unlesse she doe him by the forelock take.[30:2]
Amoretti, lxx.
[31]
Behold, whiles she before the altar stands,
Hearing the holy priest that to her speakes,
And blesseth her with his two happy hands.
Epithalamion. Line 223.
[27:1] And moralized his song.—Pope: Epistle to Arbuthnot. Line 340.
[27:2] This bold bad man.—Shakespeare: Henry VIII. act ii. sc. 2. Massinger: A New Way to Pay Old Debts, act iv. sc. 2.
Ay me! what perils do environ
The man that meddles with cold iron!
Butler: Hudibras, part i. canto iii. line 1.
[27:4] "Milky Mothers,"—Pope: The Dunciad, book ii. line 247. Scott: The Monastery, chap. xxviii.
[28:1] Through thick and thin.—Drayton: Nymphidiæ. Middleton: The Roaring Girl, act iv. sc. 2. Kemp: Nine Days' Wonder. Butler: Hudibras, part i. canto ii. line 370. Dryden: Absalom and Achitophel, part ii. line 414. Pope: Dunciad, book ii. Cowper: John Gilpin.
[28:3] The dew of thy birth is of the womb of the morning.—Psalm cx. 3, Book of Common Prayer.
[28:4] De l'audace, encore de l'audace, et toujours de l'audace (Boldness, again boldness, and ever boldness).—Danton: Speech in the Legislative Assembly, 1792.
[29:1] Mother wit.—Marlowe: Prologue to Tamberlaine the Great, part i. Middleton: Your Five Gallants, act i. sc. 1. Shakespeare: Taming of the Shrew, act ii. sc. 1.
[29:2] Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.—Matthew v. 7.
[29:3] The hand that hath made you fair hath made you good.—Shakespeare: Measure for Measure, act iii. sc. 1.
[30:1] Eat not thy heart; which forbids to afflict our souls, and waste them with vexatious cares.—Plutarch: Of the Training of Children.
But suffered idleness
To eat his heart away.
Bryant: Homer's Iliad, book i. line 319.
[30:2] Take Time by the forelock.—Thales (of Miletus). 636-546 b. c.
[30:3] Rhyme nor reason.—Pierre Patelin, quoted by Tyndale in 1530. Farce du Vendeur des Lieures, sixteenth century. Peele: Edward I. Shakespeare: As You Like It, act iii. sc. 2; Merry Wives of Windsor, act v. sc. 5; Comedy of Errors, act ii. sc. 2.
Sir Thomas More advised an author, who had sent him his manuscript to read, "to put it in rhyme." Which being done, Sir Thomas said, "Yea, marry, now it is somewhat, for now it is rhyme; before it was neither rhyme nor reason."
[30:4] Fuller: Worthies of England, vol. ii. p. 379.
Of Law there can be no less acknowledged than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world. All things in heaven and earth do her homage,—the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from her power.
Ecclesiastical Polity. Book i.
That to live by one man's will became the cause of all men's misery.
Ecclesiastical Polity. Book i.
Cupid and my Campaspe play'd
At cards for kisses: Cupid paid.
He stakes his quiver, bow, and arrows,
His mother's doves, and team of sparrows:
Loses them too. Then down he throws
The coral of his lip, the rose
Growing on 's cheek (but none knows how);
With these, the crystal of his brow,
And then the dimple on his chin:
All these did my Campaspe win.
At last he set her both his eyes:
She won, and Cupid blind did rise.
O Love! has she done this to thee?
What shall, alas! become of me?
Cupid and Campaspe. Act iii. Sc. 5.
[32]
How at heaven's gates she claps her wings,
The morne not waking til she sings.[32:1]
Cupid and Campaspe. Act v. Sc. 1.
Be valyaunt, but not too venturous. Let thy attyre bee comely, but not costly.[32:2]
Euphues, 1579 (Arber's reprint), page 39.
Though the Camomill, the more it is trodden and pressed downe the more it spreadeth.[32:3]
Euphues, 1579 (Arber's reprint), page 46.
The finest edge is made with the blunt whetstone.
Euphues, 1579 (Arber's reprint), page 47.
I cast before the Moone.[32:4]
Euphues, 1579 (Arber's reprint), page 78.
It seems to me (said she) that you are in some brown study.[32:5]
Euphues, 1579 (Arber's reprint), page 80.
The soft droppes of rain perce the hard marble;[32:6] many strokes overthrow the tallest oaks.[32:7]
Euphues, 1579 (Arber's reprint), page 81.
He reckoneth without his Hostesse.[32:8] Love knoweth no lawes.
Euphues, 1579 (Arber's reprint), page 84.
Did not Jupiter transforme himselfe into the shape of Amphitrio to embrace Alcmæna; into the form of a swan to enjoy Leda; into a Bull to beguile Io; into a showre of gold to win Danae?[32:9]
Euphues, 1579 (Arber's reprint), page 93.
[33]
Lette me stande to the maine chance.[33:1]
Euphues, 1579 (Arber's reprint), page 104.
I mean not to run with the Hare and holde with the Hounde.[33:2]
Euphues, 1579 (Arber's reprint), page 107.
It is a world to see.[33:3]
Euphues, 1579 (Arber's reprint), page 116.
There can no great smoke arise, but there must be some fire.[33:4]
Euphues and his Euphœbus, page 153.
A clere conscience is a sure carde.[33:5]
Euphues, page 207.
As lyke as one pease is to another.
Euphues, page 215.
Goe to bed with the Lambe, and rise with the Larke.[33:6]
Euphues and his England, page 229.
A comely olde man as busie as a bee.
Euphues and his England, page 252.
Maydens, be they never so foolyshe, yet beeing fayre they are commonly fortunate.
Euphues and his England, page 279.
Where the streame runneth smoothest, the water is deepest.[33:7]
Euphues and his England, page 287.
Your eyes are so sharpe that you cannot onely looke through a Milstone, but cleane through the minde.
Euphues and his England, page 289.
I am glad that my Adonis hath a sweete tooth in his head.
Euphues and his England, page 308.
A Rose is sweeter in the budde than full blowne.[33:8]
Euphues and his England, page 314.
Hark, hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings,
And Phœbus 'gins arise.
Shakespeare: Cymbeline, act ii. sc. 3.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy.
Shakespeare: Hamlet, act i. sc. 3.
[32:3] The camomile, the more it is trodden on the faster it grows.—Shakespeare: 1 Henry IV. act ii. sc. 4.
[32:5] A brown study.—Swift: Polite Conversation.
[32:6] Water continually dropping will wear hard rocks hollow.—Plutarch: Of the Training of Children.
Stillicidi casus lapidem cavat (Continual dropping wears away a stone). Lucretius: i. 314.
Many strokes, though with a little axe,
Hew down and fell the hardest-timber'd oak.
Shakespeare: 3 Henry VI. act ii. sc. 1.
[32:9] Jupiter himself was turned into a satyr, a shepherd, a bull, a swan, a golden shower, and what not for love.—Burton: Anatomy of Melancholy, part iii. sec. ii. mem. i. subs. 1.
[33:1] The main chance.—Shakespeare: 1 Henry VI. act i. sc. 1. Butler: Hudibras, part ii. canto ii. Dryden: Persius, satire vi.
[33:3] 'T is a world to see.—Shakespeare: Taming of the Shrew, act ii. sc. 1.
[33:5] This is a sure card.—Thersytes, circa 1550.
[33:6] To rise with the lark and go to bed with the lamb.—Breton: Court and Country, 1618 (reprint, page 182).
Rise with the lark, and with the lark to bed.—Hurdis: The Village Curate.
[33:8] The rose is fairest when 't is budding new.—Scott: Lady of the Lake, canto iii. st. 1.
[34]
Sweet food of sweetly uttered knowledge.
Defence of Poesy.
He cometh unto you with a tale which holdeth children from play, and old men from the chimney-corner.
Defence of Poesy.
I never heard the old song of Percy and Douglas that I found not my heart moved more than with a trumpet.
Defence of Poesy.
High-erected thoughts seated in the heart of courtesy.[34:1]
Arcadia. Book i.
They are never alone that are accompanied with noble thoughts.[34:2]
Arcadia. Book i.
Many-headed multitude.[34:3]
Arcadia. Book ii.
My dear, my better half.
Arcadia. Book iii.
Fool! said my muse to me, look in thy heart, and write.[34:4]
Astrophel and Stella, i.
Have I caught my heav'nly jewel.[34:5]
Astrophel and Stella, i. Second Song.
[34:1] Great thoughts come from the heart.—Vauvenargues: Maxim cxxvii.
[34:2] He never is alone that is accompanied with noble thoughts.—Fletcher: Love's Cure, act iii. sc. 3.
[34:3] Many-headed multitude.—Shakespeare: Coriolanus, act ii. sc. 3.
This many-headed monster, Multitude.—Daniel: History of the Civil War, book ii. st. 13.
[34:4] Look, then, into thine heart and write.—Longfellow: Voices of the Night. Prelude.
[34:5] Quoted by Shakespeare in Merry Wives of Windsor.
A drunkard clasp his teeth and not undo 'em,
To suffer wet damnation to run through 'em.[34:6]
The Revenger's Tragedy. Act iii. Sc. 1.
[34:6] Distilled damnation.—Robert Hall (in Gregory's "Life of Hall").
[35]
O wearisome condition of humanity!
Mustapha. Act v. Sc. 4.
And out of mind as soon as out of sight.[35:1]
Sonnet lvi.
None ever loved but at first sight they loved.[35:2]
The Blind Beggar of Alexandria.
An ill weed grows apace.[35:3]
An Humorous Day's Mirth.
Black is a pearl in a woman's eye.[35:4]
An Humorous Day's Mirth.
Exceeding fair she was not; and yet fair
In that she never studied to be fairer
Than Nature made her; beauty cost her nothing,
Her virtues were so rare.
All Fools. Act i. Sc. 1.
I tell thee Love is Nature's second sun,
Causing a spring of virtues where he shines.
All Fools. Act i. Sc. 1.
Cornelia. What flowers are these?
Gazetta. The pansy this.
Cor. Oh, that 's for lovers' thoughts.[35:5]
All Fools. Act ii. Sc. 1.
Fortune, the great commandress of the world,
Hath divers ways to advance her followers:
To some she gives honour without deserving,
To other some, deserving without honour.[35:6]
All Fools. Act v. Sc. 1.
[36]
Young men think old men are fools; but old men know young men are fools.[36:1]
All Fools. Act v. Sc. 1.
Virtue is not malicious; wrong done her
Is righted even when men grant they err.
Monsieur D'Olive. Act i. Sc. 1.
For one heat, all know, doth drive out another,
One passion doth expel another still.[36:2]
Monsieur D'Olive. Act v. Sc. 1.
Let no man value at a little price
A virtuous woman's counsel; her wing'd spirit
Is feather'd oftentimes with heavenly words.
The Gentleman Usher. Act iv. Sc. 1.
To put a girdle round about the world.[36:3]
Bussy D'Ambois. Act i. Sc. 1.
His deeds inimitable, like the sea
That shuts still as it opes, and leaves no tracts
Nor prints of precedent for poor men's facts.
Bussy D'Ambois. Act i. Sc. 1.
So our lives
In acts exemplary, not only win
Ourselves good names, but doth to others give
Matter for virtuous deeds, by which we live.[36:4]
Bussy D'Ambois. Act i. Sc. 1.
Who to himself is law no law doth need,
Offends no law, and is a king indeed.
Bussy D'Ambois. Act ii. Sc. 1.
Each natural agent works but to this end,—
To render that it works on like itself.
Bussy D'Ambois. Act iii. Sc. 1.
[37]
'T is immortality to die aspiring,
As if a man were taken quick to heaven.
Conspiracy of Charles, Duke of Byron. Act i. Sc. 1.
Give me a spirit that on this life's rough sea
Loves t' have his sails fill'd with a lusty wind,
Even till his sail-yards tremble, his masts crack,
And his rapt ship run on her side so low
That she drinks water, and her keel plows air.
Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron. Act iii. Sc. 1.
He is at no end of his actions blest
Whose ends will make him greatest, and not best.
Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron. Act v. Sc. 1.
Words writ in waters.[37:1]
Revenge for Honour. Act v. Sc. 2.
They 're only truly great who are truly good.[37:2]
Revenge for Honour. Act v. Sc. 2.
Keep thy shop, and thy shop will keep thee.[37:3] Light gains make heavy purses. 'T is good to be merry and wise.[37:4]
Eastward Ho.[37:5] Act i. Sc. 1.
Make ducks and drakes with shillings.
Eastward Ho.[37:5] Act i. Sc. 1.
Only a few industrious Scots perhaps, who indeed are dispersed over the face of the whole earth. But as for them, there are no greater friends to Englishmen and England, when they are out on 't, in the world, than they are. And for my own part, I would a hundred thousand of them were there [Virginia]; for we are all one countrymen now, ye know, and we should find ten times more comfort of them there than we do here.[37:6]
Eastward Ho. Act iii. Sc. 2.
[38]
Enough 's as good as a feast.[38:1]
Eastward Ho. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Fair words never hurt the tongue.[38:2]
Eastward Ho. Act iv. Sc. 1.
Let pride go afore, shame will follow after.[38:3]
Eastward Ho. Act iv. Sc. 1.
I will neither yield to the song of the siren nor the voice of the hyena, the tears of the crocodile nor the howling of the wolf.
Eastward Ho. Act v. Sc. 1.
As night the life-inclining stars best shows,
So lives obscure the starriest souls disclose.
Epilogue to Translations.
Promise is most given when the least is said.
Musæus of Hero and Leander.
[35:2] Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?—Marlowe: Hero and Leander.
I saw and loved.—Gibbon: Memoirs, vol. i. p. 106.
[35:4] Black men are pearls in beauteous ladies' eyes.—Shakespeare: Two Gentlemen of Verona, act v. sc. 2.
[35:5] There is pansies, that 's for thoughts.—Shakespeare: Hamlet, act iv. sc. 5.
[35:6] Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em.—Shakespeare: Twelfth Night, act ii. sc. 5.
[36:1] Quoted by Camden as a saying of one Dr. Metcalf. It is now in many peoples' mouths, and likely to pass into a proverb.—Ray: Proverbs (Bohn ed.), p. 145.
One fire burns out another's burning,
One pain is lessened by another's anguish.
Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet, act i. sc. 2.
[36:3] I 'll put a girdle round about the earth.—Shakespeare: Midsummer Night's Dream, act ii. sc. 1.
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime.
Longfellow: A Psalm of Life.
[37:1] Here lies one whose name was writ in water.—Keats's own Epitaph.
[37:2] To be noble we 'll be good.—Winifreda (Percy's Reliques).
'T is only noble to be good.—Tennyson: Lady Clara Vere de Vere, stanza 7.
[37:3] The same in Franklin's Poor Richard.
[37:5] By Chapman, Jonson, and Marston.
[37:6] This is the famous passage that gave offence to James I., and caused the imprisonment of the authors. The leaves containing it were cancelled and reprinted, and it only occurs in a few of the original copies.—Richard Herne Shepherd.
With that she dasht her on the lippes,
So dyed double red:
Hard was the heart that gave the blow,
Soft were those lips that bled.
Albion's England. Book viii. chap. xli. stanza 53.
We thinke no greater blisse then such
To be as be we would,
When blessed none but such as be
The same as be they should.
Albion's England. Book x. chap. lix. stanza 68.
[38:4] The allegorical poem of The Howlat was composed about the middle of the fifteenth century. Of the personal history of the author no kind of information has been discovered. Printed by the Bannatyne Club, 1823.
[39]
Treason doth never prosper: what 's the reason?
Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason.[39:1]
Epigrams. Book iv. Ep. 5.
Prosperum ac felix scelus
Virtus vocatur
(Successful and fortunate crime is called virtue).
Seneca: Herc. Furens, ii. 250.
As that the walls worn thin, permit the mind
To look out thorough, and his frailty find.[39:2]
History of the Civil War. Book iv. Stanza 84.
Sacred religion! mother of form and fear.
Musophilus. Stanza 57.
And for the few that only lend their ear,
That few is all the world.
Musophilus. Stanza 97.
This is the thing that I was born to do.
Musophilus. Stanza 100.
And who (in time) knows whither we may vent
The treasure of our tongue? To what strange shores
This gain of our best glory shall be sent
T' enrich unknowing nations with our stores?
What worlds in the yet unformed Occident
May come refin'd with th' accents that are ours?[39:3]
Musophilus. Stanza 163.
Unless above himself he can
Erect himself, how poor a thing is man!
To the Countess of Cumberland. Stanza 12.
Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night,
Brother to Death, in silent darkness born.
To Delia. Sonnet 51.
The soul's dark cottage, batter'd and decay'd,
Lets in new light through chinks that Time has made.
Waller: Verses upon his Divine Poesy.
[39:3] Westward the course of empire takes its way.—Berkeley: On the Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning in America.
[40]
Had in him those brave translunary things
That the first poets had.
(Said of Marlowe.) To Henry Reynolds, of Poets and Poesy.
For that fine madness still he did retain
Which rightly should possess a poet's brain.
(Said of Marlowe.) To Henry Reynolds, of Poets and Poesy.
The coast was clear.[40:1]
Nymphidia.
When faith is kneeling by his bed of death,
And innocence is closing up his eyes,
Now if thou wouldst, when all have given him over,
From death to life thou might'st him yet recover.
Ideas. An Allusion to the Eaglets. lxi.
[40:1] Somerville: The Night-Walker.
Comparisons are odious.[40:2]
Lust's Dominion. Act iii. Sc. 4.
I 'm armed with more than complete steel,—
The justice of my quarrel.[40:3]
Lust's Dominion. Act iii. Sc. 4.
Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?[40:4]
Hero and Leander.
Come live with me, and be my love;
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dales and fields,
Woods or steepy mountain yields.
The Passionate Shepherd to his Love.
[41]
By shallow rivers, to whose falls[41:1]
Melodious birds sing madrigals.
The Passionate Shepherd to his Love.
And I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies.
The Passionate Shepherd to his Love.
Infinite riches in a little room.
The Jew of Malta. Act i.
Excess of wealth is cause of covetousness.
The Jew of Malta. Act i.
Now will I show myself to have more of the serpent than the dove;[41:2] that is, more knave than fool.
The Jew of Malta. Act ii.
Love me little, love me long.[41:3]
The Jew of Malta. Act iv.
When all the world dissolves,
And every creature shall be purified,
All places shall be hell that are not heaven.
Faustus.
Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships,
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss!
Her lips suck forth my soul:[41:4] see, where it flies!
Faustus.
O, thou art fairer than the evening air
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars.
Faustus.
Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight,
And burnèd is Apollo's laurel bough,[41:5]
That sometime grew within this learnèd man.
Faustus.
Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just,
And he but naked, though locked up in steel,
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.
Shakespeare: Henry VI. act iii. sc. 2.
[40:4] The same in Shakespeare's As You Like It. Compare Chapman, page 35.
To shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sings madrigals;
There will we make our peds of roses,
And a thousand fragrant posies.
Shakespeare: Merry Wives of Windsor, act iii. sc. i. (Sung by Evans).
[41:2] Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.—Matthew x. 16.
Once he drew
With one long kiss my whole soul through
My lips.
Tennyson: Fatima, stanza 3.
O, withered is the garland of the war!
The soldier's pole is fallen.
Shakespeare: Antony and Cleopatra, act iv. sc. 13.
[42]
(From the text of Clark and Wright.)
I would fain die a dry death.
The Tempest. Act i. Sc. 1.
Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground.
The Tempest. Act i. Sc. 1.
What seest thou else
In the dark backward and abysm of time?
The Tempest. Act i. Sc. 2.
I, thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated
To closeness and the bettering of my mind.
The Tempest. Act i. Sc. 2.
Like one
Who having into truth, by telling of it,
Made such a sinner of his memory,
To credit his own lie.
The Tempest. Act i. Sc. 2.
My library
Was dukedom large enough.
The Tempest. Act i. Sc. 2.
Knowing I lov'd my books, he furnish'd me
From mine own library with volumes that
I prize above my dukedom.
The Tempest. Act i. Sc. 2.
From the still-vexed Bermoothes.
The Tempest. Act i. Sc. 2.
I will be correspondent to command,
And do my spiriting gently.
The Tempest. Act i. Sc. 2.
Fill all thy bones with aches.
The Tempest. Act i. Sc. 2.
Come unto these yellow sands,
And then take hands:
Courtsied when you have, and kiss'd
The wild waves whist.
The Tempest. Act i. Sc. 2.
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
The Tempest. Act i. Sc. 2.
[43]
The fringed curtains of thine eye advance.
The Tempest. Act i. Sc. 2.
There 's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple:
If the ill spirit have so fair a house,
Good things will strive to dwell with 't.
The Tempest. Act i. Sc. 2.
Gon. Here is everything advantageous to life.
Ant. True; save means to live.
The Tempest. Act ii. Sc. 1.
A very ancient and fish-like smell.
The Tempest. Act ii. Sc. 2.
Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.
The Tempest. Act ii. Sc. 2.
Fer. Here 's my hand.
Mir. And mine, with my heart in 't.
The Tempest. Act iii. Sc. 1.
He that dies pays all debts.
The Tempest. Act iii. Sc. 2.
A kind
Of excellent dumb discourse.
The Tempest. Act iii. Sc. 3.
Deeper than e'er plummet sounded.
The Tempest. Act iii. Sc. 3.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
The Tempest. Act iv. Sc. 1.
With foreheads villanous low.
The Tempest. Act iv. Sc. 1.
Deeper than did ever plummet sound
I 'll drown my book.
The Tempest. Act v. Sc. 1.
Where the bee sucks, there suck I;
In a cowslip's bell I lie.
The Tempest. Act v. Sc. 1.
Merrily, merrily shall I live now,
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.
The Tempest. Act v. Sc. 1.
[44]
Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits.
The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act i. Sc. 1.
I have no other but a woman's reason:
I think him so, because I think him so.
The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act i. Sc. 2.
O, how this spring of love resembleth
The uncertain glory of an April day!
The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act i. Sc. 3.
And if it please you, so; if not, why, so.
The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act ii. Sc. 1.
O jest unseen, inscrutable, invisible,
As a nose on a man's face,[44:1] or a weathercock on a steeple.
The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act ii. Sc. 1.
She is mine own,
And I as rich in having such a jewel
As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl,
The water nectar, and the rocks pure gold.
The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act ii. Sc. 4.
He makes sweet music with th' enamell'd stones,
Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge
He overtaketh in his pilgrimage.
The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act ii. Sc. 7.
That man that hath a tongue, I say, is no man,
If with his tongue he cannot win a woman.
The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act iii. Sc. 1.
Except I be by Sylvia in the night,
There is no music in the nightingale.
The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act iii. Sc. 1.
A man I am, cross'd with adversity.
The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act iv. Sc. 1.
Is she not passing fair?
The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act iv. Sc. 4.
How use doth breed a habit in a man![44:2]
The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act v. Sc. 4.
O heaven! were man
But constant, he were perfect.
The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act v. Sc. 4.
Come not within the measure of my wrath.
The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act v. Sc. 4.
I will make a Star-chamber matter of it.
The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act i. Sc. 1.
All his successors gone before him have done 't; and all his ancestors that come after him may.
The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act i. Sc. 1.
[45]
It is a familiar beast to man, and signifies love.
The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act i. Sc. 1.
Seven hundred pounds and possibilities is good gifts.
The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act i. Sc. 1.
Mine host of the Garter.
The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act i. Sc. 1.
I had rather than forty shillings I had my Book of Songs and Sonnets here.
The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act i. Sc. 1.
If there be no great love in the beginning, yet heaven may decrease it upon better acquaintance, when we are married and have more occasion to know one another: I hope, upon familiarity will grow more contempt.[45:1]
The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act i. Sc. 1.
O base Hungarian wight! wilt thou the spigot wield?
The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act i. Sc. 3.
"Convey," the wise it call. "Steal!" foh! a fico for the phrase!
The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act i. Sc. 3.
Sail like my pinnace to these golden shores.
The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act i. Sc. 3.
Tester I 'll have in pouch, when thou shalt lack,
Base Phrygian Turk!
The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act i. Sc. 3.
Thou art the Mars of malcontents.
The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act i. Sc. 3.
Here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the king's English.
The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act i. Sc. 4.
We burn daylight.
The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act ii. Sc. 1.
There 's the humour of it.
The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act ii. Sc. 1.
Faith, thou hast some crotchets in thy head now.
The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act ii. Sc. 1.
Why, then the world 's mine oyster,
Which I with sword will open.
The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act ii. Sc. 2.
This is the short and the long of it.
The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act ii. Sc. 2.
Unless experience be a jewel.
The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act ii. Sc. 2.
Like a fair house, built on another man's ground.
The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act ii. Sc. 2.
We have some salt of our youth in us.
The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act ii. Sc. 3.
[46]
I cannot tell what the dickens his name is.[46:1]
The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act iii. Sc. 2.
What a taking was he in when your husband asked who was in the basket!
The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act iii. Sc. 3.
O, what a world of vile ill-favour'd faults
Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a year!
The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act iii. Sc. 4.
Happy man be his dole!
The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act iii. Sc. 4.
I have a kind of alacrity in sinking.
The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act iii. Sc. 5.
As good luck would have it.[46:2]
The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act iii. Sc. 5.
The rankest compound of villanous smell that ever offended nostril.
The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act iii. Sc. 5.
A man of my kidney.
The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act iii. Sc. 5.
Think of that, Master Brook.
The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act iii. Sc. 5.
Your hearts are mighty, your skins are whole.
The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act iv. Sc. 1.
In his old lunes again.
The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act iv. Sc. 2.
So curses all Eve's daughters, of what complexion soever.
The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act iv. Sc. 2.
This is the third time; I hope good luck lies in odd numbers. . . . There is divinity in odd numbers, either in nativity, chance, or death.
The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act v. Sc. 1.
Thyself and thy belongings
Are not thine own so proper as to waste
Thyself upon thy virtues, they on thee.
Heaven doth with us as we with torches do,
Not light them for themselves; for if our virtues
Did not go forth of us, 't were all alike
As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touch'd
But to fine issues, nor Nature never lends
The smallest scruple of her excellence
But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines
Herself the glory of a creditor,
Both thanks and use.
Measure for Measure. Act i. Sc. 1.
[47]
He was ever precise in promise-keeping.
Measure for Measure. Act i. Sc. 2.
Who may, in the ambush of my name, strike home.
Measure for Measure. Act i. Sc. 3.[47:1]
I hold you as a thing ensky'd and sainted.
Measure for Measure. Act i. Sc. 4.[47:1]
A man whose blood
Is very snow-broth; one who never feels
The wanton stings and motions of the sense.
Measure for Measure. Act i. Sc. 4.[47:1]
He arrests him on it;
And follows close the rigour of the statute,
To make him an example.
Measure for Measure. Act i. Sc. 4.[47:1]
Our doubts are traitors,
And make us lose the good we oft might win
By fearing to attempt.
Measure for Measure. Act i. Sc. 4.[47:1]
The jury, passing on the prisoner's life,
May in the sworn twelve have a thief or two
Guiltier than him they try.
Measure for Measure. Act ii. Sc. 1.
Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.
Measure for Measure. Act ii. Sc. 1.
This will last out a night in Russia,
When nights are longest there.
Measure for Measure. Act ii. Sc. 1.
Condemn the fault, and not the actor of it?
Measure for Measure. Act ii. Sc. 2.
No ceremony that to great ones 'longs,
Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword,
The marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe,
Become them with one half so good a grace
As mercy does.[47:2]
Measure for Measure. Act ii. Sc. 2.
Why, all the souls that were, were forfeit once;
And He that might the vantage best have took
Found out the remedy. How would you be,
If He, which is the top of judgment, should
But judge you as you are?
Measure for Measure. Act ii. Sc. 2.
[48]
The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept.
Measure for Measure. Act ii. Sc. 2.
O, it is excellent
To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous
To use it like a giant.
Measure for Measure. Act ii. Sc. 2.
But man, proud man,
Drest in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he 's most assured,
His glassy essence, like an angry ape,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As make the angels weep.
Measure for Measure. Act ii. Sc. 2.
That in the captain 's but a choleric word
Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.
Measure for Measure. Act ii. Sc. 2.
Our compell'd sins
Stand more for number than for accompt.
Measure for Measure. Act ii. Sc. 4.
The miserable have no other medicine,
But only hope.
Measure for Measure. Act iii. Sc. 1.
A breath thou art,
Servile to all the skyey influences.
Measure for Measure. Act iii. Sc. 1.
Palsied eld.
Measure for Measure. Act iii. Sc. 1.
The sense of death is most in apprehension;
And the poor beetle, that we tread upon,
In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great
As when a giant dies.
Measure for Measure. Act iii. Sc. 1.
The cunning livery of hell.
Measure for Measure. Act iii. Sc. 1.
Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;
To lie in cold obstruction and to rot;
This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice;
To be imprison'd in the viewless winds,
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendent world.
Measure for Measure. Act iii. Sc. 1.
[49]
The weariest and most loathed worldly life
That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment
Can lay on nature, is a paradise
To what we fear of death.
Measure for Measure. Act iii. Sc. 1.
The hand that hath made you fair hath made you good.[49:1]
Measure for Measure. Act iii. Sc. 1.
Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.
Measure for Measure. Act iii. Sc. 1.
There, at the moated grange, resides this dejected Mariana.[49:2]
Measure for Measure. Act iii. Sc. 1.
O, what may man within him hide,
Though angel on the outward side!
Measure for Measure. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Take, O, take those lips away,
That so sweetly were forsworn;
And those eyes, the break of day,
Lights that do mislead the morn:
But my kisses bring again, bring again;
Seals of love, but sealed in vain, sealed in vain.[49:3]
Measure for Measure. Act iv. Sc. 1.
Every true man's apparel fits your thief.
Measure for Measure. Act iv. Sc. 2.
We would, and we would not.
Measure for Measure. Act iv. Sc. 4.
A forted residence 'gainst the tooth of time
And razure of oblivion.
Measure for Measure. Act v. Sc. 1.
Truth is truth
To the end of reckoning.
Measure for Measure. Act v. Sc. 1.
My business in this state
Made me a looker on here in Vienna.
Measure for Measure. Act v. Sc. 1.
[50]
They say, best men are moulded out of faults,
And, for the most, become much more the better
For being a little bad.
Measure for Measure. Act v. Sc. 1.
What 's mine is yours, and what is yours is mine.
Measure for Measure. Act v. Sc. 1.
The pleasing punishment that women bear.
The Comedy of Errors. Act i. Sc. 1.
A wretched soul, bruised with adversity.
The Comedy of Errors. Act ii. Sc. 1.
Every why hath a wherefore.[50:1]
The Comedy of Errors. Act ii. Sc. 2.
Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast.
The Comedy of Errors. Act iii. Sc. 1.
One Pinch, a hungry lean-faced villain,
A mere anatomy.
The Comedy of Errors. Act v. Sc. 1.
A needy, hollow-eyed, sharp-looking wretch,
A living-dead man.
The Comedy of Errors. Act v. Sc. 1.
Let 's go hand in hand, not one before another.
The Comedy of Errors. Act v. Sc. 1.
He hath indeed better bettered expectation.
Much Ado about Nothing. Act i. Sc. 1.
A very valiant trencher-man.
Much Ado about Nothing. Act i. Sc. 1.
He wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat.
Much Ado about Nothing. Act i. Sc. 1.
What, my dear Lady Disdain! are you yet living?
Much Ado about Nothing. Act i. Sc. 1.
There 's a skirmish of wit between them.
Much Ado about Nothing. Act i. Sc. 1.
The gentleman is not in your books.
Much Ado about Nothing. Act i. Sc. 1.
Shall I never see a bachelor of threescore again?
Much Ado about Nothing. Act i. Sc. 1.
Benedick the married man.
Much Ado about Nothing. Act i. Sc. 1.
He is of a very melancholy disposition.
Much Ado about Nothing. Act i. Sc. 1.
He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man.
Much Ado about Nothing. Act ii. Sc. 1.
As merry as the day is long.
Much Ado about Nothing. Act ii. Sc. 1.
I have a good eye, uncle; I can see a church by daylight.
Much Ado about Nothing. Act ii. Sc. 1.
[51]
Speak low if you speak love.
Much Ado about Nothing. Act ii. Sc. 1.
Friendship is constant in all other things
Save in the office and affairs of love:
Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues;
Let every eye negotiate for itself
And trust no agent.
Much Ado about Nothing. Act ii. Sc. 1.
Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were but little happy, if I could say how much.
Much Ado about Nothing. Act ii. Sc. 1.
Lie ten nights awake, carving the fashion of a new doublet. He was wont to speak plain and to the purpose.
Much Ado about Nothing. Act ii. Sc. 3.
Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
Men were deceivers ever,—
One foot in sea and one on shore,
To one thing constant never.
Much Ado about Nothing. Act ii. Sc. 3.
Sits the wind in that corner?
Much Ado about Nothing. Act ii. Sc. 3.
Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of his humour? No, the world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.
Much Ado about Nothing. Act ii. Sc. 3.
Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.
Much Ado about Nothing. Act iii. Sc. 1.
From the crown of his head to the sole of his foot,[51:1] he is all mirth.
Much Ado about Nothing. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Every one can master a grief but he that has it.
Much Ado about Nothing. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Are you good men and true?
Much Ado about Nothing. Act iii. Sc. 3.
To be a well-favoured man is the gift of fortune; but to write and read comes by nature.
Much Ado about Nothing. Act iii. Sc. 3.
The most senseless and fit man.
Much Ado about Nothing. Act iii. Sc. 3.
[52]
You shall comprehend all vagrom men.
Much Ado about Nothing. Act iii. Sc. 3.
2 Watch. How if a' will not stand?
Dogb. Why, then, take no note of him, but let him go; and presently call the rest of the watch together, and thank God you are rid of a knave.
Much Ado about Nothing. Act iii. Sc. 3.
Is most tolerable, and not to be endured.
Much Ado about Nothing. Act iii. Sc. 3.
If they make you not then the better answer, you may say they are not the men you took them for.
Much Ado about Nothing. Act iii. Sc. 3.
The most peaceable way for you if you do take a thief, is to let him show himself what he is and steal out of your company.
Much Ado about Nothing. Act iii. Sc. 3.
I know that Deformed.
Much Ado about Nothing. Act iii. Sc. 3.
The fashion wears out more apparel than the man.
Much Ado about Nothing. Act iii. Sc. 3.
I thank God I am as honest as any man living that is an old man and no honester than I.
Much Ado about Nothing. Act iii. Sc. 3.
Comparisons are odorous.
Much Ado about Nothing. Act iii. Sc. 5.
If I were as tedious as a king, I could find it in my heart to bestow it all of your worship.
Much Ado about Nothing. Act iii. Sc. 5.
A good old man, sir; he will be talking: as they say, When the age is in the wit is out.
Much Ado about Nothing. Act iii. Sc. 5.
O, what men dare do! what men may do! what men daily do, not knowing what they do!
Much Ado about Nothing. Act iv. Sc. 1.
O, what authority and show of truth
Can cunning sin cover itself withal!
Much Ado about Nothing. Act iv. Sc. 1.
I never tempted her with word too large,
But, as a brother to his sister, show'd
Bashful sincerity and comely love.
Much Ado about Nothing. Act iv. Sc. 1.
I have mark'd
A thousand blushing apparitions
To start into her face, a thousand innocent shames
In angel whiteness beat away those blushes.
Much Ado about Nothing. Act iv. Sc. 1.
[53]
For it so falls out
That what we have we prize not to the worth
Whiles we enjoy it, but being lack'd and lost,
Why, then we rack the value; then we find
The virtue that possession would not show us
Whiles it was ours.
Much Ado about Nothing. Act iv. Sc. 1.
The idea of her life shall sweetly creep
Into his study of imagination,
And every lovely organ of her life,
Shall come apparell'd in more precious habit,
More moving-delicate and full of life
Into the eye and prospect of his soul.
Much Ado about Nothing. Act iv. Sc. 1.
Masters, it is proved already that you are little better than false knaves; and it will go near to be thought so shortly.
Much Ado about Nothing. Act iv. Sc. 2.
The eftest way.
Much Ado about Nothing. Act iv. Sc. 2.
Flat burglary as ever was committed.
Much Ado about Nothing. Act iv. Sc. 2.
Condemned into everlasting redemption.
Much Ado about Nothing. Act iv. Sc. 2.
O, that he were here to write me down an ass!
Much Ado about Nothing. Act iv. Sc. 2.
A fellow that hath had losses, and one that hath two gowns and every thing handsome about him.
Much Ado about Nothing. Act iv. Sc. 2.
Patch grief with proverbs.
Much Ado about Nothing. Act v. Sc. 1.
Men
Can counsel and speak comfort to that grief
Which they themselves not feel.
Much Ado about Nothing. Act v. Sc. 1.
Charm ache with air, and agony with words.
Much Ado about Nothing. Act v. Sc. 1.
'T is all men's office to speak patience
To those that wring under the load of sorrow,
But no man's virtue nor sufficiency
To be so moral when he shall endure
The like himself.
Much Ado about Nothing. Act v. Sc. 1.
For there was never yet philosopher
That could endure the toothache patiently.
Much Ado about Nothing. Act v. Sc. 1.
[54]
Some of us will smart for it.
Much Ado about Nothing. Act v. Sc. 1.
I was not born under a rhyming planet.
Much Ado about Nothing. Act v. Sc. 2.
Done to death by slanderous tongues.
Much Ado about Nothing. Act v. Sc. 3.
Or, having sworn too hard a keeping oath,
Study to break it and not break my troth.
Love's Labour's Lost. Act i. Sc. 1.
Light seeking light doth light of light beguile.
Love's Labour's Lost. Act i. Sc. 1.
Small have continual plodders ever won
Save base authority from others' books.
These earthly godfathers of heaven's lights
That give a name to every fixed star
Have no more profit of their shining nights
Than those that walk and wot not what they are.
Love's Labour's Lost. Act i. Sc. 1.
At Christmas I no more desire a rose
Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled mirth;[54:1]
But like of each thing that in season grows.
Love's Labour's Lost. Act i. Sc. 1.
A man in all the world's new fashion planted,
That hath a mint of phrases in his brain.
Love's Labour's Lost. Act i. Sc. 1.
A high hope for a low heaven.
Love's Labour's Lost. Act i. Sc. 1.
And men sit down to that nourishment which is called supper.
Love's Labour's Lost. Act i. Sc. 1.
That unlettered small-knowing soul.
Love's Labour's Lost. Act i. Sc. 1.
A child of our grandmother Eve, a female; or, for thy more sweet understanding, a woman.
Love's Labour's Lost. Act i. Sc. 1.
Affliction may one day smile again; and till then, sit thee down, sorrow!
Love's Labour's Lost. Act i. Sc. 1.
The world was very guilty of such a ballad some three ages since; but I think now 't is not to be found.
Love's Labour's Lost. Act i. Sc. 2.
The rational hind Costard.
Love's Labour's Lost. Act i. Sc. 2.
[55]
Devise, wit; write, pen; for I am for whole volumes in folio.
Love's Labour's Lost. Act i. Sc. 2.
A man of sovereign parts he is esteem'd;
Well fitted in arts, glorious in arms:
Nothing becomes him ill that he would well.
Love's Labour's Lost. Act ii. Sc. 1.
A merrier man,
Within the limit of becoming mirth,
I never spent an hour's talk withal.
Love's Labour's Lost. Act ii. Sc. 1.
Delivers in such apt and gracious words
That aged ears play truant at his tales,
And younger hearings are quite ravished;
So sweet and voluble is his discourse.
Love's Labour's Lost. Act ii. Sc. 1.
By my penny of observation.
Love's Labour's Lost. Act iii. Sc. 1.
The boy hath sold him a bargain,—a goose.
Love's Labour's Lost. Act iii. Sc. 1.
To sell a bargain well is as cunning as fast and loose.
Love's Labour's Lost. Act iii. Sc. 1.
A very beadle to a humorous sigh.
Love's Labour's Lost. Act iii. Sc. 1.
This senior-junior, giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid;
Regent of love-rhymes, lord of folded arms,
The anointed sovereign of sighs and groans,
Liege of all loiterers and malcontents.
Love's Labour's Lost. Act iii. Sc. 1.
A buck of the first head.
Love's Labour's Lost. Act iv. Sc. 2.
He hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in a book; he hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink.
Love's Labour's Lost. Act iv. Sc. 2.
Many can brook the weather that love not the wind.
Love's Labour's Lost. Act iv. Sc. 2.
You two are book-men.
Love's Labour's Lost. Act iv. Sc. 2.
Dictynna, goodman Dull.
Love's Labour's Lost. Act iv. Sc. 2.
These are begot in the ventricle of memory, nourished in the womb of pia mater, and delivered upon the mellowing of occasion.
Love's Labour's Lost. Act iv. Sc. 2.
For where is any author in the world
Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye?
Learning is but an adjunct to ourself.
Love's Labour's Lost. Act iv. Sc. 3.
[56]
It adds a precious seeing to the eye.
Love's Labour's Lost. Act iv. Sc. 3.
As sweet and musical
As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair;[56:1]
And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods
Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.
Love's Labour's Lost. Act iv. Sc. 3.
From women's eyes this doctrine I derive:
They sparkle still the right Promethean fire;
They are the books, the arts, the academes,
That show, contain, and nourish all the world.
Love's Labour's Lost. Act iv. Sc. 3.
He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument.
Love's Labour's Lost. Act v. Sc. 1.
Priscian! a little scratched, 't will serve.
Love's Labour's Lost. Act v. Sc. 1.
They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps.
Love's Labour's Lost. Act v. Sc. 1.
In the posteriors of this day, which the rude multitude call the afternoon.
Love's Labour's Lost. Act v. Sc. 1.
They have measured many a mile
To tread a measure with you on this grass.
Love's Labour's Lost. Act v. Sc. 2.
Let me take you a button-hole lower.
Love's Labour's Lost. Act v. Sc. 2.
I have seen the day of wrong through the little hole of discretion.
Love's Labour's Lost. Act v. Sc. 2.
A jest's prosperity lies in the ear
Of him that hears it, never in the tongue
Of him that makes it.
Love's Labour's Lost. Act v. Sc. 2.
When daisies pied and violets blue,
And lady-smocks all silver-white,
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue
Do paint the meadows with delight,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men.
Love's Labour's Lost. Act v. Sc. 2.
[57]
The words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo.
Love's Labour's Lost. Act v. Sc. 2.
But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd
Than that which withering on the virgin thorn[57:1]
Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act i. Sc. 1.
For aught that I could ever read,[57:2]
Could ever hear by tale or history,
The course of true love never did run smooth.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act i. Sc. 1.
O, hell! to choose love by another's eyes.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act i. Sc. 1.
Swift as a shadow, short as any dream;
Brief as the lightning in the collied night,
That in a spleen unfolds both heaven and earth,
And ere a man hath power to say, "Behold!"
The jaws of darkness do devour it up:
So quick bright things come to confusion.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act i. Sc. 1.
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act i. Sc. 1.
Masters, spread yourselves.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act i. Sc. 2.
This is Ercles' vein.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act i. Sc. 2.
I'll speak in a monstrous little voice.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act i. Sc. 2.
I am slow of study.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act i. Sc. 2.
That would hang us, every mother's son.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act i. Sc. 2.
I will roar you as gently as any sucking dove; I will roar you, an 't were any nightingale.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act i. Sc. 2.
A proper man, as one shall see in a summer's day.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act i. Sc. 2.
The human mortals.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act ii. Sc. 1.[57:3]
The rude sea grew civil at her song,
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres
To hear the sea-maid's music.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act ii. Sc. 1.
[58]
And the imperial votaress passed on,
In maiden meditation, fancy-free.
Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell:
It fell upon a little western flower,
Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound,
And maidens call it love-in-idleness.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act ii. Sc. 1.[58:1]
I 'll put a girdle round about the earth
In forty minutes.[58:2]
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act ii. Sc. 1.
I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act ii. Sc. 1.
A lion among ladies is a most dreadful thing.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act iii. Sc. 1.
Bless thee, Bottom! bless thee! thou art translated.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act iii. Sc. 1.
Lord, what fools these mortals be!
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act iii. Sc. 2.
So we grew together,
Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,
But yet an union in partition.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Two lovely berries moulded on one stem.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act iii. Sc. 2.
I have an exposition of sleep come upon me.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act iv. Sc. 1.
I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act iv. Sc. 1.
The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen,[58:5] man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Act iv. Sc. 1.
[59]
The lunatic, the lover, and the poet
Are of imagination all compact:
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,
That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:
The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
Such tricks hath strong imagination,
That if it would but apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that joy;
Or in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush supposed a bear!
A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act v. Sc. 1.
For never anything can be amiss,
When simpleness and duty tender it.
A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act v. Sc. 1.
The true beginning of our end.[59:1]
A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act v. Sc. 1.
The best in this kind are but shadows.
A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act v. Sc. 1.
A very gentle beast, and of a good conscience.
A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act v. Sc. 1.
This passion, and the death of a dear friend, would go near to make a man look sad.
A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act v. Sc. 1.
The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve.
A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act v. Sc. 1.
My ventures are not in one bottom trusted,
Nor to one place.
The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 1.
Now, by two-headed Janus,
Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time.
The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 1.
Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable.
The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 1.
You have too much respect upon the world:
They lose it that do buy it with much care.
The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 1.
[60]
I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano,—
A stage, where every man must play a part;
And mine a sad one.
The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 1.
Why should a man, whose blood is warm within,
Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster?
The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 1.
There are a sort of men whose visages
Do cream and mantle like a standing pond.
The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 1.
I am Sir Oracle,
And when I ope my lips, let no dog bark!
The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 1.
I do know of these
That therefore only are reputed wise
For saying nothing.
The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 1.
Fish not, with this melancholy bait,
For this fool gudgeon, this opinion.
The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 1.
Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in all Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff: you shall seek all day ere you find them, and when you have them, they are not worth the search.
The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 1.
In my school-days, when I had lost one shaft,
I shot his fellow of the selfsame flight
The selfsame way, with more advised watch,
To find the other forth; and by adventuring both,
I oft found both.
The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 1.
They are as sick that surfeit with too much, as they that starve with nothing.
The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 2.
Superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer.
The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 2.
If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottages princes' palaces.[60:1]
The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 2.
[61]
The brain may devise laws for the blood, but a hot temper leaps o'er a cold decree.
The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 2.
He doth nothing but talk of his horse.
The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 2.
God, made him, and therefore let him pass for a man.
The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 2.
When he is best, he is a little worse than a man; and when he is worst, he is little better than a beast.
The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 2.
I dote on his very absence.
The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 2.
My meaning in saying he is a good man, is to have you understand me that he is sufficient.
The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 3.
Ships are but boards, sailors but men: there be land-rats and water-rats, water-thieves and land-thieves.
The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 3.
I will buy with you, sell with you, talk with you, walk with you, and so following; but I will not eat with you, drink with you, nor pray with you. What news on the Rialto?
The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 3.
I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him.
He hates our sacred nation, and he rails,
Even there where merchants most do congregate.
The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 3.
The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 3.
A goodly apple rotten at the heart:
O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!
The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 3.
Many a time and oft
In the Rialto you have rated me.
The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 3.
For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe.
The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 3.
You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog,
And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine.
The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 3.
Shall I bend low, and in a bondman's key,
With bated breath and whispering humbleness.
The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 3.
For when did friendship take
A breed for barren metal of his friend?
The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 3.
[62]
O Father Abram! what these Christians are,
Whose own hard dealings teaches them suspect
The thoughts of others!
The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 3.
Mislike me not for my complexion,
The shadow'd livery of the burnish'd sun.
The Merchant of Venice. Act ii. Sc. 1.
The young gentleman, according to Fates and Destinies and such odd sayings, the Sisters Three and such branches of learning, is indeed deceased; or, as you would say in plain terms, gone to heaven.
The Merchant of Venice. Act ii. Sc. 2.
The very staff of my age, my very prop.
The Merchant of Venice. Act ii. Sc. 2.
It is a wise father that knows his own child.
The Merchant of Venice. Act ii. Sc. 2.
An honest exceeding poor man.
The Merchant of Venice. Act ii. Sc. 2.
Truth will come to sight; murder cannot be hid long.
The Merchant of Venice. Act ii. Sc. 2.
In the twinkling of an eye.
The Merchant of Venice. Act ii. Sc. 2.
And the vile squeaking of the wry-necked fife.
The Merchant of Venice. Act ii. Sc. 5.
All things that are,
Are with more spirit chased than enjoy'd.
How like a younker or a prodigal
The scarfed bark puts from her native bay,
Hugg'd and embraced by the strumpet wind!
How like the prodigal doth she return,
With over-weather'd ribs and ragged sails,
Lean, rent, and beggar'd by the strumpet wind!
The Merchant of Venice. Act ii. Sc. 6.
Must I hold a candle to my shames?
The Merchant of Venice. Act ii. Sc. 6.
But love is blind, and lovers cannot see
The pretty follies that themselves commit.
The Merchant of Venice. Act ii. Sc. 6.
All that glisters is not gold.[62:1]
The Merchant of Venice. Act ii. Sc. 7.
Young in limbs, in judgment old.
The Merchant of Venice. Act ii. Sc. 7.
Even in the force and road of casualty.
The Merchant of Venice. Act ii. Sc. 9.
[63]
Hanging and wiving goes by destiny.[63:1]
The Merchant of Venice. Act ii. Sc. 9.
If my gossip Report be an honest woman of her word.
The Merchant of Venice. Act iii. Sc. 1.
If it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge.
The Merchant of Venice. Act iii. Sc. 1.
I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions?
The Merchant of Venice. Act iii. Sc. 1.
The villany you teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard, but I will better the instruction.
The Merchant of Venice. Act iii. Sc. 1.
Tell me where is fancy bred,
Or in the heart or in the head?
How begot, how nourished?
Reply, Reply.
The Merchant of Venice. Act iii. Sc. 2.
In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt
But being season'd with a gracious voice
Obscures the show of evil?
The Merchant of Venice. Act iii. Sc. 2.
There is no vice so simple but assumes
Some mark of virtue in his outward parts.
The Merchant of Venice. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Thus ornament is but the guiled shore
To a most dangerous sea.
The Merchant of Venice. Act iii. Sc. 2.
The seeming truth which cunning times put on
To entrap the wisest.
The Merchant of Venice. Act iii. Sc. 2.
[64]
An unlesson'd girl, unschool'd, unpractised;
Happy in this, she is not yet so old
But she may learn.[64:1]
The Merchant of Venice. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Here are a few of the unpleasant'st words
That ever blotted paper!
The Merchant of Venice. Act iii. Sc. 2.
The kindest man,
The best-condition'd and unwearied spirit
In doing courtesies.
The Merchant of Venice. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Thus when I shun Scylla, your father, I fall into Charybdis, your mother.[64:2]
The Merchant of Venice. Act iii. Sc. 5.
Let it serve for table-talk.
The Merchant of Venice. Act iii. Sc. 5.
A harmless necessary cat.
The Merchant of Venice. Act iv. Sc. 1.
What! wouldst thou have a serpent sting thee twice?
The Merchant of Venice. Act iv. Sc. 1.
I am a tainted wether of the flock,
Meetest for death: the weakest kind of fruit
Drops earliest to the ground.
The Merchant of Venice. Act iv. Sc. 1.
I never knew so young a body with so old a head.
The Merchant of Venice. Act iv. Sc. 1.
The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
'T is mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway,
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's,
[65]When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That in the course of justice none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy.
The Merchant of Venice. Act iv. Sc. 1.
A Daniel come to judgment! yea, a Daniel!
The Merchant of Venice. Act iv. Sc. 1.
Is it so nominated in the bond?[65:1]
The Merchant of Venice. Act iv. Sc. 1.
'T is not in the bond.
The Merchant of Venice. Act iv. Sc. 1.
Speak me fair in death.
The Merchant of Venice. Act iv. Sc. 1.
An upright judge, a learned judge!
The Merchant of Venice. Act iv. Sc. 1.
A second Daniel, a Daniel, Jew!
Now, infidel, I have you on the hip.
The Merchant of Venice. Act iv. Sc. 1.
I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word.
The Merchant of Venice. Act iv. Sc. 1.
You take my house when you do take the prop
That doth sustain my house; you take my life
When you do take the means whereby I live.
The Merchant of Venice. Act iv. Sc. 1.
He is well paid that is well satisfied.
The Merchant of Venice. Act iv. Sc. 1.
How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
Here we will sit and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears: soft stillness and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony.
Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold:
There 's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins.
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.
The Merchant of Venice. Act v. Sc. 1.
I am never merry when I hear sweet music.
The Merchant of Venice. Act v. Sc. 1.
[66]
The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus.
Let no such man be trusted.
The Merchant of Venice. Act v. Sc. 1.
How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
The Merchant of Venice. Act v. Sc. 1.
How many things by season season'd are
To their right praise and true perfection!
The Merchant of Venice. Act v. Sc. 1.
This night methinks is but the daylight sick.
The Merchant of Venice. Act v. Sc. 1.
These blessed candles of the night.
The Merchant of Venice. Act v. Sc. 1.
Fair ladies, you drop manna in the way
Of starved people.
The Merchant of Venice. Act v. Sc. 1.
We will answer all things faithfully.
The Merchant of Venice. Act v. Sc. 1.
Fortune reigns in gifts of the world.
As You Like It. Act i. Sc. 2.
The little foolery that wise men have makes a great show.
As You Like It. Act i. Sc. 2.
Well said: that was laid on with a trowel.
As You Like It. Act i. Sc. 2.
Your heart's desires be with you!
As You Like It. Act i. Sc. 2.
One out of suits with fortune.
As You Like It. Act i. Sc. 2.
Hereafter, in a better world than this,
I shall desire more love and knowledge of you.
As You Like It. Act i. Sc. 2.
My pride fell with my fortunes.
As You Like It. Act i. Sc. 2.
Cel. Not a word?
Ros. Not one to throw at a dog.
As You Like It. Act i. Sc. 3.
O, how full of briers is this working-day world!
As You Like It. Act i. Sc. 3.
Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.
As You Like It. Act i. Sc. 3.
We 'll have a swashing and a martial outside,
As many other mannish cowards have.
As You Like It. Act i. Sc. 3.
[67]
Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.
As You Like It. Act ii. Sc. 1.
The big round tears
Coursed one another down his innocent nose
In piteous chase.
As You Like It. Act ii. Sc. 1.
"Poor deer," quoth he, "thou makest a testament
As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more
To that which had too much."
As You Like It. Act ii. Sc. 1.
Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens.
As You Like It. Act ii. Sc. 1.
And He that doth the ravens feed,
Yea, providently caters for the sparrow,
Be comfort to my age!
As You Like It. Act ii. Sc. 3.
For in my youth I never did apply
Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood.
As You Like It. Act ii. Sc. 3.
Therefore my age is as a lusty winter,
Frosty, but kindly.
As You Like It. Act ii. Sc. 3.
O, good old man, how well in thee appears
The constant service of the antique world,
When service sweat for duty, not for meed!
Thou art not for the fashion of these times,
Where none will sweat but for promotion.
As You Like It. Act ii. Sc. 3.
Ay, now am I in Arden: the more fool I. When I was at home I was in a better place; but travellers must be content.
As You Like It. Act ii. Sc. 4.
I shall ne'er be ware of mine own wit till I break my shins against it.
As You Like It. Act ii. Sc. 4.
Under the greenwood tree
Who loves to lie with me.
As You Like It. Act ii. Sc. 5.
I met a fool i' the forest,
A motley fool.
As You Like It. Act ii. Sc. 7.
[68]
And rail'd on Lady Fortune in good terms,
In good set terms.
As You Like It. Act ii. Sc. 7.
And then he drew a dial from his poke,
And looking on it with lack-lustre eye,
Says very wisely, "It is ten o'clock:
Thus we may see," quoth he, "how the world wags."
As You Like It. Act ii. Sc. 7.
And so from hour to hour we ripe and ripe,
And then from hour to hour we rot and rot;
And thereby hangs a tale.[68:1]
As You Like It. Act ii. Sc. 7.
My lungs began to crow like chanticleer,
That fools should be so deep-contemplative;
And I did laugh sans intermission
An hour by his dial.
As You Like It. Act ii. Sc. 7.
Motley 's the only wear.
As You Like It. Act ii. Sc. 7.
If ladies be but young and fair,
They have the gift to know it; and in his brain,
Which is as dry as the remainder biscuit
After a voyage, he hath strange places cramm'd
With observation, the which he vents
In mangled forms.
As You Like It. Act ii. Sc. 7.
I must have liberty
Withal, as large a charter as the wind,
To blow on whom I please.
As You Like It. Act ii. Sc. 7.
The "why" is plain as way to parish church.
As You Like It. Act ii. Sc. 7.
Under the shade of melancholy boughs,
Lose and neglect the creeping hours of time;
If ever you have look'd on better days,
If ever been where bells have knoll'd to church,
If ever sat at any good man's feast.
As You Like It. Act ii. Sc. 7.
True is it that we have seen better days.
As You Like It. Act ii. Sc. 7.
[69]
And wiped our eyes
Of drops that sacred pity hath engender'd.
As You Like It. Act ii. Sc. 7.
Oppress'd with two weak evils, age and hunger.
As You Like It. Act ii. Sc. 7.
All the world 's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.[69:1]
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard;
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
As You Like It. Act ii. Sc. 7.
[70]
Blow, blow, thou winter wind!
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude.
As You Like It. Act ii. Sc. 7.
The fair, the chaste, and unexpressive she.
As You Like It. Act iii. Sc. 2.
It goes much against my stomach. Hast any philosophy in thee, shepherd?
As You Like It. Act iii. Sc. 2.
He that wants money, means, and content is without three good friends.
As You Like It. Act iii. Sc. 2.
This is the very false gallop of verses.
As You Like It. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Let us make an honourable retreat.
As You Like It. Act iii. Sc. 2.
With bag and baggage.
As You Like It. Act iii. Sc. 2.
O, wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful wonderful! and yet again wonderful, and after that out of all hooping.
As You Like It. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Answer me in one word.
As You Like It. Act iii. Sc. 2.
I do desire we may be better strangers.
As You Like It. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Time travels in divers paces with divers persons. I 'll tell you who Time ambles withal, who Time trots withal, who Time gallops withal, and who he stands still withal.
As You Like It. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Every one fault seeming monstrous till his fellow-fault came to match it.
As You Like It. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Neither rhyme nor reason.[70:1]
As You Like It. Act iii. Sc. 2.
I would the gods had made thee poetical.
As You Like It. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Down on your knees,
And thank Heaven, fasting, for a good man's love.
As You Like It. Act iii. Sc. 5.
It is a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, extracted from many objects, and indeed the sundry contemplation of my travels, in which my often rumination wraps me in a most humorous sadness.
As You Like It. Act iv. Sc. 1.
I have gained my experience.
As You Like It. Act iv. Sc. 1.
[71]
I had rather have a fool to make me merry than experience to make me sad.
As You Like it. Act iv. Sc. 1.
I will scarce think you have swam in a gondola.
As You Like It. Act iv. Sc. 1.
I 'll warrant him heart-whole.
As You Like It. Act iv. Sc. 1.
Good orators, when they are out, they will spit.
As You Like It. Act iv. Sc. 1.
Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them,—but not for love.
As You Like It. Act iv. Sc. 1.
Can one desire too much of a good thing?[71:1]
As You Like It. Act iv. Sc. 1.
For ever and a day.
As You Like It. Act iv. Sc. 1.
Men are April when they woo, December when they wed: maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives.
As You Like It. Act iv. Sc. 1.
The horn, the horn, the lusty horn
Is not a thing to laugh to scorn.
As You Like It. Act iv. Sc. 2.
Chewing the food[71:2] of sweet and bitter fancy.
As You Like It. Act iv. Sc. 3.
It is meat and drink to me.
As You Like It. Act v. Sc. 1.
"So so" is good, very good, very excellent good; and yet it is not; it is but so so.
As You Like It. Act v. Sc. 1.
The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.
As You Like It. Act v. Sc. 1.
I will kill thee a hundred and fifty ways.
As You Like It. Act v. Sc. 1.
No sooner met but they looked; no sooner looked but they loved; no sooner loved but they sighed; no sooner sighed but they asked one another the reason; no sooner knew the reason but they sought the remedy.
As You Like It. Act v. Sc. 2.
How bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes!
As You Like It. Act v. Sc. 2.
Here comes a pair of very strange beasts, which in all tongues are called fools.
As You Like It. Act v. Sc. 4.
[72]
An ill-favoured thing, sir, but mine own.
As You Like It. Act v. Sc. 4.
Rich honesty dwells like a miser, sir, in a poor house; as your pearl in your foul oyster.
As You Like It. Act v. Sc. 4.
The Retort Courteous; . . . the Quip Modest; . . . the Reply Churlish; . . . the Reproof Valiant; . . . the Countercheck Quarrelsome; . . . the Lie with Circumstance; . . . the Lie Direct.
As You Like It. Act v. Sc. 4.
Your If is the only peacemaker; much virtue in If.
As You Like It. Act v. Sc. 4.
Good wine needs no bush.[72:1]
As You Like It. Epilogue.
What a case am I in.
As You Like It. Epilogue.
Look in the chronicles; we came in with Richard Conqueror.
The Taming of the Shrew. Induc. Sc. 1.
Let the world slide.[72:2]
The Taming of the Shrew. Induc. Sc. 1.
I 'll not budge an inch.
The Taming of the Shrew. Induc. Sc. 1.
As Stephen Sly and old John Naps of Greece,
And Peter Turph and Henry Pimpernell,
And twenty more such names and men as these
Which never were, nor no man ever saw.
The Taming of the Shrew. Induc. Sc. 2.
No profit grows where is no pleasure ta'en;
In brief, sir, study what you most affect.
The Taming of the Shrew. Act i. Sc. 1.
There 's small choice in rotten apples.
The Taming of the Shrew. Act i. Sc. 1.
Nothing comes amiss; so money comes withal.
The Taming of the Shrew. Act i. Sc. 2.
Tush! tush! fear boys with bugs.
The Taming of the Shrew. Act i. Sc. 2.
And do as adversaries do in law,—
Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.
The Taming of the Shrew. Act i. Sc. 2.
Who wooed in haste, and means to wed at leisure.[72:3]
The Taming of the Shrew. Act iii. Sc. 2.
[73]
And thereby hangs a tale.
The Taming of the Shrew. Act iv. Sc. 1.
My cake is dough.
The Taming of the Shrew. Act v. Sc. 1.
A woman moved is like a fountain troubled,—
Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty.
The Taming of the Shrew. Act v. Sc. 2.
Such duty as the subject owes the prince,
Even such a woman oweth to her husband.
The Taming of the Shrew. Act v. Sc. 2.
'T were all one
That I should love a bright particular star,
And think to wed it.
All's Well that Ends Well. Act i. Sc. 1.
The hind that would be mated by the lion
Must die for love.
All's Well that Ends Well. Act i. Sc. 1.
Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,
Which we ascribe to Heaven.
All's Well that Ends Well. Act i. Sc. 1.
Service is no heritage.
All's Well that Ends Well. Act i. Sc. 3.
He must needs go that the devil drives.[73:1]
All's Well that Ends Well. Act i. Sc. 3.
My friends were poor but honest.
All's Well that Ends Well. Act i. Sc. 3.
Oft expectation fails, and most oft there
Where most it promises.
All's Well that Ends Well. Act ii. Sc. 1.
I will show myself highly fed and lowly taught.
All's Well that Ends Well. Act ii. Sc. 2.
From lowest place when virtuous things proceed,
The place is dignified by the doer's deed.
All's Well that Ends Well. Act ii. Sc. 3.
They say miracles are past.
All's Well that Ends Well. Act ii. Sc. 3.
All the learned and authentic fellows.
All's Well that Ends Well. Act ii. Sc. 3.
A young man married is a man that 's marr'd.
All's Well that Ends Well. Act ii. Sc. 3.
Make the coming hour o'erflow with joy,
And pleasure drown the brim.
All's Well that Ends Well. Act ii. Sc. 4.
No legacy is so rich as honesty.
All's Well that Ends Well. Act iii. Sc. 5.
[74]
The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together.
All's Well that Ends Well. Act iv. Sc. 3.
Whose words all ears took captive.
All's Well that Ends Well. Act v. Sc. 3.
Praising what is lost
Makes the remembrance dear.
All's Well that Ends Well. Act v. Sc. 3.
The inaudible and noiseless foot of Time.[74:1]
All's Well that Ends Well. Act v. Sc. 3.
All impediments in fancy's course
Are motives of more fancy.
All's Well that Ends Well. Act v. Sc. 3.
The bitter past, more welcome is the sweet.
All's Well that Ends Well. Act v. Sc. 3.
If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
That strain again! it had a dying fall:
O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound[74:2]
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour!
Twelfth Night. Act i. Sc. 1.
I am sure care 's an enemy to life.
Twelfth Night. Act i. Sc. 3.
At my fingers' ends.[74:3]
Twelfth Night. Act i. Sc. 3.
Wherefore are these things hid?
Twelfth Night. Act i. Sc. 3.
Is it a world to hide virtues in?
Twelfth Night. Act i. Sc. 3.
One draught above heat makes him a fool; the second mads him; and a third drowns him.
Twelfth Night. Act i. Sc. 5.
We will draw the curtain and show you the picture.
Twelfth Night. Act i. Sc. 5.
'T is beauty truly blent, whose red and white
Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on:
Lady, you are the cruell'st she alive
If you will lead these graces to the grave
And leave the world no copy.
Twelfth Night. Act i. Sc. 5.
[75]
Halloo your name to the reverberate hills,
And make the babbling gossip of the air
Cry out.
Twelfth Night. Act i. Sc. 5.
Journeys end in lovers meeting,
Every wise man's son doth know.
Twelfth Night. Act ii. Sc. 3.
Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty.
Twelfth Night. Act ii. Sc. 3.
He does it with a better grace, but I do it more natural.
Twelfth Night. Act ii. Sc. 3.
Is there no respect of place, parsons, nor time in you?
Twelfth Night. Act ii. Sc. 3.
Sir To. Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?
Clo. Yes, by Saint Anne, and ginger shall be hot i' the mouth too.
Twelfth Night. Act ii. Sc. 3.
My purpose is, indeed, a horse of that colour.
Twelfth Night. Act ii. Sc. 3.
These most brisk and giddy-paced times.
Twelfth Night. Act ii. Sc. 4.
Let still the woman take
An elder than herself: so wears she to him,
So sways she level in her husband's heart:
For, boy, however we do praise ourselves,
Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm,
More longing, wavering, sooner lost and worn,
Than women's are.
Twelfth Night. Act ii. Sc. 4.
Then let thy love be younger than thyself,
Or thy affection cannot hold the bent.
Twelfth Night. Act ii. Sc. 4.
The spinsters and the knitters in the sun
And the free maids that weave their thread with bones
Do use to chant it: it is silly sooth,
And dallies with the innocence of love,
Like the old age.
Twelfth Night. Act ii. Sc. 4.
Duke. And what 's her history?
Vio. A blank, my lord. She never told her love,
But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud,
[76]Feed on her damask cheek: she pined in thought,
And with a green and yellow melancholy
She sat like patience on a monument,
Smiling at grief.
Twelfth Night. Act ii. Sc. 4.
I am all the daughters of my father's house,
And all the brothers too.
Twelfth Night. Act ii. Sc. 4.
An you had any eye behind you, you might see more detraction at your heels than fortunes before you.
Twelfth Night. Act ii. Sc. 5.
Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em.
Twelfth Night. Act ii. Sc. 5.
Foolery, sir, does walk about the orb like the sun; it shines everywhere.
Twelfth Night. Act iii. Sc. 1.
Oh, what a deal of scorn looks beautiful
In the contempt and anger of his lip!
Twelfth Night. Act iii. Sc. 1.
Love sought is good, but given unsought is better.
Twelfth Night. Act iii. Sc. 1.
Let there be gall enough in thy ink; though thou write with a goose-pen, no matter.
Twelfth Night. Act iii. Sc. 2.
I think we do know the sweet Roman hand.
Twelfth Night. Act iii. Sc. 4.
Put thyself into the trick of singularity.
Twelfth Night. Act iii. Sc. 4.
'T is not for gravity to play at cherry-pit with Satan.
Twelfth Night. Act iii. Sc. 4.
This is very midsummer madness.
Twelfth Night. Act iii. Sc. 4.
What, man! defy the Devil: consider, he is an enemy to mankind.
Twelfth Night. Act iii. Sc. 4.
If this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction.
Twelfth Night. Act iii. Sc. 4.
More matter for a May morning.
Twelfth Night. Act iii. Sc. 4.
Still you keep o' the windy side of the law.
Twelfth Night. Act iii. Sc. 4.
An I thought he had been valiant and so cunning in fence, I 'ld have seen him damned ere I 'ld have challenged him.
Twelfth Night. Act iii. Sc. 4.[76:1]
[77]
As the old hermit of Prague, that never saw pen and ink, very wittily said to a niece of King Gorboduc, That that is, is.
Twelfth Night. Act iv. Sc. 2.
Clo. What is the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wild fowl?
Mal. That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit a bird.
Twelfth Night. Act iv. Sc. 2.
Thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges.
Twelfth Night. Act v. Sc. 1.
For the rain it raineth every day.
Twelfth Night. Act v. Sc. 1.
They say we are
Almost as like as eggs.
The Winter's Tale. Act i. Sc. 2.
What 's gone and what 's past help
Should be past grief.
The Winter's Tale. Act iii. Sc. 2.
A snapper-up of unconsidered trifles.
The Winter's Tale. Act iv. Sc. 3.[77:3]
A merry heart goes all the day,
Your sad tires in a mile-a.
The Winter's Tale. Act iv. Sc. 3.
O Proserpina,
For the flowers now, that frighted thou let'st fall
From Dis's waggon! daffodils,
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty; violets dim,
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes
Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses,
That die unmarried, ere they can behold
Bright Phœbus in his strength,—a malady
[78]Most incident to maids; bold oxlips and
The crown imperial; lilies of all kinds,
The flower-de-luce being one.
The Winter's Tale. Act iv. Sc. 4.[78:1]
When you do dance, I wish you
A wave o' the sea,[78:2] that you might ever do
Nothing but that.
The Winter's Tale. Act iv. Sc. 4.
I love a ballad in print o' life, for then we are sure they are true.
The Winter's Tale. Act iv. Sc. 4.
To unpathed waters, undreamed shores.
The Winter's Tale. Act iv. Sc. 4.
Lord of thy presence and no land beside.
King John. Act i. Sc. 1.
And if his name be George, I 'll call him Peter;
For new-made honour doth forget men's names.
King John. Act i. Sc. 1.
For he is but a bastard to the time
That doth not smack of observation.
King John. Act i. Sc. 1.
Sweet, sweet, sweet poison for the age's tooth.
King John. Act i. Sc. 1.
For courage mounteth with occasion.
King John. Act ii. Sc. 1.
I would that I were low laid in my grave:
I am not worth this coil that 's made for me.
King John. Act ii. Sc. 1.
Saint George, that swinged the dragon, and e'er since
Sits on his horse back at mine hostess' door.
King John. Act ii. Sc. 1.
He is the half part of a blessed man,
Left to be finished by such as she;
And she a fair divided excellence,
Whose fulness of perfection lies in him.
King John. Act ii. Sc. 1.
Talks as familiarly of roaring lions
As maids of thirteen do of puppy-dogs!
King John. Act ii. Sc. 1.[78:3]
Zounds! I was never so bethump'd with words
Since I first call'd my brother's father dad.
King John. Act ii. Sc. 2.[78:3]
[79]
I will instruct my sorrows to be proud;
For grief is proud, and makes his owner stoop.
King John. Act iii. Sc. 1.[79:1]
Here I and sorrows sit;
Here is my throne, bid kings come bow to it.
King John. Act iii. Sc. 1.[79:1]
Thou slave, thou wretch, thou coward!
Thou little valiant, great in villany!
Thou ever strong upon the stronger side!
Thou Fortune's champion that dost never fight
But when her humorous ladyship is by
To teach thee safety.
King John. Act iii. Sc. 1.
Thou wear a lion's hide! doff it for shame,
And hang a calf's-skin on those recreant limbs.
King John. Act iii. Sc. 1.
That no Italian priest
Shall tithe or toll in our dominions.
King John. Act iii. Sc. 1.
Grief fills the room up of my absent child,
Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,
Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,
Remembers me of all his gracious parts,
Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form.
King John. Act iii. Sc. 4.
Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale
Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.
King John. Act iii. Sc. 4.
When Fortune means to men most good,
She looks upon them with a threatening eye.[79:2]
King John. Act iii. Sc. 4.
And he that stands upon a slippery place.
Makes nice of no vile hold to stay him up.
King John. Act iii. Sc. 4.
How now, foolish rheum!
King John. Act iv. Sc. 1.
To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume on the violet,
To smooth the ice, or add another hue
Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light
To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.
King John. Act iv. Sc. 2.
[80]
And oftentimes excusing of a fault
Doth make the fault the worse by the excuse.[80:1]
King John. Act iv. Sc. 2.
We cannot hold mortality's strong hand.
King John. Act iv. Sc. 2.
Make haste; the better foot before.
King John. Act iv. Sc. 2.
I saw a smith stand with his hammer, thus,
The whilst his iron did on the anvil cool,
With open mouth swallowing a tailor's news.
King John. Act iv. Sc. 2.
Another lean unwashed artificer.
King John. Act iv. Sc. 2.
How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds
Make deeds ill done!
King John. Act iv. Sc. 2.
Mocking the air with colours idly spread.
King John. Act v. Sc. 1.
'T is strange that death should sing.
I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan,
Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death,[80:2]
And from the organ-pipe of frailty sings
His soul and body to their lasting rest.
King John. Act v. Sc. 7.
Now my soul hath elbow-room.
King John. Act v. Sc. 7.
This England never did, nor never shall,
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror.
King John. Act v. Sc. 7.
Come the three corners of the world in arms,
And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue,
If England to itself do rest but true.
King John. Act v. Sc. 7.
Old John of Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster.
King Richard II. Act i. Sc. 1.
In rage deaf as the sea, hasty as fire.
King Richard II. Act i. Sc. 1.
The daintiest last, to make the end most sweet.
King Richard II. Act i. Sc. 3.
Truth hath a quiet breast.
King Richard II. Act i. Sc. 3.
All places that the eye of heaven visits
Are to a wise man ports and happy havens.
King Richard II. Act i. Sc. 3.
[81]
O, who can hold a fire in his hand
By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?
Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite
By bare imagination of a feast?
Or wallow naked in December snow
By thinking on fantastic summer's heat?
O, no! the apprehension of the good
Gives but the greater feeling to the worse.
King Richard II. Act i. Sc. 3.
The tongues of dying men
Enforce attention like deep harmony.
King Richard II. Act ii. Sc. 1.
The setting sun, and music at the close,
As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last,
Writ in remembrance more than things long past.
King Richard II. Act ii. Sc. 1.
This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,—
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.
King Richard II. Act ii. Sc. 1.
The ripest fruit first falls.
King Richard II. Act ii. Sc. 1.
Evermore thanks, the exchequer of the poor.
King Richard II. Act ii. Sc. 3.
Eating the bitter bread of banishment.
King Richard II. Act iii. Sc. 1.
Fires the proud tops of the eastern pines.
King Richard II. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Not all the water in the rough rude sea
Can wash the balm off from an anointed king.
King Richard II. Act iii. Sc. 2.
O, call back yesterday, bid time return!
King Richard II. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Let 's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs.
King Richard II. Act iii. Sc. 2.
[82]
And nothing can we call our own but death
And that small model of the barren earth
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings.
King Richard II. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Comes at the last, and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall—and farewell king!
King Richard II. Act iii. Sc. 2.
He is come to open
The purple testament of bleeding war.
King Richard II. Act iii. Sc. 3.
And my large kingdom for a little grave,
A little little grave, an obscure grave.
King Richard II. Act iii. Sc. 3.
Gave
His body to that pleasant country's earth,
And his pure soul unto his captain Christ,
Under whose colours he had fought so long.
King Richard II. Act iv. Sc. 1.
A mockery king of snow.
King Richard II. Act iv. Sc. 1.
As in a theatre, the eyes of men,
After a well-graced actor leaves the stage,
Are idly bent on him that enters next,
Thinking his prattle to be tedious.
King Richard II. Act v. Sc. 2.
So shaken as we are, so wan with care.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act i. Sc. 1.
In those holy fields
Over whose acres walked those blessed feet
Which fourteen hundred years ago were nail'd
For our advantage on the bitter cross.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act i. Sc. 1.
Diana's foresters, gentlemen of the shade, minions of the moon.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act i. Sc. 2.
Old father antic the law.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act i. Sc. 2.
[83]
I would to God thou and I knew where a commodity of good names were to be bought.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act i. Sc. 2.
Thou hast damnable iteration, and art indeed able to corrupt a saint.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act i. Sc. 2.
And now am I, if a man should speak truly, little better than one of the wicked.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act i. Sc. 2.
'T is my vocation, Hal; 't is no sin for a man to labour in his vocation.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act i. Sc. 2.
He will give the devil his due.[83:1]
King Henry IV. Part I. Act i. Sc. 2.
There 's neither honesty, manhood, nor good fellowship in thee.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act i. Sc. 2.
If all the year were playing holidays,
To sport would be as tedious as to work.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act i. Sc. 2.
Fresh as a bridegroom; and his chin new reap'd
Showed like a stubble-land at harvest-home;
He was perfumed like a milliner,
And 'twixt his finger and his thumb he held
A pouncet-box, which ever and anon
He gave his nose and took 't away again.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act i. Sc. 3.
And as the soldiers bore dead bodies by,
He called the untaught knaves, unmannerly,
To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse
Betwixt the wind and his nobility.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act i. Sc. 3.
God save the mark.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act i. Sc. 3.
And telling me, the sovereign'st thing on earth
Was parmaceti for an inward bruise;
And that it was great pity, so it was,
This villanous saltpetre should be digg'd
Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,
Which many a good tall fellow had destroy'd
So cowardly; and but for these vile guns,
He would himself have been a soldier.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act i. Sc. 3.
[84]
The blood more stirs
To rouse a lion than to start a hare!
King Henry IV. Part I. Act i. Sc. 3.
By heaven, methinks it were an easy leap
To pluck bright honour from the pale-faced moon,
Or dive into the bottom of the deep,
Where fathom-line could never touch the ground,
And pluck up drowned honour by the locks.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act i. Sc. 3.
I know a trick worth two of that.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act ii. Sc. 1.
If the rascal have not given me medicines to make me love him, I 'll be hanged.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act ii. Sc. 2.
It would be argument for a week, laughter for a month, and a good jest for ever.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act ii. Sc. 2.
Falstaff sweats to death,
And lards the lean earth as he walks along.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act ii. Sc. 2.
Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act ii. Sc. 3.
Brain him with his lady's fan.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act ii. Sc. 3.
A Corinthian, a lad of mettle, a good boy.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act ii. Sc. 4.
A plague of all cowards, I say.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act ii. Sc. 4.
There live not three good men unhanged in England; and one of them is fat and grows old.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act ii. Sc. 4.
Call you that backing of your friends? A plague upon such backing!
King Henry IV. Part I. Act ii. Sc. 4.
I am a Jew else, an Ebrew Jew.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act ii. Sc. 4.
I have peppered two of them: two I am sure I have paid, two rogues in buckram suits. I tell thee what, Hal, if I tell thee a lie, spit in my face; call me horse. Thou knowest my old ward: here I lay, and thus I bore my point. Four rogues in buckram let drive at me—
King Henry IV. Part I. Act ii. Sc. 4.
Three misbegotten knaves in Kendal green.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act ii. Sc. 4.
[85]
Give you a reason on compulsion! If reasons were as plentiful as blackberries, I would give no man a reason upon compulsion, I.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act ii. Sc. 4.
Mark now, how a plain tale shall put you down.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act ii. Sc. 4.
I was now a coward on instinct.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act ii. Sc. 4.
No more of that, Hal, an thou lovest me!
King Henry IV. Part I. Act ii. Sc. 4.
What doth gravity out of his bed at midnight?
King Henry IV. Part I. Act ii. Sc. 4.
A plague of sighing and grief! It blows a man up like a bladder.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act ii. Sc. 4.
In King Cambyses' vein.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act ii. Sc. 4.
That reverend vice, that grey iniquity, that father ruffian, that vanity in years.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act ii. Sc. 4.
Banish plump Jack, and banish all the world.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act ii. Sc. 4.
Play out the play.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act ii. Sc. 4.
O, monstrous! but one half-pennyworth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack!
King Henry IV. Part I. Act ii. Sc. 4.
Diseased Nature oftentimes breaks forth
In strange eruptions.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act iii. Sc. 1.
I am not in the roll of common men.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act iii. Sc. 1.
Glen. I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
Hot. Why, so can I, or so can any man;
But will they come when you do call for them?
King Henry IV. Part I. Act iii. Sc. 1.
While you live, tell truth and shame the devil![85:1]
King Henry IV. Part I. Act iii. Sc. 1.
I had rather be a kitten and cry mew
Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act iii. Sc. 1.
But in the way of bargain, mark ye me,
I 'll cavil on the ninth part of a hair.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act iii. Sc. 1.
A deal of skimble-skamble stuff.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act iii. Sc. 1.
[86]
Exceedingly well read.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act iii. Sc. 1.
A good mouth-filling oath.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act iii. Sc. 1.
A fellow of no mark nor likelihood.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act iii. Sc. 2.
To loathe the taste of sweetness, whereof a little
More than a little is by much too much.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act iii. Sc. 2.
An I have not forgotten what the inside of a church is made of, I am a pepper-corn.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act iii. Sc. 3.
Company, villanous company, hath been the spoil of me.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act iii. Sc. 3.
Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn?
King Henry IV. Part I. Act iii. Sc. 3.
Rob me the exchequer.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act iii. Sc. 3.
This sickness doth infect
The very life-blood of our enterprise.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act iv. Sc. 1.
That daffed the world aside,
And bid it pass.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act iv. Sc. 1.
All plumed like estridges that with the wind
Baited like eagles having lately bathed;
Glittering in golden coats, like images;
As full of spirit as the month of May,
And gorgeous as the sun at midsummer.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act iv. Sc. 1.
I saw young Harry, with his beaver on,
His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly arm'd,
Rise from the ground like feather'd Mercury,
And vaulted with such ease into his seat
As if an angel dropp'd down from the clouds,
To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus
And witch the world with noble horsemanship.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act iv. Sc. 1.
The cankers of a calm world and a long peace.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act iv. Sc. 2.
A mad fellow met me on the way and told me I had unloaded all the gibbets and pressed the dead bodies. No eye hath seen such scarecrows. I 'll not march through Coventry with them, that 's flat: nay, and the [87]villains march wide betwixt the legs, as if they had gyves on; for indeed I had the most of them out of prison. There 's but a shirt and a half in all my company; and the half-shirt is two napkins tacked together and thrown over the shoulders like an herald's coat without sleeves.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act iv. Sc. 2.
Food for powder, food for powder; they 'll fill a pit as well as better.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act iv. 2.
To the latter end of a fray and the beginning of a feast[87:1]
Fits a dull fighter and a keen guest.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act iv. 2.
I would 't were bedtime, Hal, and all well.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act v. Sc. 1.
Honour pricks me on. Yea, but how if honour prick me off when I come on,—how then? Can honour set to a leg? no: or an arm? no: or take away the grief of a wound? no. Honour hath no skill in surgery, then? no. What is honour? a word. What is in that word honour; what is that honour? air. A trim reckoning! Who hath it? he that died o' Wednesday. Doth he feel it? no. Doth he hear it? no. 'T is insensible, then? yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? no. Why? detraction will not suffer it. Therefore I 'll none of it. Honour is a mere scutcheon. And so ends my catechism.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act v. Sc. 1.
Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act v. Sc. 4.
This earth that bears thee dead
Bears not alive so stout a gentleman.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act v. Sc. 4.
Thy ignominy sleep with thee in the grave,
But not remember'd in thy epitaph!
King Henry IV. Part I. Act v. Sc. 4.
I could have better spared a better man.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act v. Sc. 4.
The better part of valour is discretion.[87:2]
King Henry IV. Part I. Act v. Sc. 4.
Full bravely hast thou fleshed
Thy maiden sword.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act v. Sc. 4.
[88]
Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying! I grant you I was down and out of breath; and so was he. But we rose both at an instant, and fought a long hour by Shrewsbury clock.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act v. Sc. 4.
I 'll purge, and leave sack, and live cleanly.
King Henry IV. Part I. Act v. Sc. 4.
Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,
So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone,
Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night,
And would have told him half his Troy was burnt.
King Henry IV. Part II. Act i. Sc. 1.
Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news
Hath but a losing office, and his tongue
Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,
Remember'd tolling a departing friend.
King Henry IV. Part II. Act i. Sc. 1.
I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men.
King Henry IV. Part II. Act i. Sc. 2.
A rascally yea-forsooth knave.
King Henry IV. Part II. Act i. Sc. 2.
Some smack of age in you, some relish of the saltness of time.
King Henry IV. Part II. Act i. Sc. 2.
We that are in the vaward of our youth.
King Henry IV. Part II. Act i. Sc. 2.
For my voice, I have lost it with halloing and singing of anthems.
King Henry IV. Part II. Act i. Sc. 2.
It was alway yet the trick of our English nation, if they have a good thing to make it too common.
King Henry IV. Part II. Act i. Sc. 2.
I were better to be eaten to death with a rust than to be scoured to nothing with perpetual motion.
King Henry IV. Part II. Act i. Sc. 2.
If I do, fillip me with a three-man beetle.
King Henry IV. Part II. Act i. Sc. 2.
Who lined himself with hope,
Eating the air on promise of supply.
King Henry IV. Part II. Act i. Sc. 2.
When we mean to build,
We first survey the plot, then draw the model;
And when we see the figure of the house,
Then must we rate the cost of the erection.[88:1]
King Henry IV. Part II. Act i. Sc. 3.
[89]
An habitation giddy and unsure
Hath he that buildeth on the vulgar heart.
King Henry IV. Part II. Act i. Sc. 3.
Past and to come seems best; things present worst.
King Henry IV. Part II. Act i. Sc. 3.
A poor lone woman.
King Henry IV. Part II. Act ii. Sc. 1.
I 'll tickle your catastrophe.
King Henry IV. Part II. Act ii. Sc. 1.
He hath eaten me out of house and home.
King Henry IV. Part II. Act ii. Sc. 1.
Thou didst swear to me upon a parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in my Dolphin-chamber, at the round table, by a sea-coal fire, upon Wednesday in Wheeson week.
King Henry IV. Part II. Act ii. Sc. 1.
I do now remember the poor creature, small beer.
King Henry IV. Part II. Act ii. Sc. 2.
Let the end try the man.
King Henry IV. Part II. Act ii. Sc. 2.
Thus we play the fools with the time, and the spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us.
King Henry IV. Part II. Act ii. Sc. 2.
He was indeed the glass
Wherein the noble youth did dress themselves.
King Henry IV. Part II. Act ii. Sc. 3.
Aggravate your choler.
King Henry IV. Part II. Act ii. Sc. 4.
O sleep, O gentle sleep,
Nature's soft nurse! how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?
King Henry IV. Part II. Act iii. Sc. 1.
With all appliances and means to boot.
King Henry IV. Part II. Act iii. Sc. 1.
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.
King Henry IV. Part II. Act iii. Sc. 1.
Death, as the Psalmist saith, is certain to all; all shall die. How a good yoke of bullocks at Stamford fair?
King Henry IV. Part II. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Accommodated; that is, when a man is, as they say, accommodated; or when a man is, being, whereby a' may be thought to be accommodated,—which is an excellent thing.
King Henry IV. Part II. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Most forcible Feeble.
King Henry IV. Part II. Act iii. Sc. 2.
[90]
We have heard the chimes at midnight.
King Henry IV. Part II. Act iii. Sc. 2.
A man can die but once.
King Henry IV. Part II. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Like a man made after supper of a cheese-paring: when a' was naked, he was, for all the world, like a forked radish, with a head fantastically carved upon it with a knife.
King Henry IV. Part II. Act iii. Sc. 2.
We are ready to try our fortunes
To the last man.
King Henry IV. Part II. Act iv. Sc. 2.
I may justly say, with the hook-nosed fellow of Rome, "I came, saw, and overcame."
King Henry IV. Part II. Act iv. Sc. 3.
He hath a tear for pity, and a hand
Open as day for melting charity.
King Henry IV. Part II. Act iv. Sc. 4.
Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought.
King Henry IV. Part II. Act iv. Sc. 5.[90:1]
A joint of mutton, and any pretty little tiny kickshaws, tell William cook.
King Henry IV. Part II. Act v. Sc. 1.
His cares are now all ended.
King Henry IV. Part II. Act v. Sc. 2.
Falstaff. What wind blew you hither, Pistol?
Pistol. Not the ill wind which blows no man to good.[90:2]
King Henry IV. Part II. Act v. Sc. 3.
A foutre for the world and worldlings base!
I speak of Africa and golden joys.
King Henry IV. Part II. Act v. Sc. 3.
Under which king, Bezonian? speak, or die!
King Henry IV. Part II. Act v. Sc. 3.
O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention!
King Henry V. Prologue.
Consideration, like an angel, came
And whipped the offending Adam out of him.
King Henry V. Act i. Sc. 1.
[91]
Turn him to any cause of policy,
The Gordian knot of it he will unloose,
Familiar as his garter: that when he speaks,
The air, a chartered libertine, is still.
King Henry V. Act i. Sc. 1.
Base is the slave that pays.
King Henry V. Act ii. Sc. 1.
Even at the turning o' the tide.
King Henry V. Act ii. Sc. 3.
His nose was as sharp as a pen, and a' babbled of green fields.
King Henry V. Act ii. Sc. 3.
As cold as any stone.
King Henry V. Act ii. Sc. 3.
Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin
As self-neglecting.
King Henry V. Act ii. Sc. 4.
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,
Or close the wall up with our English dead!
In peace there 's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility;
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger:
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood.
King Henry V. Act iii. Sc. 1.
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument.
King Henry V. Act iii. Sc. 1.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start.
King Henry V. Act iii. Sc. 1.
I would give all my fame for a pot of ale and safety.
King Henry V. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Men of few words are the best men.
King Henry V. Act iii. Sc. 2.
I thought upon one pair of English legs
Did march three Frenchmen.
King Henry V. Act iii. Sc. 6.
You may as well say, that 's a valiant flea that dare eat his breakfast on the lip of a lion.
King Henry V. Act iii. Sc. 7.[91:1]
The hum of either army stilly sounds,
That the fixed sentinels almost receive
The secret whispers of each other's watch;
[92]Fire answers fire, and through their paly flames
Each battle sees the other's umbered face;
Steed threatens steed, in high and boastful neighs
Piercing the night's dull ear, and from the tents
The armourers, accomplishing the knights,
With busy hammers closing rivets up,[92:1]
Give dreadful note of preparation.
King Henry V. Act iv. Prologue.
There is some soul of goodness in things evil,
Would men observingly distil it out.
King Henry V. Act iv. Sc. 1.
Every subject's duty is the king's; but every subject's soul is his own.
King Henry V. Act iv. Sc. 1.
That 's a perilous shot out of an elder-gun.
King Henry V. Act iv. Sc. 1.
Who with a body filled and vacant mind
Gets him to rest, crammed with distressful bread.
King Henry V. Act iv. Sc. 1.
Winding up days with toil and nights with sleep.
King Henry V. Act iv. Sc. 1.
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
King Henry V. Act iv. Sc. 3.
This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
King Henry V. Act iv. Sc. 3.
Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth[92:2] as household words,—
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,—
Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered.
King Henry V. Act iv. Sc. 3.
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.
King Henry V. Act iv. Sc. 3.
There is a river in Macedon; and there is also moreover a river at Monmouth; . . . and there is salmons in both.
King Henry V. Act iv. Sc. 7.
[93]
An arrant traitor as any is in the universal world, or in France, or in England!
King Henry V. Act iv. Sc. 8.
There is occasions and causes why and wherefore in all things.
King Henry V. Act v. Sc. 1.
By this leek, I will most horribly revenge: I eat and eat, I swear.
King Henry V. Act v. Sc. 1.
All hell shall stir for this.
King Henry V. Act v. Sc. 1.
If he be not fellow with the best king, thou shalt find the best king of good fellows.
King Henry V. Act v. Sc. 2.
Hung be the heavens with black, yield day to night!
King Henry VI. Part I. Act i. Sc. 1.
Halcyon days.
King Henry VI. Part I. Act i. Sc. 2.
Between two hawks, which flies the higher pitch;
Between two dogs, which hath the deeper mouth;
Between two blades, which bears the better temper;
Between two horses, which doth bear him best;
Between two girls, which hath the merriest eye,—
I have perhaps some shallow spirit of judgment;
But in these nice sharp quillets of the law,
Good faith, I am no wiser than a daw.
King Henry VI. Part I. Act ii. Sc. 4.
Delays have dangerous ends.[93:1]
King Henry VI. Part I. Act iii. Sc. 2.
She 's beautiful, and therefore to be wooed;
She is a woman, therefore to be won.
King Henry VI. Part I. Act v. Sc. 3.
Main chance.[93:2]
King Henry VI. Part II. Act i. Sc. 1.
Could I come near your beauty with my nails,
I'd set my ten commandments in your face.
King Henry VI. Part II. Act i. Sc. 3.
Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep.[93:3]
King Henry VI. Part II. Act iii. Sc. 1.
[94]
What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted!
Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just,
And he but naked, though locked up in steel,
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.[94:1]
King Henry VI. Part II. Act iii. Sc. 2.
He dies, and makes no sign.
King Henry VI. Part II. Act iii. Sc. 3.
Close up his eyes and draw the curtain close;
And let us all to meditation.
King Henry VI. Part II. Act iii. Sc. 3.
The gaudy, blabbing, and remorseful day
Is crept into the bosom of the sea.
King Henry VI. Part II. Act iv. Sc. 1.
There shall be in England seven halfpenny loaves sold for a penny; the three-hooped pot shall have ten hoops; and I will make it felony to drink small beer.
King Henry VI. Part II. Act iv. Sc. 2.
Is not this a lamentable thing, that of the skin of an innocent lamb should be made parchment? that parchment, being scribbled o'er, should undo a man?
King Henry VI. Part II. Act iv. Sc. 2.
Sir, he made a chimney in my father's house, and the bricks are alive at this day to testify it.
King Henry VI. Part II. Act iv. Sc. 2.
Thou hast most traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm in erecting a grammar-school; and whereas, before, our forefathers had no other books but the score and the tally, thou hast caused printing to be used, and, contrary to the king, his crown and dignity, thou hast built a paper-mill.
King Henry VI. Part II. Act iv. Sc. 7.
How sweet a thing it is to wear a crown,
Within whose circuit is Elysium
And all that poets feign of bliss and joy!
King Henry VI. Part III. Act i. Sc. 2.
And many strokes, though with a little axe,
Hew down and fell the hardest-timbered oak.
King Henry VI. Part III. Act ii. Sc. 1.
[95]
The smallest worm will turn, being trodden on.
King Henry VI. Part III. Act ii. Sc. 2.
Didst thou never hear
That things ill got had ever bad success?
And happy always was it for that son
Whose father for his hoarding went to hell?
King Henry VI. Part III. Act ii. Sc. 2.
Warwick, peace,
Proud setter up and puller down of kings!
King Henry VI. Part III. Act iii. Sc. 3.
A little fire is quickly trodden out;
Which, being suffered, rivers cannot quench.
King Henry VI. Part III. Act iv. Sc. 8.
Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind;
The thief doth fear each bush an officer.
King Henry VI. Part III. Act v. Sc. 6.
Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York,
And all the clouds that loured upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths,
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments,
Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
Grim-visaged war hath smoothed his wrinkled front;
And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,
He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber
To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.
But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,
Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;
I, that am rudely stamped, and want love's majesty
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;
I, that am curtailed of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them,—
[96]Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun.
King Richard III. Act i. Sc. 1.
To leave this keen encounter of our wits.
King Richard III. Act i. Sc. 2.
Was ever woman in this humour wooed?
Was ever woman in this humour won?
King Richard III. Act i. Sc. 2.
Framed in the prodigality of nature.
King Richard III. Act i. Sc. 2.
The world is grown so bad,
That wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch.[96:1]
King Richard III. Act i. Sc. 3.
And thus I clothe my naked villany
With old odd ends stolen out of[96:2] holy writ,
And seem a saint when most I play the devil.
King Richard III. Act i. Sc. 3.
O, I have passed a miserable night,
So full of ugly sights, of ghastly dreams,
That, as I am a Christian faithful man,
I would not spend another such a night,
Though 't were to buy a world of happy days.
King Richard III. Act i. Sc. 4.
Lord, Lord! methought, what pain it was to drown!
What dreadful noise of waters in mine ears!
What ugly sights of death within mine eyes!
Methought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks,
Ten thousand men that fishes gnawed upon,
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,
All scattered in the bottom of the sea:
Some lay in dead men's skulls; and in those holes
Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept,
As 't were in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems.
King Richard III. Act i. Sc. 4.
A parlous boy.
King Richard III. Act ii. Sc. 4.
[97]
So wise so young, they say, do never live long.[97:1]
King Richard III. Act iii. Sc. 1.
Off with his head![97:2]
King Richard III. Act iii. Sc. 4.
Lives like a drunken sailor on a mast,
Ready with every nod to tumble down.
King Richard III. Act iii. Sc. 4.
Even in the afternoon of her best days.
King Richard III. Act iii. Sc. 7.
Thou troublest me; I am not in the vein.
King Richard III. Act iv. Sc. 2.
Their lips were four red roses on a stalk.
King Richard III. Act iv. Sc. 3.
The sons of Edward sleep in Abraham's bosom.
King Richard III. Act iv. Sc. 3.
Let not the heavens hear these tell-tale women
Rail on the Lord's anointed.
King Richard III. Act iv. Sc. 4.
Tetchy and wayward.
King Richard III. Act iv. Sc. 4.
An honest tale speeds best, being plainly told.
King Richard III. Act iv. Sc. 4.
Thus far into the bowels of the land
Have we marched on without impediment.
King Richard III. Act v. Sc. 2.
True hope is swift, and flies with swallow's wings;
Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings.
King Richard III. Act v. Sc. 2.
The king's name is a tower of strength.
King Richard III. Act v. Sc. 3.
Give me another horse: bind up my wounds.
King Richard III. Act v. Sc. 3.
O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me!
King Richard III. Act v. Sc. 3.
My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale,
And every tale condemns me for a villain.
King Richard III. Act v. Sc. 3.
The early village cock
Hath twice done salutation to the morn.
King Richard III. Act v. Sc. 3.
By the apostle Paul, shadows to-night
Have struck more terror to the soul of Richard
Than can the substance of ten thousand soldiers.
King Richard III. Act v. Sc. 3.
[98]
The selfsame heaven
That frowns on me looks sadly upon him.
King Richard III. Act v. Sc. 3.
A thing devised by the enemy.[98:1]
King Richard III. Act v. Sc. 3.
I have set my life upon a cast,
And I will stand the hazard of the die:
I think there be six Richmonds in the field.
King Richard III. Act v. Sc. 4.
A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!
King Richard III. Act v. Sc. 4.
Order gave each thing view.
King Henry VIII. Act i. Sc. 1.
No man's pie is freed
From his ambitious finger.
King Henry VIII. Act i. Sc. 1.
Anger is like
A full-hot horse, who being allow'd his way,
Self-mettle tires him.
King Henry VIII. Act i. Sc. 1.
Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot
That it do singe yourself.
King Henry VIII. Act i. Sc. 1.
'T is but the fate of place, and the rough brake
That virtue must go through.
King Henry VIII. Act i. Sc. 2.
The mirror of all courtesy.
King Henry VIII. Act ii. Sc. 1.
This bold bad man.[98:2]
King Henry VIII. Act ii. Sc. 2.
'T is better to be lowly born,
And range with humble livers in content,
Than to be perked up in a glistering grief,
And wear a golden sorrow.
King Henry VIII. Act ii. Sc. 3.
Orpheus with his lute made trees,
And the mountain-tops that freeze,
Bow themselves when he did sing.
King Henry VIII. Act iii. Sc. 1.
'T is well said again,
And 't is a kind of good deed to say well:
And yet words are no deeds.
King Henry VIII. Act iii. Sc. 2.
[99]
And then to breakfast with
What appetite you have.
King Henry VIII. Act iii. Sc. 2.
I have touched the highest point of all my greatness;
And from that full meridian of my glory
I haste now to my setting: I shall fall
Like a bright exhalation in the evening,
And no man see me more.
King Henry VIII. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Press not a falling man too far!
King Henry VIII. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Farewell! a long farewell, to all my greatness!
This is the state of man: to-day he puts forth
The tender leaves of hopes; to-morrow blossoms,
And bears his blushing honours thick upon him;
The third day comes a frost, a killing frost,
And when he thinks, good easy man, full surely
His greatness is a-ripening, nips his root,
And then he falls, as I do. I have ventured,
Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders,
This many summers in a sea of glory,
But far beyond my depth: my high-blown pride
At length broke under me and now has left me,
Weary and old with service, to the mercy
Of a rude stream, that must forever hide me.
Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye:
I feel my heart new opened. O, how wretched
Is that poor man that hangs on princes' favours!
There is betwixt that smile we would aspire to,
That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin,
More pangs and fears than wars or women have:
And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer,
Never to hope again.
King Henry VIII. Act iii. Sc. 2.
A peace above all earthly dignities,
A still and quiet conscience.
King Henry VIII. Act iii. Sc. 2.
A load would sink a navy.
King Henry VIII. Act iii. Sc. 2.
And sleep in dull cold marble.
King Henry VIII. Act iii. Sc. 2.
[100]
Say, Wolsey, that once trod the ways of glory,
And sounded all the depths and shoals of honour,
Found thee a way, out of his wreck, to rise in;
A sure and safe one, though thy master missed it.
King Henry VIII. Act iii. Sc. 2.
I charge thee, fling away ambition:
By that sin fell the angels.
King Henry VIII. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Love thyself last: cherish those hearts that hate thee;
Corruption wins not more than honesty.
Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace,
To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not:
Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's,
Thy God's, and truth's; then if thou fall'st, O Cromwell,
Thou fall'st a blessed martyr!
King Henry VIII. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Had I but served my God with half the zeal
I served my king, he would not in mine age
Have left me naked to mine enemies.
King Henry VIII. Act iii. Sc. 2.
A royal train, believe me.
King Henry VIII. Act iv. Sc. 1.
An old man, broken with the storms of state,
Is come to lay his weary bones among ye:
Give him a little earth for charity!
King Henry VIII. Act iv. Sc. 2.
He gave his honours to the world again,
His blessed part to heaven, and slept in peace.
King Henry VIII. Act iv. Sc. 2.
So may he rest; his faults lie gently on him!
King Henry VIII. Act iv. Sc. 2.
He was a man
Of an unbounded stomach.
King Henry VIII. Act iv. Sc. 2.
Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtues
We write in water.[100:1]
King Henry VIII. Act iv. Sc. 2.
[101]
He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one;
Exceeding wise, fair-spoken, and persuading;
Lofty and sour to them that loved him not,
But to those men that sought him sweet as summer.
King Henry VIII. Act iv. Sc. 2.
Yet in bestowing, madam,
He was most princely.
King Henry VIII. Act iv. Sc. 2.
After my death I wish no other herald,
No other speaker of my living actions,
To keep mine honour from corruption,
But such an honest chronicler as Griffith.
King Henry VIII. Act iv. Sc. 2.
To dance attendance on their lordships' pleasures.
King Henry VIII. Act v. Sc. 2.
You were ever good at sudden commendations.
King Henry VIII. Act v. Sc. 3.[101:1]
They are too thin and bare to hide offences.
King Henry VIII. Act v. Sc. 3.[101:1]
Those about her
From her shall read the perfect ways of honour.
King Henry VIII. Act v. Sc. 5.[101:2]
Wherever the bright sun of heaven shall shine,
His honour and the greatness of his name
Shall be, and make new nations.
King Henry VIII. Act v. Sc. 5.
A most unspotted lily shall she pass
To the ground, and all the world shall mourn her.
King Henry VIII. Act v. Sc. 5.
I have had my labour for my travail.[101:3]
Troilus and Cressida. Act i. Sc. 1.
[102]
Take but degree away, untune that string,
And, hark, what discord follows! each thing meets
In mere oppugnancy.[102:1]
Troilus and Cressida. Act i. Sc. 3.
The baby figure of the giant mass
Of things to come.
Troilus and Cressida. Act i. Sc. 3.
Modest doubt is call'd
The beacon of the wise, the tent that searches
To the bottom of the worst.
Troilus and Cressida. Act ii. Sc. 2.
The common curse of mankind,—folly and ignorance.
Troilus and Cressida. Act ii. Sc. 3.
All lovers swear more performance than they are able, and yet reserve an ability that they never perform; vowing more than the perfection of ten, and discharging less than the tenth part of one.
Troilus and Cressida. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Welcome ever smiles,
And farewell goes out sighing.
Troilus and Cressida. Act iii. Sc. 3.
One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.
Troilus and Cressida. Act iii. Sc. 3.
And give to dust that is a little gilt
More laud than gilt o'er-dusted.
Troilus and Cressida. Act iii. Sc. 3.
And like a dew-drop from the lion's mane,
Be shook to air.
Troilus and Cressida. Act iii. Sc. 3.
His heart and hand both open and both free;
For what he has he gives, what thinks he shows;
Yet gives he not till judgment guide his bounty.
Troilus and Cressida. Act iv. Sc. 5.
The end crowns all,
And that old common arbitrator, Time,
Will one day end it.
Troilus and Cressida. Act iv. Sc. 5.
Had I a dozen sons, each in my love alike and none less dear than thine and my good Marcius, I had rather eleven die nobly for their country than one voluptuously surfeit out of action.
Coriolanus. Act i. Sc. 3.
[103]
Nature teaches beasts to know their friends.
Coriolanus. Act ii. Sc. 1.
A cup of hot wine with not a drop of allaying Tiber in 't.[103:1]
Coriolanus. Act ii. Sc. 1.
Many-headed multitude.[103:2]
Coriolanus. Act ii. Sc. 3.
I thank you for your voices: thank you:
Your most sweet voices.
Coriolanus. Act ii. Sc. 3.
Hear you this Triton of the minnows? Mark you
His absolute "shall"?
Coriolanus. Act iii. Sc. 1.
Enough, with over-measure.
Coriolanus. Act iii. Sc. 1.
His nature is too noble for the world:
He would not flatter Neptune for his trident,
Or Jove for 's power to thunder.
Coriolanus. Act iii. Sc. 1.
That it shall hold companionship in peace
With honour, as in war.
Coriolanus. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Serv. Where dwellest thou?
Cor. Under the canopy.
Coriolanus. Act iv. Sc. 5.
A name unmusical to the Volscians' ears,
And harsh in sound to thine.
Coriolanus. Act iv. Sc. 5.
Chaste as the icicle
That 's curdied by the frost from purest snow
And hangs on Dian's temple.
Coriolanus. Act v. Sc. 3.
If you have writ your annals true, 't is there
That, like an eagle in a dove-cote, I
Flutter'd your Volscians in Corioli:
Alone I did it. Boy!
Coriolanus. Act v. Sc. 6.[103:3]
Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge.
Titus Andronicus. Act i. Sc. 2.
[104]
She is a woman, therefore may be woo'd;
She is a woman, therefore may be won;
She is Lavinia, therefore must be loved.
What, man! more water glideth by the mill
Than wots the miller of;[104:1] and easy it is
Of a cut loaf to steal a shive.
Titus Andronicus. Act ii. Sc. 1.
The eagle suffers little birds to sing.
Titus Andronicus. Act iv. Sc. 4.
The weakest goes to the wall.
Romeo and Juliet. Act i. Sc. 1.
Gregory, remember thy swashing blow.
Romeo and Juliet. Act i. Sc. 1.
An hour before the worshipp'd sun
Peered forth the golden window of the east.
Romeo and Juliet. Act i. Sc. 1.
As is the bud bit with an envious worm
Ere he can spread his sweet leaves to the air,
Or dedicate his beauty to the sun.
Romeo and Juliet. Act i. Sc. 1.
Saint-seducing gold.
Romeo and Juliet. Act i. Sc. 1.
He that is strucken blind cannot forget
The precious treasure of his eyesight lost.
Romeo and Juliet. Act i. Sc. 1.
One fire burns out another's burning,
One pain is lessen'd by another's anguish.[104:2]
Romeo and Juliet. Act i. Sc. 2.
That book in many's eyes doth share the glory
That in gold clasps locks in the golden story.
Romeo and Juliet. Act i. Sc. 3.
For I am proverb'd with a grandsire phrase.
Romeo and Juliet. Act i. Sc. 4.
O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you!
She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies
Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep.
Romeo and Juliet. Act i. Sc. 4.
Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.
Romeo and Juliet. Act i. Sc. 4.
[105]
Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,
And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,
Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,
Of healths five-fathom deep; and then anon
Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,
And being thus frighted swears a prayer or two
And sleeps again.
Romeo and Juliet. Act i. Sc. 4.
True, I talk of dreams,
Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy.
Romeo and Juliet. Act i. Sc. 4.
For you and I are past our dancing days.[105:1]
Romeo and Juliet. Act i. Sc. 5.
It seems she hangs[105:2] upon the cheek of night
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear.
Romeo and Juliet. Act i. Sc. 5.
Shall have the chinks.
Romeo and Juliet. Act i. Sc. 5.
Too early seen unknown, and known too late!
Romeo and Juliet. Act i. Sc. 5.
Young Adam Cupid, he that shot so trim,
When King Cophetua loved the beggar maid!
Romeo and Juliet. Act ii. Sc. 1.
He jests at scars that never felt a wound.
But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Romeo and Juliet. Act ii. Sc. 2.[105:3]
See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
O that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek!
Romeo and Juliet. Act ii. Sc. 2.[105:4]
O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
Romeo and Juliet. Act ii. Sc. 2.[105:4]
What 's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.
Romeo and Juliet. Act ii. Sc. 2.[105:4]
For stony limits cannot hold love out.
Romeo and Juliet. Act ii. Sc. 2.[105:4]
Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye
Than twenty of their swords.
Romeo and Juliet. Act ii. Sc. 2.[105:4]
[106]
Rom. Lady, by yonder blessed moon I swear,
That tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops—
Jul. O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon,
That monthly changes in her circled orb,
Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.
Romeo and Juliet. Act ii. Sc. 2.[106:2]
The god of my idolatry.
Romeo and Juliet. Act ii. Sc. 2.[106:2]
Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be
Ere one can say, "It lightens."
Romeo and Juliet. Act ii. Sc. 2.[106:2]
This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath,
May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.
Romeo and Juliet. Act ii. Sc. 2.[106:2]
How silver-sweet sound lovers' tongues by night,
Like softest music to attending ears!
Romeo and Juliet. Act ii. Sc. 2.[106:2]
Good night, good night! parting is such sweet sorrow,
That I shall say good night till it be morrow.
Romeo and Juliet. Act ii. Sc. 2.[106:2]
O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies
In herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities:
For nought so vile that on the earth doth live
But to the earth some special good doth give,
Nor aught so good but strain'd from that fair use
Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse:
Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied;
And vice sometimes by action dignified.
Romeo and Juliet. Act ii. Sc. 3.
Care keeps his watch in every old man's eye,
And where care lodges, sleep will never lie.
Romeo and Juliet. Act ii. Sc. 3.
Thy old groans ring yet in my ancient ears.
Romeo and Juliet. Act ii. Sc. 3.
Stabbed with a white wench's black eye.
Romeo and Juliet. Act ii. Sc. 4.
The courageous captain of complements.
Romeo and Juliet. Act ii. Sc. 4.
[107]
One, two, and the third in your bosom.
Romeo and Juliet. Act ii. Sc. 4.
O flesh, flesh, how art thou fishified!
Romeo and Juliet. Act ii. Sc. 4.
I am the very pink of courtesy.
Romeo and Juliet. Act ii. Sc. 4.
A gentleman, nurse, that loves to hear himself talk, and will speak more in a minute than he will stand to in a month.
Romeo and Juliet. Act ii. Sc. 4.
My man 's as true as steel.[107:1]
Romeo and Juliet. Act ii. Sc. 4.
These violent delights have violent ends.
Romeo and Juliet. Act ii. Sc. 6.
Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.
Romeo and Juliet. Act ii. Sc. 6.
Here comes the lady! O, so light a foot
Will ne'er wear out the everlasting flint.
Romeo and Juliet. Act ii. Sc. 6.
Thy head is as full of quarrels as an egg is full of meat.
Romeo and Juliet. Act iii. Sc. 1.
A word and a blow.[107:2]
Romeo and Juliet. Act iii. Sc. 1.
A plague o' both your houses!
Romeo and Juliet. Act iii. Sc. 1.
Rom. Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much.
Mer. No, 't is not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door; but 't is enough, 't will serve.
Romeo and Juliet. Act iii. Sc. 1.
When he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night,
And pay no worship to the garish sun.
Romeo and Juliet. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical!
Romeo and Juliet. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Was ever book containing such vile matter
So fairly bound? O, that deceit should dwell
In such a gorgeous palace!
Romeo and Juliet. Act iii. Sc. 2.
[108]
Thou cutt'st my head off with a golden axe.
Romeo and Juliet. Act iii. Sc. 3.
They may seize
On the white wonder of dear Juliet's hand
And steal immortal blessing from her lips,
Who, even in pure and vestal modesty,
Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin.
Romeo and Juliet. Act iii. Sc. 3.
The damned use that word in hell.
Romeo and Juliet. Act iii. Sc. 3.
Adversity's sweet milk, philosophy.
Romeo and Juliet. Act iii. Sc. 3.
Taking the measure of an unmade grave.
Romeo and Juliet. Act iii. Sc. 3.
Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain-tops.
Romeo and Juliet. Act iii. Sc. 5.
Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps.
Romeo and Juliet. Act iii. Sc. 5.
All these woes shall serve
For sweet discourses in our time to come.
Romeo and Juliet. Act iii. Sc. 5.
Villain and he be many miles asunder.
Romeo and Juliet. Act iii. Sc. 5.
Thank me no thanks, nor proud me no prouds.
Romeo and Juliet. Act iii. Sc. 5.
Not stepping o'er the bounds of modesty.
Romeo and Juliet. Act iv. Sc. 2.
My bosom's lord sits lightly in his throne.
Romeo and Juliet. Act v. Sc. 1.
I do remember an apothecary,—
And hereabouts he dwells.
Romeo and Juliet. Act v. Sc. 1.
Meagre were his looks,
Sharp misery had worn him to the bones.
Romeo and Juliet. Act v. Sc. 1.
A beggarly account of empty boxes.
Romeo and Juliet. Act v. Sc. 1.
Famine is in thy cheeks.
Romeo and Juliet. Act v. Sc. 1.
The world is not thy friend nor the world's law.
Romeo and Juliet. Act v. Sc. 1.
Ap. My poverty, but not my will, consents.
Rom. I pay thy poverty, and not thy will.
Romeo and Juliet. Act v. Sc. 1.
The strength
Of twenty men.
Romeo and Juliet. Act v. Sc. 1.
One writ with me in sour misfortune's book.
Romeo and Juliet. Act v. Sc. 3.
[109]
Her beauty makes
This vault a feasting presence full of light.
Romeo and Juliet, Act v. Sc. 3.
Beauty's ensign yet
Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,
And death's pale flag is not advanced there.
Romeo and Juliet, Act v. Sc. 3.
Eyes, look your last!
Arms, take your last embrace!
Romeo and Juliet, Act v. Sc. 3.
But flies an eagle flight, bold and forth on,
Leaving no tract behind.
Timon of Athens. Act i. Sc. 1.
Here 's that which is too weak to be a sinner,—honest water, which ne'er left man i' the mire.
Timon of Athens. Act i. Sc. 2.
Immortal gods, I crave no pelf;
I pray for no man but myself;
Grant I may never prove so fond,
To trust man on his oath or bond.
Timon of Athens. Act i. Sc. 2.
Men shut their doors against a setting sun.
Timon of Athens. Act i. Sc. 2.
Every room
Hath blazed with lights and bray'd with minstrelsy.
Timon of Athens. Act ii. Sc. 2.
'T is lack of kindly warmth.
Timon of Athens. Act ii. Sc. 2.
Every man has his fault, and honesty is his.
Timon of Athens. Act iii. Sc. 1.
Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy.
Timon of Athens. Act iii. Sc. 5.
We have seen better days.
Timon of Athens. Act iv. Sc. 2.
Are not within the leaf of pity writ.
Timon of Athens. Act iv. Sc. 3.
I 'll example you with thievery:
The sun 's a thief, and with his great attraction
Robs the vast sea; the moon 's an arrant thief,
And her pale fire she snatches from the sun;
The sea 's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves
The moon into salt tears; the earth 's a thief,
That feeds and breeds by a composture stolen
From general excrement: each thing 's a thief.
Timon of Athens. Act iv. Sc. 3.
Life's uncertain voyage.
Timon of Athens. Act v. Sc. 1.
[110]
As proper men as ever trod upon neat's leather.
Julius Cæsar. Act i. Sc. 1.
The live-long day.
Julius Cæsar. Act i. Sc. 1.
Beware the ides of March.
Julius Cæsar. Act i. Sc. 2.
Well, honour is the subject of my story.
I cannot tell what you and other men
Think of this life; but, for my single self,
I had as lief not be as live to be
In awe of such a thing as I myself.
Julius Cæsar. Act i. Sc. 2.
"Darest thou, Cassius, now
Leap in with me into this angry flood,
And swim to yonder point?" Upon the word,
Accoutred as I was, I plunged in
And bade him follow.
Julius Cæsar. Act i. Sc. 2.
Help me, Cassius, or I sink!
Julius Cæsar. Act i. Sc. 2.
Ye gods, it doth amaze me
A man of such a feeble temper should
So get the start of the majestic world
And bear the palm alone.
Julius Cæsar. Act i. Sc. 2.
Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves.
Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
Julius Cæsar. Act i. Sc. 2.
Conjure with 'em,—
Brutus will start a spirit as soon as Cæsar.
Now, in the names of all the gods at once,
Upon what meat doth this our Cæsar feed,
That he is grown so great? Age, thou art shamed!
Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods!
Julius Cæsar. Act i. Sc. 2.
There was a Brutus once that would have brook'd
The eternal devil to keep his state in Rome
As easily as a king.
Julius Cæsar. Act i. Sc. 2.
[111]
Let me have men about me that are fat,
Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights:
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.
Julius Cæsar. Act i. Sc. 2.
He reads much;
He is a great observer, and he looks
Quite through the deeds of men.
Julius Cæsar. Act i. Sc. 2.
Seldom he smiles, and smiles in such a sort
As if he mock'd himself, and scorn'd his spirit
That could be moved to smile at anything.
Julius Cæsar. Act i. Sc. 2.
But, for my own part, it was Greek to me.
Julius Cæsar. Act i. Sc. 2.
'T is a common proof,
That lowliness is young ambition's ladder,
Whereto the climber-upward turns his face;
But when he once attains the upmost[111:1] round,
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend.
Julius Cæsar. Act ii. Sc. 1.
Between the acting of a dreadful thing
And the first motion, all the interim is
Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream:
The Genius and the mortal instruments
Are then in council; and the state of man,
Like to a little kingdom, suffers then
The nature of an insurrection.
Julius Cæsar. Act ii. Sc. 1.
A dish fit for the gods.
Julius Cæsar. Act ii. Sc. 1.
But when I tell him he hates flatterers,
He says he does, being then most flattered.
Julius Cæsar. Act ii. Sc. 1.
Boy! Lucius! Fast asleep? It is no matter;
Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of slumber:
Thou hast no figures nor no fantasies,
Which busy care draws in the brains of men;
Therefore thou sleep'st so sound.
Julius Cæsar. Act ii. Sc. 1.
[112]
With an angry wafture of your hand,
Gave sign for me to leave you.
Julius Cæsar. Act ii. Sc. 1.
You are my true and honourable wife,
As dear to me as are the ruddy drops[112:1]
That visit my sad heart.
Julius Cæsar. Act ii. Sc. 1.
Think you I am no stronger than my sex,
Being so father'd and so husbanded?
Julius Cæsar. Act ii. Sc. 1.
Fierce fiery warriors fought upon the clouds,
In ranks and squadrons and right form of war,
Which drizzled blood upon the Capitol.
Julius Cæsar. Act ii. Sc. 2.
These things are beyond all use,
And I do fear them.
Julius Cæsar. Act ii. Sc. 2.
When beggars die, there are no comets seen;
The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.
Julius Cæsar. Act ii. Sc. 2.
Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.
Julius Cæsar. Act ii. Sc. 2.
Cæs. The ides of March are come.
Sooth. Ay, Cæsar; but not gone.
Julius Cæsar. Act iii. Sc. 1.
But I am constant as the northern star,
Of whose true-fix'd and resting quality
There is no fellow in the firmament.
Julius Cæsar. Act iii. Sc. 1.
Et tu, Brute!
Julius Cæsar. Act iii. Sc. 1.
How many ages hence
Shall this our lofty scene be acted over
In states unborn and accents yet unknown!
Julius Cæsar. Act iii. Sc. 1.
The choice and master spirits of this age.
Julius Cæsar. Act iii. Sc. 1.
[113]
Though last, not least in love.[113:1]
Julius Cæsar. Act iii. Sc. 1.
O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,
That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!
Thou art the ruins of the noblest man
That ever lived in the tide of times.
Julius Cæsar. Act iii. Sc. 1.
Cry "Havoc," and let slip the dogs of war.
Julius Cæsar. Act iii. Sc. 1.
Romans, countrymen, and lovers! hear me for my cause, and be silent that you may hear.
Julius Cæsar. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Not that I loved Cæsar less, but that I loved Rome more.
Julius Cæsar. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Who is here so base that would be a bondman?
Julius Cæsar. Act iii. Sc. 2.
If any, speak; for him have I offended. I pause for a reply.
Julius Cæsar. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Cæsar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones.
Julius Cæsar. Act iii. Sc. 2.
For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men.
Julius Cæsar. Act iii. Sc. 2.
When that the poor have cried, Cæsar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.
Julius Cæsar. Act iii. Sc. 2.
O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.
Julius Cæsar. Act iii. Sc. 2.
But yesterday the word of Cæsar might
Have stood against the world; now lies he there,
And none so poor to do him reverence.
Julius Cæsar. Act iii. Sc. 2.
If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.
Julius Cæsar. Act iii. Sc. 2.
See what a rent the envious Casca made.
Julius Cæsar. Act iii. Sc. 2.
This was the most unkindest cut of all.
Julius Cæsar. Act iii. Sc. 2.
[114]
Great Cæsar fell.
O, what a fall was there, my countrymen!
Then I, and you, and all of us fell down,
Whilst bloody treason flourish'd over us.
Julius Cæsar. Act iii. Sc. 2.
What private griefs they have, alas, I know not.
Julius Cæsar. Act iii. Sc. 2.
I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts:
I am no orator, as Brutus is;
But, as you know me all, a plain blunt man.
Julius Cæsar. Act iii. Sc. 2.
I only speak right on.
Julius Cæsar. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Put a tongue
In every wound of Cæsar that should move
The stones of Rome to rise and mutiny.
Julius Cæsar. Act iii. Sc. 2.
When love begins to sicken and decay,
It useth an enforced ceremony.
There are no tricks in plain and simple faith.
Julius Cæsar. Act iv. Sc. 2.
You yourself
Are much condemn'd to have an itching palm.
Julius Cæsar. Act iv. Sc. 3.
The foremost man of all this world.
Julius Cæsar. Act iv. Sc. 3.
I had rather be a dog, and bay the moon,
Than such a Roman.
Julius Cæsar. Act iv. Sc. 3.
I said, an elder soldier, not a better:
Did I say "better"?
Julius Cæsar. Act iv. Sc. 3.
There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats,
For I am arm'd so strong in honesty
That they pass by me as the idle wind,
Which I respect not.
Julius Cæsar. Act iv. Sc. 3.
Should I have answer'd Caius Cassius so?
When Marcus Brutus grows so covetous,
To lock such rascal counters from his friends,
Be ready, gods, with all your thunderbolts:
Dash him to pieces!
Julius Cæsar. Act iv. Sc. 3.
A friend should bear his friend's infirmities,
But Brutus makes mine greater than they are.
Julius Cæsar. Act iv. Sc. 3.
[115]
All his faults observed,
Set in a note-book, learn'd, and conn'd by rote.
Julius Cæsar. Act iv. Sc. 3.
There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
Julius Cæsar. Act iv. Sc. 3.
We must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.
Julius Cæsar. Act iv. Sc. 3.
The deep of night is crept upon our talk,
And nature must obey necessity.
Julius Cæsar. Act iv. Sc. 3.
Brutus. Then I shall see thee again?
Ghost. Ay, at Philippi.
Brutus. Why, I will see thee at Philippi, then.
Julius Cæsar. Act iv. Sc. 3.
But for your words, they rob the Hybla bees,
And leave them honeyless.
Julius Cæsar. Act v. Sc. 1.
Forever, and forever, farewell, Cassius!
If we do meet again, why, we shall smile;
If not, why then this parting was well made.
Julius Cæsar. Act v. Sc. 1.
O, that a man might know
The end of this day's business ere it come!
Julius Cæsar. Act v. Sc. 1.
The last of all the Romans, fare thee well!
Julius Cæsar. Act v. Sc. 3.
This was the noblest Roman of them all.
Julius Cæsar. Act v. Sc. 5.
His life was gentle, and the elements
So mix'd in him, that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world, "This was a man!"
Julius Cæsar. Act v. Sc. 5.
1 W. When shall we three meet again
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
2 W. When the hurlyburly 's done,
When the battle 's lost and won.
Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 1.
Fair is foul, and foul is fair.
Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 1.
Banners flout the sky.
Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 2.
[116]
Sleep shall neither night nor day
Hang upon his pent-house lid.
Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 3.
Dwindle, peak, and pine.
Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 3.
What are these
So wither'd and so wild in their attire,
That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth,
And yet are on 't?
Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 3.
If you can look into the seeds of time,
And say which grain will grow and which will not.
Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 3.
Stands not within the prospect of belief.
Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 3.
The earth hath bubbles as the water has,
And these are of them.
Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 3.
The insane root
That takes the reason prisoner.
Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 3.
And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,
The instruments of darkness tell us truths,
Win us with honest trifles, to betray 's
In deepest consequence.
Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 3.
Two truths are told,
As happy prologues to the swelling act
Of the imperial theme.
Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 3.
And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,
Against the use of nature. Present fears
Are less than horrible imaginings.
Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 3.
Nothing is
But what is not.
Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 3.
If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me.
Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 3.
Come what come may,
Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.
Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 3.
[117]
Nothing in his life
Became him like the leaving it; he died
As one that had been studied in his death
To throw away the dearest thing he owed,
As 't were a careless trifle.
Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 4.
There 's no art
To find the mind's construction in the face.
Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 4.
More is thy due than more than all can pay.
Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 4.
Yet do I fear thy nature;
It is too full o' the milk of human kindness.
Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 5.
What thou wouldst highly,
That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false,
And yet wouldst wrongly win.
Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 5.
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose.
Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 5.
Your face, my thane, is as a book where men
May read strange matters. To beguile the time,
Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,
Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower,
But be the serpent under 't.
Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 5.
Which shall to all our nights and days to come
Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom.
Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 5.
This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air
Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself
Unto our gentle senses.
Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 6.
The heaven's breath
Smells wooingly here: no jutty, frieze,
Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird
Hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle:
Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed,
The air is delicate.
Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 6.
If it were done when 't is done, then 't were well
It were done quickly: if the assassination
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch
[118]With his surcease success; that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all here,
But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,
We 'ld jump the life to come. But in these cases
We still have judgment here; that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which being taught, return
To plague the inventor: this even-handed justice
Commends the ingredients of our poison'd chalice
To our own lips.
Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 7.
Besides, this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking-off;
And pity, like a naked new-born babe,
Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, horsed
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself,
And falls on the other.
Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 7.
I have bought
Golden opinions from all sorts of people.
Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 7.
Letting "I dare not" wait upon "I would,"
Like the poor cat i' the adage.[118:1]
Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 7.
I dare do all that may become a man;
Who dares do more is none.
Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 7.
Nor time nor place
Did then adhere.
Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 7.
Macb. If we should fail?
Lady M. We fail!
But screw your courage to the sticking-place,
And we 'll not fail.
Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 7.
[119]
Memory, the warder of the brain.
Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 7.
There 's husbandry in heaven;
Their candles are all out.
Macbeth. Act ii. Sc. 1.
Shut up
In measureless content.
Macbeth. Act ii. Sc. 1.
Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight? or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
Macbeth. Act ii. Sc. 1.
Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going.
Macbeth. Act ii. Sc. 1.
Now o'er the one half-world
Nature seems dead.
Macbeth. Act ii. Sc. 1.
Thou sure and firm-set earth,
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
Thy very stones prate of my whereabout.
Macbeth. Act ii. Sc. 1.
The bell invites me.
Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell
That summons thee to heaven or to hell.
Macbeth. Act ii. Sc. 1.
It was the owl that shriek'd, the fatal bellman,
Which gives the stern'st good-night.
Macbeth. Act ii. Sc. 2.[119:1]
Methought I heard a voice cry, "Sleep no more!
Macbeth does murder sleep!" the innocent sleep,
Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care,
[120]The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast.
Macbeth. Act ii. Sc. 2.[120:1]
Infirm of purpose!
Macbeth. Act ii. Sc. 2.[120:1]
Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red.
Macbeth. Act ii. Sc. 2.[120:1]
The labour we delight in physics pain.
Macbeth. Act ii. Sc. 3.[120:2]
Confusion now hath made his masterpiece!
Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope
The Lord's anointed temple, and stole thence
The life o' the building!
Macbeth. Act ii. Sc. 3.[120:2]
The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees
Is left this vault to brag of.
Macbeth. Act ii. Sc. 3.[120:2]
Who can be wise, amazed, temperate and furious,
Loyal and neutral, in a moment?
Macbeth. Act ii. Sc. 3.[120:2]
There 's daggers in men's smiles.
Macbeth. Act ii. Sc. 3.[120:2]
A falcon, towering in her pride of place,
Was by a mousing owl hawk'd at and kill'd.
Macbeth. Act ii. Sc. 4.[120:3]
Thriftless ambition, that wilt ravin up
Thine own life's means!
Macbeth. Act ii. Sc. 4.
I must become a borrower of the night
For a dark hour or twain.
Macbeth. Act iii. Sc. 1.
[121]
Let every man be master of his time
Till seven at night.
Macbeth. Act iii. Sc. 1.
Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown,
And put a barren sceptre in my gripe,
Thence to be wrench'd with an unlineal hand,
No son of mine succeeding.
Macbeth. Act iii. Sc. 1.
Mur. We are men, my liege.
Mac. Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men.
Macbeth. Act iii. Sc. 1.
I am one, my liege,
Whom the vile blows and buffets of the world
Have so incensed that I am reckless what
I do to spite the world.
Macbeth. Act iii. Sc. 1.
So weary with disasters, tugg'd with fortune,
That I would set my life on any chance,
To mend it, or be rid on 't.
Macbeth. Act iii. Sc. 1.
Things without all remedy
Should be without regard; what 's done is done.
Macbeth. Act iii. Sc. 2.
We have scotch'd the snake, not kill'd it.
Macbeth. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Better be with the dead,
Whom we, to gain our peace, have sent to peace,
Than on the torture of the mind to lie
In restless ecstasy. Duncan is in his grave;
After life's fitful fever he sleeps well:
Treason has done his worst; nor steel, nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,
Can touch him further.
Macbeth. Act iii. Sc. 2.
In them Nature's copy 's not eterne.
Macbeth. Act iii. Sc. 2.
A deed of dreadful note.
Macbeth. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck,
Till thou applaud the deed.
Macbeth. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill.
Macbeth. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Now spurs the lated traveller apace
To gain the timely inn.
Macbeth. Act iii. Sc. 3.
[122]
But now I am cabin'd, cribb'd, confined, bound in
To saucy doubts and fears.
Macbeth. Act iii. Sc. 4.
Now, good digestion wait on appetite,
And health on both!
Macbeth. Act iii. Sc. 4.
Thou canst not say I did it; never shake
Thy gory locks at me.
Macbeth. Act iii. Sc. 4.
The air-drawn dagger.
Macbeth. Act iii. Sc. 4.
The time has been,
That when the brains were out the man would die,
And there an end; but now they rise again,
With twenty mortal murders on their crowns,
And push us from our stools.
Macbeth. Act iii. Sc. 4.
I drink to the general joy o' the whole table.
Macbeth. Act iii. Sc. 4.
Thou hast no speculation in those eyes
Which thou dost glare with!
Macbeth. Act iii. Sc. 4.
A thing of custom,—'t is no other;
Only it spoils the pleasure of the time.
Macbeth. Act iii. Sc. 4.
What man dare, I dare:
Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear,
The arm'd rhinoceros, or the Hyrcan tiger,—
Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves
Shall never tremble.
Macbeth. Act iii. Sc. 4.
Hence, horrible shadow!
Unreal mockery, hence!
Macbeth. Act iii. Sc. 4.
You have displac'd the mirth, broke the good meeting,
With most admir'd disorder.
Macbeth. Act iii. Sc. 4.
Can such things be,
And overcome us like a summer's cloud,
Without our special wonder?
Macbeth. Act iii. Sc. 4.
Stand not upon the order of your going,
But go at once.
Macbeth. Act iii. Sc. 4.
[123]
Macb. What is the night?
L. Macb. Almost at odds with morning, which is which.
Macbeth. Act iii. Sc. 4.
I am in blood
Stepp'd in so far that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o'er.
Macbeth. Act iii. Sc. 4.
My little spirit, see,
Sits in a foggy cloud, and stays for me.
Macbeth. Act iii. Sc. 5.
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
Macbeth. Act iv. Sc. 1.
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog.
Macbeth. Act iv. Sc. 1.
By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.
Open, locks,
Whoever knocks!
Macbeth. Act iv. Sc. 1.
How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags!
Macbeth. Act iv. Sc. 1.
A deed without a name.
Macbeth. Act iv. Sc. 1.
I 'll make assurance double sure,
And take a bond of fate.
Macbeth. Act iv. Sc. 1.
Show his eyes, and grieve his heart;
Come like shadows, so depart!
Macbeth. Act iv. Sc. 1.
What, will the line stretch out to the crack of doom?
Macbeth. Act iv. Sc. 1.
I 'll charm the air to give a sound,
While you perform your antic round.[123:1]
Macbeth. Act iv. Sc. 1.
The weird sisters.
Macbeth. Act iv. Sc. 1.
The flighty purpose never is o'ertook,
Unless the deed go with it.
Macbeth. Act iv. Sc. 1.
When our actions do not,
Our fears do make us traitors.
Macbeth. Act iv. Sc. 2.
[124]
Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell.
Macbeth. Act iv. Sc. 3.
Pour the sweet milk of concord into hell,
Uproar the universal peace, confound
All unity on earth.
Macbeth. Act iv. Sc. 3.
Stands Scotland where it did?
Macbeth. Act iv. Sc. 3.
Give sorrow words: the grief that does not speak
Whispers the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break.
Macbeth. Act iv. Sc. 3.
What, all my pretty chickens and their dam
At one fell swoop?
Macbeth. Act iv. Sc. 3.
I cannot but remember such things were,
That were most precious to me.
Macbeth. Act iv. Sc. 3.
O, I could play the woman with mine eyes
And braggart with my tongue.
Macbeth. Act iv. Sc. 3.
The night is long that never finds the day.
Macbeth. Act iv. Sc. 3.
Out, damned spot! out, I say!
Macbeth. Act v. Sc. 1.
Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard?
Macbeth. Act v. Sc. 1.
Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?
Macbeth. Act v. Sc. 1.
All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.
Macbeth. Act v. Sc. 1.
Till Birnam wood remove to Dunsinane,
I cannot taint with fear.
Macbeth. Act v. Sc. 3.
My way of life
Is fall'n into the sere, the yellow leaf;
And that which should accompany old age,
As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,
I must not look to have; but in their stead
Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath,
Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not.
Macbeth. Act v. Sc. 3.
[125]
Doct. Not so sick, my lord,
As she is troubled with thick-coming fancies,
That keep her from her rest.
Macb. Cure her of that.
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?
Doct. Therein the patient
Must minister to himself.
Macb. Throw physic to the dogs: I 'll none of it.
Macbeth. Act v. Sc. 3.
I would applaud thee to the very echo,
That should applaud again.
Macbeth. Act v. Sc. 3.
Hang out our banners on the outward walls;
The cry is still, "They come!" our castle's strength
Will laugh a siege to scorn.
Macbeth. Act v. Sc. 5.
My fell of hair
Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir
As life were in 't: I have supp'd full with horrors.
Macbeth. Act v. Sc. 5.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life 's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Macbeth. Act v. Sc. 5.
I pull in resolution, and begin
To doubt the equivocation of the fiend
That lies like truth: "Fear not, till Birnam wood
Do come to Dunsinane."
Macbeth. Act v. Sc. 5.
[126]
I gin to be aweary of the sun.
Macbeth. Act v. Sc. 5.
Blow, wind! come, wrack!
At least we 'll die with harness on our back.
Macbeth. Act v. Sc. 5.
Those clamorous harbingers of blood and death.
Macbeth. Act v. Sc. 6.
I bear a charmed life.
Macbeth. Act v. Sc. 8.[126:1]
And be these juggling fiends no more believ'd,
That palter with us in a double sense:
That keep the word of promise to our ear
And break it to our hope.
Macbeth. Act v. Sc. 8.[126:1]
Live to be the show and gaze o' the time.
Macbeth. Act v. Sc. 8.[126:1]
For this relief much thanks: 't is bitter cold,
And I am sick at heart.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 1.
But in the gross and scope of my opinion,
This bodes some strange eruption to our state.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 1.
Whose sore task
Does not divide the Sunday from the week.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 1.
This sweaty haste
Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 1.
In the most high and palmy state of Rome,
A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,
The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 1.
And then it started like a guilty thing
Upon a fearful summons.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 1.
Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,
The extravagant and erring spirit hies
To his confine.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 1.
[127]
It faded on the crowing of the cock.
Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long:
And then, they say, no spirit dares stir[127:1] abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 1.
So have I heard, and do in part believe it.
But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,
Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill.[127:2]
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 1.
The memory be green.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 2.
With an auspicious and a dropping eye,[127:3]
With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage,
In equal scale weighing delight and dole.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 2.
The head is not more native to the heart.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 2.
A little more than kin, and less than kind.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 2.
All that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 2.
Seems, madam! nay, it is; I know not "seems."
'T is not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
Nor customary suits of solemn black.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 2.
But I have that within which passeth show;
These but the trappings and the suits of woe.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 2.
'T is a fault to Heaven,
A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,
To reason most absurd.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 2.
O, that this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
[128]His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 2.
That it should come to this!
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 2.
Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother,
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 2.
Why, she would hang on him,
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 2.
Frailty, thy name is woman!
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 2.
A little month.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 2.
Like Niobe, all tears.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 2.
A beast, that wants discourse of reason.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 2.
My father's brother, but no more like my father
Than I to Hercules.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 2.
It is not nor it cannot come to good.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 2.
Thrift, thrift, Horatio! the funeral baked meats
Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.
Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven
Or ever I had seen that day.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 2.
In my mind's eye, Horatio.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 2.
He was a man, take him for all in all,
I shall not look upon his like again.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 2.
Season your admiration for a while.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 2.
In the dead vast and middle of the night.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 2.
Arm'd at point exactly, cap-a-pe.[128:1]
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 2.
A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 2.
[129]
While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 2.
Ham. His beard was grizzled,—no?
Hor. It was, as I have seen it in his life,
A sable silver'd.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 2.
Let it be tenable in your silence still.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 2.
Gave it an understanding, but no tongue.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 2.
Upon the platform, 'twixt eleven and twelve.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 2.
Foul deeds will rise,
Though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 2.
A violet in the youth of primy nature,
Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting,
The perfume and suppliance of a minute.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 3.
The chariest maid is prodigal enough,
If she unmask her beauty to the moon:
Virtue itself 'scapes not calumnious strokes:
The canker galls the infants of the spring
Too oft before their buttons be disclosed,
And in the morn and liquid dew of youth
Contagious blastments are most imminent.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 3.
Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven;
Whiles, like a puff'd and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
And recks not his own rede.[129:1]
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 3.
Give thy thoughts no tongue.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 3.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops[129:2] of steel.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 3.
[130]
Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel; but being in,
Bear 't that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 3.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 3.
Springes to catch woodcocks.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 3.
When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul
Lends the tongue vows.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 3.
Be somewhat scanter of your maiden presence.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 3.
Ham. The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.
Hor. It is a nipping and an eager air.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 4.
But to my mind, though I am native here
And to the manner born, it is a custom
More honoured in the breach than the observance.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 4.
Angels and ministers of grace, defend us!
Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd,
Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,
Be thy intents wicked or charitable,
Thou comest in such a questionable shape
That I will speak to thee: I 'll call thee Hamlet,
King, father, royal Dane: O, answer me!
Let me not burst in ignorance, but tell
Why thy canonized bones, hearsed in death,
Have burst their cerements; why the sepulchre,
Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn'd,
[131]Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws
To cast thee up again. What may this mean,
That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel
Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon,
Making night hideous,[131:1] and we fools of nature
So horridly to shake our disposition
With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 4.
I do not set my life at a pin's fee.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 4.
My fate cries out,
And makes each petty artery in this body
As hardy as the Nemean lion's nerve.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 4.
Unhand me, gentlemen.
By heaven, I 'll make a ghost of him that lets me!
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 4.
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 4.
I am thy father's spirit,
Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night,
And for the day confin'd to fast in fires,[131:2]
Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
Are burnt and purg'd away. But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison-house,
I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres,
Thy knotted and combined locks to part
And each particular hair to stand an end,
Like quills upon the fretful porpentine:[131:3]
But this eternal blazon must not be
To ears of flesh and blood. List, list, O, list!
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 5.
And duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed
That roots itself[131:4] in ease on Lethe wharf.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 5.
[132]
O my prophetic soul!
My uncle!
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 5.
O Hamlet, what a falling-off was there!
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 5.
But, soft! methinks I scent the morning air;
Brief let me be. Sleeping within my orchard,
My custom always of the afternoon.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 5.
Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,
Unhousell'd, disappointed, unaneled,
No reckoning made, but sent to my account
With all my imperfections on my head.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 5.
Leave her to heaven
And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge,
To prick and sting her.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 5.
The glow-worm shows the matin to be near,
And 'gins to pale his uneffectual fire.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 5.
While memory holds a seat
In this distracted globe. Remember thee!
Yea, from the table of my memory
I 'll wipe away all trivial fond records.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 5.
Within the book and volume of my brain.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 5.
O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!
My tables,—meet it is I set it down,
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain:
At least I 'm sure it may be so in Denmark.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 5.
Ham. There 's ne'er a villain dwelling in all Denmark
But he 's an arrant knave.
Hor. There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave
To tell us this.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 5.
Every man has business and desire,
Such as it is.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 5.
Art thou there, truepenny?
Come on—you hear this fellow in the cellarage.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 5.
[133]
O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 5.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 5.
Rest, rest, perturbed spirit!
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 5.
The time is out of joint: O cursed spite,
That ever I was born to set it right!
Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 5.
The flash and outbreak of a fiery mind,
A savageness in unreclaimed blood.
Hamlet. Act ii. Sc. 1.
This is the very ecstasy of love.
Hamlet. Act ii. Sc. 1.
Brevity is the soul of wit.[133:1]
Hamlet. Act ii. Sc. 2.
More matter, with less art.
Hamlet. Act ii. Sc. 2.
That he is mad, 't is true: 't is true 't is pity;
And pity 't is 't is true.
Hamlet. Act ii. Sc. 2.
Find out the cause of this effect,
Or rather say, the cause of this defect,
For this effect defective comes by cause.
Hamlet. Act ii. Sc. 2.
Doubt thou the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love.
Hamlet. Act ii. Sc. 2.
To be honest as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.
Hamlet. Act ii. Sc. 2.
Still harping on my daughter.
Hamlet. Act ii. Sc. 2.
Pol. What do you read, my lord?
Ham. Words, words, words.
Hamlet. Act ii. Sc. 2.
They have a plentiful lack of wit.
Hamlet. Act ii. Sc. 2.
Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't.
Hamlet. Act ii. Sc. 2.
On fortune's cap we are not the very button.
Hamlet. Act ii. Sc. 2.
[134]
There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
Hamlet. Act ii. Sc. 2.
A dream itself is but a shadow.
Hamlet. Act ii. Sc. 2.
Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks.
Hamlet. Act ii. Sc. 2.
This goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god!
Hamlet. Act ii. Sc. 2.
Man delights not me: no, nor woman neither.
Hamlet. Act ii. Sc. 2.
There is something in this more than natural, if philosophy could find it out.
Hamlet. Act ii. Sc. 2.
I know a hawk from a handsaw.
Hamlet. Act ii. Sc. 2.
O Jephthah, judge of Israel, what a treasure hadst thou!
Hamlet. Act ii. Sc. 2.
One fair daughter and no more,
The which he loved passing well.
Hamlet. Act ii. Sc. 2.
Come, give us a taste of your quality.
Hamlet. Act ii. Sc. 2.
The play, I remember, pleased not the million; 't was caviare to the general.
Hamlet. Act ii. Sc. 2.
They are the abstract and brief chronicles of the time: after your death you were better have a bad epitaph than their ill report while you live.
Hamlet. Act ii. Sc. 2.
Use every man after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping?
Hamlet. Act ii. Sc. 2.
What 's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her?
Hamlet. Act ii. Sc. 2.
[135]
Unpack my heart with words,
And fall a-cursing, like a very drab.
Hamlet. Act ii. Sc. 2.
For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ.[135:1]
Hamlet. Act ii. Sc. 2.
The devil hath power
To assume a pleasing shape.
Hamlet. Act ii. Sc. 2.
Abuses me to damn me.
Hamlet. Act ii. Sc. 2.
The play 's the thing
Wherein I 'll catch the conscience of the king.
Hamlet. Act ii. Sc. 2.
With devotion's visage
And pious action we do sugar o'er
The devil himself.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 1.
To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 't is nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep:
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to,—'t is a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there 's the rub:
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there 's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
[136]With a bare bodkin? who would fardels[136:1] bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 1.
Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 1.
Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 1.
I am myself indifferent honest.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 1.
Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery, go.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 1.
I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God has given you one face, and you make yourselves another.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 1.
O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!
The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's eye, tongue, sword.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 1.
The expectancy and rose of the fair state,
The glass of fashion and the mould of form,
The observed of all observers!
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 1.
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 1.
O, woe is me,
To have seen what I have seen, see what I see!
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 1.
[137]
Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, the whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. Oh, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows and noise. I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it out-herods Herod.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 2.
To hold, as 't were, the mirror up to nature.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 2.
The very age and body of the time his form and pressure.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Not to speak it profanely.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 2.
I have thought some of Nature's journeymen had made men and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 2.
First Play. We have reformed that indifferently with us, sir.
Ham. O, reform it altogether.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man
As e'er my conversation coped withal.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 2.
No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp,
And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee
Where thrift may follow fawning.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 2.
A man that fortune's buffets and rewards
Hast ta'en with equal thanks.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 2.
[138]
They are not a pipe for fortune's finger
To sound what stop she please. Give me that man
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart,
As I do thee.—Something too much of this.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 2.
And my imaginations are as foul
As Vulcan's stithy.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Here 's metal more attractive.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Nay, then, let the devil wear black, for I 'll have a suit of sables.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 2.
There 's hope a great man's memory may outlive his life half a year.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 2.
For, O, for, O, the hobby-horse is forgot.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 2.
This is miching mallecho; it means mischief.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Ham. Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?
Oph. 'T is brief, my lord.
Ham. As woman's love.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Our wills and fates do so contrary run
That our devices still are overthrown.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 2.
The lady doth protest[138:1] too much, methinks.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Let the galled jade wince, our withers are unwrung.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 2.
The story is extant, and writ in choice Italian.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Why, let the stricken deer go weep,
The hart ungalled play;
For some must watch, while some must sleep:
So runs the world away.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 2.
'T is as easy as lying.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 2.
It will discourse most eloquent music.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 2.
[139]
Pluck out the heart of my mystery.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe?
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Ham. Do you see yonder cloud that 's almost in shape of a camel?
Pol. By the mass, and 't is like a camel, indeed.
Ham. Methinks it is like a weasel.
Pol. It is backed like a weasel.
Ham. Or like a whale?
Pol. Very like a whale.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 2.
They fool me to the top of my bent.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 2.
By and by is easily said.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 2.
'T is now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 2.
I will speak daggers to her, but use none.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 2.
O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven;
It hath the primal eldest curse upon 't,
A brother's murder.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 3.
Like a man to double business bound,
I stand in pause where I shall first begin,
And both neglect.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 3.
'T is not so above;
There is no shuffling, there the action lies
In his true nature.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 3.
O limed soul, that, struggling to be free,
Art more engag'd! Help, angels! Make assay!
Bow, stubborn knees; and, heart with strings of steel,
Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe!
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 3.
With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 3.
About some act
That has no relish of salvation in 't.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 3.
[140]
My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 3.
Dead, for a ducat, dead!
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 4.
And let me wring your heart; for so I shall,
If it be made of penetrable stuff.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 4.
Such an act
That blurs the grace and blush of modesty.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 4.
False as dicers' oaths.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 4.
A rhapsody of words.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 4.
What act
That roars so loud, and thunders in the index?
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 4.
Look here, upon this picture, and on this,
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
See, what a grace was seated on this brow:
Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself;
An eye like Mars, to threaten and command;
A station like the herald Mercury
New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill,—
A combination and a form indeed,
Where every god did seem to set his seal,
To give the world assurance of a man.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 4.
At your age
The hey-day in the blood is tame, it 's humble.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 4.
O shame! where is thy blush? Rebellions hell,
If thou canst mutine in a matron's bones,
To flaming youth let virtue be as wax,
And melt in her own fire: proclaim no shame
When the compulsive ardour gives the charge,
Since frost itself as actively doth burn,
And reason panders will.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 4.
A cutpurse of the empire and the rule,
That from a shelf the precious diadem stole,
And put it in his pocket!
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 4.
[141]
A king of shreds and patches.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 4.
Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 4.
How is 't with you,
That you do bend your eye on vacancy?
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 4.
This is the very coinage of your brain:
This bodiless creation ecstasy
Is very cunning in.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 4.
Bring me to the test,
And I the matter will re-word; which madness
Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,
Lay not that flattering unction to your soul.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 4.
Confess yourself to heaven;
Repent what 's past; avoid what is to come.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 4.
Assume a virtue, if you have it not.
That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat,
Of habits devil, is angel yet in this.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 4.
Refrain to-night,
And that shall lend a kind of easiness
To the next abstinence: the next more easy;
For use almost can change the stamp of nature.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 4.
I must be cruel, only to be kind:
Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 4.
For 't is the sport to have the enginer
Hoist with his own petar.
Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 4.
Diseases desperate grown
By desperate appliance are relieved,
Or not at all.[141:1]
Hamlet. Act iv. Sc. 3.
A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.
Hamlet. Act iv. Sc. 3.
[142]
Sure, he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and godlike reason
To fust in us unused.
Hamlet. Act iv. Sc. 4.
Rightly to be great
Is not to stir without great argument,
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
When honour 's at the stake.
Hamlet. Act iv. Sc. 4.
So full of artless jealousy is guilt,
It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.
Hamlet. Act iv. Sc. 5.
We know what we are, but know not what we may be.
Hamlet. Act iv. Sc. 5.
To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day,
All in the morning betime.
Hamlet. Act iv. Sc. 5.
Then up he rose, and donn'd his clothes.
Hamlet. Act iv. Sc. 5.
Come, my coach! Good night, sweet ladies; good night.
Hamlet. Act iv. Sc. 5.
When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
But in battalions.
Hamlet. Act iv. Sc. 5.
There 's such divinity doth hedge a king,
That treason can but peep to what it would.
Hamlet. Act iv. Sc. 5.
Nature is fine in love, and where 't is fine,
It sends some precious instance of itself
After the thing it loves.
Hamlet. Act iv. Sc. 5.
There 's rosemary, that 's for remembrance; . . . and there is pansies, that 's for thoughts.
Hamlet. Act iv. Sc. 5.
You must wear your rue with a difference. There 's a daisy; I would give you some violets, but they withered.
Hamlet. Act iv. Sc. 5.
His beard was as white as snow,
All flaxen was his poll.
Hamlet. Act iv. Sc. 5.
A very riband in the cap of youth.
Hamlet. Act iv. Sc. 7.
That we would do,
We should do when we would.
Hamlet. Act iv. Sc. 7.
[143]
Nature her custom holds,
Let shame say what it will.
Hamlet. Act iv. Sc. 7.
1 Clo. Argal, he that is not guilty of his own death shortens not his own life.
2 Clo. But is this law?
1 Clo. Ay, marry, is 't; crowner's quest law.
Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 1.
There is no ancient gentlemen but gardeners.
Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 1.
Cudgel thy brains no more about it.
Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 1.
Has this fellow no feeling of his business?
Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 1.
Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness.
Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 1.
The hand of little employment hath the daintier sense.
Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 1.
A politician, . . . one that would circumvent God.
Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 1.
Why may not that be the skull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddities now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks?
Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 1.
One that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she 's dead.
Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 1.
How absolute the knave is! we must speak by the card, or equivocation will undo us.
Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 1.
The age is grown so picked that the toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier, he galls his kibe.
Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 1.
[144]
Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now; your gambols, your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? Quite chap-fallen? Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come.
Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 1.
To what base uses we may return, Horatio! Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander, till we find it stopping a bung-hole?
Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 1.
'T were to consider too curiously, to consider so.
Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 1.
Imperious Cæsar, dead and turn'd to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away.
Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 1.
Lay her i' the earth:
And from her fair and unpolluted flesh
May violets spring![144:1]
Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 1.
A ministering angel shall my sister be.[144:2]
Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 1.
Sweets to the sweet: farewell!
Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 1.
I thought thy bride-bed to have deck'd, sweet maid,
And not have strew'd thy grave.
Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 1.
Though I am not splenitive and rash,
Yet have I something in me dangerous.
Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 1.
Forty thousand brothers
Could not, with all their quantity of love,
Make up my sum.
Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 1.
[145]
Nay, an thou 'lt mouth,
I 'll rant as well as thou.
Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 1.
Let Hercules himself do what he may,
The cat will mew and dog will have his day.
Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 1.
I once did hold it, as our statists do,
A baseness to write fair.
Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 2.
It did me yeoman's service.
Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 2.
The bravery of his grief did put me
Into a towering passion.
Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 2.
What imports the nomination of this gentleman?
Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 2.
The phrase would be more german to the matter, if we could carry cannon by our sides.
Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 2.
'T is the breathing time of day with me.
Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 2.
There 's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 't is not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all. Since no man has aught of what he leaves, what is 't to leave betimes?
Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 2.
I have shot mine arrow o'er the house,
And hurt my brother.
Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 2.
Now the king drinks to Hamlet.
Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 2.
A hit, a very palpable hit.
Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 2.
This fell sergeant, death,
Is strict in his arrest.
Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 2.
Report me and my cause aright.
Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 2.
[146]
I am more an antique Roman than a Dane.
Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 2.
Absent thee from felicity awhile.
Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 2.
The rest is silence.
Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 2.
Although the last, not least.
King Lear. Act i. Sc. 1.
Nothing will come of nothing.
King Lear. Act i. Sc. 1.
Mend your speech a little,
Lest it may mar your fortunes.
King Lear. Act i. Sc. 1.
I want that glib and oily art,
To speak and purpose not.
King Lear. Act i. Sc. 1.
A still-soliciting eye, and such a tongue
As I am glad I have not.
King Lear. Act i. Sc. 1.
Time shall unfold what plaited cunning hides.
King Lear. Act i. Sc. 1.
As if we were villains by necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion.
King Lear. Act i. Sc. 2.
That which ordinary men are fit for, I am qualified in; and the best of me is diligence.
King Lear. Act i. Sc. 4.
Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend!
King Lear. Act i. Sc. 4.
How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
To have a thankless child!
King Lear. Act i. Sc. 4.
Striving to better, oft we mar what 's well.
King Lear. Act i. Sc. 4.
Hysterica passio, down, thou climbing sorrow,
Thy element 's below.
King Lear. Act ii. Sc. 4.
Nature in you stands on the very verge
Of her confine.
King Lear. Act ii. Sc. 4.
Necessity's sharp pinch!
King Lear. Act ii. Sc. 4.
Let not women's weapons, water-drops,
Stain my man's cheeks!
King Lear. Act ii. Sc. 4.
Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
King Lear. Act iii. Sc. 2.
I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness.
King Lear. Act iii. Sc. 2.
[147]
A poor, infirm, weak, and despised old man.
King Lear. Act iii. Sc. 2.
There was never yet fair woman but she made mouths in a glass.
King Lear. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Tremble, thou wretch,
That hast within thee undivulged crimes,
Unwhipp'd of justice.
King Lear. Act iii. Sc. 2.
I am a man
More sinn'd against than sinning.
King Lear. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Oh, that way madness lies; let me shun that.
King Lear. Act iii. Sc. 4.
Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
Your looped and windowed raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these?
King Lear. Act iii. Sc. 4.
Take physic, pomp;
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel.
King Lear. Act iii. Sc. 4.
Out-paramoured the Turk.
King Lear. Act iii. Sc. 4.
'T is a naughty night to swim in.
King Lear. Act iii. Sc. 4.
The green mantle of the standing pool.
King Lear. Act iii. Sc. 4.
But mice and rats, and such small deer,
Have been Tom's food for seven long year.
King Lear. Act iii. Sc. 4.
The prince of darkness is a gentleman.[147:1]
King Lear. Act iii. Sc. 4.
Poor Tom 's a-cold.
King Lear. Act iii. Sc. 4.
I 'll talk a word with this same learned Theban.
King Lear. Act iii. Sc. 4.
Child Rowland to the dark tower came,
His word was still,—Fie, foh, and fum,
I smell the blood of a British man.
King Lear. Act iii. Sc. 4.
The little dogs and all,
Tray, Blanch, and Sweetheart, see, they bark at me.
King Lear. Act iii. Sc. 6.
[148]
Mastiff, greyhound, mongrel grim,
Hound or spaniel, brach or lym,
Or bobtail tike or trundle-tail.
King Lear. Act iii. Sc. 6.
I am tied to the stake, and I must stand the course.
King Lear. Act iii. Sc. 7.
The lowest and most dejected thing of fortune.
King Lear. Act iv. Sc. 1.
The worst is not
So long as we can say, "This is the worst."
King Lear. Act iv. Sc. 1.
Patience and sorrow strove
Who should express her goodliest.
King Lear. Act iv. Sc. 3.
Half way down
Hangs one that gathers samphire, dreadful trade!
Methinks he seems no bigger than his head:
The fishermen that walk upon the beach
Appear like mice.
King Lear. Act iv. Sc. 6.
Nature 's above art in that respect.
King Lear. Act iv. Sc. 6.
Ay, every inch a king.
King Lear. Act iv. Sc. 6.
Give me an ounce of civet, good apothecary, to sweeten my imagination.
King Lear. Act iv. Sc. 6.
A man may see how this world goes with no eyes. Look with thine ears: see how yond justice rails upon yond simple thief. Hark, in thine ear: change places; and, handy-dandy, which is the justice, which is the thief?
King Lear. Act iv. Sc. 6.
Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear;
Robes and furr'd gowns hide all.
King Lear. Act iv. Sc. 6.
Mine enemy's dog,
Though he had bit me, should have stood that night
Against my fire.
King Lear. Act iv. Sc. 7.
Pray you now, forget and forgive.
King Lear. Act iv. Sc. 7.
Upon such sacrifices, my Cordelia,
The gods themselves throw incense.
King Lear. Act v. Sc. 3.
[149]
The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices
Make instruments to plague us.
King Lear. Act v. Sc. 3.
Her voice was ever soft,
Gentle, and low,—an excellent thing in woman.
King Lear. Act v. Sc. 3.
Vex not his ghost: O, let him pass! he hates him much
That would upon the rack of this tough world
Stretch him out longer.
King Lear. Act v. Sc. 3.
That never set a squadron in the field,
Nor the division of a battle knows.
Othello. Act i. Sc. 1.
The bookish theoric.
Othello. Act i. Sc. 1.
'T is the curse of service,
Preferment goes by letter and affection,
And not by old gradation, where each second
Stood heir to the first.
Othello. Act i. Sc. 1.
We cannot all be masters, nor all masters
Cannot be truly follow'd.
Othello. Act i. Sc. 1.
Whip me such honest knaves.
Othello. Act i. Sc. 1.
I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
For daws to peck at.
Othello. Act i. Sc. 1.
You are one of those that will not serve God, if the devil bid you.
Othello. Act i. Sc. 1.
The wealthy curled darlings of our nation.
Othello. Act i. Sc. 2.
Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors,
My very noble and approv'd good masters,
That I have ta'en away this old man's daughter,
It is most true; true, I have married her:
The very head and front of my offending
Hath this extent, no more. Rude am I in my speech,[149:1]
And little bless'd with the soft phrase of peace:
For since these arms of mine had seven years' pith,
Till now some nine moons wasted, they have used
[150]Their dearest action in the tented field,
And little of this great world can I speak,
More than pertains to feats of broil and battle,
And therefore little shall I grace my cause
In speaking for myself. Yet, by your gracious patience,
I will a round unvarnish'd tale deliver
Of my whole course of love.
Othello. Act i. Sc. 3.
Her father loved me; oft invited me;
Still question'd me the story of my life,
From year to year, the battles, sieges, fortunes,
That I have passed.
I ran it through, even from my boyish days,
To the very moment that he bade me tell it:
Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances,
Of moving accidents by flood and field,
Of hair-breadth 'scapes i' the imminent deadly breach,
Of being taken by the insolent foe
And sold to slavery, of my redemption thence
And portance in my travels' history;
Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle,
Rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touch heaven,
It was my hint to speak,—such was the process;
And of the Cannibals that each other eat,
The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads
Do grow beneath their shoulders. This to hear[150:1]
Would Desdemona seriously incline.
Othello. Act i. Sc. 3.
And often did beguile her of her tears,
When I did speak of some distressful stroke
That my youth suffer'd. My story being done,
She gave me for my pains a world of sighs;
She swore, in faith, 't was strange, 't was passing strange.
'T was pitiful, 't was wondrous pitiful;
She wish'd she had not heard it, yet she wish'd
That Heaven had made her such a man; she thank'd me,
And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her,
[151]I should but teach him how to tell my story,
And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake:
She loved me for the dangers I had pass'd,
And I loved her that she did pity them.
This only is the witchcraft I have used.
Othello. Act i. Sc. 3.
I do perceive here a divided duty.
Othello. Act i. Sc. 3.
The robb'd that smiles, steals something from the thief.
Othello. Act i. Sc. 3.
The tyrant custom, most grave senators,
Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war
My thrice-driven bed of down.
Othello. Act i. Sc. 3.
I saw Othello's visage in his mind.
Othello. Act i. Sc. 3.
Put money in thy purse.
Othello. Act i. Sc. 3.
The food that to him now is as luscious as locusts, shall be to him shortly as bitter as coloquintida.
Othello. Act i. Sc. 3.
Framed to make women false.
Othello. Act i. Sc. 3.
One that excels the quirks of blazoning pens.
Othello. Act ii. Sc. 1.
For I am nothing, if not critical.
Othello. Act ii. Sc. 1.
I am not merry; but I do beguile
The thing I am, by seeming otherwise.
Othello. Act ii. Sc. 1.
She that was ever fair and never proud,
Had tongue at will, and yet was never loud.
Othello. Act ii. Sc. 1.
She was a wight, if ever such wight were,—
Des. To do what?
Iago. To suckle fools and chronicle small beer.
Des. O most lame and impotent conclusion!
Othello. Act ii. Sc. 1.
You may relish him more in the soldier than in the scholar.
Othello. Act ii. Sc. 1.
If after every tempest come such calms,
May the winds blow till they have waken'd death!
Othello. Act ii. Sc. 1.
[152]
Egregiously an ass.
Othello. Act ii. Sc. 1.
I have very poor and unhappy brains for drinking.
Othello. Act ii. Sc. 3.
Potations pottle-deep.
Othello. Act ii. Sc. 3.
King Stephen was a worthy peer,
His breeches cost him but a crown;
He held them sixpence all too dear,—
With that he called the tailor lown.[152:1]
Othello. Act ii. Sc. 3.
Silence that dreadful bell: it frights the isle
From her propriety.
Othello. Act ii. Sc. 3.
Your name is great
In mouths of wisest censure.
Othello. Act ii. Sc. 3.
Thy honesty and love doth mince this matter.
Othello. Act ii. Sc. 3.
Cassio, I love thee;
But never more be officer of mine.
Othello. Act ii. Sc. 3.
Iago. What, are you hurt, lieutenant?
Cas. Ay, past all surgery.
Othello. Act ii. Sc. 3.
Reputation, reputation, reputation! Oh, I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial.
Othello. Act ii. Sc. 3.
O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil!
Othello. Act ii. Sc. 3.
O God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains!
Othello. Act ii. Sc. 3.
Cas. Every inordinate cup is unbless'd, and the ingredient is a devil.
Iago. Come, come, good wine is a good familiar creature, if it be well used.
Othello. Act ii. Sc. 3.
How poor are they that have not patience!
Othello. Act ii. Sc. 3.
[153]
Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul,
But I do love thee! and when I love thee not,
Chaos is come again.[153:1]
Othello. Act iii. Sc. 3.
Speak to me as to thy thinkings,
As thou dost ruminate, and give thy worst of thoughts
The worst of words.
Othello. Act iii. Sc. 3.
Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls:
Who steals my purse steals trash; 't is something, nothing;
'T was mine, 't is his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him
And makes me poor indeed.
Othello. Act iii. Sc. 3.
O, beware, my lord, of jealousy!
It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock
The meat it feeds on.
Othello. Act iii. Sc. 3.
But, O, what damned minutes tells he o'er
Who dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet strongly[153:2] loves!
Othello. Act iii. Sc. 3.
Poor and content is rich and rich enough.
Othello. Act iii. Sc. 3.
To be once in doubt
Is once to be resolv'd.
Othello. Act iii. Sc. 3.
If I do prove her haggard,
Though that her jesses were my dear heart-strings,
I 'ld whistle her off and let her down the wind,
To prey at fortune.
Othello. Act iii. Sc. 3.
I am declined
Into the vale of years.
Othello. Act iii. Sc. 3.
[154]
O curse of marriage,
That we can call these delicate creatures ours,
And not their appetites! I had rather be a toad,
And live upon the vapour of a dungeon,
Than keep a corner in the thing I love
For others' uses.
Othello. Act iii. Sc. 3.
Trifles light as air
Are to the jealous confirmations strong
As proofs of holy writ.
Othello. Act iii. Sc. 3.
Not poppy, nor mandragora,
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,
Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep
Which thou owedst yesterday.
Othello. Act iii. Sc. 3.
I swear 't is better to be much abused
Than but to know 't a little.
Othello. Act iii. Sc. 3.
He that is robb'd, not wanting what is stolen,
Let him not know 't, and he 's not robb'd at all.
Othello. Act iii. Sc. 3.
O, now, for ever
Farewell the tranquil mind! farewell content!
Farewell the plumed troop and the big wars
That make ambition virtue! O, farewell!
Farewell the neighing steed and the shrill trump,
The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife,
The royal banner, and all quality,
Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war!
And, O you mortal engines, whose rude throats
The immortal Jove's dread clamours counterfeit,
Farewell! Othello's occupation 's gone!
Othello. Act iii. Sc. 3.
Be sure of it; give me the ocular proof.
Othello. Act iii. Sc. 3.
No hinge nor loop
To hang a doubt on.
Othello. Act iii. Sc. 3.
On horror's head horrors accumulate.
Othello. Act iii. Sc. 3.
Take note, take note, O world,
To be direct and honest is not safe.
Othello. Act iii. Sc. 3.
[155]
But this denoted a foregone conclusion.
Othello. Act iii. Sc. 3.
Swell, bosom, with thy fraught,
For 't is of aspics' tongues!
Othello. Act iii. Sc. 3.
Like to the Pontic sea,
Whose icy current and compulsive course
Ne'er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on
To the Propontic and the Hellespont,
Even so my bloody thoughts, with violent pace,
Shall ne'er look back, ne'er ebb to humble love,
Till that a capable and wide revenge
Swallow them up.
Othello. Act iii. Sc. 3.
Our new heraldry is hands, not hearts.
Othello. Act iii. Sc. 4.
To beguile many, and be beguil'd by one.
Othello. Act iv. Sc. 1.
They laugh that win.[155:1]
Othello. Act iv. Sc. 1.
But yet the pity of it, Iago! O Iago, the pity of it, Iago!
Othello. Act iv. Sc. 1.
I understand a fury in your words,
But not the words.
Othello. Act iv. Sc. 2.
Steep'd me in poverty to the very lips.
Othello. Act iv. Sc. 2.
But, alas, to make me
A fixed figure for the time of scorn
To point his slow unmoving finger[155:2] at!
Othello. Act iv. Sc. 2.
Patience, thou young and rose-lipp'd cherubin.
Othello. Act iv. Sc. 2.
O thou weed,
Who art so lovely fair and smell'st so sweet
That the sense aches at thee, would thou hadst ne'er been born.
Othello. Act iv. Sc. 2.
O Heaven, that such companions thou 'ldst unfold,
And put in every honest hand a whip
To lash the rascals naked through the world!
Othello. Act iv. Sc. 2.
[156]
'T is neither here nor there.
Othello. Act iv. Sc. 3.
It makes us or it mars us.
Othello. Act v. Sc. 1.
Every way makes my gain.
Othello. Act v. Sc. 1.
He hath a daily beauty in his life.
Othello. Act v. Sc. 1.
This is the night
That either makes me or fordoes me quite.
Othello. Act v. Sc. 1.
And smooth as monumental alabaster.
Othello. Act v. Sc. 2.
Put out the light, and then put out the light:
If I quench thee, thou flaming minister,
I can again thy former light restore
Should I repent me; but once put out thy light,
Thou cunning'st pattern of excelling nature,
I know not where is that Promethean heat
That can thy light relume.
Othello. Act v. Sc. 2.
So sweet was ne'er so fatal.
Othello. Act v. Sc. 2.
Had all his hairs been lives, my great revenge
Had stomach for them all.
Othello. Act v. Sc. 2.
One entire and perfect chrysolite.
Othello. Act v. Sc. 2.
Curse his better angel from his side,
And fall to reprobation.
Othello. Act v. Sc. 2.
Every puny whipster.
Othello. Act v. Sc. 2.
Man but a rush against Othello's breast,
And he retires.
Othello. Act v. Sc. 2.
I have done the state some service, and they know 't.
No more of that. I pray you, in your letters,
When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,
Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice. Then, must you speak
Of one that loved not wisely but too well;
Of one not easily jealous, but being wrought
Perplex'd in the extreme; of one whose hand,
Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away
[157]Richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdued eyes,
Albeit unused to the melting mood,
Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees
Their medicinal gum.
Othello. Act v. Sc. 2.
I took by the throat the circumcised dog,
And smote him, thus.
Othello. Act v. Sc. 2.
There 's beggary in the love that can be reckon'd.
Antony and Cleopatra. Act i. Sc. 1.
On the sudden
A Roman thought hath struck him.
Antony and Cleopatra. Act i. Sc. 2.
This grief is crowned with consolation.
Antony and Cleopatra. Act i. Sc. 2.
Give me to drink mandragora.
Antony and Cleopatra. Act i. Sc. 5.
Where 's my serpent of old Nile?
Antony and Cleopatra. Act i. Sc. 5.
A morsel for a monarch.
Antony and Cleopatra. Act i. Sc. 5.
My salad days,
When I was green in judgment.
Antony and Cleopatra. Act i. Sc. 5.
Epicurean cooks
Sharpen with cloyless sauce his appetite.
Antony and Cleopatra. Act ii. Sc. 1.
Small to greater matters must give way.
Antony and Cleopatra. Act ii. Sc. 2.
The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,
Burn'd on the water; the poop was beaten gold;
Purple the sails, and so perfumed that
The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver,
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
The water which they beat to follow faster,
As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,
It beggar'd all description.
Antony and Cleopatra. Act ii. Sc. 2.
Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety.
Antony and Cleopatra. Act ii. Sc. 2.
I have not kept my square; but that to come
Shall all be done by the rule.
Antony and Cleopatra. Act ii. Sc. 3.
[158]
'T was merry when
You wager'd on your angling; when your diver
Did hang a salt-fish on his hook, which he
With fervency drew up.
Antony and Cleopatra. Act ii. Sc. 5.
Come, thou monarch of the vine,
Plumpy Bacchus with pink eyne!
Antony and Cleopatra. Act ii. Sc. 7.
Who does i' the wars more than his captain can
Becomes his captain's captain; and ambition,
The soldier's virtue, rather makes choice of loss,
Than gain which darkens him.
Antony and Cleopatra. Act iii. Sc. 1.
He wears the rose
Of youth upon him.
Antony and Cleopatra. Act iii. Sc. 13.
Men's judgments are
A parcel of their fortunes; and things outward
Do draw the inward quality after them,
To suffer all alike.
Antony and Cleopatra. Act iii. Sc. 13.
To business that we love we rise betime,
And go to 't with delight.
Antony and Cleopatra. Act iv. Sc. 4.
This morning, like the spirit of a youth
That means to be of note, begins betimes.
Antony and Cleopatra. Act iv. Sc. 4.
The shirt of Nessus is upon me.
Antony and Cleopatra. Act iv. Sc. 12.
Sometime we see a cloud that 's dragonish;
A vapour sometime like a bear or lion,
A tower'd citadel, a pendent rock,
A forked mountain, or blue promontory
With trees upon 't.
Antony and Cleopatra. Act iv. Sc. 14.
That which is now a horse, even with a thought
The rack dislimns, and makes it indistinct,
As water is in water.
Antony and Cleopatra. Act iv. Sc. 14.
Since Cleopatra died,
I have liv'd in such dishonour that the gods
Detest my baseness.
Antony and Cleopatra. Act iv. Sc. 14.
I am dying, Egypt, dying.
Antony and Cleopatra. Act iv. Sc. 15.
[159]
O, wither'd is the garland of the war,
The soldier's pole is fallen.[159:1]
Antony and Cleopatra. Act iv. Sc. 15.
Let 's do it after the high Roman fashion.
Antony and Cleopatra. Act iv. Sc. 15.
For his bounty,
There was no winter in 't; an autumn 't was
That grew the more by reaping.
Antony and Cleopatra. Act v. Sc. 2.
If there be, or ever were, one such,
It 's past the size of dreaming.
Antony and Cleopatra. Act v. Sc. 2.
Mechanic slaves
With greasy aprons, rules, and hammers.
Antony and Cleopatra. Act v. Sc. 2.
I have
Immortal longings in me.
Antony and Cleopatra. Act v. Sc. 2.
Lest the bargain should catch cold and starve.
Cymbeline. Act i. Sc. 4.
Hath his bellyful of fighting.
Cymbeline. Act ii. Sc. 1.
How bravely thou becomest thy bed, fresh lily.
Cymbeline. Act ii. Sc. 2.
The most patient man in loss, the most coldest that ever turned up ace.
Cymbeline. Act ii. Sc. 3.
Hark, hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings,
And Phœbus 'gins arise,[159:2]
His steeds to water at those springs
On chaliced flowers that lies;
And winking Mary-buds begin
To ope their golden eyes:
With everything that pretty is,
My lady sweet, arise.
Cymbeline. Act ii. Sc. 3.
As chaste as unsunn'd snow.
Cymbeline. Act ii. Sc. 5.
Some griefs are medicinable.
Cymbeline. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Prouder than rustling in unpaid-for silk.
Cymbeline. Act iii. Sc. 3.
[160]
So slippery that
The fear 's as bad as falling.
Cymbeline. Act iii. Sc. 3.
The game is up.
Cymbeline. Act iii. Sc. 3.
No, 't is slander,
Whose edge is sharper than the sword, whose tongue
Outvenoms all the worms of Nile, whose breath
Rides on the posting winds, and doth belie
All corners of the world.
Cymbeline. Act iii. Sc. 4.
Some jay of Italy,
Whose mother was her painting, hath betray'd him:
Poor I am stale, a garment out of fashion.
Cymbeline. Act iii. Sc. 4.
It is no act of common passage, but
A strain of rareness.
Cymbeline. Act iii. Sc. 4.
I have not slept one wink.
Cymbeline. Act iii. Sc. 4.
Thou art all the comfort
The gods will diet me with.
Cymbeline. Act iii. Sc. 4.
Weariness
Can snore upon the flint, when resty sloth
Finds the down pillow hard.
Cymbeline. Act iii. Sc. 6.
An angel! or, if not,
An earthly paragon!
Cymbeline. Act iii. Sc. 6.
Triumphs for nothing and lamenting toys
Is jollity for apes and grief for boys.
Cymbeline. Act iv. Sc. 2.
And put
My clouted brogues from off my feet.
Cymbeline. Act iv. Sc. 2.
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.
Cymbeline. Act iv. Sc. 2.
O, never say hereafter
But I am truest speaker. You call'd me brother
When I was but your sister.
Cymbeline. Act v. Sc. 5.
[161]
Like an arrow shot
From a well-experienc'd archer hits the mark
His eye doth level at.
Pericles. Act i. Sc. 1.
3 Fish. Master, I marvel how the fishes live in the sea.
1 Fish. Why, as men do a-land: the great ones eat up the little ones.
Pericles. Act ii. Sc. 1.
Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear.
Venus and Adonis. Line 145.
For he being dead, with him is beauty slain,
And, beauty dead, black chaos comes again.
Venus and Adonis. Line 1019.
The grass stoops not, she treads on it so light.
Venus and Adonis. Line 1027.
For greatest scandal waits on greatest state.
Lucrece. Line 1006.
Thou art thy mother's glass, and she in thee
Calls back the lovely April of her prime.
Sonnet iii.
And stretched metre of an antique song.
Sonnet xvii.
But thy eternal summer shall not fade.
Sonnet xviii.
The painful warrior famoused for fight,[161:1]
After a thousand victories, once foil'd,
Is from the books of honour razed quite,
And all the rest forgot for which he toil'd.
Sonnet xxv.
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste.
Sonnet xxx.
Full many a glorious morning have I seen.
Sonnet xxxiii.
My grief lies onward and my joy behind.
Sonnet l.
[162]
Like stones of worth, they thinly placed are,
Or captain jewels in the carcanet.
Sonnet lii.
The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
For that sweet odour which doth in it live.
Sonnet liv.
Not marble, nor the gilded monuments
Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme.
Sonnet lv.
Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o'ersways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
Sonnet lxv.
And art made tongue-tied by authority.
Sonnet lxvi.
And simple truth miscall'd simplicity,
And captive good attending captain ill.
Sonnet lxvi.
The ornament of beauty is suspect,
A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air.
Sonnet lxx.
That time of year thou may'st in me behold,
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,—
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
Sonnet lxxiii.
Your monument shall be my gentle verse,
Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read,
And tongues to be your being shall rehearse
When all the breathers of this world are dead;
You still shall live—such virtue hath my pen—
Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men.
Sonnet lxxxi.
Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing.
Sonnet lxxxvii.
Do not drop in for an after-loss.
Ah, do not, when my heart hath 'scap'd this sorrow,
Come in the rearward of a conquer'd woe;
Give not a windy night a rainy morrow,
To linger out a purpos'd overthrow.
Sonnet xc.
[163]
When proud-pied April, dress'd in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in everything.
Sonnet xcviii.
Still constant is a wondrous excellence.
Sonnet cv.
And beauty, making beautiful old rhyme.
Sonnet cvi.
My nature is subdu'd
To what it works in, like the dyer's hand.
Sonnet cxi.
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments: love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds.
Sonnet cxvi.
'T is better to be vile than vile esteem'd,
When not to be receives reproach of being;
And the just pleasure lost which is so deem'd,
Not by our feeling, but by others' seeing.
Sonnet cxxi.
No, I am that I am, and they that level
At my abuses reckon up their own.
Sonnet cxxi.
That full star that ushers in the even.
Sonnet cxxxii.
So on the tip of his subduing tongue
All kinds of arguments and questions deep,
All replication prompt, and reason strong,
For his advantage still did wake and sleep.
To make the weeper laugh, the laugher weep,
He had the dialect and different skill,
Catching all passion in his craft of will.
A Lover's Complaint. Line 120.
O father, what a hell of witchcraft lies
In the small orb of one particular tear.
A Lover's Complaint. Line 288.
Bad in the best, though excellent in neither.
The Passionate Pilgrim. iii.
Crabbed age and youth
Cannot live together.
The Passionate Pilgrim. viii.
Have you not heard it said full oft,
A woman's nay doth stand for naught?
The Passionate Pilgrim. xiv.
Cursed be he that moves my bones.
Shakespeare's Epitaph.
[44:1] As clear and as manifest as the nose in a man's face.—Burton: Anatomy of Melancholy, part iii. sect. 3, memb. 4, subsect. 1.
[44:2] Custom is almost second nature.—Plutarch: Preservation of Health.
[45:1] Familiarity breeds contempt.—Publius Syrus: Maxim 640.
[46:1] What the dickens!—Thomas Heywood: Edward IV. act iii. sc. 1.
[46:2] As ill luck would have it.—Cervantes: Don Quixote, pt. i. bk. i. ch. ii.
[47:1] Act i. Sc. 5, in White, Singer, and Knight.
[47:2] Compare Portia's words in Merchant of Venice, act iv. sc. 1.
[49:2] "Mariana in the moated grange,"—the motto used by Tennyson for the poem "Mariana."
[49:3] This song occurs in Act v. Sc. 2 of Beaumont and Fletcher's Bloody Brother, with the following additional stanza:—
Hide, O, hide those hills of snow,
Which thy frozen bosom bears,
On whose tops the pinks that grow
Are of those that April wears!
But first set my poor heart free,
Bound in those icy chains by thee.
[50:1] For every why he had a wherefore.—Butler: Hudibras, part i. canto i. line 132.
[51:1] From the crown of his head to the sole of the foot.—Pliny: Natural History, book vii. chap. xvii. Beaumont and Fletcher: The Honest Man's Fortune, act ii. sc. 2. Middleton: A Mad World, etc.
[54:1] For "mirth," White reads shews; Singer, shows.
[56:1] Musical as is Apollo's lute.—Milton: Comus, line 78.
[57:1] Maidens withering on the stalk.—Wordsworth: Personal Talk, stanza 1.
[57:2] "Ever I could read,"—Dyce, Knight, Singer, and White.
[57:3] Act ii. sc. 2 in Singer and Knight.
[58:1] Act ii. sc. 2 in Singer and Knight.
[58:3] Trew as steele.—Chaucer: Troilus and Cresseide, book v. line 831.
[58:4] Act ii. sc. 2 in Singer and Knight.
[58:5] Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard.—1 Corinthians, ii. 9.
[59:1] I see the beginning of my end.—Massinger: The Virgin Martyr act iii. sc. 3.
[60:1] For the good that I would I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do.—Romans vii. 19.
[63:2] I will play the swan and die in music.—Othello, act v. sc. 2.
I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan,
Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death.
King John, act v. sc. 7.
There, swan-like, let me sing and die.—Byron: Don Juan, canto iii. st. 86.
You think that upon the score of fore-knowledge and divining I am infinitely inferior to the swans. When they perceive approaching death they sing more merrily than before, because of the joy they have in going to the God they serve.—Socrates: In Phaedo, 77.
[64:1] It is better to learn late than never.—Publius Syrus: Maxim 864.
[64:2] Incidis in Scyllam cupiens vitare Charybdim (One falls into Scylla in seeking to avoid Charybdis).—Phillippe Gualtier: Alexandreis, book v. line 301. Circa 1300.
[65:1] "It is not nominated in the bond."—White.
[68:1] The same in The Taming of the Shrew, act iv. sc. 1; in Othello, act iii. sc. 1; in The Merry Wives of Windsor, act i. sc. 4; and in As You Like It, act ii. sc. 7. Rabelais: book v. chap. iv.
The world 's a theatre, the earth a stage,
Which God and Nature do with actors fill.
Thomas Heywood: Apology for Actors. 1612.
A noble farce, wherein kings, republics, and emperors have for so many ages played their parts, and to which the whole vast universe serves for a theatre.—Montaigne: Of the most Excellent Men.
[71:1] Too much of a good thing.—Cervantes: Don Quixote, part i. book i. chap. vi.
[71:2] "Cud" in Dyce and Staunton.
[72:1] You need not hang up the ivy branch over the wine that will sell.—Publius Syrus: Maxim 968.
[72:3] Married in haste, we may repent at leisure.—Congreve: The Old Bachelor, act v. sc. 1.
[74:1] How noiseless falls the foot of time!—W. R. Spencer: Lines to Lady A. Hamilton.
[74:2] "Like the sweet south" in Dyce and Singer. This change was made at the suggestion of Pope.
[76:1] Act iii. Sc. 5 in Dyce.
[77:1] Act iii. sc. 5 in Dyce.
[77:2] Into the jaws of death.—Tennyson: The Charge of the Light Brigade, stanza 3.
In the jaws of death.—Du Bartas: Divine Weekes and Workes, second week, first day, part iv.
[77:3] Act iv. sc. 2 in Dyce, Knight, Singer, Staunton, and White.
[78:1] Act iv. Sc. 3 in Dyce, Knight, Singer, Staunton, and White.
[78:2] Like a wave of the sea.—James i. 6.
[78:3] Act ii. Sc. 2 in Singer, Staunton, and Knight.
[79:1] Act ii. Sc. 2 in White.
[79:2] When fortune flatters, she does it to betray.—Publius Syrus: Maxim 278.
[80:1] Qui s'excuse, s'accuse (He who excuses himself accuses himself).—Gabriel Meurier: Trésor des Sentences. 1530-1601.
[80:2] See page 63, note 2.
[82:1] It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.—Matt. xix. 24.
[83:1] Thomas Nash: Have with you to Saffron Walden. Dryden: Epilogue to the Duke of Guise.
[85:1] Beaumont and Fletcher: Wit without Money, act iv. sc. 1. Swift: Mary the Cookmaid's Letter.
[87:2] It show'd discretion the best part of valour.—Beaumont and Fletcher: A King and no King, act ii. sc. 3.
[88:1] Which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?—Luke xiv. 28.
[90:1] Act. iv. Sc. 4 in Dyce, Singer, Staunton, and White.
Ill blows the wind that profits nobody.—Henry VI. part iii. act ii. sc. 5.
[91:1] Act iii. Sc. 6 in Dyce.
[92:1] With clink of hammers closing rivets up.—Cibber: Richard III. Altered, act v. sc. 3.
[92:2] "In their mouths" in Dyce, Singer, Staunton, and White.
[93:1] All delays are dangerous in war.—Dryden: Tyrannic Love, act i. sc. 1.
[93:2] Have a care o' th' main chance.—Butler: Hudibras, part ii. canto ii.
Be careful still of the main chance.—Dryden: Persius, satire vi.
[96:1] For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.—Pope: Essay on Criticism, part iii. line 66.
[96:2] "Stolen forth" in White and Knight.
[97:1] A little too wise, they say, do ne'er live long.—Middleton: The Phœnix, act i. sc. 1.
[97:2] Off with his head! so much for Buckingham!—Cibber: Richard III. (altered), act iv. sc. 3.
[98:1] A weak invention of the enemy.—Cibber: Richard III. (altered), act v. sc. 3.
[100:1] For men use, if they have an evil tourne, to write it in marble: and whoso doth us a good tourne we write it in duste.—Sir Thomas More: Richard III. and his miserable End.
All your better deeds
Shall be in water writ, but this in marble.
Beaumont and Fletcher: Philaster, act v. sc. 3.
L'injure se grave en métal; et le bienfait s'escrit en l'onde.
(An injury graves itself in metal, but a benefit writes itself in water.)
Jean Bertaut. Circa 1611.
[101:1] Act v. Sc. 2 in Dyce, Singer, Staunton, and White.
[101:2] Act v. Sc. 4 in Dyce, Singer, Staunton, and White.
[101:3] Labour for his pains.—Edward Moore: The Boy and his Rainbow.
Labour for their pains.—Cervantes: Don Quixote, The Author's Preface.
[102:1] Unless degree is preserved, the first place is safe for no one.—Publius Syrus: Maxim 1042.
When flowing cups pass swiftly round
With no allaying Thames.
Richard Lovelace: To Althea from Prison, ii.
[103:3] Act v. sc. 5 in Singer and Knight.
[105:1] My dancing days are done.—Beaumont and Fletcher: The Scornful Lady, act v. sc. 3.
[105:2] Dyce, Knight, and White read, "Her beauty hangs."
[105:3] Act ii. sc. 1 in White.
[105:4] Act ii. sc. 1. in White.
[106:1] Perjuria ridet amantum Jupiter (Jupiter laughs at the perjuries of lovers).—Tibullus: iii. 6, 49.
[106:2] Act ii. sc. 1 in White.
[107:1] True as steel.—Chaucer: Troilus and Creseide, book v. Compare Troilus and Cressida, act iii. sc. 2.
[107:2] Word and a blow.—Dryden: Amphitryon, act i. sc. 1. Bunyan: Pilgrim's Progress, part i.
[111:1] "Utmost" in Singer.
[112:1] Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart.—Gray: The Bard, i. 3, line 12.
[113:1] Though last not least.—Spenser: Colin Clout, line 444.
[119:1] Act. ii. sc. 1 in Dyce, Staunton, and White.
[120:1] Act ii. sc. 1 in Dyce, Staunton, White.
[120:2] Act ii. sc. 1 in Dyce and White; Act ii. sc. 2 in Staunton.
[120:3] Act ii. sc. 2 in Dyce and White; Act ii. sc. 3 in Staunton.
Let the air strike our tune,
Whilst we show reverence to yond peeping moon.
Middleton: The Witch, act. v. sc. 2.
[126:1] Act v. Sc. 7 in Singer and White.
[127:1] "Can walk" in White.
[127:2] "Eastern hill" in Dyce, Singer, Staunton, and White.
[127:3] "One auspicious and one dropping eye" in Dyce, Singer, and Staunton.
[128:1] "Armed at all points" in Singer and White.
And may you better reck the rede,
Than ever did the adviser.
Burns: Epistle to a Young Friend.
[129:2] "Hooks" in Singer.
[131:1] And makes night hideous.—Pope: The Dunciad, book iii. line 166.
[131:2] "To lasting fires" in Singer.
[131:3] "Porcupine" in Singer and Staunton.
[131:4] "Rots itself" in Staunton.
[133:1] A short saying oft contains much wisdom.—Sophocles: Aletes, frag. 99.
[136:1] "Who would these fardels" in White.
[138:1] "Protests" in Dyce, Singer, and Staunton.
[141:1] Extreme remedies are very appropriate for extreme diseases.—Hippocrates: Aphorism i.
[143:1] Thus woe succeeds a woe, as wave a wave.—Herrick: Sorrows Succeed.
Woes cluster; rare are solitary woes;
They love a train, they tread each other's heel.
Young: Night Thoughts, night iii. line 63.
And woe succeeds to woe.—Pope: The Iliad, book xvi. line 139.
And from his ashes may be made
The violet of his native land.
Tennyson: In Memoriam, xviii.
[144:2] A ministering angel thou.—Scott: Marmion, canto vi. st. 30.
But they that are above
Have ends in everything.
Beaumont and Fletcher: The Maid's Tragedy act v. sc. 4.
[147:1] The prince of darkness is a gentleman.—Suckling: The Goblins.
[149:1] Though I be rude in speech.—2 Cor. xi. 6.
[150:1] "These things to hear" in Singer.
[152:1] Though these lines are from an old ballad given in Percy's Reliques, they are much altered by Shakespeare, and it is his version we sing in the nursery.
For he being dead, with him is beauty slain,
And, beauty dead, black chaos comes again.
Venus and Adonis.
[153:2] "Fondly" in Singer and White; "soundly" in Staunton.
[155:1] Cervantes: Don Quixote, part ii. chap. i.
[155:2] "His slow and moving finger" in Knight and Staunton.
[161:1] "Worth" in White.
[164]
(Works: Spedding and Ellis).
I hold every man a debtor to his profession; from the which as men of course do seek to receive countenance and profit, so ought they of duty to endeavour themselves by way of amends to be a help and ornament thereunto.
Maxims of the Law. Preface.
Come home to men's business and bosoms.
Dedication to the Essays, Edition 1625.
No pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage-ground of truth.
Of Truth.
Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other.
Of Death.
Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.
Of Revenge.
It was a high speech of Seneca (after the manner of the Stoics), that "The good things which belong to prosperity are to be wished, but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired."
Of Adversity.
It is yet a higher speech of his than the other, "It is true greatness to have in one the frailty of a man and the security of a god."
Of Adversity.
Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament; adversity is the blessing of the New.
Of Adversity.
Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; and adversity is not without comforts and hopes.
Of Adversity.
[165]
Virtue is like precious odours,—most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed.[165:1]
Of Adversity.
He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.
Of Marriage and Single Life.
Wives are young men's mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men's nurses.[165:2]
Of Marriage and Single Life.
Men in great place are thrice servants,—servants of the sovereign or state, servants of fame, and servants of business.
Of Great Place.
Mahomet made the people believe that he would call a hill to him, and from the top of it offer up his prayers for the observers of his law. The people assembled. Mahomet called the hill to come to him, again and again; and when the hill stood still he was never a whit abashed, but said, "If the hill will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet will go to the hill."
Of Boldness.
The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall.[165:3]
Of Goodness.
The remedy is worse than the disease.[165:4]
Of Seditions.
[166]
I had rather believe all the fables in the legends and the Talmud and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a mind.
Of Atheism.
A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.[166:1]
Of Atheism.
Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience. He that travelleth into a country before he hath some entrance into the language, goeth to school, and not to travel.
Of Travel.
Princes are like to heavenly bodies, which cause good or evil times, and which have much veneration but no rest.[166:2]
Of Empire.
In things that a man would not be seen in himself, it is a point of cunning to borrow the name of the world; as to say, "The world says," or "There is a speech abroad."
Of Cunning.
There is a cunning which we in England call "the turning of the cat in the pan;" which is, when that which a man says to another, he lays it as if another had said it to him.
Of Cunning.
It is a good point of cunning for a man to shape the answer he would have in his own words and propositions, for it makes the other party stick the less.
Of Cunning.
It hath been an opinion that the French are wiser than they seem, and the Spaniards seem wiser than they are; but howsoever it be between nations, certainly it is so between man and man.
Of Seeming Wise.
[167]
There is a wisdom in this beyond the rules of physic. A man's own observation, what he finds good of and what he finds hurt of, is the best physic to preserve health.
Of Regimen of Health.
Discretion of speech is more than eloquence; and to speak agreeably to him with whom we deal is more than to speak in good words or in good order.
Of Discourse.
Men's thoughts are much according to their inclination,[167:1] their discourse and speeches according to their learning and infused opinions.
Of Custom and Education.
Chiefly the mould of a man's fortune is in his own hands.[167:2]
Of Fortune.
If a man look sharply and attentively, he shall see Fortune; for though she is blind, she is not invisible.[167:3]
Of Fortune.
Young men are fitter to invent than to judge, fitter for execution than for counsel, and fitter for new projects than for settled business.
Of Youth and Age.
Virtue is like a rich stone,—best plain set.
Of Beauty.
God Almighty first planted a garden.[167:4]
Of Gardens.
And because the breath of flowers is far sweeter in the air (where it comes and goes, like the warbling of music) than in the hand, therefore nothing is more fit for that delight than to know what be the flowers and plants that do best perfume the air.
Of Gardens.
[168]
Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.
Of Studies.
Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man.
Of Studies.
Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtile; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend.
Of Studies.
The greatest vicissitude of things amongst men is the vicissitude of sects and religions.[168:1]
Of Vicissitude of Things.
Books must follow sciences, and not sciences books.
Proposition touching Amendment of Laws.
Knowledge is power.—Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est.[168:2]
Meditationes Sacræ. De Hæresibus.
Whence we see spiders, flies, or ants entombed and preserved forever in amber, a more than royal tomb.[168:3]
Historia Vitæ et Mortis; Sylva Sylvarum, Cent. i. Exper. 100.
When you wander, as you often delight to do, you wander indeed, and give never such satisfaction as the curious time requires. This is not caused by any natural defect, but first for want of election, when you, having a large and fruitful mind, should not so much labour what to speak as to find what to leave unspoken. Rich soils are often to be weeded.
Letter of Expostulation to Coke.
[169]
"Antiquitas sæculi juventus mundi." These times are the ancient times, when the world is ancient, and not those which we account ancient ordine retrogrado, by a computation backward from ourselves.[169:1]
Advancement of Learning. Book i. (1605.)
For the glory of the Creator and the relief of man's estate.
Advancement of Learning. Book i.
The sun, which passeth through pollutions and itself remains as pure as before.[169:2]
Advancement of Learning. Book ii.
It [Poesy] was ever thought to have some participation of divineness, because it doth raise and erect the mind by submitting the shews of things to the desires of the mind.
Advancement of Learning. Book ii.
[170]
Sacred and inspired divinity, the sabaoth and port of all men's labours and peregrinations.
Advancement of Learning. Book ii.
Cleanness of body was ever deemed to proceed from a due reverence to God.[170:1]
Advancement of Learning. Book ii.
States as great engines move slowly.
Advancement of Learning. Book ii.
Who then to frail mortality shall trust
But limns on water, or but writes in dust.
The World.
What then remains but that we still should cry
For being born, and, being born, to die?[170:3]
The World.
For my name and memory, I leave it to men's charitable speeches, to foreign nations, and to the next ages.
From his Will.
My Lord St. Albans said that Nature did never put her precious jewels into a garret four stories high, and therefore that exceeding tall men had ever very empty heads.[170:4]
Apothegms. No. 17.
[171]
Like the strawberry wives, that laid two or three great strawberries at the mouth of their pot, and all the rest were little ones.[171:1]
Apothegms. No. 54.
Sir Henry Wotton used to say that critics are like brushers of noblemen's clothes.
Apothegms. No. 64.
Sir Amice Pawlet, when he saw too much haste made in any matter, was wont to say, "Stay a while, that we may make an end the sooner."
Apothegms. No. 76.
Alonso of Aragon was wont to say in commendation of age, that age appears to be best in four things,—old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.[171:2]
Apothegms. No. 97.
Pyrrhus, when his friends congratulated to him his victory over the Romans under Fabricius, but with great slaughter of his own side, said to them, "Yes; but if we have such another victory, we are undone."[171:3]
Apothegms. No. 193.
Cosmus, Duke of Florence, was wont to say of perfidious friends, that "We read that we ought to forgive our enemies; but we do not read that we ought to forgive our friends."
Apothegms. No. 206.
Cato said the best way to keep good acts in memory was to refresh them with new.
Apothegms. No. 247.
As aromatic plants bestow
No spicy fragrance while they grow;
But crushed or trodden to the ground,
Diffuse their balmy sweets around.
Goldsmith: The Captivity, act i.
The good are better made by ill,
As odours crushed are sweeter still.
Rogers: Jacqueline, stanza 3.
[165:2] Burton (quoted): Anatomy of Melancholy, part iii. sect. 2, memb. 5, subsect. 5.
Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes;
Men would be angels, angels would be gods.
Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell,
Aspiring to be angels, men rebel.
Pope: Essay on Man, ep. i. line 125.
[165:4] There are some remedies worse than the disease.—Publius Syrus: Maxim 301.
[166:1] Who are a little wise the best fools be.—Donne: Triple Fool.
A little skill in antiquity inclines a man to Popery; but depth in that study brings him about again to our religion.—Fuller: The Holy State. The True Church Antiquary.
A little learning is a dangerous thing.—Pope: Essay on Criticism, part ii. line 15.
Kings are like stars: they rise and set; they have
The worship of the world, but no repose.
Shelley: Hellas.
[167:1] Of similar meaning, "Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought." See Shakespeare, page 90.
[167:2] Every man is the architect of his own fortune.—Pseudo-Sallust: Epist. de Rep. Ordin. ii. 1.
His own character is the arbiter of every one's fortune.—Publius Syrus: Maxim 283.
[167:3] Fortune is painted blind, with a muffler afore her eyes, to signify to you that Fortune is blind.—Shakespeare: Henry V. act iii. sc. 6.
God the first garden made, and the first city Cain.
Cowley: The Garden, Essay v.
God made the country, and man made the town.
Cowper: The Task, book i. line 749.
Divina natura dedit agros, ars humana ædificavit urbes (Divine Nature gave the fields, human art built the cities).—Varro: De Re Rustica, iii. 1.
[168:1] The vicissitude of things.—Sterne: Sermon xvi. Gifford: Contemplation.
[168:2] A wise man is strong; yea, a man of knowledge increaseth strength.—Proverbs xxiv. 5.
Knowledge is more than equivalent to force.—Johnson: Rasselas, chap. xiii.
The bee enclosed and through the amber shown,
Seems buried in the juice which was his own.
Martial: book iv. 32, vi. 15 (Hay's translation).
I saw a flie within a beade
Of amber cleanly buried.
Herrick: On a Fly buried in Amber.
Pretty! in amber to observe the forms
Of hairs, or straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms.
Pope: Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, line 169.
[169:1] As in the little, so in the great world, reason will tell you that old age or antiquity is to be accounted by the farther distance from the beginning and the nearer approach to the end,—the times wherein we now live being in propriety of speech the most ancient since the world's creation.—George Hakewill: An Apologie or Declaration of the Power and Providence of God in the Government of the World. London, 1627.
For as old age is that period of life most remote from infancy, who does not see that old age in this universal man ought not to be sought in the times nearest his birth, but in those most remote from it?—Pascal: Preface to the Treatise on Vacuum.
It is worthy of remark that a thought which is often quoted from Francis Bacon occurs in [Giordano] Bruno's "Cena di Cenere," published in 1584: I mean the notion that the later times are more aged than the earlier.—Whewell: Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, vol. ii. p. 198. London, 1847.
We are Ancients of the earth,
And in the morning of the times.
Tennyson: The Day Dream. (L' Envoi.)
[169:2] The sun, though it passes through dirty places, yet remains as pure as before.—Advancement of Learning (ed. Dewey).
The sun, too, shines into cesspools and is not polluted.—Diogenes Laertius: Lib. vi. sect. 63.
Spiritalis enim virtus sacramenti ita est ut lux: etsi per immundos transeat, non inquinatur (The spiritual virtue of a sacrament is like light: although it passes among the impure, it is not polluted).—Saint Augustine: Works, vol. iii., In Johannis Evang. cap. i. tr. v. sect. 15.
The sun shineth upon the dunghill, and is not corrupted.—Lyly: Euphues, The Anatomy of Wit (Arber's reprint), p. 43.
The sun reflecting upon the mud of strands and shores is unpolluted in his beam.—Taylor: Holy Living, chap. i. p. 3.
Truth is as impossible to be soiled by any outward touch as the sunbeam.—Milton: The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce.
[170:1] Cleanliness is indeed next to godliness.—John Wesley (quoted): Journal, Feb. 12, 1772.
According to Dr. A. S. Bettelheim, rabbi, this is found in the Hebrew fathers. He cites Phinehas ben Yair, as follows: "The doctrines of religion are resolved into carefulness; carefulness into vigorousness; vigorousness into guiltlessness; guiltlessness into abstemiousness; abstemiousness into cleanliness; cleanliness into godliness,"—literally, next to godliness.
[170:2] Whose life is a bubble, and in length a span.—Browne: Pastoral ii.
Our life is but a span.—New England Primer.
[170:3] This line frequently occurs in almost exactly the same shape among the minor poems of the time: "Not to be born, or, being born, to die."—Drummond: Poems, p. 44. Bishop King: Poems, etc. (1657), p. 145.
[170:4] Tall men are like houses of four stories, wherein commonly the uppermost room is worst furnished.—Howell (quoted): Letter i. book i. sect. ii. (1621.)
Often the cockloft is empty in those whom Nature hath built many stories high.—Fuller: Andronicus, sect. vi. par. 18, 1.
Such as take lodgings in a head
That 's to be let unfurnished.
Butler: Hudibras, part i. canto i. line 161.
[171:1] The custom is not altogether obsolete in the U. S. A.
[171:2] Is not old wine wholesomest, old pippins toothsomest, old wood burns brightest, old linen wash whitest? Old soldiers, sweetheart, are surest, and old lovers are soundest.—Webster: Westward Hoe, act ii. sc. 2.
Old friends are best. King James used to call for his old shoes; they were easiest for his feet.—Selden: Table Talk. Friends.
Old wood to burn! Old wine to drink! Old friends to trust! Old authors to read!—Alonso of Aragon was wont to say in commendation of age, that age appeared to be best in these four things.—Melchior: Floresta Española de Apothegmas o sentencias, etc., ii. 1, 20.
What find you better or more honourable than age? Take the preheminence of it in everything,—in an old friend, in old wine, in an old pedigree.—Shakerley Marmion (1602-1639): The Antiquary.
I love everything that 's old,—old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine.—Goldsmith: She Stoops to Conquer, act i.
[171:3] There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.—Montaigne: Of Cannibals, chap. xxx.
[172]
As the case stands.[172:1]
The Old Law. Act ii. Sc. 1.
On his last legs.
The Old Law. Act v. Sc. 1.
Hold their noses to the grindstone.[172:2]
Blurt, Master-Constable. Act iii. Sc. 3.
I smell a rat.[172:3]
Blurt, Master-Constable. Act iii. Sc. 3.
A little too wise, they say, do ne'er live long.[172:4]
The Phœnix. Act i. Sc. 1.
The better day, the better deed.[172:5]
The Phœnix. Act iii. Sc. 1.
The worst comes to the worst.[172:6]
The Phœnix. Act iii. Sc. 1.
'T is slight, not strength, that gives the greatest lift.[172:7]
Michaelmas Term. Act iv. Sc. 1.
From thousands of our undone widows
One may derive some wit.[172:8]
A Trick to catch the Old One. Act i. Sc. 2.
Ground not upon dreams; you know they are ever contrary.[172:9]
The Family of Love. Act iv. Sc. 3.
Spick and span new.[172:10]
The Family of Love. Act iv. Sc. 3.
A flat case as plain as a pack-staff.[172:11]
The Family of Love. Act v. Sc. 3.
[173]
Have you summoned your wits from wool-gathering?
The Family of Love. Act v. Sc. 3.
As true as I live.
The Family of Love. Act v. Sc. 3.
From the crown of our head to the sole of our foot.[173:1]
A Mad World, my Masters. Act i. Sc. 3.
Beat all your feathers as flat down as pancakes.
The Roaring Girl. Act i. Sc. 1.
There is no hate lost between us.[173:3]
The Witch. Act iv. Sc. 3.
Let the air strike our tune,
Whilst we show reverence to yond peeping moon.[173:4]
The Witch. Act v. Sc. 2.
Black spirits and white, red spirits and gray,
Mingle, mingle, mingle, you that mingle may.[173:5]
The Witch. Act v. Sc. 2.
All is not gold that glisteneth.[173:6]
A Fair Quarrel. Act v. Sc. 1.
As old Chaucer was wont to say, that broad famous English poet.
More Dissemblers besides Women. Act i. Sc. 4.
'T is a stinger.[173:7]
More Dissemblers besides Women. Act iii. Sc. 2.
The world 's a stage on which all parts are played.[173:8]
A Game at Chess. Act v. Sc. 1.
[174]
Turn over a new leaf.[174:1]
Anything for a Quiet Life. Act iii. Sc. 3.
This was a good week's labour.
Anything for a Quiet Life. Act v. Sc. 3.
How many honest words have suffered corruption since Chaucer's days!
No Wit, no Help, like a Woman's. Act ii. Sc. 1.
By many a happy accident.[174:3]
No Wit, no Help, like a Woman's. Act ii. Sc. 2.
[172:1] As the case stands.—Mathew Henry: Commentaries, Psalm cxix.
[172:3] I smell a rat.—Ben Jonson: Tale of a Tub, act iv. Sc. 3. Butler: Hudibras, part i. canto i. line 281.
I begin to smell a rat.—Cervantes: Don Quixote, book iv. chap. x.
[172:5] The better day, the worse deed.—Henry: Commentaries, Genesis iii.
[172:6] Worst comes to the worst.—Cervantes: Don Quixote, part i. book iii. chap. v. Marston: The Dutch Courtezan, act iii. sc. 1.
[172:7] It is not strength, but art, obtains the prize.—Pope: The Iliad, book xxiii. line 383.
[172:8] Some undone widow sits upon mine arm.—Massinger: A New Way to pay Old Debts, act v. sc. 1.
[172:9] For drames always go by contraries.—Lover: The Angel's Whisper.
[172:10] Spick and span new.—Ford: The Lover's Melancholy, act i. sc. 1. Farquhar: Preface to his Works.
[172:11] Plain as a pike-staff.—Terence in English (1641). Buckingham: Speech in the House of Lords, 1675. Gil Blas (Smollett's translation), book xii. chap. viii. Byrom: Epistle to a Friend.
So for a good old gentlemanly vice,
I think I must take up with avarice.
Byron: Don Juan, canto i. stanza 216.
[173:3] There is no love lost between us.—Cervantes: Don Quixote, book iv. chap. xxiii. Goldsmith: She Stoops to Conquer, act iv. Garrick: Correspondence, 1759. Fielding: The Grub Street Opera, act i. sc. 4.
[173:5] These lines are introduced into Macbeth, act iv. sc. 1. According to Steevens, "the song was, in all probability, a traditional one." Collier says, "Doubtless it does not belong to Middleton more than to Shakespeare." Dyce says, "There seems to be little doubt that 'Macbeth' is of an earlier date than 'The Witch.'"
[173:7] He 'as had a stinger.—Beaumont and Fletcher: Wit without Money, act iv. sc. 1.
[174:1] A Health to the Gentlemanly Profession of Servingmen (1598). Turn over a new leaf.—Dekker: The Honest Whore, part ii. act i. sc. 2. Burke: Letter to Mrs. Haviland.
[174:3] A happy accident.—Madame de Staël: L' Allemagne, chap. xvi. Cervantes: Don Quixote, book iv. part ii. chap. lvii.
How happy is he born or taught,
That serveth not another's will;
Whose armour is his honest thought,
And simple truth his utmost skill!
The Character of a Happy Life.
Who God doth late and early pray
More of his grace than gifts to lend;
And entertains the harmless day
With a religious book or friend.
The Character of a Happy Life.
Lord of himself, though not of lands;
And having nothing, yet hath all.[174:4]
The Character of a Happy Life.
[175]
He first deceased; she for a little tried
To live without him, liked it not, and died.
Upon the Death of Sir Albert Morton's Wife.
I am but a gatherer and disposer of other men's stuff.
Preface to the Elements of Architecture.
Hanging was the worst use a man could be put to.
The Disparity between Buckingham and Essex.
An ambassador is an honest man sent to lie abroad for the commonwealth.[175:1]
Reliquiæ Wottonianæ.
The itch of disputing will prove the scab of churches.[175:2]
A Panegyric to King Charles.
[174:4] As having nothing, and yet possessing all things.—2 Corinth. vi. 10.
[174:5] "Sun" in Reliquiæ Wottonianæ (eds. 1651, 1654, 1672, 1685).
[174:6] This was printed with music as early as 1624, in Est's "Sixth Set of Books," etc., and is found in many MSS.—Hannah: The Courtly Poets.
[175:1] In a letter to Velserus, 1612, Wotton says, "This merry definition of an ambassador I had chanced to set down at my friend's, Mr. Christopher Fleckamore, in his Album."
[175:2] He directed the stone over his grave to be inscribed:—
Hic jacet hujus sententiæ primus author:
Disputandi pruritus ecclesiarum scabies.
Nomen alias quære
(Here lies the author of this phrase: "The itch for disputing is the sore of churches." Seek his name elsewhere).
Walton: Life of Wotton.
As it fell upon a day
In the merry month of May,
Sitting in a pleasant shade
Which a grove of myrtles made.
Address to the Nightingale.[175:3]
[175:3] This song, often attributed to Shakespeare, is now confidently assigned to Barnfield; it is found in his collection of "Poems in Divers Humours," published in 1598.—Ellis: Specimens, vol. ii. p. 316.
Wedlock, indeed, hath oft compared been
To public feasts, where meet a public rout,—
Where they that are without would fain go in,
And they that are within would fain go out.[176:2]
Contention betwixt a Wife, etc.
Our souls sit close and silently within,
And their own webs from their own entrails spin;
And when eyes meet far off, our sense is such
That, spider-like, we feel the tenderest touch.
Dryden: Mariage à la Mode, act ii. sc. 1.
The spider's touch—how exquisitely fine!—
Feels at each thread, and lives along the line.
Pope: Epistle i. line 217.
[176:2] 'T is just like a summer bird-cage in a garden: the birds that are without despair to get in, and the birds that are within despair and are in a consumption for fear they shall never get out.—Webster: The White Devil, act i. sc. 2.
Le mariage est comme une forteresse assiégée: ceux qui sont dehors veulent y entrer, et ceux qui sont dedans veulent en sortir (Marriage is like a beleaguered fortress: those who are outside want to get in, and those inside want to get out).—Quitard: Études sur les Proverbes Français, p. 102.
It happens as with cages: the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair of getting out.—Montaigne: Upon some Verses of Virgil, chap. v.
Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the beginning of the world, that such as are in the institution wish to get out, and such as are out wish to get in?—Emerson: Representative Men: Montaigne.
Ye gentlemen of England
That live at home at ease,
Ah! little do you think upon
The dangers of the seas.
Song.
When the stormy winds do blow.[176:3]
Song.
When the battle rages loud and long,
And the stormy winds do blow.
Campbell: Ye Mariners of England.
[177]
He was the Word, that spake it:
He took the bread and brake it;
And what that Word did make it,
I do believe and take it.[177:1]
Divine Poems. On the Sacrament.
We understood
Her by her sight; her pure and eloquent blood
Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought
That one might almost say her body thought.
Funeral Elegies. On the Death of Mistress Drury.
She and comparisons are odious.[177:2]
Elegy 8. The Comparison.
Who are a little wise the best fools be.[177:3]
The Triple Fool.
[177:1] Attributed by many writers to the Princess Elizabeth. It is not in the original edition of Donne, but first appears in the edition of 1654, p. 352.
It was a mighty while ago.
Every Man in his Humour. Act i. Sc. 3.
Hang sorrow! care 'll kill a cat.[177:5]
Every Man in his Humour. Act i. Sc. 3.
As he brews, so shall he drink.
Every Man in his Humour. Act ii. Sc. 1.
Get money; still get money, boy,
No matter by what means.[177:6]
Every Man in his Humour. Act ii. Sc. 3.
[178]
Have paid scot and lot there any time this eighteen years.
Every Man in his Humour. Act iii. Sc. 3.
It must be done like lightning.
Every Man in his Humour. Act iv. Sc. v.
There shall be no love lost.[178:1]
Every Man out of his Humour. Act ii. Sc. 1.
Still to be neat, still to be drest,
As you were going to a feast.[178:2]
Epicœne; Or, the Silent Woman. Act i. Sc. 1.
Give me a look, give me a face,
That makes simplicity a grace;
Robes loosely flowing, hair as free,—
Such sweet neglect more taketh me
Than all the adulteries of art:
They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.
Epicœne; Or, the Silent Woman. Act i. Sc. 1.
That old bald cheater, Time.
The Poetaster. Act i. Sc. 1.
The world knows only two,—that 's Rome and I.
Sejanus. Act v. Sc. 1.
Preserving the sweetness of proportion and expressing itself beyond expression.
The Masque of Hymen.
Courses even with the sun
Doth her mighty brother run.
The Gipsies Metamorphosed.
Underneath this stone doth lie
As much beauty as could die;
Which in life did harbour give
To more virtue than doth live.
Epitaph on Elizabeth, L. H.
Whilst that for which all virtue now is sold,
And almost every vice,—almighty gold.[178:3]
Epistle to Elizabeth, Countess of Rutland.
[179]
Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup,
And I 'll not look for wine.[179:1]
The Forest. To Celia.
Soul of the age,
The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage,
My Shakespeare, rise! I will not lodge thee by
Chaucer or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie
A little further, to make thee a room.[179:2]
To the Memory of Shakespeare.
Marlowe's mighty line.
To the Memory of Shakespeare.
Small Latin, and less Greek.
To the Memory of Shakespeare.
He was not of an age, but for all time.
To the Memory of Shakespeare.
For a good poet 's made as well as born.
To the Memory of Shakespeare.
Sweet swan of Avon!
To the Memory of Shakespeare.
Underneath this sable hearse
Lies the subject of all verse,—
Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother.
Death, ere thou hast slain another,
Learn'd and fair and good as she,
Time shall throw a dart at thee.
Epitaph on the Countess of Pembroke.[179:3]
[180]
Let those that merely talk and never think,
That live in the wild anarchy of drink.[180:1]
Underwoods. An Epistle, answering to One that asked to be sealed of the Tribe of Ben.
Still may syllabes jar with time,
Still may reason war with rhyme,
Resting never!
Underwoods. Fit of Rhyme against Rhyme.
In small proportions we just beauties see,
And in short measures life may perfect be.
Underwoods. To the immortal Memory of Sir Lucius Cary and Sir Henry Morison. III.
What gentle ghost, besprent with April dew,
Hails me so solemnly to yonder yew?[180:2]
Elegy on the Lady Jane Pawlet.
[177:4] O rare Ben Jonson!—Sir John Young: Epitaph.
[177:5] Hang sorrow! care will kill a cat.—Wither: Poem on Christmas.
Get place and wealth,—if possible, with grace;
If not, by any means get wealth and place.
Pope: Horace, book i. epistle i. line 103.
[178:1] There is no love lost between us.—Cervantes: Don Quixote, part ii. chap. xxxiii.
[178:2] A translation from Bonnefonius.
[178:3] The flattering, mighty, nay, almighty gold.—Wolcot: To Kien Long, Ode iv.
Almighty dollar.—Irving: The Creole Village.
[179:1] Ἐμοὶ δὲ μόνοις πρόπινε τοῖς ὄμμασιν. . . . Εἰ δὲ βούλει, τοῖς χείλεσι προσφέρουσα, πλήρου φιλημάτων τὸ ἔκπωμα, κaὶ οὕτως δίδου
(Drink to me with your eyes alone. . . . And if you will, take the cup to your lips and fill it with kisses, and give it so to me).
Philostratus: Letter xxiv.
Renowned Spenser, lie a thought more nigh
To learned Chaucer, and rare Beaumont lie
A little nearer Spenser, to make room
For Shakespeare in your threefold, fourfold tomb.
Basse: On Shakespeare.
[179:3] This epitaph is generally ascribed to Ben Jonson. It appears in the editions of his Works; but in a manuscript collection of Browne's poems preserved amongst the Lansdowne MS. No. 777, in the British Museum, it is ascribed to Browne, and awarded to him by Sir Egerton Brydges in his edition of Browne's poems.
They never taste who always drink;
They always talk who never think.
Prior: Upon a passage in the Scaligerana.
What beckoning ghost along the moonlight shade
Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade?
Pope: To the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady.
I know death hath ten thousand several doors
For men to take their exit.[180:3]
Duchess of Malfi. Act iv. Sc. 2.
'T is just like a summer bird-cage in a garden,—the birds that are without despair to get in, and the birds that are within despair and are in a consumption for fear they shall never get out.[180:4]
The White Devil. Act i. Sc. 2.
Condemn you me for that the duke did love me?
So may you blame some fair and crystal river
For that some melancholic, distracted man
Hath drown'd himself in 't.
The White Devil. Act iii. Sc. 2.
[181]
Glories, like glow-worms, afar off shine bright,
But look'd too near have neither heat nor light.[181:1]
The White Devil. Act iv. Sc. 4.
Call for the robin-redbreast and the wren,
Since o'er shady groves they hover,
And with leaves and flowers do cover
The friendless bodies of unburied men.
The White Devil. Act. v. Sc. 2.
Is not old wine wholesomest, old pippins toothsomest, old wood burns brightest, old linen wash whitest? Old soldiers, sweetheart, are surest, and old lovers are soundest.[181:2]
Westward Hoe. Act ii. Sc. 2.
I saw him now going the way of all flesh.
Westward Hoe. Act ii. Sc. 2.
[180:3] Death hath so many doors to let out life.—Beaumont and Fletcher: The Customs of the Country, act ii. sc. 2.
[181:1] The mountains, too, at a distance appear airy masses and smooth, but when beheld close they are rough.—Diogenes Laertius: Pyrrho.
Love is like a landscape which doth stand
Smooth at a distance, rough at hand.
Robert Hegge: On Love.
We 're charm'd with distant views of happiness,
But near approaches make the prospect less.
Yalden: Against Enjoyment.
As distant prospects please us, but when near
We find but desert rocks and fleeting air.
Garth: The Dispensatory, canto iii. line 27.
'T is distance lends enchantment to the view,
And robes the mountain in its azure hue.
Campbell: Pleasures of Hope, part i. line 7.
A wise man poor
Is like a sacred book that 's never read,—
To himself he lives, and to all else seems dead.
This age thinks better of a gilded fool
Than of a threadbare saint in wisdom's school.
Old Fortunatus.
And though mine arm should conquer twenty worlds,
There 's a lean fellow beats all conquerors.
Old Fortunatus.
[182]
The best of men
That e'er wore earth about him was a sufferer;
A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit,
The first true gentleman that ever breathed.[182:1]
The Honest Whore. Part i. Act i. Sc. 12.
I was ne'er so thrummed since I was a gentleman.[182:2]
The Honest Whore. Part i. Act iv. Sc. 2.
This principle is old, but true as fate,—
Kings may love treason, but the traitor hate.[182:3]
The Honest Whore. Part i. Act iv. Sc. 4.
We are ne'er like angels till our passion dies.
The Honest Whore. Part ii. Act i. Sc. 2.
Turn over a new leaf.[182:4]
The Honest Whore. Part ii. Act ii. Sc. 1.
To add to golden numbers golden numbers.
Patient Grissell. Act i. Sc. 1.
Honest labour bears a lovely face.
Patient Grissell. Act i. Sc. 1.
[182:1] Of the offspring of the gentilman Jafeth come Habraham, Moyses, Aron, and the profettys; also the Kyng of the right lyne of Mary, of whom that gentilman Jhesus was borne.—Juliana Berners: Heraldic Blazonry.
[182:3] Cæsar said he loved the treason, but hated the traitor.—Plutarch: Life of Romulus.
Moderation is the silken string running through the pearl chain of all virtues.
Christian Moderation. Introduction.
Death borders upon our birth, and our cradle stands in the grave.[182:5]
Epistles. Dec. iii. Ep. 2.
There is many a rich stone laid up in the bowels of the earth, many a fair pearl laid up in the bosom of the sea, that never was seen, nor never shall be.[182:6]
Contemplations. Book iv. The veil of Moses.
And cradles rock us nearer to the tomb.
Our birth is nothing but our death begun.
Young: Night Thoughts, night v. line 718.
Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear.
Gray: Elegy, stanza 14.
[183]
Man is his own star; and the soul that can
Render an honest and a perfect man
Commands all light, all influence, all fate.
Nothing to him falls early, or too late.
Our acts our angels are, or good or ill,[183:1]
Our fatal shadows that walk by us still.
Upon an "Honest Man's Fortune."
All things that are
Made for our general uses are at war,—
Even we among ourselves.
Upon an "Honest Man's Fortune."
Man is his own star; and that soul that can
Be honest is the only perfect man.[183:2]
Upon an "Honest Man's Fortune."
Weep no more, nor sigh, nor groan,
Sorrow calls no time that 's gone;
Violets plucked, the sweetest rain
Makes not fresh nor grow again.[183:3]
The Queen of Corinth. Act iii. Sc. 2.
O woman, perfect woman! what distraction
Was meant to mankind when thou wast made a devil!
Monsieur Thomas. Act iii. Sc. 1.
Let us do or die.[183:4]
The Island Princess. Act ii. Sc. 4.
Hit the nail on the head.
Love's Cure. Act ii. Sc. 1.
[184]
I find the medicine worse than the malady.[184:1]
Love's Cure. Act iii. Sc. 2.
He went away with a flea in 's ear.
Love's Cure. Act iii. Sc. 3.
There 's naught in this life sweet,
If man were wise to see 't,
But only melancholy;
O sweetest Melancholy![184:2]
The Nice Valour. Act iii. Sc. 3.
Fountain heads and pathless groves,
Places which pale passion loves.
The Nice Valour. Act iii. Sc. 3.
Drink to-day, and drown all sorrow;
You shall perhaps not do 't to-morrow.
The Bloody Brother. Act ii. Sc. 2.
And he that will to bed go sober
Falls with the leaf still in October.[184:3]
The Bloody Brother. Act ii. Sc. 2.
Three merry boys, and three merry boys,
And three merry boys are we,[184:4]
As ever did sing in a hempen string
Under the gallows-tree.
The Bloody Brother. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Hide, oh, hide those hills of snow
Which thy frozen bosom bears,
On whose tops the pinks that grow
Are of those that April wears!
But first set my poor heart free,
Bound in those icy chains by thee.[184:5]
The Bloody Brother. Act v. Sc. 2.
[185]
Something given that way.
The Lover's Progress. Act i. Sc. 1.
Deeds, not words.[185:1]
The Lover's Progress. Act iii. Sc. 4.
[183:1] Every man hath a good and a bad angel attending him in particular all his life long.—Burton: Anatomy of Melancholy, part i. sect. 2, memb. 1, subsect. 2. Burton also quotes Anthony Rusca in this connection, v. xviii.
[183:2] An honest man's the noblest work of God.—Pope: Essay on Man, epistle iv. line 248. Burns: The Cotter's Saturday Night.
Weep no more, Lady! weep no more,
Thy sorrow is in vain;
For violets plucked, the sweetest showers
Will ne'er make grow again.
Percy: Reliques. The Friar of Orders Gray.
[183:4] Let us do or die.—Burns: Bannockburn. Campbell: Gertrude of Wyoming, part iii. stanza 37.
Scott says, "This expression is a kind of common property, being the motto, we believe, of a Scottish family."—Review of Gertrude, Scott's Miscellanies, vol. i. p. 153.
[184:2] Naught so sweet as melancholy.—Burton: Anatomy of Melancholy. Author's Abstract.
[184:3] The following well-known catch, or glee, is formed on this song:—
He who goes to bed, and goes to bed sober,
Falls as the leaves do, and dies in October;
But he who goes to bed, and goes to bed mellow,
Lives as he ought to do, and dies an honest fellow.
[184:4] Three merry men be we.—Peele: Old Wives' Tale, 1595. Webster (quoted): Westward Hoe, 1607.
[185:1] Deeds, not words.—Butler: Hudibras, part i. canto i. line 867.
I would help others, out of a fellow-feeling.[185:4]
Anatomy of Melancholy. Democritus to the Reader.
They lard their lean books with the fat of others' works.[185:5]
Anatomy of Melancholy. Democritus to the Reader.
We can say nothing but what hath been said.[185:6] Our poets steal from Homer. . . . Our story-dressers do as much; he that comes last is commonly best.
Anatomy of Melancholy. Democritus to the Reader.
I say with Didacus Stella, a dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant may see farther than a giant himself.[185:7]
Anatomy of Melancholy. Democritus to the Reader.
[186]
It is most true, stylus virum arguit,—our style bewrays us.[186:1]
Anatomy of Melancholy. Democritus to the Reader.
I had not time to lick it into form, as a bear doth her young ones.[186:2]
Anatomy of Melancholy. Democritus to the Reader.
As that great captain, Ziska, would have a drum made of his skin when he was dead, because he thought the very noise of it would put his enemies to flight.
Anatomy of Melancholy. Democritus to the Reader.
Like the watermen that row one way and look another.[186:3]
Anatomy of Melancholy. Democritus to the Reader.
Smile with an intent to do mischief, or cozen him whom he salutes.[186:4]
Anatomy of Melancholy. Democritus to the Reader.
Him that makes shoes go barefoot himself.[186:5]
Anatomy of Melancholy. Democritus to the Reader.
Rob Peter, and pay Paul.[186:6]
Anatomy of Melancholy. Democritus to the Reader.
Penny wise, pound foolish.
Anatomy of Melancholy. Democritus to the Reader.
Women wear the breeches.
Anatomy of Melancholy. Democritus to the Reader.
Like Æsop's fox, when he had lost his tail, would have all his fellow foxes cut off theirs.[186:7]
Anatomy of Melancholy. Democritus to the Reader.
Our wrangling lawyers . . . are so litigious and busy here on earth, that I think they will plead their clients' causes hereafter,—some of them in hell.
Anatomy of Melancholy. Democritus to the Reader.
Hannibal, as he had mighty virtues, so had he many vices; he had two distinct persons in him.[186:8]
Anatomy of Melancholy. Democritus to the Reader.
[187]
Carcasses bleed at the sight of the murderer.
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 1, Memb. 2, Subsect. 5.
Every man hath a good and a bad angel attending on him in particular, all his life long.[187:1]
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 1, Subsect. 2.
[Witches] steal young children out of their cradles, ministerio dæmonum, and put deformed in their rooms, which we call changelings.
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 1, Subsect. 3.
Can build castles in the air.[187:2]
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 1, Subsect. 3.
Joh. Mayor, in the first book of his "History of Scotland," contends much for the wholesomeness of oaten bread; it was objected to him, then living at Paris, that his countrymen fed on oats and base grain. . . . And yet Wecker out of Galen calls it horse-meat, and fitter juments than men to feed on.[187:3]
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 2, Subsect. 1.
Cookery is become an art, a noble science; cooks are gentlemen.
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 2, Subsect. 2.
As much valour is to be found in feasting as in fighting, and some of our city captains and carpet knights will make this good, and prove it.[187:4]
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 2, Subsect. 2.
No rule is so general, which admits not some exception.[187:5]
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 2, Subsect. 3.
Idleness is an appendix to nobility.
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 2, Subsect. 6.
Why doth one man's yawning make another yawn?
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 3, Subsect. 2.
[188]
A nightingale dies for shame if another bird sings better.
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 3, Subsect. 6.
They do not live but linger.
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 3, Subsect. 10.
[Diseases] crucify the soul of man, attenuate our bodies, dry them, wither them, shrivel them up like old apples, make them so many anatomies.[188:1]
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 3, Subsect. 10.
[Desire] is a perpetual rack, or horsemill, according to Austin, still going round as in a ring.
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 3, Subsect. 11.
[The rich] are indeed rather possessed by their money than possessors.
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 3, Subsect. 12.
Like a hog, or dog in the manger, he doth only keep it because it shall do nobody else good, hurting himself and others.
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 3, Subsect. 12.
Were it not that they are loath to lay out money on a rope, they would be hanged forthwith, and sometimes die to save charges.
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 3, Subsect. 12.
A mere madness, to live like a wretch and die rich.
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 3, Subsect. 12.
I may not here omit those two main plagues and common dotages of human kind, wine and women, which have infatuated and besotted myriads of people; they go commonly together.[188:2]
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 3, Subsect. 13.
All our geese are swans.
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 3, Subsect. 14.
Though they [philosophers] write contemptu gloriæ, yet as Hieron observes, they will put their names to their books.
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 3, Subsect. 14.
They are proud in humility; proud in that they are not proud.[188:3]
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 3, Subsect. 14.
[189]
We can make majors and officers every year, but not scholars; kings can invest knights and barons, as Sigismund the emperor confessed.[189:1]
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 3, Subsect. 15.
Hinc quam sic calamus sævior ense, patet. The pen worse than the sword.[189:2]
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 4, Subsect. 4.
Homer himself must beg if he want means, and as by report sometimes he did "go from door to door and sing ballads, with a company of boys about him."[189:3]
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 4, Subsect. 6.
See one promontory (said Socrates of old), one mountain, one sea, one river, and see all.[189:4]
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 4, Subsect. 7.
Felix Plater notes of some young physicians, that study to cure diseases, catch them themselves, will be sick, and appropriate all symptoms they find related of others to their own persons.
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 3, Memb. 1, Subsect. 2.
Aristotle said melancholy men of all others are most witty.
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 3, Memb. 1, Subsect. 3.
Like him in Æsop, he whipped his horses withal, and put his shoulder to the wheel.
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part ii. Sect. 1, Memb. 2.
Fabricius finds certain spots and clouds in the sun.
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part ii. Sect. 2, Memb. 3.
[190]
Seneca thinks the gods are well pleased when they see great men contending with adversity.
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part ii. Sect. 2, Memb. 1, Subsect. 1.
Machiavel says virtue and riches seldom settle on one man.
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part ii. Sect. 2, Memb. 2.
Almost in every kingdom the most ancient families have been at first princes' bastards; their worthiest captains, best wits, greatest scholars, bravest spirits in all our annals, have been base [born].
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part ii. Sect. 2, Memb. 2.
As he said in Machiavel, omnes eodem patre nati, Adam's sons, conceived all and born in sin, etc. "We are by nature all as one, all alike, if you see us naked; let us wear theirs and they our clothes, and what is the difference?"
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part ii. Sect. 2, Memb. 2.
Set a beggar on horseback and he will ride a gallop.[190:1]
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part ii. Sect. 2, Memb. 2.
Christ himself was poor. . . . And as he was himself, so he informed his apostles and disciples, they were all poor, prophets poor, apostles poor.[190:2]
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part ii. Sect. 2, Memb. 3.
Who cannot give good counsel? 'T is cheap, it costs them nothing.
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part ii. Sect. 2, Memb. 3.
Many things happen between the cup and the lip.[190:3]
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part ii. Sect. 2, Memb. 3.
What can't be cured must be endured.
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part ii. Sect. 2, Memb. 3.
Everything, saith Epictetus, hath two handles,—the one to be held by, the other not.
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part ii. Sect. 2, Memb. 3.
All places are distant from heaven alike.
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part ii. Sect. 2, Memb. 4.
[191]
The commonwealth of Venice in their armoury have this inscription: "Happy is that city which in time of peace thinks of war."
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part ii. Sect. 2, Memb. 6.
"Let me not live," saith Aretine's Antonia, "if I had not rather hear thy discourse than see a play."
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part iii. Sect. 1, Memb. 1, Subsect. 1.
Every schoolboy hath that famous testament of Grunnius Corocotta Porcellus at his fingers' end.
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part iii. Sect. 1, Memb. 1, Subsect. 1.
Birds of a feather will gather together.
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part iii. Sect. 1, Memb. 1, Subsect. 2.
And this is that Homer's golden chain, which reacheth down from heaven to earth, by which every creature is annexed, and depends on his Creator.
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part iii. Sect. 1, Memb. 2, Subsect. 1.
And hold one another's noses to the grindstone hard.[191:1]
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part iii. Sect. 1, Memb. 3.
Every man for himself, his own ends, the Devil for all.[191:2]
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part iii. Sect. 1, Memb. 3.
No cord nor cable can so forcibly draw, or hold so fast, as love can do with a twined thread.[191:3]
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part iii. Sect. 2, Memb. 1, Subsect. 2.
To enlarge or illustrate this power and effect of love is to set a candle in the sun.
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part iii. Sect. 2, Memb. 1, Subsect. 2.
He is only fantastical that is not in fashion.
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part iii. Sect. 2, Memb. 2, Subsect. 3.
[192]
[Quoting Seneca] Cornelia kept her in talk till her children came from school, "and these," said she, "are my jewels."
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part iii. Sect. 2, Memb. 2, Subsect. 3.
To these crocodile tears they will add sobs, fiery sighs, and sorrowful countenance.
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part iii. Sect. 2, Memb. 2, Subsect. 4.
Marriage and hanging go by destiny; matches are made in heaven.[192:1]
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part iii. Sect. 2, Memb. 2, Subsect. 5.
Diogenes struck the father when the son swore.
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part iii. Sect. 2, Memb. 2, Subsect. 5.
Though it rain daggers with their points downward.
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part iii. Sect. 2, Memb. 3.
Going as if he trod upon eggs.
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part iii. Sect. 2, Memb. 3.
I light my candle from their torches.
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part iii. Sect. 2, Memb. 5, Subsect. 1.
England is a paradise for women and hell for horses; Italy a paradise for horses, hell for women, as the diverb goes.
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part iii. Sect. 3, Memb. 1, Subsect. 2.
The miller sees not all the water that goes by his mill.[192:2]
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part iii. Sect. 3, Memb. 4, Subsect. 1.
As clear and as manifest as the nose in a man's face.[192:3]
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part iii. Sect. 3, Memb. 4, Subsect. 1.
Make a virtue of necessity.[192:4]
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part iii. Sect. 3, Memb. 4, Subsect. 1.
Where God hath a temple, the Devil will have a chapel.[192:5]
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part iii. Sect. 4, Memb. 1, Subsect. 1.
If the world will be gulled, let it be gulled.
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part iii. Sect. 4, Memb. 1, Subsect. 2.
[193]
For "ignorance is the mother of devotion," as all the world knows.[193:1]
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part iii. Sect. 4, Memb. 1, Subsect. 2.
The fear of some divine and supreme powers keeps men in obedience.[193:2]
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part iii. Sect. 4, Memb. 1, Subsect. 2.
Out of too much learning become mad.
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part iii. Sect. 4, Memb. 1, Subsect. 2.
The Devil himself, which is the author of confusion and lies.
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part iii. Sect. 4, Memb. 1, Subsect. 3.
Isocrates adviseth Demonicus, when he came to a strange city, to worship by all means the gods of the place.
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part iii. Sect. 4, Memb. 1, Subsect. 5.
When they are at Rome, they do there as they see done.[193:3]
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part iii. Sect. 4, Memb. 2, Subsect. 1.
One religion is as true as another.
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part iii. Sect. 4, Memb. 2, Subsect. 1.
They have cheveril consciences that will stretch.
Anatomy of Melancholy. Part iii. Sect. 4, Memb. 2, Subsect. 3.
[185:2] See Fletcher, page 184.
There 's not a string attuned to mirth
But has its chord in melancholy.
Hood: Ode to Melancholy.
[185:3] Dr. Johnson said Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy" was the only book that ever took him out of bed two hours sooner than he wished to rise. And Byron said, "If the reader has patience to go through his volumes, he will be more improved for literary conversation than by the perusal of any twenty other works with which I am acquainted."—Works, vol. i. p. 144.
[185:4] A fellow-feeling makes one wondrous kind.—Garrick: Prologue on quitting the stage.
Non ignara mali, miseris succurrere disco (Being not unacquainted with woe, I learn to help the unfortunate).—Virgil: Æneid, lib. i. 630.
[185:6] Nihil dictum quod non dictum prius (There is nothing said which has not been said before).—Terence: Eunuchus. Prol. 10.
[185:7] A dwarf on a giant's shoulders sees farther of the two.—Herbert: Jacula Prudentum.
A dwarf sees farther than the giant when he has the giant's shoulders to mount on.—Coleridge: The Friend, sect. i. essay viii.
Pigmæi gigantum humeris impositi plusquam ipsi gigantes vident (Pigmies placed on the shoulders of giants see more than the giants themselves).—Didacus Stella in Lucan, 10, tom. ii.
[186:1] Le style est l'homme même (The style is the man himself).—Buffon: Discours de Réception (Recueil de l'Académie, 1750).
[186:2] Arts and sciences are not cast in a mould, but are formed and perfected by degrees, by often handling and polishing, as bears leisurely lick their cubs into form.—Montaigne: Apology for Raimond Sebond, book ii. chap. xii.
[186:3] Like watermen who look astern while they row the boat ahead.—Plutarch: Whether 't was rightfully said, Live concealed.
Like rowers, who advance backward.—Montaigne: Of Profit and Honour, book iii. chap. i.
[186:7] Æsop: Fables, book v. fable v.
He left a corsair's name to other times,
Link'd with one virtue and a thousand crimes.
Byron: The Corsair, canto iii. stanza 24.
[187:2] "Castles in the air,"—Montaigne, Sir Philip Sidney, Massinger, Sir Thomas Browne, Giles Fletcher, George Herbert, Dean Swift, Broome, Fielding, Cibber, Churchill, Shenstone, and Lloyd.
[187:3] Oats,—a grain which is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.—Samuel Johnson: Dictionary of the English Language.
[187:4] Carpet knights are men who are by the prince's grace and favour made knights at home. . . . They are called carpet knights because they receive their honours in the court and upon carpets.—Markham: Booke of Honour (1625).
"Carpet knights,"—Du Bartas (ed. 1621), p. 311.
[187:5] The exception proves the rule.
Qui vino indulget, quemque alea decoquit, ille
In venerem putret
(He who is given to drink, and he whom the dice are despoiling, is the one who rots away in sexual vice).—Persius: Satires, satire v.
His favourite sin
Is pride that apes humility.
Southey: The Devil's Walk.
[189:1] When Abraham Lincoln heard of the death of a private, he said he was sorry it was not a general: "I could make more of them."
[189:2] Tant la plume a eu sous le roi d'avantage sur l'épée (So far had the pen under the king the superiority over the sword).—Saint Simon: Mémoires, vol. iii. p. 517 (1702), ed. 1856.
The pen is mightier than the sword.—Bulwer Lytton: Richelieu, act ii. sc. 2.
Seven wealthy towns contend for Homer dead,
Through which the living Homer begged his bread.
Anonymous.
Great Homer's birthplace seven rival cities claim,
Too mighty such monopoly of Fame.
Thomas Seward: On Shakespeare's Monument at Stratford-upon-Avon.
Seven cities warred for Homer being dead;
Who living had no roofe to shrowd his head.
Thomas Heywood: Hierarchie of the Blessed Angells.
[189:4] A blade of grass is always a blade of grass, whether in one country or another.—Johnson: Piazzi, 52.
[190:1] Set a beggar on horseback, and he 'll outride the Devil.—Bohn: Foreign Proverbs (German).
[190:3] There is many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip.—Hazlitt: English Proverbs.
Though men determine, the gods doo dispose; and oft times many things fall out betweene the cup and the lip.—Greene: Perimedes the Blacksmith (1588).
Those curious locks so aptly twin'd,
Whose every hair a soul doth bind.
Carew: Think not 'cause men flattering say.
One hair of a woman can draw more than a hundred pair of oxen.—Howell: Letters, book ii. iv. (1621).
She knows her man, and when you rant and swear,
Can draw you to her with a single hair.
Dryden: Persius, satire v. line 246.
Beauty draws us with a single hair.—Pope: The Rape of the Lock, canto ii. line 27.
And from that luckless hour my tyrant fair
Has led and turned me by a single hair.
Bland: Anthology, p. 20 (edition 1813).
[192:5] For where God built a church, there the Devil would also build a chapel.—Martin Luther: Table Talk, lxvii.
God never had a church but there, men say,
The Devil a chapel hath raised by some wyles.
Drummond: Posthumous Poems.
No sooner is a temple build to God but the Devil builds a chapel hard by.—Herbert: Jacula Prudentum.
Wherever God erects a house of prayer,
The Devil always builds a chapel there.
Defoe: The True-born Englishman, part i. line 1.
[193:1] Ignorance is the mother of devotion.—Jeremy Taylor: To a Person newly Converted (1657).
Your ignorance is the mother of your devotion to me.—Dryden: The Maiden Queen, act i. sc. 2.
The fear o' hell 's a hangman's whip
To haud the wretch in order.
Burns: Epistle to a Young Friend.
[193:3] Saint Augustine was in the habit of dining upon Saturday as upon Sunday; but being puzzled with the different practices then prevailing (for they had begun to fast at Rome on Saturday), consulted Saint Ambrose on the subject. Now at Milan they did not fast on Saturday, and the answer of the Milan saint was this: "Quando hic sum, non jejuno Sabbato; quando Romæ sum, jejuno Sabbato" (When I am here, I do not fast on Saturday; when at Rome, I do fast on Saturday).—Epistle xxxvi. to Casulanus.
In part to blame is she,
Which hath without consent bin only tride:
He comes to neere that comes to be denide.[193:4]
A Wife. St. 36.
In part she is to blame that has been tried:
He comes too late that comes to be denied.
Mary W. Montagu: The Lady's Resolve.
[194]
Some undone widow sits upon mine arm,
And takes away the use of it;[194:1] and my sword,
Glued to my scabbard with wronged orphans' tears,
Will not be drawn.
A New Way to pay Old Debts. Act v. Sc. 1.
Death hath a thousand doors to let out life.[194:2]
A Very Woman. Act v. Sc. 4.
This many-headed monster.[194:3]
The Roman Actor. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Grim death.[194:4]
The Roman Actor. Act iv. Sc. 2.
[194:2] Death hath so many doors to let out life.—Beaumont and Fletcher: The Custom of the Country, act ii. sc. 2.
The thousand doors that lead to death.—Browne: Religio Medici, part i. sect. xliv.
[194:4] Grim death, my son and foe.—Milton: Paradise Lost, book ii. line 804.
The world 's a theatre, the earth a stage
Which God and Nature do with actors fill.[194:5]
Apology for Actors (1612).
I hold he loves me best that calls me Tom.
Hierarchie of the Blessed Angells.
Seven cities warred for Homer being dead,
Who living had no roofe to shrowd his head.[194:6]
Hierarchie of the Blessed Angells.
Her that ruled the rost in the kitchen.[194:7]
History of Women (ed. 1624). Page 286.
Equity is a roguish thing. For Law we have a measure, know what to trust to; Equity is according to the [195]conscience of him that is Chancellor, and as that is larger or narrower, so is Equity. 'T is all one as if they should make the standard for the measure we call a "foot" a Chancellor's foot; what an uncertain measure would this be! One Chancellor has a long foot, another a short foot, a third an indifferent foot. 'T is the same thing in the Chancellor's conscience.
Table Talk. Equity.
Old friends are best. King James used to call for his old shoes; they were easiest for his feet.[195:1]
Table Talk. Friends.
Humility is a virtue all preach, none practise; and yet everybody is content to hear.
Table Talk. Humility.
'T is not the drinking that is to be blamed, but the excess.
Table Talk. Humility.
Commonly we say a judgment falls upon a man for something in him we cannot abide.
Table Talk. Judgments.
Ignorance of the law excuses no man; not that all men know the law, but because 't is an excuse every man will plead, and no man can tell how to refute him.
Table Talk. Law.
No man is the wiser for his learning.
Table Talk. Learning.
Wit and wisdom are born with a man.
Table Talk. Learning.
Few men make themselves masters of the things they write or speak.
Table Talk. Learning.
Take a straw and throw it up into the air,—you may see by that which way the wind is.
Table Talk. Libels.
Philosophy is nothing but discretion.
Table Talk. Philosophy.
Marriage is a desperate thing.
Table Talk. Marriage.
Thou little thinkest what a little foolery governs the world.[195:2]
Table Talk. Pope.
[196]
They that govern the most make the least noise.
Table Talk. Power.
Syllables govern the world.
Table Talk. Power.
Never king dropped out of the clouds.
Table Talk. Power.
Never tell your resolution beforehand.
Table Talk. Wisdom.
Wise men say nothing in dangerous times.
Table Talk. Wisdom.
[195:2] Behold, my son, with how little wisdom the world is governed.—Oxenstiern (1583-1654).
God never had a church but there, men say,
The Devil a chapel hath raised by some wyles.[196:1]
I doubted of this saw, till on a day
I westward spied great Edinburgh's Saint Gyles.
Posthumous Poems.
What things have we seen
Done at the Mermaid! heard words that have been
So nimble and so full of subtile flame
As if that every one from whence they came
Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest,
And resolved to live a fool the rest
Of his dull life.
Letter to Ben Jonson.
Here are sands, ignoble things,
Dropt from the ruined sides of kings.
On the Tombs of Westminster Abbey.
It is always good
When a man has two irons in the fire.
The Faithful Friends. Act i. Sc. 2.
[197]
Upon my burned body lie lightly, gentle earth.
The Maid's Tragedy. Act i. Sc. 2.
A soul as white as heaven.
The Maid's Tragedy. Act iv. Sc. 1.
It shew'd discretion, the best part of valour.[197:3]
A King and No King. Act iv. Sc. 3.
There is a method in man's wickedness,—
It grows up by degrees.[197:4]
A King and No King. Act v. Sc. 4.
As cold as cucumbers.
Cupid's Revenge. Act i. Sc. 1.
Calamity is man's true touchstone.[197:5]
Four Plays in One: The Triumph of Honour. Sc. 1.
Kiss till the cow comes home.
Scornful Lady. Act iii. Sc. 1.
Beggars must be no choosers.[197:7]
Scornful Lady. Act v. Sc. 3.
No better than you should be.[197:8]
The Coxcomb. Act iv. Sc. 3.
[198]
From the crown of the head to the sole of the foot.[198:1]
The Honest Man's Fortune. Act ii. Sc. 2.
One foot in the grave.[198:2]
The Little French Lawyer. Act i. Sc. 1.
Go to grass.
The Little French Lawyer. Act iv. Sc. 7.
There is no jesting with edge tools.[198:3]
The Little French Lawyer. Act iv. Sc. 7.
Though I say it that should not say it.
Wit at Several Weapons. Act ii. Sc. 2.
I name no parties.[198:4]
Wit at Several Weapons. Act ii. Sc. 3.
Whistle, and she'll come to you.[198:5]
Wit Without Money. Act iv. Sc. 4.
Let the world slide.[198:6]
Wit Without Money. Act v. Sc. 2.
The fit 's upon me now!
Come quickly, gentle lady;
The fit 's upon me now.
Wit Without Money. Act v. Sc. 4.
He comes not in my books.[198:7]
The Widow. Act i. Sc. 1.
Death hath so many doors to let out life.[198:8]
The Customs of the Country. Act ii. Sc. 2.
Of all the paths [that] lead to a woman's love
Pity 's the straightest.[198:9]
The Knight of Malta. Act i. Sc. 1.
Nothing can cover his high fame but heaven;
No pyramids set off his memories,
But the eternal substance of his greatness,—
To which I leave him.
The False One. Act ii. Sc. 1.
[199]
Thou wilt scarce be a man before thy mother.[199:1]
Love's Cure. Act ii. Sc. 2.
Primrose, first-born child of Ver,
Merry springtime's harbinger.
The Two Noble Kinsmen. Act i. Sc. 1.
O great corrector of enormous times,
Shaker of o'er-rank states, thou grand decider
Of dusty and old titles, that healest with blood
The earth when it is sick, and curest the world
O' the pleurisy of people!
The Two Noble Kinsmen. Act v. Sc. 1.
[197:4] Nemo repente fuit turpissimus (No man ever became extremely wicked all at once).—Juvenal: ii. 83.
Ainsi que la vertu, le crime a ses degrés (As virtue has its degrees, so has vice).—Racine: Phédre, act iv. sc. 2.
[197:5] Ignis aurum probat, miseria fortes viros (Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men).—Seneca: De Providentia, v. 9.
[197:6] Then he will talk—good gods! how he will talk!—Lee: Alexander the Great, act i. sc. 3.
[197:8] She is no better than she should be.—Fielding: The Temple Beau, act iv. sc. 3.
[198:2] An old doting fool, with one foot already in the grave.—Plutarch: On the Training of Children.
[198:3] It is no jesting with edge tools.—The True Tragedy of Richard III. (1594.)
[198:4] The use of "party" in the sense of "person" occurs in the Book of Common Prayer, More's "Utopia," Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Fuller, and other old English writers.
[198:5] Whistle, and I'll come to ye.—Burns: Whistle, etc.
[198:9] Pity 's akin to love.—Southerne: Oroonoka, act ii. sc. 1.
Pity swells the tide of love.—Young: Night Thoughts, night iii. line 107.
[199:1] But strive still to be a man before your mother.—Cowper: Connoisseur. Motto of No. iii.
[199:2] Quod ali cibus est aliis fuat acre venenum (What is food to one may be fierce poison to others).—Lucretius: iv. 637.
Shall I, wasting in despair,
Die because a woman's fair?
Or make pale my cheeks with care,
'Cause another's rosy are?
Be she fairer than the day,
Or the flowery meads in May,
If she be not so to me,
What care I how fair she be?[199:3]
The Shepherd's Resolution.
Jack shall pipe and Gill shall dance.
Poem on Christmas.
[200]
Though I am young, I scorn to flit
On the wings of borrowed wit.
The Shepherd's Hunting.
And I oft have heard defended,—
Little said is soonest mended.
The Shepherd's Hunting.
And he that gives us in these days
New Lords may give us new laws.
Contented Man's Morrice.
For words are wise men's counters,—they do but reckon by them; but they are the money of fools.
The Leviathan. Part i. Chap. iv.
No arts, no letters, no society, and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
The Leviathan. Part i. Chap. xviii.
He that loves a rosy cheek,
Or a coral lip admires,
Or from star-like eyes doth seek
Fuel to maintain his fires,—
As old Time makes these decay,
So his flames must waste away.
Disdain Returned.
Then fly betimes, for only they
Conquer Love that run away.
Conquest by Flight.
An untimely grave.[200:1]
On the Duke of Buckingham.
The magic of a face.
Epitaph on the Lady S——.
[200:1] An untimely grave.—Tate and Brady: Psalm vii.
[201]
Whose life is a bubble, and in length a span.[201:1]
Britannia's Pastorals. Book i. Song 2.
Did therewith bury in oblivion.
Britannia's Pastorals. Book ii. Song 2.
Well-languaged Daniel.
Britannia's Pastorals. Book ii. Song 2.
Cherry ripe, ripe, ripe, I cry,
Full and fair ones,—come and buy!
If so be you ask me where
They do grow, I answer, there,
Where my Julia's lips do smile,—
There 's the land, or cherry-isle.
Cherry Ripe.
Some asked me where the rubies grew,
And nothing I did say;
But with my finger pointed to
The lips of Julia.
The Rock of Rubies, and the Quarrie of Pearls.
Some asked how pearls did grow, and where?
Then spoke I to my girl
To part her lips, and showed them there
The quarelets of pearl.
The Rock of Rubies, and the Quarrie of Pearls.
A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness.
Delight in Disorder.
A winning wave, deserving note,
In the tempestuous petticoat;
A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
I see a wild civility,—
Do more bewitch me than when art
Is too precise in every part.
Delight in Disorder.
[202]
You say to me-wards your affection 's strong;
Pray love me little, so you love me long.[202:1]
Love me Little, Love me Long.
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying,
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.[202:2]
To the Virgins to make much of Time.
Fall on me like a silent dew,
Or like those maiden showers
Which, by the peep of day, do strew
A baptism o'er the flowers.
To Music, to becalm his Fever.
Fair daffadills, we weep to see
You haste away so soon:
As yet the early rising sun
Has not attained his noon.
To Daffadills.
Thus woe succeeds a woe, as wave a wave.[202:3]
Sorrows Succeed.
Her pretty feet, like snails, did creep
A little out, and then,[202:4]
As if they played at bo-peep,
Did soon draw in again.
To Mistress Susanna Southwell.
Her eyes the glow-worm lend thee,
The shooting-stars attend thee;
And the elves also,
Whose little eyes glow
Like the sparks of fire, befriend thee.
The Night Piece to Julia.
[203]
Thus times do shift,—each thing his turn does hold;
New things succeed, as former things grow old.
Ceremonies for Candlemas Eve.
Out-did the meat, out-did the frolick wine.
Ode for Ben Jonson.
Attempt the end, and never stand to doubt;
Nothing 's so hard but search will find it out.[203:2]
Seek and Find.
But ne'er the rose without the thorn.[203:3]
The Rose.
[202:2] Let us crown ourselves with rose-buds, before they be withered.—Wisdom of Solomon, ii. 8.
Gather the rose of love whilest yet is time.—Spenser: The Faerie Queene, book ii. canto xii. stanza 75.
Her feet beneath her petticoat
Like little mice stole in and out.
Suckling: Ballad upon a Wedding.
[203:2] Nil tam difficilest quin quærendo investigari possiet (Nothing is so difficult but that it may be found out by seeking).—Terence: Heautontimoroumenos, iv. 2, 8.
[203:3] Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the rose.—Milton: Paradise Lost, book iv. line 256.
Sweet Phosphor, bring the day
Whose conquering ray
May chase these fogs;
Sweet Phosphor, bring the day!
Sweet Phosphor, bring the day!
Light will repay
The wrongs of night;
Sweet Phosphor, bring the day!
Emblems. Book i. Emblem 14.
Be wisely worldly, be not worldly wise.
Emblems. Book ii. Emblem 2.
[204]
This house is to be let for life or years;
Her rent is sorrow, and her income tears.
Cupid, 't has long stood void; her bills make known,
She must be dearly let, or let alone.
Emblems. Book ii. Emblem 10, Ep. 10.
The slender debt to Nature 's quickly paid,[204:1]
Discharged, perchance, with greater ease than made.
Emblems. Book ii. Emblem 13.
The next way home 's the farthest way about.[204:2]
Emblems. Book iv. Emblem 2, Ep. 2.
It is the lot of man but once to die.
Emblems. Book v. Emblem 7.
[203:4] Death loves a shining mark, a signal blow.—Young: Night Thoughts, night v. line 1011.
[204:1] To die is a debt we must all of us discharge.—Euripides: Alcestis, line 418.
[204:2] The longest way round is the shortest way home.—Bohn: Foreign Proverbs (Italian).
To write a verse or two is all the praise
That I can raise.
Praise.
Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky.
Virtue.
Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie.
Virtue.
Only a sweet and virtuous soul,
Like seasoned timber, never gives.
Virtue.
Like summer friends,
Flies of estate and sunneshine.
The Answer.
A servant with this clause
Makes drudgery divine;
Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws
Makes that and th' action fine.
The Elixir.
A verse may find him who a sermon flies,
And turn delight into a sacrifice.
The Church Porch.
[205]
Dare to be true: nothing can need a lie;
A fault which needs it most, grows two thereby.[205:1]
The Church Porch.
Chase brave employment with a naked sword
Throughout the world.
The Church Porch.
Sundays observe; think when the bells do chime,
'T is angels' music.
The Church Porch.
The worst speak something good; if all want sense,
God takes a text, and preacheth Pa-ti-ence.
The Church Porch.
Bibles laid open, millions of surprises.
Sin.
Religion stands on tiptoe in our land,
Ready to pass to the American strand.
The Church Militant.
Man is one world, and hath
Another to attend him.
Man.
If goodness lead him not, yet weariness
May toss him to my breast.
The Pulley.
The fineness which a hymn or psalm affords
If when the soul unto the lines accords.
A True Hymn.
Wouldst thou both eat thy cake and have it?[205:2]
The Size.
Do well and right, and let the world sink.[205:3]
Country Parson. Chap. xxix.
His bark is worse than his bite.
Jacula Prudentum.
After death the doctor.[205:4]
Jacula Prudentum.
Hell is full of good meanings and wishings.[205:5]
Jacula Prudentum.
[206]
No sooner is a temple built to God, but the Devil builds a chapel hard by.[206:1]
Jacula Prudentum.
God's mill grinds slow, but sure.[206:2]
Jacula Prudentum.
The offender never pardons.[206:3]
Jacula Prudentum.
It is a poor sport that is not worth the candle.
Jacula Prudentum.
To a close-shorn sheep God gives wind by measure.[206:4]
Jacula Prudentum.
The lion is not so fierce as they paint him.[206:5]
Jacula Prudentum.
Help thyself, and God will help thee.[206:6]
Jacula Prudentum.
Words are women, deeds are men.[206:7]
Jacula Prudentum.
The mouse that hath but one hole is quickly taken.[206:8]
Jacula Prudentum.
A dwarf on a giant's shoulders sees farther of the two.[206:9]
Jacula Prudentum.
And he that does one fault at first,
And lies to hide it, makes it two.
Watts: Song xv.
[205:3] Ruat cœlum, fiat voluntas tua (Though the sky fall, let Thy will be done).—Sir T. Browne: Religio Medici, part ii. sect. xi.
[205:4] After the war, aid.—Greek proverb.
After me the deluge.—Madame de Pompadour.
[205:5] Hell is paved with good intentions.—Dr. Johnson (Boswell's Life of Johnson, Annus 1775.)
[206:2] Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small.—F. Von Logau (1614-1655): Retribution (translation).
[206:3] They ne'er pardon who have done the wrong.—Dryden: The Conquest of Grenada.
[206:4] God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb.—Sterne: Sentimental Journey.
[206:5] The lion is not so fierce as painted.—Fuller: Expecting Preferment.
[206:6] God helps those who help themselves.—Sidney: Discourses on Government, sect. xxiii. Franklin: Poor Richard's Almanac.
[206:7] Words are men's daughters, but God's sons are things.—Dr. Madden: Boulter's Monument (supposed to have been inserted by Dr. Johnson, 1745).
Of which, if thou be a severe, sour-complexioned man, then I here disallow thee to be a competent judge.
The Complete Angler. Author's Preface.
Angling may be said to be so like the mathematics that it can never be fully learnt.
The Complete Angler. Author's Preface.
As no man is born an artist, so no man is born an angler.
The Complete Angler. Author's Preface.
[207]
I shall stay him no longer than to wish him a rainy evening to read this following discourse; and that if he be an honest angler, the east wind may never blow when he goes a fishing.
The Complete Angler. Author's Preface.
As the Italians say, Good company in a journey makes the way to seem the shorter.
The Complete Angler. Part i. Chap. 1.
I am, sir, a Brother of the Angle.
The Complete Angler. Part i. Chap. 1.
It [angling] deserves commendations; . . . it is an art worthy the knowledge and practice of a wise man.
The Complete Angler. Part i. Chap. 1.
Angling is somewhat like poetry,—men are to be born so.
The Complete Angler. Part i. Chap. 1.
Doubt not but angling will prove to be so pleasant that it will prove to be, like virtue, a reward to itself.[207:1]
The Complete Angler. Part i. Chap. 1.
Sir Henry Wotton was a most dear lover and a frequent practiser of the Art of Angling; of which he would say, "'T was an employment for his idle time, which was then not idly spent, a rest to his mind, a cheerer of his spirits, a diverter of sadness, a calmer of unquiet thoughts, a moderator of passions, a procurer of contentedness;" and "that it begat habits of peace and patience in those that professed and practised it."
The Complete Angler. Part i. Chap. 1.
You will find angling to be like the virtue of humility, which has a calmness of spirit and a world of other blessings attending upon it.
The Complete Angler. Part i. Chap. 1.
I remember that a wise friend of mine did usually say, "That which is everybody's business is nobody's business."
The Complete Angler. Part i. Chap. ii.
[208]
Good company and good discourse are the very sinews of virtue.
The Complete Angler. Part i. Chap. ii.
An excellent angler, and now with God.
The Complete Angler. Part i. Chap. iv.
Old-fashioned poetry, but choicely good.
The Complete Angler. Part i. Chap. iv.
No man can lose what he never had.
The Complete Angler. Part i. Chap. v.
We may say of angling as Dr. Boteler[208:1] said of strawberries: "Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did;" and so, if I might be judge, God never did make a more calm, quiet, innocent recreation than angling.
The Complete Angler. Part i. Chap. v.
Thus use your frog: put your hook—I mean the arming wire—through his mouth and out at his gills, and then with a fine needle and silk sew the upper part of his leg with only one stitch to the arming wire of your hook, or tie the frog's leg above the upper joint to the armed wire; and in so doing use him as though you loved him.
The Complete Angler. Part i. Chap. 8.
This dish of meat is too good for any but anglers, or very honest men.
The Complete Angler. Part i. Chap. 8.
Health is the second blessing that we mortals are capable of,—a blessing that money cannot buy.
The Complete Angler. Part i. Chap. 21.
And upon all that are lovers of virtue, and dare trust in his Providence, and be quiet and go a-angling.
The Complete Angler. Part i. Chap. 21.
But God, who is able to prevail, wrestled with him; marked him for his own.[208:2]
Life of Donne.
The great secretary of Nature,—Sir Francis Bacon.[208:3]
Life of Herbert.
[209]
Oh, the gallant fisher's life!
It is the best of any;
'T is full of pleasure, void of strife,
And 't is beloved by many.
The Angler. (John Chalkhill.)[209:1]
[207:1] Virtue is her own reward.—Dryden: Tyrannic Love, act iii. sc. 1.
Virtue is to herself the best reward.—Henry More: Cupid's Conflict.
Virtue is its own reward.—Prior: Imitations of Horace, book iii. ode 2. Gay: Epistle to Methuen. Home: Douglas, act iii. sc. 1.
Virtue was sufficient of herself for happiness.—Diogenes Laertius: Plato, xlii.
Ipsa quidem virtus sibimet pulcherrima merces (Virtue herself is her own fairest reward).—Silius Italicus (25?-99): Punica, lib. xiii. line 663.
[208:1] William Butler, styled by Dr. Fuller in his "Worthies" (Suffolk) the "Æsculapius of our age." He died in 1621. This first appeared in the second edition of "The Angler," 1655. Roger Williams, in his "Key into the Language of America," 1643, p. 98, says: "One of the chiefest doctors of England was wont to say, that God could have made, but God never did make, a better berry."
[208:2] Melancholy marked him for her own.—Gray: The Epitaph.
[208:3] Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates are secretaries of Nature.—Howell: Letters, book ii. letter xi.
[209:1] In 1683, the year in which he died, Walton prefixed a preface to a work edited by him: "Thealma and Clearchus, a Pastoral History, in smooth and easy verse: written long since by John Chalkhill Esq., an aquaintant and friend of Edmund Spenser."
Chalkhill,—a name unappropriated, a verbal phantom, a shadow of a shade. Chalkhill is no other than our old piscatory friend incognito.—Zouch: Life of Walton.
The glories of our blood and state
Are shadows, not substantial things;
There is no armour against fate;
Death lays his icy hands on kings.
Contention of Ajax and Ulysses. Sc. 3.
Death calls ye to the crowd of common men.
Cupid and Death.
The sweet remembrance of the just
Shall flourish when he sleeps in dust.
Tate and Brady: Psalm cxxii. 6.
[209:3] "Their dust" in Works edited by Dyce.
And pulpit, drum ecclesiastick,
Was beat with fist instead of a stick.
Hudibras. Part i. Canto i. Line 11.
We grant, although he had much wit,
He was very shy of using it.
Hudibras. Part i. Canto i. Line 45.
[210]
Beside, 't is known he could speak Greek
As naturally as pigs squeak;[210:1]
That Latin was no more difficile
Than to a blackbird 't is to whistle.
Hudibras. Part i. Canto i. Line 51.
He could distinguish and divide
A hair 'twixt south and southwest side.
Hudibras. Part i. Canto i. Line 67.
For rhetoric, he could not ope
His mouth, but out there flew a trope.
Hudibras. Part i. Canto i. Line 81.
For all a rhetorician's rules
Teach nothing but to name his tools.
Hudibras. Part i. Canto i. Line 89.
A Babylonish dialect
Which learned pedants much affect.
Hudibras. Part i. Canto i. Line 93.
For he by geometric scale
Could take the size of pots of ale.
Hudibras. Part i. Canto i. Line 121.
And wisely tell what hour o' the day
The clock does strike, by algebra.
Hudibras. Part i. Canto i. Line 125.
Whatever sceptic could inquire for,
For every why he had a wherefore.[210:2]
Hudibras. Part i. Canto i. Line 131.
Where entity and quiddity,
The ghosts of defunct bodies, fly.
Hudibras. Part i. Canto i. Line 145.
He knew what 's what,[210:3] and that 's as high
As metaphysic wit can fly.
Hudibras. Part i. Canto i. Line 149.
Such as take lodgings in a head
That 's to be let unfurnished.[210:4]
Hudibras. Part i. Canto i. Line 161.
'T was Presbyterian true blue.
Hudibras. Part i. Canto i. Line 191.
And prove their doctrine orthodox,
By apostolic blows and knocks.
Hudibras. Part i. Canto i. Line 199.
[211]
As if religion was intended
For nothing else but to be mended.
Hudibras. Part i. Canto i. Line 205.
Compound for sins they are inclined to,
By damning those they have no mind to.
Hudibras. Part i. Canto i. Line 215.
The trenchant blade, Toledo trusty,
For want of fighting was grown rusty,
And ate into itself, for lack
Of somebody to hew and hack.
Hudibras. Part i. Canto i. Line 359.
For rhyme the rudder is of verses,
With which, like ships, they steer their courses.
Hudibras. Part i. Canto i. Line 463.
He ne'er consider'd it, as loth
To look a gift-horse in the mouth.[211:1]
Hudibras. Part i. Canto i. Line 490.
And force them, though it was in spite
Of Nature and their stars, to write.
Hudibras. Part i. Canto i. Line 647.
Quoth Hudibras, "I smell a rat![211:2]
Ralpho, thou dost prevaricate."
Hudibras. Part i. Canto i. Line 821.
Or shear swine, all cry and no wool.[211:3]
Hudibras. Part i. Canto i. Line 852.
And bid the devil take the hin'most.[211:4]
Hudibras. Part i. Canto ii. Line 633.
With many a stiff thwack, many a bang,
Hard crab-tree and old iron rang.
Hudibras. Part i. Canto ii. Line 831.
Like feather bed betwixt a wall
And heavy brunt of cannon ball.
Hudibras. Part i. Canto ii. Line 872.
Ay me! what perils do environ
The man that meddles with cold iron![211:5]
Hudibras. Part i. Canto iii. Line 1.
[212]
Nor do I know what is become
Of him, more than the Pope of Rome.
Hudibras. Part i. Canto iii. Line 263.
I 'll make the fur
Fly 'bout the ears of the old cur.
Hudibras. Part i. Canto iii. Line 277.
He had got a hurt
O' the inside, of a deadlier sort.
Hudibras. Part i. Canto iii. Line 309.
These reasons made his mouth to water.
Hudibras. Part i. Canto iii. Line 379.
With mortal crisis doth portend
My days to appropinque an end.
Hudibras. Part i. Canto iii. Line 589.
For those that run away and fly,
Take place at least o' the enemy.
Hudibras. Part i. Canto iii. Line 609.
I am not now in fortune's power:
He that is down can fall no lower.[212:2]
Hudibras. Part i. Canto iii. Line 877.
Cheer'd up himself with ends of verse
And sayings of philosophers.
Hudibras. Part i. Canto iii. Line 1011.
If he that in the field is slain
Be in the bed of honour lain,
He that is beaten may be said
To lie in honour's truckle-bed.
Hudibras. Part i. Canto iii. Line 1047.
When pious frauds and holy shifts
Are dispensations and gifts.
Hudibras. Part i. Canto iii. Line 1145.
Friend Ralph, thou hast
Outrun the constable[212:3] at last.
Hudibras. Part i. Canto iii. Line 1367.
Some force whole regions, in despite
O' geography, to change their site;
Make former times shake hands with latter,
And that which was before come after.
[213]But those that write in rhyme still make
The one verse for the other's sake;
For one for sense, and one for rhyme,
I think 's sufficient at one time.
Hudibras. Part ii. Canto i. Line 23.
Some have been beaten till they know
What wood a cudgel 's of by th' blow;
Some kick'd until they can feel whether
A shoe be Spanish or neat's leather.
Hudibras. Part ii. Canto i. Line 221.
No Indian prince has to his palace
More followers than a thief to the gallows.
Hudibras. Part ii. Canto i. Line 273.
Quoth she, I 've heard old cunning stagers
Say fools for arguments use wagers.
Hudibras. Part ii. Canto i. Line 297.
Love in your hearts as idly burns
As fire in antique Roman urns.[213:1]
Hudibras. Part ii. Canto i. Line 309.
For what is worth in anything
But so much money as 't will bring?
Hudibras. Part ii. Canto i. Line 465.
Love is a boy by poets styl'd;
Then spare the rod and spoil the child.[213:2]
Hudibras. Part ii. Canto i. Line 843.
The sun had long since in the lap
Of Thetis taken out his nap,
And, like a lobster boil'd, the morn
From black to red began to turn.
Hudibras. Part ii. Canto ii. Line 29.
Have always been at daggers-drawing,
And one another clapper-clawing.
Hudibras. Part ii. Canto ii. Line 79.
For truth is precious and divine,—
Too rich a pearl for carnal swine.
Hudibras. Part ii. Canto ii. Line 257.
Why should not conscience have vacation
As well as other courts o' th' nation?
Hudibras. Part ii. Canto ii. Line 317.
[214]
He that imposes an oath makes it,
Not he that for convenience takes it;
Then how can any man be said
To break an oath he never made?
Hudibras. Part ii. Canto ii. Line 377.
Doubtless the pleasure is as great
Of being cheated as to cheat.[214:4]
Hudibras. Part ii. Canto iii. Line 1.
He made an instrument to know
If the moon shine at full or no.
Hudibras. Part ii. Canto iii. Line 261.
Each window like a pill'ry appears,
With heads thrust thro' nail'd by the ears.
Hudibras. Part ii. Canto iii. Line 391.
To swallow gudgeons ere they 're catch'd,
And count their chickens ere they 're hatch'd.
Hudibras. Part ii. Canto iii. Line 923.
There 's but the twinkling of a star
Between a man of peace and war.
Hudibras. Part ii. Canto iii. Line 957.
But Hudibras gave him a twitch
As quick as lightning in the breech,
Just in the place where honour 's lodg'd,
As wise philosophers have judg'd;
Because a kick in that part more
Hurts honour than deep wounds before.
Hudibras. Part ii. Canto iii. Line 1065.
As men of inward light are wont
To turn their optics in upon 't.
Hudibras. Part iii. Canto i. Line 481.
[215]
Still amorous and fond and billing,
Like Philip and Mary on a shilling.
Hudibras. Part iii. Canto i. Line 687.
What makes all doctrines plain and clear?
About two hundred pounds a year.
And that which was prov'd true before
Prove false again? Two hundred more.
Hudibras. Part iii. Canto i. Line 1277.
'Cause grace and virtue are within
Prohibited degrees of kin;
And therefore no true saint allows
They shall be suffer'd to espouse.
Hudibras. Part iii. Canto i. Line 1293.
Nick Machiavel had ne'er a trick,
Though he gave his name to our Old Nick.
Hudibras. Part iii. Canto i. Line 1313.
With crosses, relics, crucifixes,
Beads, pictures, rosaries, and pixes,—
The tools of working our salvation
By mere mechanic operation.
Hudibras. Part iii. Canto i. Line 1495.
True as the dial to the sun,[215:1]
Although it be not shin'd upon.
Hudibras. Part iii. Canto ii. Line 175.
But still his tongue ran on, the less
Of weight it bore, with greater ease.
Hudibras. Part iii. Canto ii. Line 443.
For those that fly may fight again,
Which he can never do that 's slain.[215:2]
Hudibras. Part iii. Canto iii. Line 243.
He that complies against his will
Is of his own opinion still.
Hudibras. Part iii. Canto iii. Line 547.
With books and money plac'd for show
Like nest-eggs to make clients lay,
And for his false opinion pay.
Hudibras. Part iii. Canto iii. Line 624.
[216]
And poets by their sufferings grow,[216:1]—
As if there were no more to do,
To make a poet excellent,
But only want and discontent.
Fragments.
He Greek and Latin speaks with greater ease
Than hogs eat acorns, and tame pigeons peas.
Cranfield: Panegyric on Tom Coriate.
[211:4] Bid the Devil take the slowest.—Prior: On the Taking of Namur.
Deil tak the hindmost.—Burns: To a Haggis.
[211:6] Sure as a gun.—Dryden: The Spanish Friar, act iii. sc. 2. Cervantes: Don Quixote, part i. book iii. chap. vii.
[212:2] He that is down needs fear no fall.—Bunyan: Pilgrim's Progress, part ii.
[212:3] Outrun the constable.—Ray: Proverbs, 1670.
Our wasted oil unprofitably burns,
Like hidden lamps in old sepulchral urns.
Cowper: Conversation, line 357.
[214:3] Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.—Galatians vi.
[214:4] This couplet is enlarged on by Swift in his "Tale of a Tub," where he says that the happiness of life consists in being well deceived.
True as the needle to the pole,
Or as the dial to the sun.
Barton Booth: Song.
Let who will boast their courage in the field,
I find but little safety from my shield.
Nature's, not honour's, law we must obey:
This made me cast my useless shield away.
And by a prudent flight and cunning save
A life, which valour could not, from the grave.
A better buckler I can soon regain;
But who can get another life again?
Archilochus: Fragm. 6. (Quoted by Plutarch, Customs of the Lacedæmonians.)
Sed omissis quidem divinis exhortationibus illum magis Græcum versiculum secularis sententiæ sibi adhibent, "Qui fugiebat, rursus prœliabitur:" ut et rursus forsitan fugiat (But overlooking the divine exhortations, they act rather upon that Greek verse of worldly significance, "He who flees will fight again," and that perhaps to betake himself again to flight).—Tertullian: De Fuga in Persecutione, c. 10.
The corresponding Greek, Ἀνὴρ ὁ φεύγων κaὶ πάλιν μαχήσεται, is ascribed to Menander. See Fragments (appended to Aristophanes in Didot's Bib. Græca,), p. 91.
That same man that runnith awaie
Maie again fight an other daie.
Erasmus: Apothegms, 1542 (translated by Udall).
Celuy qui fuit de bonne heure
Pent combattre derechef
(He who flies at the right time can fight again).
Satyre Menippée (1594).
Qui fuit peut revenir aussi;
Qui meurt, il n'en est pas ainsi
(He who flies can also return; but it is not so with him who dies).
Scarron (1610-1660).
He that fights and runs away
May turn and fight another day;
But he that is in battle slain
Will never rise to fight again.
Ray: History of the Rebellion (1752), p. 48.
For he who fights and runs away
May live to fight another day;
But he who is in battle slain
Can never rise and fight again.
Goldsmith: The Art of Poetry on a New Plan (1761), vol. ii. p. 147.
Most wretched men
Are cradled into poetry by wrong;
They learn in suffering what they teach in song.
Shelley: Julian and Maddalo.
[217]
The assembled souls of all that men held wise.
Gondibert. Book ii. Canto v. Stanza 37.
For angling-rod he took a sturdy oake;[217:2]
For line, a cable that in storm ne'er broke;
His hooke was such as heads the end of pole
To pluck down house ere fire consumes it whole;
The hook was baited with a dragon's tale,—
And then on rock he stood to bob for whale.
Britannia Triumphans. Page 15. 1637.
[217:1] From ignorance our comfort flows.—Prior: To the Hon. Charles Montague.
Where ignorance is bliss,
'T is folly to be wise.
Gray: Eton College, Stanza 10.
For angling rod he took a sturdy oak;
For line, a cable that in storm ne'er broke;
. . . . .
His hook was baited with a dragon's tail,—
And then on rock he stood to bob for whale.
From The Mock Romance, a rhapsody attached to The Loves of Hero and Leander, published in London in the years 1653 and 1677. Chambers's Book of Days, vol. i. p. 173. Daniel: Rural Sports, Supplement, p. 57.
His angle-rod made of a sturdy oak;
His line, a cable which in storms ne'er broke;
His hook he baited with a dragon's tail,—
And sat upon a rock, and bobb'd for whale.
William King (1663-1712): Upon a Giant's Angling (In Chalmers's "British Poets" ascribed to King.)
Too rashly charged the troops of error, and remain as trophies unto the enemies of truth.
Religio Medici. Part i. Sect. vi.
Rich with the spoils of Nature.[217:3]
Religio Medici. Part i. Sect. xiii.
[218]
Nature is the art of God.[218:1]
Religio Medici. Part i. Sect. xvi.
The thousand doors that lead to death.[218:2]
Religio Medici. Part i. Sect. xliv.
The heart of man is the place the Devil 's in: I feel sometimes a hell within myself.[218:3]
Religio Medici. Part i. Sect. li.
There is no road or ready way to virtue.
Religio Medici. Part i. Sect. lv.
It is the common wonder of all men, how among so many million of faces there should be none alike.[218:4]
Religio Medici. Part ii. Sect. ii.
There is music in the beauty, and the silent note which Cupid strikes, far sweeter than the sound of an instrument; for there is music wherever there is harmony, order, or proportion; and thus far we may maintain the music of the spheres.[218:5]
Religio Medici. Part ii. Sect. ix.
Sleep is a death; oh, make me try
By sleeping what it is to die,
And as gently lay my head
On my grave as now my bed!
Religio Medici. Part ii. Sect. xii.
Ruat cœlum, fiat voluntas tua.[218:6]
Religio Medici. Part ii. Sect. xii.
[219]
Times before you, when even living men were antiquities,—when the living might exceed the dead, and to depart this world could not be properly said to go unto the greater number.[219:1]
Dedication to Urn-Burial.
I look upon you as gem of the old rock.[219:2]
Dedication to Urn-Burial.
Man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes and pompous in the grave.
Dedication to Urn-Burial. Chap. v.
Quietly rested under the drums and tramplings of three conquests.
Dedication to Urn-Burial. Chap. v.
Herostratus lives that burnt the temple of Diana; he is almost lost that built it.[219:3]
Dedication to Urn-Burial. Chap. v.
What song the Sirens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women.
Dedication to Urn-Burial. Chap. v.
When we desire to confine our words, we commonly say they are spoken under the rose.
Vulgar Errors.
[217:3] Rich with the spoils of time.—Gray: Elegy, stanza 13.
[218:1] The course of Nature is the art of God.—Young: Night Thoughts, night ix. line 1267.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.
Milton: Paradise Lost, book i. line 253.
[218:4] The human features and countenance, although composed of but some ten parts or little more, are so fashioned that among so many thousands of men there are no two in existence who cannot be distinguished from one another.—Pliny: Natural History, book vii. chap. i.
Of a thousand shavers, two do not shave so much alike as not to be distinguished.—Johnson (1777).
There never were in the world two opinions alike, no more than two hairs or two grains; the most universal quality is diversity.—Montaigne: Of the Resemblance of Children to their Fathers, book i. chap. xxxvii.
Oh, could you view the melody
Of every grace
And music of her face.
Lovelace: Orpheus to Beasts.
[219:1] 'T is long since Death had the majority.—Blair: The Grave, part ii. line 449.
[219:2] Adamas de rupe præstantissimus (A most excellent diamond from the rock).
A chip of the old block.—Prior: Life of Burke.
The aspiring youth that fired the Ephesian dome
Outlives in fame the pious fool that raised it.
Cibber: Richard III. act iii. sc. 1.
The yielding marble of her snowy breast.
On a Lady passing through a Crowd of People.
That eagle's fate and mine are one,
Which on the shaft that made him die
Espied a feather of his own,
Wherewith he wont to soar so high.[219:4]
To a Lady singing a Song of his Composing.
[220]
A narrow compass! and yet there
Dwelt all that 's good, and all that 's fair;
Give me but what this riband bound,
Take all the rest the sun goes round.
On a Girdle.
For all we know
Of what the blessed do above
Is, that they sing, and that they love.
While I listen to thy Voice.
Poets that lasting marble seek
Must come in Latin or in Greek.
Of English Verse.
Under the tropic is our language spoke,
And part of Flanders hath receiv'd our yoke.
Upon the Death of the Lord Protector.
Go, lovely rose!
Tell her that wastes her time and me
That now she knows,
When I resemble her to thee,
How sweet and fair she seems to be.
Go, Lovely Rose.
How small a part of time they share
That are so wondrous sweet and fair!
Go, Lovely Rose.
Illustrious acts high raptures do infuse,
And every conqueror creates a muse.
Panegyric on Cromwell.
[221]
In such green palaces the first kings reign'd,
Slept in their shades, and angels entertain'd;
With such old counsellors they did advise,
And by frequenting sacred groves grew wise.
On St. James's Park.
And keeps the palace of the soul.[221:1]
Of Tea.
Poets lose half the praise they should have got,
Could it be known what they discreetly blot.
Upon Roscommon's Translation of Horace, De Arte Poetica.
Could we forbear dispute and practise love,
We should agree as angels do above.
Divine Love. Canto iii.
The soul's dark cottage, batter'd and decay'd,
Lets in new light through chinks that Time has made.[221:2]
Stronger by weakness, wiser men become
As they draw near to their eternal home:
Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view
That stand upon the threshold of the new.
On the Divine Poems.
So in the Libyan fable it is told
That once an eagle, stricken with a dart,
Said, when he saw the fashion of the shaft,
"With our own feathers, not by others' hands,
Are we now smitten."
Æschylus: Fragm. 123 (Plumptre's Translation).
So the struck eagle, stretch'd upon the plain,
No more through rolling clouds to soar again,
View'd his own feather on the fatal dart,
And wing'd the shaft that quiver'd in his heart.
Byron: English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, line 826.
Like a young eagle, who has lent his plume
To fledge the shaft by which he meets his doom,
See their own feathers pluck'd to wing the dart
Which rank corruption destines for their heart.
Thomas Moore: Corruption.
[221:1] The dome of thought, the palace of the soul.—Byron: Childe Harold, canto ii. stanza 6.
Drawing near her death, she sent most pious thoughts as harbingers to heaven; and her soul saw a glimpse of happiness through the chinks of her sickness-broken body.
Life of Monica.
He was one of a lean body and visage, as if his eager soul, biting for anger at the clog of his body, desired to fret a passage through it.[221:3]
Life of the Duke of Alva.
[222]
She commandeth her husband, in any equal matter, by constant obeying him.
Holy and Profane State. The Good Wife.
He knows little who will tell his wife all he knows.
Holy and Profane State. The Good Husband.
One that will not plead that cause wherein his tongue must be confuted by his conscience.
Holy and Profane State. The Good Advocate.
A little skill in antiquity inclines a man to Popery; but depth in that study brings him about again to our religion.[222:1]
Holy and Profane State. The True Church Antiquary.
But our captain counts the image of God—nevertheless his image—cut in ebony as if done in ivory, and in the blackest Moors he sees the representation of the King of Heaven.
Holy and Profane State. The Good Sea-Captain.
To smell to a turf of fresh earth is wholesome for the body; no less are thoughts of mortality cordial to the soul.
Holy and Profane State. The Virtuous Lady.
The lion is not so fierce as painted.[222:2]
Holy and Profane State. Of Preferment.
Their heads sometimes so little that there is no room for wit; sometimes so long that there is no wit for so much room.
Holy and Profane State. Of Natural Fools.
The Pyramids themselves, doting with age, have forgotten the names of their founders.
Holy and Profane State. Of Tombs.
Learning hath gained most by those books by which the printers have lost.
Holy and Profane State. Of Books.
They that marry ancient people, merely in expectation to bury them, hang themselves in hope that one will come and cut the halter.
Holy and Profane State. Of Marriage.
Fame sometimes hath created something of nothing.
Holy and Profane State. Fame.
Often the cockloft is empty in those whom Nature hath built many stories high.[222:3]
Andronicus. Sect. vi. Par. 18, 1.
A fiery soul, which, working out its way,
Fretted the pygmy-body to decay,
And o'er-inform'd the tenement of clay.
Dryden: Absalom and Achitophel, part i. line 156.
[222:1] See Bacon, p. 166.
[222:2] See Herbert, p. 205.
[222:3] See Bacon, p. 170.
[223]
Of Man's first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe.
Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 1.
Or if Sion hill
Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook, that flow'd
Fast by the oracle of God.
Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 10.
Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.
Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 16.
What in me is dark
Illumine, what is low raise and support,
That to the height of this great argument
I may assert eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of God to men.[223:1]
Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 22.
As far as angels' ken.
Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 59.
Yet from those flames
No light, but rather darkness visible.
Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 62.
Where peace
And rest can never dwell, hope never comes
That comes to all.
Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 65.
What though the field be lost?
All is not lost; th' unconquerable will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield.
Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 105.
To be weak is miserable,
Doing or suffering.
Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 157.
And out of good still to find means of evil.
Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 165.
Farewell happy fields,
Where joy forever dwells: hail, horrors!
Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 249.
[224]
A mind not to be chang'd by place or time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.[224:1]
Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 253.
Here we may reign secure; and in my choice
To reign is worth ambition, though in hell:
Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.
Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 261.
Heard so oft
In worst extremes, and on the perilous edge
Of battle.
Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 275.
His spear, to equal which the tallest pine
Hewn on Norwegian hills to be the mast
Of some great ammiral were but a wand,
He walk'd with to support uneasy steps
Over the burning marle.
Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 292.
Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks
In Vallombrosa, where th' Etrurian shades
High over-arch'd imbower.
Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 302.
Awake, arise, or be forever fallen!
Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 330.
Spirits when they please
Can either sex assume, or both.
Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 423.
Execute their airy purposes.
Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 430.
When night
Darkens the streets, then wander forth the sons
Of Belial, flown with insolence and wine.
Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 500.
Th' imperial ensign, which full high advanc'd
Shone like a meteor, streaming to the wind.[224:2]
Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 536.
Sonorous metal blowing martial sounds:
At which the universal host up sent
A shout that tore hell's concave, and beyond
Frighted the reign of Chaos and old Night.
Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 540.
[225]
Anon they move
In perfect phalanx, to the Dorian mood
Of flutes and soft recorders.
Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 549.
His form had yet not lost
All her original brightness, nor appear'd
Less than archangel ruin'd, and th' excess
Of glory obscur'd.
Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 591.
In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds
On half the nations, and with fear of change
Perplexes monarchs.
Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 597.
Thrice he assay'd, and thrice in spite of scorn
Tears, such as angels weep, burst forth.
Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 619.
Who overcomes
By force, hath overcome but half his foe.
Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 648.
Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell
From heaven; for ev'n in heaven his looks and thoughts
Were always downward bent, admiring more
The riches of heaven's pavement, trodden gold,
Than aught divine or holy else enjoy'd
In vision beatific.
Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 679.
Let none admire
That riches grow in hell: that soil may best
Deserve the precious bane.
Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 690.
Anon out of the earth a fabric huge
Rose, like an exhalation.
Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 710.
From morn
To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,—
A summer's day; and with the setting sun
Dropp'd from the Zenith like a falling star.
Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 742.
Fairy elves,
Whose midnight revels by a forest side
Or fountain some belated peasant sees,
Or dreams he sees, while overhead the moon
Sits arbitress.
Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 781.
[226]
High on a throne of royal state, which far
Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind,
Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand
Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,
Satan exalted sat, by merit rais'd
To that bad eminence.
Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 1.
Surer to prosper than prosperity
Could have assur'd us.
Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 39.
The strongest and the fiercest spirit
That fought in heaven, now fiercer by despair.
Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 44.
Rather than be less,
Car'd not to be at all.
Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 47.
My sentence is for open war.
Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 51.
That in our proper motion we ascend
Up to our native seat: descent and fall
To us is adverse.
Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 75.
When the scourge
Inexorable and the torturing hour
Call us to penance.
Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 90.
Which, if not victory, is yet revenge.
Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 105.
But all was false and hollow; though his tongue
Dropp'd manna, and could make the worse appear
The better reason,[226:1] to perplex and dash
Maturest counsels.
Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 112.
Th' ethereal mould
Incapable of stain would soon expel
Her mischief, and purge off the baser fire,
Victorious. Thus repuls'd, our final hope
Is flat despair.[226:2]
Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 139.
[227]
For who would lose,
Though full of pain, this intellectual being,
Those thoughts that wander through eternity,
To perish rather, swallow'd up and lost
In the wide womb of uncreated night?
Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 146.
His red right hand.[227:1]
Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 174.
Unrespited, unpitied, unrepriev'd.
Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 185.
The never-ending flight
Of future days.
Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 221.
Our torments also may in length of time
Become our elements.
Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 274.
With grave
Aspect he rose, and in his rising seem'd
A pillar of state; deep on his front engraven
Deliberation sat, and public care;
And princely counsel in his face yet shone,
Majestic though in ruin: sage he stood,
With Atlantean shoulders, fit to bear
The weight of mightiest monarchies; his look
Drew audience and attention still as night
Or summer's noontide air.
Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 300.
The palpable obscure.
Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 406.
Long is the way
And hard, that out of hell leads up to light.
Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 432.
Their rising all at once was as the sound
Of thunder heard remote.
Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 476.
The low'ring element
Scowls o'er the darken'd landscape.
Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 490.
Oh, shame to men! devil with devil damn'd
Firm concord holds, men only disagree
Of creatures rational.
Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 496.
[228]
In discourse more sweet;
For eloquence the soul, song charms the sense.
Others apart sat on a hill retir'd,
In thoughts more elevate, and reason'd high
Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate,
Fix'd fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute;
And found no end, in wand'ring mazes lost.
Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 555.
Vain wisdom all and false philosophy.
Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 565.
Arm th' obdur'd breast
With stubborn patience as with triple steel.
Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 568.
A gulf profound as that Serbonian bog
Betwixt Damiata and Mount Casius old,
Where armies whole have sunk: the parching air
Burns frore, and cold performs th' effect of fire.
Thither by harpy-footed Furies hal'd,
At certain revolutions all the damn'd
Are brought, and feel by turns the bitter change
Of fierce extremes,—extremes by change more fierce;
From beds of raging fire to starve in ice
Their soft ethereal warmth, and there to pine
Immovable, infix'd, and frozen round,
Periods of time; thence hurried back to fire.
Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 592.
O'er many a frozen, many a fiery Alp,
Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and shades of death.
Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 620.
Gorgons and Hydras and Chimæras dire.
Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 628.
The other shape,
If shape it might be call'd that shape had none
Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb;
Or substance might be call'd that shadow seem'd,
For each seem'd either,—black it stood as night,
Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell,
And shook a dreadful dart; what seem'd his head
The likeness of a kingly crown had on.
Satan was now at hand.
Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 666.
[229]
Whence and what art thou, execrable shape?
Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 681.
Back to thy punishment,
False fugitive, and to thy speed add wings.
Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 699.
So spake the grisly Terror.
Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 704.
Incens'd with indignation Satan stood
Unterrify'd, and like a comet burn'd
That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge
In th' arctic sky, and from his horrid hair
Shakes pestilence and war.
Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 707.
Their fatal hands
No second stroke intend.
Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 712.
Hell
Grew darker at their frown.
Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 719.
I fled, and cry'd out, Death!
Hell trembled at the hideous name, and sigh'd
From all her caves, and back resounded, Death!
Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 787.
Before mine eyes in opposition sits
Grim Death, my son and foe.
Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 803.
Death
Grinn'd horrible a ghastly smile, to hear
His famine should be fill'd.
Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 845.
On a sudden open fly,
With impetuous recoil and jarring sound,
Th' infernal doors, and on their hinges grate
Harsh thunder.
Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 879.
Where eldest Night
And Chaos, ancestors of Nature, hold
Eternal anarchy amidst the noise
Of endless wars, and by confusion stand;
For hot, cold, moist, and dry, four champions fierce,
Strive here for mast'ry.
Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 894.
Into this wild abyss,
The womb of Nature and perhaps her grave.
Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 910.
[230]
O'er bog or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or rare,
With head, hands, wings, or feet, pursues his way,
And swims or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies.
Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 948.
With ruin upon ruin, rout on rout,
Confusion worse confounded.
Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 995.
So he with difficulty and labour hard
Mov'd on, with difficulty and labour he.
Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 1021.
And fast by, hanging in a golden chain,
This pendent world, in bigness as a star
Of smallest magnitude, close by the moon.
Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 1051.
Hail holy light! offspring of heav'n first-born.
Paradise Lost. Book iii. Line 1.
The rising world of waters dark and deep.
Paradise Lost. Book iii. Line 11.
Thoughts that voluntary move
Harmonious numbers.
Paradise Lost. Book iii. Line 37.
Thus with the year
Seasons return; but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom or summer's rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me; from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair
Presented with a universal blank
Of Nature's works, to me expung'd and raz'd,
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
Paradise Lost. Book iii. Line 40.
Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.
Paradise Lost. Book iii. Line 99.
See golden days, fruitful of golden deeds,
With joy and love triumphing.
Paradise Lost. Book iii. Line 337.
[231]
Dark with excessive bright.
Paradise Lost. Book iii. Line 380.
Embryos and idiots, eremites and friars,
White, black, and gray, with all their trumpery.
Paradise Lost. Book iii. Line 474.
Since call'd
The Paradise of Fools, to few unknown.
Paradise Lost. Book iii. Line 495.
And oft, though wisdom wake, suspicion sleeps
At wisdom's gate, and to simplicity
Resigns her charge, while goodness thinks no ill
Where no ill seems.
Paradise Lost. Book iii. Line 686.
The hell within him.
Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 20.
Now conscience wakes despair
That slumber'd,—wakes the bitter memory
Of what he was, what is, and what must be
Worse.
Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 23.
A grateful mind
By owing owes not, but still pays, at once
Indebted and discharg'd.
Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 55.
Which way shall I fly
Infinite wrath and infinite despair?
Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell;
And in the lowest deep a lower deep,
Still threat'ning to devour me, opens wide,
To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.
Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 73.
Such joy ambition finds.
Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 92.
Ease would recant
Vows made in pain, as violent and void.
Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 96.
So farewell hope, and with hope farewell fear,
Farewell remorse; all good to me is lost.
Evil, be thou my good.
Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 108.
[232]
That practis'd falsehood under saintly shew,
Deep malice to conceal, couch'd with revenge.
Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 122.
Sabean odours from the spicy shore
Of Araby the Blest.
Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 162.
And on the Tree of Life,
The middle tree and highest there that grew,
Sat like a cormorant.
Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 194.
A heaven on earth.
Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 208.
Flowers worthy of paradise.
Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 241.
Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the rose.[232:1]
Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 256.
Proserpine gathering flowers,
Herself a fairer flower.
Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 269.
For contemplation he and valour form'd,
For softness she and sweet attractive grace;
He for God only, she for God in him.
His fair large front and eye sublime declar'd
Absolute rule; and hyacinthine locks
Round from his parted forelock manly hung
Clustering, but not beneath his shoulders broad.
Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 297.
Implied
Subjection, but requir'd with gentle sway,
And by her yielded, by him best receiv'd,—
Yielded with coy submission, modest pride,
And sweet, reluctant, amorous delay.
Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 307.
Adam the goodliest man of men since born
His sons, the fairest of her daughters Eve.
Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 323.
And with necessity,
The tyrant's plea,[232:2] excus'd his devilish deeds.
Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 393.
[233]
As Jupiter
On Juno smiles, when he impregns the clouds
That shed May flowers.
Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 499.
Imparadis'd in one another's arms.
Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 506.
Live while ye may,
Yet happy pair.
Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 533.
Now came still evening on, and twilight gray
Had in her sober livery all things clad;
Silence accompany'd; for beast and bird,
They to their grassy couch, these to their nests,
Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale;
She all night long her amorous descant sung;
Silence was pleas'd. Now glow'd the firmament
With living sapphires; Hesperus, that led
The starry host, rode brightest, till the moon,
Rising in clouded majesty, at length
Apparent queen unveil'd her peerless light,
And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.
Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 598.
The timely dew of sleep.
Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 614.
With thee conversing I forget all time,
All seasons, and their change,—all please alike.
Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet,
With charm of earliest birds; pleasant the sun
When first on this delightful land he spreads
His orient beams on herb, tree, fruit, and flower,
Glist'ring with dew; fragrant the fertile earth
After soft showers; and sweet the coming on
Of grateful ev'ning mild; then silent night
With this her solemn bird and this fair moon,
And these the gems of heaven, her starry train:
But neither breath of morn when she ascends
With charm of earliest birds, nor rising sun
On this delightful land, nor herb, fruit, flower,
Glist'ring with dew, nor fragrance after showers,
Nor grateful ev'ning mild, nor silent night
[234]With this her solemn bird, nor walk by moon
Or glittering starlight, without thee is sweet.
Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 639.
Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth
Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep.
Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 677.
Eas'd the putting off
These troublesome disguises which we wear.
Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 739.
Hail wedded love, mysterious law, true source
Of human offspring.
Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 750.
Squat like a toad, close at the ear of Eve.
Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 800.
Him thus intent Ithuriel with his spear
Touch'd lightly; for no falsehood can endure
Touch of celestial temper.
Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 810.
Not to know me argues yourselves unknown,
The lowest of your throng.
Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 830.
Abash'd the devil stood,
And felt how awful goodness is, and saw
Virtue in her shape how lovely.
Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 846.
All hell broke loose.
Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 918.
Like Teneriff or Atlas unremoved.
Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 987.
The starry cope
Of heaven.
Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 992.
Fled
Murmuring, and with him fled the shades of night.
Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 1014.
Now morn, her rosy steps in th' eastern clime
Advancing, sow'd the earth with orient pearl,
When Adam wak'd, so custom'd; for his sleep
Was aery light, from pure digestion bred.
Paradise Lost. Book v. Line 1.
[235]
Hung over her enamour'd, and beheld
Beauty, which, whether waking or asleep,
Shot forth peculiar graces.
Paradise Lost. Book v. Line 13.
My latest found,
Heaven's last, best gift, my ever new delight!
Paradise Lost. Book v. Line 18.
Good, the more
Communicated, more abundant grows.
Paradise Lost. Book v. Line 71.
These are thy glorious works, Parent of good!
Paradise Lost. Book v. Line 153.
Fairest of stars, last in the train of night,
If better thou belong not to the dawn.
Paradise Lost. Book v. Line 166.
A wilderness of sweets.
Paradise Lost. Book v. Line 294.
Another morn
Ris'n on mid-noon.
Paradise Lost. Book v. Line 310.
So saying, with despatchful looks in haste
She turns, on hospitable thoughts intent.
Paradise Lost. Book v. Line 331.
Nor jealousy
Was understood, the injur'd lover's hell.
Paradise Lost. Book v. Line 449.
The bright consummate flower.
Paradise Lost. Book v. Line 481.
Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Virtues, Powers.
Paradise Lost. Book v. Line 601.
They eat, they drink, and in communion sweet
Quaff immortality and joy.
Paradise Lost. Book v. Line 637.
Satan; so call him now, his former name
Is heard no more in heaven.
Paradise Lost. Book v. Line 658.
Midnight brought on the dusky hour
Friendliest to sleep and silence.
Paradise Lost. Book v. Line 667.
Innumerable as the stars of night,
Or stars of morning, dewdrops which the sun
Impearls on every leaf and every flower.
Paradise Lost. Book v. Line 745.
So spake the seraph Abdiel, faithful found;
Among the faithless, faithful only he.
Paradise Lost. Book v. Line 896.
Morn,
Wak'd by the circling hours, with rosy hand
Unbarr'd the gates of light.
Paradise Lost. Book vi. Line 2.
[236]
Servant of God, well done; well hast thou fought
The better fight.
Paradise Lost. Book vi. Line 29.
Arms on armour clashing bray'd
Horrible discord, and the madding wheels
Of brazen chariots rag'd: dire was the noise
Of conflict.
Paradise Lost. Book vi. Line 209.
Spirits that live throughout,
Vital in every part, not as frail man,
In entrails, heart or head, liver or reins,
Cannot but by annihilating die.
Paradise Lost. Book vi. Line 345.
Far off his coming shone.
Paradise Lost. Book vi. Line 768.
More safe I sing with mortal voice, unchang'd
To hoarse or mute, though fall'n on evil days,
On evil days though fall'n, and evil tongues.
Paradise Lost. Book vii. Line 24.
Still govern thou my song,
Urania, and fit audience find, though few.
Paradise Lost. Book vii. Line 30.
Heaven open'd wide
Her ever during gates, harmonious sound,
On golden hinges moving.
Paradise Lost. Book vii. Line 205.
Hither, as to their fountain, other stars
Repairing, in their golden urns draw light.
Paradise Lost. Book vii. Line 364.
Now half appear'd
The tawny lion, pawing to get free
His hinder parts.
Paradise Lost. Book vii. Line 463.
Indu'd
With sanctity of reason.
Paradise Lost. Book vii. Line 507.
A broad and ample road, whose dust is gold,
And pavement stars,—as stars to thee appear
Seen in the galaxy, that milky way
Which nightly as a circling zone thou seest
Powder'd with stars.
Paradise Lost. Book vii. Line 577.
[237]
The Angel ended, and in Adam's ear
So charming left his voice, that he awhile
Thought him still speaking, still stood fix'd to hear.
Paradise Lost. Book viii. Line 1.
There swift return
Diurnal, merely to officiate light
Round this opacous earth, this punctual spot.
Paradise Lost. Book viii. Line 21.
And grace that won who saw to wish her stay.
Paradise Lost. Book viii. Line 43.
And touch'd by her fair tendance, gladlier grew.
Paradise Lost. Book viii. Line 47.
With centric and eccentric scribbled o'er,
Cycle and epicycle, orb in orb.
Paradise Lost. Book viii. Line 83.
Her silent course advance
With inoffensive pace, that spinning sleeps
On her soft axle.
Paradise Lost. Book viii. Line 163.
Be lowly wise:
Think only what concerns thee and thy being.
Paradise Lost. Book viii. Line 173.
To know
That which before us lies in daily life
Is the prime wisdom.
Paradise Lost. Book viii. Line 192.
Liquid lapse of murmuring streams.
Paradise Lost. Book viii. Line 263.
And feel that I am happier than I know.
Paradise Lost. Book viii. Line 282.
Among unequals what society
Can sort, what harmony, or true delight?
Paradise Lost. Book viii. Line 383.
Grace was in all her steps, heaven in her eye,
In every gesture dignity and love.
Paradise Lost. Book viii. Line 488.
Her virtue and the conscience of her worth,
That would be woo'd, and not unsought be won.
Paradise Lost. Book viii. Line 502.
She what was honour knew,
And with obsequious majesty approv'd
My pleaded reason. To the nuptial bower
I led her blushing like the morn; all heaven
[238]And happy constellations on that hour
Shed their selectest influence; the earth
Gave sign of gratulation, and each hill;
Joyous the birds; fresh gales and gentle airs
Whisper'd it to the woods, and from their wings
Flung rose, flung odours from the spicy shrub.
Paradise Lost. Book viii. Line 508.
The sum of earthly bliss.
Paradise Lost. Book viii. Line 522.
So well to know
Her own, that what she wills to do or say
Seems wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best.
Paradise Lost. Book viii. Line 548.
Accuse not Nature: she hath done her part;
Do thou but thine.
Paradise Lost. Book viii. Line 561.
Oft times nothing profits more
Than self-esteem, grounded on just and right
Well manag'd.[238:1]
Paradise Lost. Book viii. Line 571.
Those graceful acts,
Those thousand decencies that daily flow
From all her words and actions.
Paradise Lost. Book viii. Line 600.
With a smile that glow'd
Celestial rosy red, love's proper hue.
Paradise Lost. Book viii. Line 618.
My unpremeditated verse.
Paradise Lost. Book ix. Line 24.
Pleas'd me, long choosing and beginning late.
Paradise Lost. Book ix. Line 26.
Unless an age too late, or cold
Climate, or years, damp my intended wing.
Paradise Lost. Book ix. Line 44.
Revenge, at first though sweet,
Bitter ere long back on itself recoils.
Paradise Lost. Book ix. Line 171.
The work under our labour grows,
Luxurious by restraint.
Paradise Lost. Book ix. Line 208.
Smiles from reason flow,
To brute deny'd, and are of love the food.
Paradise Lost. Book ix. Line 239.
[239]
For solitude sometimes is best society,
And short retirement urges sweet return.
Paradise Lost. Book ix. Line 249.
At shut of evening flowers.
Paradise Lost. Book ix. Line 278.
As one who long in populous city pent,
Where houses thick and sewers annoy the air.
Paradise Lost. Book ix. Line 445.
So gloz'd the tempter.
Paradise Lost. Book ix. Line 549.
Hope elevates, and joy
Brightens his crest.
Paradise Lost. Book ix. Line 633.
Earth felt the wound; and Nature from her seat,
Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe
That all was lost.
Paradise Lost. Book ix. Line 782.
In her face excuse
Came prologue, and apology too prompt.
Paradise Lost. Book ix. Line 853.
A pillar'd shade
High overarch'd, and echoing walks between.
Paradise Lost. Book ix. Line 1106.
Yet I shall temper so
Justice with mercy, as may illustrate most
Them fully satisfy'd, and thee appease.
Paradise Lost. Book x. Line 77.
So scented the grim Feature, and upturn'd
His nostril wide into the murky air,
Sagacious of his quarry from so far.
Paradise Lost. Book x. Line 279.
How gladly would I meet
Mortality my sentence, and be earth
Insensible! how glad would lay me down
As in my mother's lap!
Paradise Lost. Book x. Line 775.
Must I thus leave thee, Paradise?—thus leave
Thee, native soil, these happy walks and shades?
Paradise Lost. Book xi. Line 269.
[240]
Then purg'd with euphrasy and rue
The visual nerve, for he had much to see.
Paradise Lost. Book xi. Line 414.
Moping melancholy
And moon-struck madness.
Paradise Lost. Book xi. Line 485.
And over them triumphant Death his dart
Shook, but delay'd to strike, though oft invok'd.
Paradise Lost. Book xi. Line 491.
So may'st thou live, till like ripe fruit thou drop
Into thy mother's lap.
Paradise Lost. Book xi. Line 535.
Nor love thy life, nor hate; but what thou liv'st
Live well: how long or short permit to heaven.[240:1]
Paradise Lost. Book xi. Line 553.
A bevy of fair women.
Paradise Lost. Book xi. Line 582.
The brazen throat of war.
Paradise Lost. Book xi. Line 713.
Some natural tears they dropp'd, but wip'd them soon;
The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide.
They hand in hand, with wand'ring steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way.
Paradise Lost. Book xii. Line 645.
Beauty stands
In the admiration only of weak minds
Led captive.
Paradise Regained. Book ii. Line 220.
Rocks whereon greatest men have oftest wreck'd.
Paradise Regained. Book ii. Line 228.
Of whom to be disprais'd were no small praise.
Paradise Regained. Book iii. Line 56.
Elephants endors'd with towers.
Paradise Regained. Book iii. Line 329.
Syene, and where the shadow both way falls,
Meroe, Nilotic isle.
Paradise Regained. Book iv. Line 70.
Dusk faces with white silken turbans wreath'd.
Paradise Regained. Book iv. Line 76.
[241]
Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts
And eloquence.
Paradise Regained. Book iv. Line 240.
The olive grove of Academe,
Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird
Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long.
Paradise Regained. Book iv. Line 244.
Thence to the famous orators repair,
Those ancient, whose resistless eloquence
Wielded at will that fierce democratie,
Shook the arsenal, and fulmin'd over Greece,
To Macedon, and Artaxerxes' throne.
Paradise Regained. Book iv. Line 267.
Socrates . . . .
Whom well inspir'd the oracle pronounc'd
Wisest of men.
Paradise Regained. Book iv. Line 274.
Deep vers'd in books, and shallow in himself.
Paradise Regained. Book iv. Line 327.
As children gath'ring pebbles on the shore.
Or if I would delight my private hours
With music or with poem, where so soon
As in our native language can I find
That solace?
Paradise Regained. Book iv. Line 330.
Till morning fair
Came forth with pilgrim steps in amice gray.
Paradise Regained. Book iv. Line 426.
O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon,
Irrecoverably dark, total eclipse
Without all hope of day!
Samson Agonistes. Line 80.
The sun to me is dark
And silent as the moon,
When she deserts the night
Hid in her vacant interlunar cave.
Samson Agonistes. Line 86.
[242]
Ran on embattled armies clad in iron,
And, weaponless himself,
Made arms ridiculous.
Samson Agonistes. Line 129.
Just are the ways of God,
And justifiable to men;
Unless there be who think not God at all.
Samson Agonistes. Line 293.
What boots it at one gate to make defence,
And at another to let in the foe?
Samson Agonistes. Line 560.
But who is this, what thing of sea or land,—
Female of sex it seems,—
That so bedeck'd, ornate, and gay,
Comes this way sailing
Like a stately ship
Of Tarsus, bound for th' isles
Of Javan or Gadire,
With all her bravery on, and tackle trim,
Sails fill'd, and streamers waving,
Courted by all the winds that hold them play,
An amber scent of odorous perfume
Her harbinger?
Samson Agonistes. Line 710.
Yet beauty, though injurious, hath strange power,
After offence returning, to regain
Love once possess'd.
Samson Agonistes. Line 1003.
He 's gone, and who knows how he may report
Thy words by adding fuel to the flame?
Samson Agonistes. Line 1350.
For evil news rides post, while good news baits.
Samson Agonistes. Line 1538.
And as an ev'ning dragon came,
Assailant on the perched roosts
And nests in order rang'd
Of tame villatic fowl.
Samson Agonistes. Line 1692.
Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail
Or knock the breast, no weakness, no contempt,
Dispraise, or blame,—nothing but well and fair,
And what may quiet us in a death so noble.
Samson Agonistes. Line 1721.
[243]
Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot
Which men call earth.
Comus. Line 5.
That golden key
That opes the palace of eternity.
Comus. Line 13.
The nodding horror of whose shady brows
Threats the forlorn and wandering passenger.
Comus. Line 38.
I will tell you now
What never yet was heard in tale or song,
From old or modern bard, in hall or bower.
Comus. Line 43.
Bacchus, that first from out the purple grape
Crush'd the sweet poison of misused wine.
Comus. Line 46.
These my sky-robes spun out of Iris' woof.
Comus. Line 83.
The star that bids the shepherd fold.
Comus. Line 93.
Midnight shout and revelry,
Tipsy dance and jollity.
Comus. Line 103.
Ere the blabbing eastern scout,
The nice morn, on th' Indian steep
From her cabin'd loop-hole peep.
Comus. Line 138.
When the gray-hooded Even,
Like a sad votarist in palmer's weed,
Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phœbus' wain.
Comus. Line 188.
A thousand fantasies
Begin to throng into my memory,
Of calling shapes, and beck'ning shadows dire,
And airy tongues that syllable men's names
On sands and shores and desert wildernesses.
Comus. Line 205.
O welcome, pure-ey'd Faith, white-handed Hope,
Thou hovering angel, girt with golden wings!
Comus. Line 213.
Was I deceiv'd, or did a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night?
Comus. Line 221.
Can any mortal mixture of earth's mould
Breathe such divine enchanting ravishment?
Comus. Line 244.
[244]
How sweetly did they float upon the wings
Of silence through the empty-vaulted night,
At every fall smoothing the raven down
Of darkness till it smil'd!
Comus. Line 249.
Who, as they sung, would take the prison'd soul
And lap it in Elysium.
Comus. Line 256.
Such sober certainty of waking bliss.
Comus. Line 263.
I took it for a faery vision
Of some gay creatures of the element,
That in the colours of the rainbow live,
And play i' th' plighted clouds.
Comus. Line 298.
It were a journey like the path to heaven,
To help you find them.
Comus. Line 303.
With thy long levell'd rule of streaming light.
Comus. Line 340.
Virtue could see to do what virtue would
By her own radiant light, though sun and moon
Were in the flat sea sunk. And Wisdom's self
Oft seeks to sweet retired solitude,
Where with her best nurse Contemplation
She plumes her feathers and lets grow her wings,
That in the various bustle of resort
Were all-to ruffled, and sometimes impair'd.
He that has light within his own clear breast
May sit i' th' centre and enjoy bright day;
But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts
Benighted walks under the midday sun.
Comus. Line 373.
The unsunn'd heaps
Of miser's treasure.
Comus. Line 398.
'T is chastity, my brother, chastity:
She that has that is clad in complete steel.
Comus. Line 420.
Some say no evil thing that walks by night,
In fog or fire, by lake or moorish fen,
Blue meagre hag, or stubborn unlaid ghost
[245]That breaks his magic chains at curfew time,
No goblin, or swart fairy of the mine,
Hath hurtful power o'er true virginity.
Comus. Line 432.
So dear to heav'n is saintly chastity,
That when a soul is found sincerely so,
A thousand liveried angels lackey her,
Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt,
And in clear dream and solemn vision
Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear,
Till oft converse with heav'nly habitants
Begin to cast a beam on th' outward shape.
Comus. Line 453.
How charming is divine philosophy!
Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose,
But musical as is Apollo's lute,[245:1]
And a perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets
Where no crude surfeit reigns.
Comus. Line 476.
And sweeten'd every musk-rose of the dale.
Comus. Line 496.
Fill'd the air with barbarous dissonance.
Comus. Line 550.
I was all ear,
And took in strains that might create a soul
Under the ribs of death.
Comus. Line 560.
That power
Which erring men call Chance.
Comus. Line 587.
If this fail,
The pillar'd firmament is rottenness,
And earth's base built on stubble.
Comus. Line 597.
The leaf was darkish, and had prickles on it,
But in another country, as he said,
Bore a bright golden flow'r, but not in this soil;
Unknown, and like esteem'd, and the dull swain
Treads on it daily with his clouted shoon.
Comus. Line 631.
Enter'd the very lime-twigs of his spells,
And yet came off.
Comus. Line 646.
[246]
This cordial julep here,
That flames and dances in his crystal bounds.
Comus. Line 672.
Budge doctors of the Stoic fur.
Comus. Line 707.
And live like Nature's bastards, not her sons.
Comus. Line 727.
It is for homely features to keep home,—
They had their name thence; coarse complexions
And cheeks of sorry grain will serve to ply
The sampler and to tease the huswife's wool.
What need a vermeil-tinctur'd lip for that,
Love-darting eyes, or tresses like the morn?
Comus. Line 748.
Swinish gluttony
Ne'er looks to heav'n amidst his gorgeous feast,
But with besotted base ingratitude
Crams, and blasphemes his feeder.
Comus. Line 776.
Enjoy your dear wit and gay rhetoric,
That hath so well been taught her dazzling fence.
Comus. Line 790.
His rod revers'd,
And backward mutters of dissevering power.
Comus. Line 816.
Sabrina fair,
Listen where thou art sitting
Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,
In twisted braids of lilies knitting
The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair.
Comus. Line 859.
But now my task is smoothly done,
I can fly, or I can run.
Comus. Line 1012.
Or if Virtue feeble were,
Heav'n itself would stoop to her.
Comus. Line 1022.
I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude,
And with forc'd fingers rude
Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.
Lycidas. Line 3.
He knew
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme.
Lycidas. Line 10.
[247]
Without the meed of some melodious tear.
Lycidas. Line 14.
Under the opening eyelids of the morn.
Lycidas. Line 26.
But oh the heavy change, now thou art gone,
Now thou art gone and never must return!
Lycidas. Line 37.
The gadding vine.
Lycidas. Line 40.
And strictly meditate the thankless Muse.
Lycidas. Line 66.
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,
Or with the tangles of Neæra's hair.
Lycidas. Line 68.
Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise[247:1]
(That last infirmity of noble mind)
To scorn delights, and live laborious days;
But the fair guerdon when we hope to find,
And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
Comes the blind Fury with th' abhorred shears
And slits the thin-spun life.
Lycidas. Line 70.
Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil.
Lycidas. Line 78.
It was that fatal and perfidious bark,
Built in th' eclipse, and rigg'd with curses dark.
Lycidas. Line 100.
The pilot of the Galilean lake;
Two massy keys he bore, of metals twain
(The golden opes, the iron shuts amain).
Lycidas. Line 109.
But that two-handed engine at the door
Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.
Lycidas. Line 130.
Throw hither all your quaint enamell'd eyes
That on the green turf suck the honied showers,
And purple all the ground with vernal flowers.
Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies,
The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine,
[248]The white pink, and the pansy freakt with jet,
The glowing violet,
The musk-rose, and the well-attir'd woodbine,
With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head,
And every flower that sad embroidery wears.
Lycidas. Line 139.
So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed,
And yet anon repairs his drooping head,
And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore
Flames in the forehead of the morning sky.
Lycidas. Line 168.
He touch'd the tender stops of various quills,
With eager thought warbling his Doric lay.
Lycidas. Line 188.
To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new.
Lycidas. Line 193.
Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee
Jest and youthful Jollity,
Quips and Cranks and wanton Wiles,
Nods and Becks and wreathed Smiles.
L'Allegro. Line 25.
Sport, that wrinkled Care derides,
And Laughter holding both his sides.
Come and trip it as ye go,
On the light fantastic toe.
L'Allegro. Line 31.
The mountain nymph, sweet Liberty.
L'Allegro. Line 36.
And every shepherd tells his tale
Under the hawthorn in the dale.
L'Allegro. Line 67.
Meadows trim with daisies pied,
Shallow brooks and rivers wide;
Towers and battlements it sees
Bosom'd high in tufted trees,
Where perhaps some beauty lies,
The cynosure of neighboring eyes.
L'Allegro. Line 75.
Herbs, and other country messes,
Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses.
L'Allegro. Line 85.
To many a youth and many a maid
Dancing in the chequer'd shade.
L'Allegro. Line 95.
[249]
Then to the spicy nut-brown ale.
L'Allegro. Line 100.
Tower'd cities please us then,
And the busy hum of men.
L'Allegro. Line 117.
Ladies, whose bright eyes
Rain influence, and judge the prize.
L'Allegro. Line 121.
Such sights as youthful poets dream
On summer eyes by haunted stream.
Then to the well-trod stage anon,
If Jonson's learned sock be on,
Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child,
Warble his native wood-notes wild.
L'Allegro. Line 129.
And ever against eating cares
Lap me in soft Lydian airs,
Married to immortal verse,[249:1]
Such as the meeting soul may pierce,
In notes with many a winding bout
Of linked sweetness long drawn out.
L'Allegro. Line 135.
Untwisting all the chains that tie
The hidden soul of harmony.
L'Allegro. Line 143.
The gay motes that people the sunbeams.
Il Penseroso. Line 8.
And looks commercing with the skies,
Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes.
Il Penseroso. Line 39.
Forget thyself to marble.
Il Penseroso. Line 42.
And join with thee calm Peace and Quiet,
Spare Fast, that oft with gods doth diet.
Il Penseroso. Line 45.
And add to these retired Leisure,
That in trim gardens takes his pleasure.
Il Penseroso. Line 49.
Sweet bird, that shun'st the noise of folly,
Most musical, most melancholy!
Il Penseroso. Line 61.
[250]
I walk unseen
On the dry smooth-shaven green,
To behold the wandering moon
Riding near her highest noon,
Like one that had been led astray
Through the heav'n's wide pathless way;
And oft, as if her head she bow'd,
Stooping through a fleecy cloud.
Il Penseroso. Line 65.
Where glowing embers through the room
Teach light to counterfeit a gloom.
Il Penseroso. Line 79.
Far from all resort of mirth
Save the cricket on the hearth.
Il Penseroso. Line 81.
Sometime let gorgeous Tragedy
In sceptred pall come sweeping by,
Presenting Thebes, or Pelops' line,
Or the tale of Troy divine.
Il Penseroso. Line 97.
Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing
Such notes as, warbled to the string,
Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek.
Il Penseroso. Line 105.
Or call up him that left half told
The story of Cambuscan bold.
Il Penseroso. Line 109.
Where more is meant than meets the ear.
Il Penseroso. Line 120.
When the gust hath blown his fill,
Ending on the rustling leaves
With minute drops from off the eaves.
Il Penseroso. Line 128.
Hide me from day's garish eye.
Il Penseroso. Line 141.
And storied windows richly dight,
Casting a dim religious light.
Il Penseroso. Line 159.
Till old experience do attain
To something like prophetic strain.
Il Penseroso. Line 173.
Such sweet compulsion doth in music lie.
Arcades. Line 68.
Under the shady roof
Of branching elm star-proof.
Arcades. Line 88.
[251]
O fairest flower! no sooner blown but blasted,
Soft silken primrose fading timelessly.
Ode on the Death of a fair Infant, dying of a Cough.
Such as may make thee search the coffers round.
At a Vacation Exercise. Line 31.
No war or battle's sound
Was heard the world around.
Hymn on Christ's Nativity. Line 53.
Time will run back and fetch the age of gold.
Hymn on Christ's Nativity. Line 135.
Swinges the scaly horror of his folded tail.
Hymn on Christ's Nativity. Line 172.
The oracles are dumb,
No voice or hideous hum
Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving.
Apollo from his shrine
Can no more divine,
With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving.
No nightly trance or breathed spell
Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell.
Hymn on Christ's Nativity. Line 173.
From haunted spring and dale
Edg'd with poplar pale
The parting genius is with sighing sent.
Hymn on Christ's Nativity. Line 184.
Peor and Baälim
Forsake their temples dim.
Hymn on Christ's Nativity. Line 197.
What needs my Shakespeare for his honour'd bones,—
The labour of an age in piled stones?
Or that his hallow'd relics should be hid
Under a star-y-pointing pyramid?
Dear son of memory, great heir of fame,
What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name?
Epitaph on Shakespeare.
And so sepúlchred in such pomp dost lie,
That kings for such a tomb would wish to die.
Epitaph on Shakespeare.
Thy liquid notes that close the eye of day.[251:1]
Sonnet to the Nightingale.
[252]
As ever in my great Taskmaster's eye.
On his being arrived to the Age of Twenty-three.
The great Emathian conqueror bid spare
The house of Pindarus, when temple and tower
Went to the ground.
When the Assault was intended to the City.
That old man eloquent.
To the Lady Margaret Ley.
That would have made Quintilian stare and gasp.
On the Detraction which followed upon my writing certain Treatises.
License they mean when they cry, Liberty!
For who loves that must first be wise and good.
On the Detraction which followed upon my writing certain Treatises.
Peace hath her victories
No less renown'd than war.
To the Lord General Cromwell.
Ev'n them who kept thy truth so pure of old,
When all our fathers worshipp'd stocks and stones.
On the late Massacre in Piedmont.
Thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait.
On his Blindness.
What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice,
Of Attic taste?
To Mr. Lawrence.
In mirth that after no repenting draws.
Sonnet xxi. To Cyriac Skinner.
For other things mild Heav'n a time ordains,
And disapproves that care, though wise in show,
That with superfluous burden loads the day,
And when God sends a cheerful hour, refrains.
Sonnet xxi. To Cyriac Skinner.
Yet I argue not
Against Heav'n's hand or will, nor bate a jot
Of heart or hope; but still bear up and steer
Right onward.
Sonnet xxii. To Cyriac Skinner.
Of which all Europe rings from side to side.
Sonnet xxii. To Cyriac Skinner.
But oh! as to embrace me she inclin'd,
I wak'd, she fled, and day brought back my night.
On his Deceased Wife.
[253]
Have hung
My dank and dropping weeds
To the stern god of sea.
Translation of Horace. Book i. Ode 5.
For such kind of borrowing as this, if it be not bettered by the borrower, among good authors is accounted Plagiarè.
Iconoclastes. xxiii.
Truth is as impossible to be soiled by any outward touch as the sunbeam.[253:1]
Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce.
A poet soaring in the high reason of his fancies, with his garland and singing robes about him.
The Reason of Church Government. Introduction, Book ii.
By labour and intent study (which I take to be my portion in this life), joined with the strong propensity of nature, I might perhaps leave something so written to after times as they should not willingly let it die.
The Reason of Church Government. Introduction, Book ii.
Beholding the bright countenance of truth in the quiet and still air of delightful studies.
The Reason of Church Government. Introduction, Book ii.
He who would not be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things ought himself to be a true poem.
Apology for Smectymnuus.
His words, like so many nimble and airy servitors, trip about him at command.
Apology for Smectymnuus.
Litigious terms, fat contentions, and flowing fees.
Tractate of Education.
I shall detain you no longer in the demonstration of what we should not do, but straight conduct ye to a hillside, where I will point ye out the right path of a virtuous and noble education; laborious indeed at the first ascent, but else so smooth, so green, so full of goodly prospect and melodious sounds on every side that the harp of Orpheus was not more charming.
Tractate of Education.
[254]
Enflamed with the study of learning and the admiration of virtue; stirred up with high hopes of living to be brave men and worthy patriots, dear to God, and famous to all ages.
Tractate of Education.
Ornate rhetorick taught out of the rule of Plato. . . . To which poetry would be made subsequent, or indeed rather precedent, as being less suttle and fine, but more simple, sensuous, and passionate.
Tractate of Education.
In those vernal seasons of the year, when the air is calm and pleasant, it were an injury and sullenness against Nature not to go out and see her riches, and partake in her rejoicing with heaven and earth.
Tractate of Education.
Attic tragedies of stateliest and most regal argument.
Tractate of Education.
As good almost kill a man as kill a good book: who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book kills reason itself.
Areopagitica.
A good book is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life.
Areopagitica.
Seasoned life of man preserved and stored up in books.
Areopagitica.
I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat.
Areopagitica.
Who shall silence all the airs and madrigals that whisper softness in chambers?
Areopagitica.
Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks; methinks I see her as [255]an eagle mewing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam.
Areopagitica.
Though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do ingloriously, by licensing and prohibiting, to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple: who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?[255:1]
Areopagitica.
Men of most renowned virtue have sometimes by transgressing most truly kept the law.
Tetrachordon.
By this time, like one who had set out on his way by night, and travelled through a region of smooth or idle dreams, our history now arrives on the confines, where daylight and truth meet us with a clear dawn, representing to our view, though at a far distance, true colours and shapes.
The History of England. Book i.
Such bickerings to recount, met often in these our writers, what more worth is it than to chronicle the wars of kites or crows flocking and fighting in the air?
The History of England. Book iv.
[223:1] But vindicate the ways of God to man.—Pope: Essay on Man, epistle i. line 16.
[224:1] See Book iv. line 75.
[224:2] Stream'd like a meteor to the troubled air.—Gray: The Bard, i. 2, line 6.
[226:1] Aristophanes turns Socrates into ridicule . . . as making the worse appear the better reason.—Diogenes Laertius: Socrates, v.
[226:2] Our hope is loss, our hope but sad despair.—Shakespeare: Henry VI. part iii. act ii. sc. 3.
[227:1] Rubente dextera.—Horace: Ode i. 2, 2.
[230:1] Compare great things with small.—Virgil: Eclogues, i. 24; Georgics, iv. 176. Cowley: The Motto. Dryden: Ovid, Metamorphoses, book i. line 727. Tickell: Poem on Hunting. Pope: Windsor Forest.
[231:1] Ye little stars! hide your diminished rays.—Pope: Moral Essays, epistle iii. line 282.
[232:2] Necessity is the argument of tyrants, it is the creed of slaves.—William Pitt: Speech on the India Bill, November, 1783.
[234:1] When unadorned, adorned the most.—Thomson: Autumn, line 204.
[238:1] "But most of all respect thyself."—A precept of the Pythagoreans.
[239:1] Stern daughter of the voice of God.—Wordsworth: Ode to Duty.
[240:1] Summum nec metuas diem, nec optes (Neither fear nor wish for your last day).—Martial: lib. x. epigram 47, line 13.
[241:1] The child is father of the man.—Wordsworth: My Heart Leaps up.
[247:1] Erant quibus appetentior famæ videretur, quando etiam sapientibus cupido gloriæ novissima exuitur (Some might consider him as too fond of fame, for the desire of glory clings even to the best of men longer than any other passion) [said of Helvidius Priscus].—Tacitus: Historia, iv. 6.
[249:1] Wisdom married to immortal verse.—Wordsworth: The Excursion, book vii.
[255:1] Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.—Jefferson: Inaugural Address.
He [Hampden] had a head to contrive, a tongue to persuade, and a hand to execute any mischief.[255:2]
History of the Rebellion. Vol. iii. Book vii. § 84.
[255:2] In every deed of mischief he had a heart to resolve, a head to contrive, and a hand to execute.—Gibbon: Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. xlviii.
Heart to conceive, the understanding to direct, or the hand to execute.—From Junius, letter xxxvii. Feb. 14, 1770.
[256]
Her feet beneath her petticoat
Like little mice stole in and out,[256:1]
As if they feared the light;
But oh, she dances such a way!
No sun upon an Easter-day
Is half so fine a sight.
Ballad upon a Wedding.
Her lips were red, and one was thin;
Compared with that was next her chin,—
Some bee had stung it newly.
Ballad upon a Wedding.
Why so pale and wan, fond lover?
Prithee, why so pale?
Will, when looking well can't move her,
Looking ill prevail?
Prithee, why so pale?
Song.
'T is expectation makes a blessing dear;
Heaven were not heaven if we knew what it were.
Against Fruition.
She is pretty to walk with,
And witty to talk with,
And pleasant, too, to think on.
Brennoralt. Act ii.
Her face is like the milky way i' the sky,—
A meeting of gentle lights without a name.
Brennoralt. Act iii.
But as when an authentic watch is shown,
Each man winds up and rectifies his own,
So in our very judgments.[256:2]
Aglaura. Epilogue.
The prince of darkness is a gentleman.[256:3]
The Goblins.
[257]
Nick of time.
The Goblins.
"High characters," cries one, and he would see
Things that ne'er were, nor are, nor e'er will be.[257:1]
The Goblins. Epilogue.
'T is with our judgments as our watches,—none
Go just alike, yet each believes his own.
Pope: Essay on Criticism, part i. line 9.
Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see,
Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be.
Pope: Essay on Criticism, part ii. line 53.
There 's no such thing in Nature, and you 'll draw
A faultless monster which the world ne'er saw.
Sheffield: Essay on Poetry.
He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,
That dares not put it to the touch
To gain or lose it all.[257:2]
My Dear and only Love.
That puts it not unto the touch
To win or lose it all.
Napier: Montrose and the Covenanters, vol. ii. p. 566.
I 'll make thee famous by my pen,
And glorious by my sword.
Scott: Legend of Montrose, chap. xv.
Though with those streams he no resemblance hold,
Whose foam is amber and their gravel gold;
His genuine and less guilty wealth t' explore,
Search not his bottom, but survey his shore.
Cooper's Hill. Line 165.
Oh, could I flow like thee, and make thy stream
My great example, as it is my theme!
Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not dull;
Strong without rage; without o'erflowing, full.
Cooper's Hill. Line 189.
[258]
Actions of the last age are like almanacs of the last year.
The Sophy. A Tragedy.
But whither am I strayed? I need not raise
Trophies to thee from other men's dispraise;
Nor is thy fame on lesser ruins built;
Nor needs thy juster title the foul guilt
Of Eastern kings, who, to secure their reign,
Must have their brothers, sons, and kindred slain.[258:1]
On Mr. John Fletcher's Works.
Poets are sultans, if they had their will;
For every author would his brother kill.
Orrery: Prologues (according to Johnson).
Should such a man, too fond to rule alone,
Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne.
Pope: Prologue to the Satires, line 197.
The conscious water saw its God and blushed.[258:2]
Epigram.
Whoe'er she be,
That not impossible she,
That shall command my heart and me.
Wishes to his Supposed Mistress.
Where'er she lie,
Locked up from mortal eye,
In shady leaves of destiny.
Wishes to his Supposed Mistress.
Days that need borrow
No part of their good morrow
From a fore-spent night of sorrow.
Wishes to his Supposed Mistress.
Life that dares send
A challenge to his end,
And when it comes, say, Welcome, friend!
Wishes to his Supposed Mistress.
[259]
Sydneian showers
Of sweet discourse, whose powers
Can crown old Winter's head with flowers.
Wishes to his Supposed Mistress.
A happy soul, that all the way
To heaven hath a summer's day.
In Praise of Lessius's Rule of Health.
The modest front of this small floor,
Believe me, reader, can say more
Than many a braver marble can,—
"Here lies a truly honest man!"
Epitaph upon Mr. Ashton.
[258:2] Nympha pudica Deum vidit, et erubuit (The modest Nymph saw the god, and blushed).—Epigrammationa Sacra. Aquæ in vinum versæ, p. 299.
Oh, could you view the melody
Of every grace
And music of her face,[259:1]
You 'd drop a tear;
Seeing more harmony
In her bright eye
Than now you hear.
Orpheus to Beasts.
I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Lov'd I not honour more.
To Lucasta, on going to the Wars.
Fishes that tipple in the deep,
Know no such liberty.
To Althea from Prison, ii.
[260]
Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage;
If I have freedom in my love,
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone that soar above
Enjoy such liberty.
To Althea from Prison, iv.
The mind, the music breathing from her face.—Byron: Bride of Abydos, canto i. stanza 6.
What shall I do to be forever known,
And make the age to come my own?
The Motto.
His time is forever, everywhere his place.
Friendship in Absence.
We spent them not in toys, in lusts, or wine,
But search of deep philosophy,
Wit, eloquence, and poetry;
Arts which I lov'd, for they, my friend, were thine.
On the Death of Mr. William Harvey.
His faith, perhaps, in some nice tenets might
Be wrong; his life, I 'm sure, was in the right.[260:1]
On the Death of Crashaw.
The thirsty earth soaks up the rain,
And drinks, and gapes for drink again;
The plants suck in the earth, and are
With constant drinking fresh and fair.
From Anacreon, ii. Drinking.
Fill all the glasses there, for why
Should every creature drink but I?
Why, man of morals, tell me why?
From Anacreon, ii. Drinking.
[261]
A mighty pain to love it is,
And 't is a pain that pain to miss;
But of all pains, the greatest pain
It is to love, but love in vain.
From Anacreon, vii. Gold.
Hope, of all ills that men endure,
The only cheap and universal cure.
The Mistress. For Hope.
Th' adorning thee with so much art
Is but a barb'rous skill;
'T is like the pois'ning of a dart,
Too apt before to kill.
The Waiting Maid.
Nothing is there to come, and nothing past,
But an eternal now does always last.[261:1]
Davideis. Book i. Line 25.
When Israel was from bondage led,
Led by the Almighty's hand
From out of foreign land,
The great sea beheld and fled.
Davideis. Book i. Line 41.
An harmless flaming meteor shone for hair,
And fell adown his shoulders with loose care.[261:2]
Davideis. Book ii. Line 95.
The monster London laugh at me.
Of Solitude, xi.
Let but thy wicked men from out thee go,
And all the fools that crowd thee so,
Even thou, who dost thy millions boast,
A village less than Islington wilt grow,
A solitude almost.
Of Solitude, vii.
The fairest garden in her looks,
And in her mind the wisest books.
The Garden, i.
God the first garden made, and the first city Cain.[261:3]
The Garden, ii.
[262]
Hence, ye profane! I hate ye all,
Both the great vulgar and the small.
Horace. Book iii. Ode 1.
Charm'd with the foolish whistling of a name.[262:1]
Virgil, Georgics. Book ii. Line 72.
Words that weep and tears that speak.[262:2]
The Prophet.
We griev'd, we sigh'd, we wept; we never blush'd before.
Discourse concerning the Government of Oliver Cromwell.
Thus would I double my life's fading space;
For he that runs it well, runs twice his race.[262:3]
Discourse xi. Of Myself. St. xi.
For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight,
He can't be wrong whose life is in the right.
Pope: Essay on Man, epilogue iii. line 303.
[261:1] One of our poets (which is it?) speaks of an everlasting now.—Southey: The Doctor, chap. xxv. p. 1.
Loose his beard and hoary hair
Stream'd like a meteor to the troubled air.
Gray: The Bard, i. 2.
[262:1] Ravish'd with the whistling of a name.—Pope: Essay on Man, epistle iv. line 281.
[262:2] Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.—Gray: Progress of Poesy, iii. 3, 4.
For he lives twice who can at once employ
The present well, and ev'n the past enjoy.
Pope: Imitation of Martial.
All the beauty of the world, 't is but skin deep.[262:4]
Orthodoxe Paradoxes. (Third edition, 1650.) The Triumph of Assurance, p. 41.
They spare the rod, and spoyle the child.[262:5]
Mysteries and Revelations, p. 5. (1649.)
[262:4] Many a dangerous temptation comes to us in fine gay colours that are but skin-deep.—Henry: Commentaries. Genesis iii.
Orange bright,
Like golden lamps in a green night.
Bermudas.
And all the way, to guide their chime,
With falling oars they kept the time.
Bermudas.
[263]
In busy companies of men.
The Garden. (Translated.)
Annihilating all that 's made
To a green thought in a green shade.
The Garden. (Translated.)
The world in all doth but two nations bear,—
The good, the bad; and these mixed everywhere.
The Loyal Scot.
The inglorious arts of peace.
Upon Cromwell's return from Ireland.
He nothing common did, or mean,
Upon that memorable scene.
Upon Cromwell's return from Ireland.
So much one man can do,
That does both act and know.
Upon Cromwell's return from Ireland.
To make a bank was a great plot of state;
Invent a shovel, and be a magistrate.
The Character of Holland.
Man's life is like unto a winter's day,—
Some break their fast and so depart away;
Others stay dinner, then depart full fed;
The longest age but sups and goes to bed.
O reader, then behold and see!
As we are now, so must you be.
Horæ Sucissive (1631).
[263:1] Bishop of Peterborough, 1663.
But felt through all this fleshly dress
Bright shoots of everlastingness.
The Retreat.
I see them walking in an air of glory
Whose light doth trample on my days,—
[264]My days, which are at best but dull and hoary,
Mere glimmering and decays.
They are all gone.
Dear, beauteous death, the jewel of the just!
Shining nowhere but in the dark;
What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust,
Could man outlook that mark!
They are all gone.
And yet, as angels in some brighter dreams
Call to the soul when man doth sleep,
So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes,
And into glory peep.
They are all gone.
Then bless thy secret growth, nor catch
At noise, but thrive unseen and dumb;
Keep clean, be as fruit, earn life, and watch
Till the white-wing'd reapers come!
The Seed growing secretly.
Manus haec inimica tyrannis
Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem.[264:1]
From the Life and Memoirs of Algernon Sidney.
Liars ought to have good memories.[264:2]
Discourses on Government. Chap. ii. Sect. xv.
Men lived like fishes; the great ones devoured the small.[264:3]
Discourses on Government. Chap. ii. Sect. xviii.
[265]
God helps those who help themselves.[265:1]
Discourses on Government. Chap. ii. Sect. xxiii.
It is not necessary to light a candle to the sun.[265:2]
Discourses on Government. Chap. ii. Sect. xxiii.
[264:1] His father writes to him, Aug. 30, 1660: "It is said that the University of Copenhagen brought their album unto you, desiring you to write something; and that you did scribere in albo these words." It is said that the first line is to be found in the patent granted in 1616 by Camden (Clarencieux).—Notes and Queries, March 10, 1866.
[264:2] He who has not a good memory should never take upon him the trade of lying.—Montaigne: Book i. chap. ix. Of Liars.
[265:1] See Herbert, page 206.
Heaven ne'er helps the man who will not act—Sophocles: Fragment 288 (Plumptre's Translation).
Help thyself, Heaven will help thee.—La Fontaine: Book vi. fable 18.
[265:2] Like his that lights a candle to the sun.—Fletcher: Letter to Sir Walter Aston.
And hold their farthing candle to the sun.—Young: Satire vii. line 56.
Take time enough; all other graces
Will soon fill up their proper places.
Byrom: Advice to preach slow.
And so I penned
It down, until at last it came to be,
For length and breadth, the bigness which you see.
Pilgrim's Progress. Apology for his Book.
Some said, "John, print it;" others said, "Not so."
Some said, "It might do good;" others said, "No."
Pilgrim's Progress. Apology for his Book.
The name of the slough was Despond.
Pilgrim's Progress. Part i.
Every fat must stand upon his bottom.[265:4]
Pilgrim's Progress. Part i.
Dark as pitch.[265:5]
Pilgrim's Progress. Part i.
It beareth the name of Vanity Fair, because the town where 't is kept is lighter than vanity.
Pilgrim's Progress. Part i.
[266]
The palace Beautiful.
Pilgrim's Progress. Part i.
They came to the Delectable Mountains.
Pilgrim's Progress. Part i.
Some things are of that nature as to make
One's fancy chuckle, while his heart doth ache.
Pilgrim's Progress. The Author's Way of sending forth his Second Part of the Pilgrim.
He that is down needs fear no fall.[266:1]
Pilgrim's Progress. Part ii.
[265:4] Every tub must stand upon its bottom.—Macklin: The Man of the World, act i. sc. 2.
[265:5] Ray: Proverbs. Gay: The Shepherd's Week. Wednesday.
Books, like proverbs, receive their chief value from the stamp and esteem of ages through which they have passed.
Ancient and Modern Learning.
No clap of thunder in a fair frosty day could more astonish the world than our declaration of war against Holland in 1672.
Memoirs. Vol. ii. p. 255.
When all is done, human life is, at the greatest and the best, but like a froward child, that must be played with and humoured a little to keep it quiet till it falls asleep, and then the care is over.
Miscellanea. Part ii. Of Poetry.
If God were not a necessary Being of himself, he might almost seem to be made for the use and benefit of men.[266:2]
[266:2] If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.—Voltaire: A l' Auteur du Livre des trois Imposteurs, épître cxl.
God sifted a whole nation that he might send choice grain over into this wilderness.[266:3]
Election Sermon at Boston, April 29, 1669.
[266:3] God had sifted three kingdoms to find the wheat for this planting.—Longfellow: Courtship of Miles Standish, iv.
[267]
Above any Greek or Roman name.[267:1]
Upon the Death of Lord Hastings. Line 76.
And threat'ning France, plac'd like a painted Jove,
Kept idle thunder in his lifted hand.
Annus Mirabilis. Stanza 39.
Whate'er he did was done with so much ease,
In him alone 't was natural to please.
Absalom and Achitophel. Part i. Line 27.
A fiery soul, which, working out its way,
Fretted the pygmy-body to decay,
And o'er-inform'd the tenement of clay.[267:2]
A daring pilot in extremity;
Pleas'd with the danger, when the waves went high
He sought the storms.
Absalom and Achitophel. Part i. Line 156.
Great wits are sure to madness near allied,
And thin partitions do their bounds divide.[267:3]
Absalom and Achitophel. Part i. Line 163.
And all to leave what with his toil he won
To that unfeather'd two-legged thing, a son.
Absalom and Achitophel. Part i. Line 169.
Resolv'd to ruin or to rule the state.
Absalom and Achitophel. Part i. Line 174.
And heaven had wanted one immortal song.
Absalom and Achitophel. Part i. Line 197.
But wild Ambition loves to slide, not stand,
And Fortune's ice prefers to Virtue's land.[267:4]
Absalom and Achitophel. Part i. Line 198.
[268]
The people's prayer, the glad diviner's theme,
The young men's vision, and the old men's dream![268:1]
Absalom and Achitophel. Part i. Line 238.
Behold him setting in his western skies,
The shadows lengthening as the vapours rise.[268:2]
Absalom and Achitophel. Part i. Line 268.
Than a successive title long and dark,
Drawn from the mouldy rolls of Noah's ark.
Absalom and Achitophel. Part i. Line 301.
Not only hating David, but the king.
Absalom and Achitophel. Part i. Line 512.
Who think too little, and who talk too much.[268:3]
Absalom and Achitophel. Part i. Line 534.
A man so various, that he seem'd to be
Not one, but all mankind's epitome;
Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,
Was everything by starts, and nothing long;
But in the course of one revolving moon
Was chymist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon.[268:4]
Absalom and Achitophel. Part i. Line 545.
So over violent, or over civil,
That every man with him was God or Devil.
Absalom and Achitophel. Part i. Line 557.
His tribe were God Almighty's gentlemen.[268:5]
Absalom and Achitophel. Part i. Line 645.
Him of the western dome, whose weighty sense
Flows in fit words and heavenly eloquence.
Absalom and Achitophel. Part i. Line 868.
[269]
Beware the fury of a patient man.[269:1]
Absalom and Achitophel. Part i. Line 1005.
Made still a blund'ring kind of melody;
Spurr'd boldly on, and dashed through thick and thin,[269:2]
Through sense and nonsense, never out nor in.
Absalom and Achitophel. Part ii. Line 413.
For every inch that is not fool is rogue.
Absalom and Achitophel. Part ii. Line 463.
Men met each other with erected look,
The steps were higher that they took;
Friends to congratulate their friends made haste,
And long inveterate foes saluted as they pass'd.
Threnodia Augustalis. Line 124.
For truth has such a face and such a mien,
As to be lov'd needs only to be seen.[269:3]
The Hind and the Panther. Part i. Line 33.
And kind as kings upon their coronation day.
The Hind and the Panther. Part i. Line 271.
For those whom God to ruin has design'd,
He fits for fate, and first destroys their mind.[269:4]
The Hind and the Panther. Part iii. Line 2387.
But Shadwell never deviates into sense.
Mac Flecknoe. Line 20.
Our vows are heard betimes! and Heaven takes care
To grant, before we can conclude the prayer:
Preventing angels met it half the way,
And sent us back to praise, who came to pray.[269:5]
Britannia Rediviva. Line 1.
[270]
And torture one poor word ten thousand ways.
Britannia Rediviva. Line 208.
Thus all below is strength, and all above is grace.
Epistle to Congreve. Line 19.
Be kind to my remains; and oh defend,
Against your judgment, your departed friend!
Epistle to Congreve. Line 72.
Better to hunt in fields for health unbought
Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught.
The wise for cure on exercise depend;
God never made his work for man to mend.
Epistle to John Dryden of Chesterton. Line 92.
Wit will shine
Through the harsh cadence of a rugged line.
To the Memory of Mr. Oldham. Line 15.
So softly death succeeded life in her,
She did but dream of heaven, and she was there.
Eleonora. Line 315.
Since heaven's eternal year is thine.
Elegy on Mrs. Killegrew. Line 15.
O gracious God! how far have we
Profan'd thy heavenly gift of poesy!
Elegy on Mrs. Killegrew. Line 56.
Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child.[270:1]
Elegy on Mrs. Killegrew. Line 70.
He was exhal'd; his great Creator drew
His spirit, as the sun the morning dew.[270:2]
On the Death of a very young Gentleman.
From harmony, from heavenly harmony,
This universal frame began:
From harmony to harmony
Through all the compass of the notes it ran,
The diapason closing full in Man.
A Song for St. Cecilia's Day. Line 11.
None but the brave deserves the fair.
Alexander's Feast. Line 15.
With ravish'd ears
The monarch hears;
Assumes the god,
Affects to nod,
And seems to shake the spheres.
Alexander's Feast. Line 37.
Bacchus, ever fair and ever young.
Alexander's Feast. Line 54.
Rich the treasure,
Sweet the pleasure,—
Sweet is pleasure after pain.
Alexander's Feast. Line 58.
Sooth'd with the sound, the king grew vain;
Fought all his battles o'er again;
And thrice he routed all his foes, and thrice he slew the slain.
Alexander's Feast. Line 66.
Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen,
Fallen from his high estate,
And welt'ring in his blood;
Deserted, at his utmost need,
By those his former bounty fed,
On the bare earth expos'd he lies,
With not a friend to close his eyes.
Alexander's Feast. Line 77.
[272]
For pity melts the mind to love.[272:1]
Alexander's Feast. Line 96.
Softly sweet, in Lydian measures,
Soon he sooth'd his soul to pleasures.
War, he sung, is toil and trouble;
Honour but an empty bubble;
Never ending, still beginning,
Fighting still, and still destroying.
If all the world be worth the winning,
Think, oh think it worth enjoying:
Lovely Thais sits beside thee,
Take the good the gods provide thee.
Alexander's Feast. Line 97.
Sigh'd and look'd, and sigh'd again.
Alexander's Feast. Line 120.
And, like another Helen, fir'd another Troy.
Alexander's Feast. Line 154.
Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire.
Alexander's Feast. Line 160.
He rais'd a mortal to the skies,
She drew an angel down.
Alexander's Feast. Line 169.
A very merry, dancing, drinking,
Laughing, quaffing, and unthinking time.
The Secular Masque. Line 40.
Fool, not to know that love endures no tie,
And Jove but laughs at lovers' perjury.[272:2]
Palamon and Arcite. Book ii. Line 758.
For Art may err, but Nature cannot miss.
The Cock and the Fox. Line 452.
And that one hunting, which the Devil design'd
For one fair female, lost him half the kind.
Theodore and Honoria. Line 227.
Old as I am, for ladies' love unfit,
The power of beauty I remember yet.
Cymon and Iphigenia. Line 1.
[273]
When beauty fires the blood, how love exalts the mind!
Cymon and Iphigenia. Line 41.
He trudg'd along unknowing what he sought,
And whistled as he went, for want of thought.
Cymon and Iphigenia. Line 84.
The fool of nature stood with stupid eyes
And gaping mouth, that testified surprise.
Cymon and Iphigenia. Line 107.
Love taught him shame; and shame, with love at strife,
Soon taught the sweet civilities of life.
Cymon and Iphigenia. Line 133.
She hugg'd the offender, and forgave the offence:
Sex to the last.[273:1]
Cymon and Iphigenia. Line 367.
And raw in fields the rude militia swarms,
Mouths without hands; maintain'd at vast expense,
In peace a charge, in war a weak defence;
Stout once a month they march, a blustering band,
And ever but in times of need at hand.
Cymon and Iphigenia. Line 400.
Of seeming arms to make a short essay,
Then hasten to be drunk,—the business of the day.
Cymon and Iphigenia. Line 407.
Happy who in his verse can gently steer
From grave to light, from pleasant to severe.[273:2]
The Art of Poetry. Canto i. Line 75.
Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He who can call to-day his own;
He who, secure within, can say,
To-morrow, do thy worst, for I have liv'd to-day.[273:3]
Imitation of Horace. Book iii. Ode 29, Line 65.
[274]
Not heaven itself upon the past has power;
But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.
Imitation of Horace. Book iii. Ode 29, Line 71.
I can enjoy her while she 's kind;
But when she dances in the wind,
And shakes the wings and will not stay,
I puff the prostitute away.
Imitation of Horace. Book iii. Ode 29, Line 81.
And virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm.
Imitation of Horace. Book iii. Ode 29, Line 87.
Arms and the man I sing, who, forced by fate
And haughty Juno's unrelenting hate.
Virgil, Æneid, Line 1.
And new-laid eggs, which Baucis' busy care
Turn'd by a gentle fire and roasted rare.[274:1]
Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book viii. Baucis and Philemon, Line 97.
Ill habits gather by unseen degrees,—
As brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas.
Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book xv. The Worship of Æsculapius, Line 155.
She knows her man, and when you rant and swear,
Can draw you to her with a single hair.[274:2]
Persius. Satire v. Line 246.
Look round the habitable world: how few
Know their own good, or knowing it, pursue.
Juvenal. Satire x.
Our souls sit close and silently within,
And their own web from their own entrails spin;
And when eyes meet far off, our sense is such,
That, spider-like, we feel the tenderest touch.[274:3]
Mariage à la Mode. Act ii. Sc. 1.
Thespis, the first professor of our art,
At country wakes sung ballads from a cart.
Prologue to Lee's Sophonisba.
[275]
Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow;
He who would search for pearls must dive below.
All for Love. Prologue.
Men are but children of a larger growth.
All for Love. Act iv. Sc. 1.
Your ignorance is the mother of your devotion to me.[275:1]
The Maiden Queen. Act i. Sc. 2.
Burn daylight.
The Maiden Queen. Act ii. Sc. 1.
I am resolved to grow fat, and look young till forty.[275:2]
The Maiden Queen. Act iii. Sc. 1.
But Shakespeare's magic could not copied be;
Within that circle none durst walk but he.
The Tempest. Prologue.
I am as free as Nature first made man,
Ere the base laws of servitude began,
When wild in woods the noble savage ran.
The Conquest of Granada. Part i. Act i. Sc. 1.
Forgiveness to the injured does belong;
But they ne'er pardon who have done the wrong.[275:3]
The Conquest of Granada. Part ii. Act i. Sc. 2.
What precious drops are those
Which silently each other's track pursue,
Bright as young diamonds in their infant dew?
The Conquest of Granada. Part ii. Act iii. Sc. 1.
Fame then was cheap, and the first comer sped;
And they have kept it since by being dead.
The Conquest of Granada. Epilogue.
[276]
Death in itself is nothing; but we fear
To be we know not what, we know not where.
Aurengzebe. Act iv. Sc. 1.
When I consider life, 't is all a cheat.
Yet fool'd with hope, men favour the deceit;
Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay.
To-morrow 's falser than the former day;
Lies worse, and while it says we shall be blest
With some new joys, cuts off what we possest.
Strange cozenage! none would live past years again,
Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain;[276:1]
And from the dregs of life think to receive
What the first sprightly running could not give.
Aurengzebe. Act iv. Sc. 1.
'T is not for nothing that we life pursue;
It pays our hopes with something still that 's new.
Aurengzebe. Act iv. Sc. 1.
All delays are dangerous in war.
Tyrannic Love. Act i. Sc. 1.
Pains of love be sweeter far
Than all other pleasures are.
Tyrannic Love. Act iv. Sc. 1.
Whatever is, is in its causes just.[276:2]
Œdipus. Act iii. Sc. 1.
Of no distemper, of no blast he died,
But fell like autumn fruit that mellow'd long,—
Even wonder'd at, because he dropp'd no sooner.
Fate seem'd to wind him up for fourscore years,
Yet freshly ran he on ten winters more;
Till like a clock worn out with eating time,
The wheels of weary life at last stood still.
Œdipus. Act iv. Sc. 1.
She, though in full-blown flower of glorious beauty,
Grows cold even in the summer of her age.
Œdipus. Act iv. Sc. 1.
[277]
There is a pleasure sure
In being mad which none but madmen know.[277:1]
The Spanish Friar. Act ii. Sc. 1.
Lord of humankind.[277:2]
The Spanish Friar. Act ii. Sc. 1.
Bless the hand that gave the blow.[277:3]
The Spanish Friar. Act ii. Sc. 1.
Second thoughts, they say, are best.[277:4]
The Spanish Friar. Act ii. Sc. 2.
He 's a sure card.
The Spanish Friar. Act ii. Sc. 2.
As sure as a gun.[277:5]
The Spanish Friar. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Nor can his blessed soul look down from heaven,
Or break the eternal sabbath of his rest.
The Spanish Friar. Act v. Sc. 2.
This is the porcelain clay of humankind.[277:6]
Don Sebastian. Act i. Sc. 1.
I have a soul that like an ample shield
Can take in all, and verge enough for more.[277:7]
Don Sebastian. Act i. Sc. 1.
A knock-down argument: 't is but a word and a blow.
Amphitryon. Act i. Sc. 1.
Whistling to keep myself from being afraid.[277:8]
Amphitryon. Act iii. Sc. 1.
The true Amphitryon.[277:9]
Amphitryon. Act iv. Sc. 1.
The spectacles of books.
Essay on Dramatic Poetry.
[267:1] Above all Greek, above all Roman fame.—Pope: epistle i. book ii. line 26.
[267:3] No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness.—Aristotle: Problem, sect. 30.
Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiæ (There is no great genius without a tincture of madness).—Seneca: De Tranquillitate Animi, 15.
What thin partitions sense from thought divide!—Pope: Essay on Man, epistle i. line 226.
Greatnesse on Goodnesse loves to slide, not stand,
And leaves, for Fortune's ice, Vertue's ferme land.
Knolles: History (under a portrait of Mustapha I.)
[268:1] Your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions.—Joel ii. 28.
Like our shadows,
Our wishes lengthen as our sun declines.
Young: Night Thoughts, night v. line 661.
[268:3] They always talk who never think.—Prior: Upon a Passage in the Scaligerana.
Grammaticus, rhetor, geometres, pictor, aliptes,
Augur, schœnobates, medicus, magus, omnia novit
(Grammarian, orator, geometrician; painter, gymnastic teacher, physician; fortune-teller, rope-dancer, conjurer,—he knew everything).—Juvenal: Satire iii. line 76.
[268:5] A Christian is God Almighty's gentleman.—Julius Hare: Guesses at Truth.
A Christian is the highest style of man.—Young: Night Thoughts, night iv. line 788.
[269:1] Furor fit læsa sæpius patientia (An over-taxed patience gives way to fierce anger).—Publius Syrus: Maxim 289.
Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,
As to be hated needs but to be seen.
Pope: Essay on Man, epistle ii. line 217.
[269:4] Quos Deus vult perdere prius dementat (Whom God wishes to destroy he first deprives of reason). The author of this saying is unknown. Barnes erroneously ascribes it to Euripides.
[269:5] And fools who came to scoff remain'd to pray.—Goldsmith: The Deserted Village, line 180.
Of manners gentle, of affections mild,
In wit a man, simplicity a child.
Pope: Epitaph on Gay.
Early, bright, transient, chaste as morning dew,
She sparkl'd, was exhal'd, and went to heaven.
Young: Night Thoughts, night v. line 600.
Græcia Mæonidam, jactet sibi Roma Maronem,
Anglia Miltonum jactat utrique parem
(Greece boasts her Homer, Rome can Virgil claim;
England can either match in Milton's fame).
Selvaggi: Ad Joannem Miltonum.
[273:1] And love the offender, yet detest the offence.—Pope: Eloisa to Abelard, line 192.
Heureux qui, dans ses vers, sait d'une voix légère,
Passer du grave au doux, du plaisant au sévère.
Boileau: L' Art Poétique, chant 1er.
Formed by thy converse, happily to steer
From grave to gay, from lively to severe.
Pope: Essay on Man, epistle iv. line 379.
Serenely full, the epicure would say,
Fate cannot harm me; I have dined to-day.
Sydney Smith: Recipe for Salad.
[274:1] Our scanty mutton scrags on Fridays, and rather more savoury, but grudging, portions of the same flesh, rotten-roasted or rare, on the Tuesdays.—Charles Lamb: Christ's Hospital five-and-thirty Years Ago.
[275:2] Fat, fair, and forty.—Scott: St. Ronan's Well, chap. vii.
Mrs. Trench, in a letter, Feb. 18, 1816, writes: "Lord —— is going to marry Lady ——, a fat, fair, and fifty card-playing resident of the Crescent."
[275:3] Quos læserunt et oderunt (Whom they have injured they also hate).—Seneca: De Ira, lib. ii. cap. 33.
Proprium humani ingenii est odisse quem læseris (It belongs to human nature to hate those you have injured).—Tacitus: Agricola, 42. 4.
Chi fa ingiuria non perdona mai (He never pardons those he injures).—Italian Proverb.
[276:1] There are not eight finer lines in Lucretius.—Macaulay: History of England, chap. xviii.
[276:2] Whatever is, is right.—Pope: Essay on Man, epistle i. line 289.
[276:3] A green old age unconscious of decay.—Pope: The Iliad, book xxiii. line 929.
There is a pleasure in poetic pains.
Which only poets know.
Cowper: The Timepiece, line 285.
[277:2] Lords of humankind.—Goldsmith: The Traveller, line 327.
[277:3] Adore the hand that gives the blow.—Pomfret: Verses to his Friend.
[277:4] Among mortals second thoughts are the wisest.—Euripides: Hippolytus, 438.
[277:6] The precious porcelain of human clay.—Byron: Don Juan, canto iv. stanza 11.
[277:7] Give ample room and verge enough.—Gray: The Bard, ii. 1.
[277:8] Whistling aloud to bear his courage up.—Blair: The Grave, line 58.
Le véritable Amphitryon
Est l'Amphitryon où l'on dîne
(The true Amphitryon is the Amphitryon where we dine).
Molière: Amphitryon, act iii. sc. 5.
[278]
Remember Milo's end,
Wedged in that timber which he strove to rend.
Essay on Translated Verse. Line 87.
And choose an author as you choose a friend.
Essay on Translated Verse. Line 96.
Immodest words admit of no defence,
For want of decency is want of sense.
Essay on Translated Verse. Line 113.
The multitude is always in the wrong.
Essay on Translated Verse. Line 184.
My God, my Father, and my Friend,
Do not forsake me at my end.
Translation of Dies Iræ.
Praise God, from whom all blessings flow!
Praise Him, all creatures here below!
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host!
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!
Morning and Evening Hymn.
Let us consider the reason of the case. For nothing is law that is not reason.[278:1]
Coggs vs. Bernard, 2 Lord Raymond, 911.
I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.[278:2]
Brewster's Memoirs of Newton. Vol. ii. Chap. xxvii.
[279]
Angels listen when she speaks:
She 's my delight, all mankind's wonder;
But my jealous heart would break
Should we live one day asunder.
Song.
Here lies our sovereign lord the king,
Whose word no man relies on;
He never says a foolish thing,
Nor ever does a wise one.
Written on the Bedchamber Door of Charles II.
And ever since the Conquest have been fools.
Artemisia in the Town to Chloe in the Country.
For pointed satire I would Buckhurst choose,
The best good man with the worst-natured muse.[279:1]
An allusion to Horace, Satire x. Book i.
A merry monarch, scandalous and poor.
On the King.
It is a very good world to live in,
To lend, or to spend, or to give in;
But to beg or to borrow, or to get a man's own,
It is the very worst world that ever was known.[279:2]
[279:1] Thou best-humour'd man with the worst-humour'd muse!—Goldsmith: Retaliation. Postscript.
[279:2] These last four lines are attributed to Rochester.
Of all those arts in which the wise excel,
Nature's chief masterpiece is writing well.
Essay on Poetry.
There 's no such thing in Nature; and you 'll draw
A faultless monster which the world ne'er saw.[279:3]
Essay on Poetry.
[280]
Read Homer once, and you can read no more;
For all books else appear so mean, so poor,
Verse will seem prose; but still persist to read,
And Homer will be all the books you need.
Essay on Poetry.
O woman! lovely woman! Nature made thee
To temper man: we had been brutes without you.
Angels are painted fair, to look like you:
There 's in you all that we believe of heaven,—
Amazing brightness, purity, and truth,
Eternal joy, and everlasting love.
Venice Preserved. Act i. Sc. 1.
Dear as the vital warmth that feeds my life;
Dear as these eyes, that weep in fondness o'er thee.[280:1]
Venice Preserved. Act v. Sc. 1.
And die with decency.
Venice Preserved. Act v. Sc. 3.
What mighty ills have not been done by woman!
Who was 't betrayed the Capitol?—A woman!
Who lost Mark Antony the world?—A woman!
Who was the cause of a long ten years' war,
And laid at last old Troy in ashes?—Woman!
Destructive, damnable, deceitful woman![280:2]
The Orphan. Act iii. Sc. 1.
Let us embrace, and from this very moment, vow an eternal misery together.[280:3]
The Orphan. Act iv. Sc. 2.
[280:1] See Shakespeare, page 112.
Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes;
Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart.
Gray: The Bard, part i. stanza 3.
O woman, woman! when to ill thy mind
Is bent, all hell contains no fouler fiend.
Pope: Homer's Odyssey, book xi. line 531.
[280:3] Let us swear an eternal friendship.—Frere: The Rovers, act i. sc. 1.
[281]
I knew a very wise man that believed that if a man were permitted to make all the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws of a nation.
Letter to the Marquis of Montrose, the Earl of Rothes, etc.
Then he will talk—good gods! how he will talk![281:1]
Alexander the Great. Act i. Sc. 3.
Vows with so much passion, swears with so much grace,
That 't is a kind of heaven to be deluded by him.
Alexander the Great. Act i. Sc. 3.
When Greeks joined Greeks, then was the tug of war.
Alexander the Great. Act iv. Sc. 2.
'T is beauty calls, and glory shows the way.[281:2]
Alexander the Great. Act iv. Sc. 2.
Man, false man, smiling, destructive man!
Theodosius. Act iii. Sc. 2.
[281:2] "Leads the way" in the stage editions, which contain various interpolations, among them—
See the conquering hero comes!
Sound the trumpet, beat the drums!—
which was first used by Handel in "Joshua," and afterwards transferred to "Judas Maccabæus." The text of both oratorios was written by Dr. Thomas Morell, a clergyman.
How fading are the joys we dote upon!
Like apparitions seen and gone.
But those which soonest take their flight
Are the most exquisite and strong,—
Like angels' visits, short and bright;[281:3]
Mortality 's too weak to bear them long.
The Parting.
[281:3] Like those of angels, short and far between.—Blair: The Grave, line 588.
Like angel visits, few and far between.—Campbell: Pleasures of Hope, part ii. line 378.
[282]
A man who could make so vile a pun would not scruple to pick a pocket.
The Gentleman's Magazine. Vol. li. Page 324.
They will not let my play run; and yet they steal my thunder.[282:1]
[282:1] Our author, for the advantage of this play ("Appius and Virginia"), had invented a new species of thunder, which was approved of by the actors, and is the very sort that at present is used in the theatre. The tragedy however was coldly received, notwithstanding such assistance, and was acted but a short time. Some nights after, Mr. Dennis, being in the pit at the representation of "Macbeth," heard his own thunder made use of; upon which he rose in a violent passion, and exclaimed, with an oath, that it was his thunder. "See," said he, "how the rascals use me! They will not let my play run, and yet they steal my thunder!"—Biographia Britannica, vol. v. p. 103.
Pity 's akin to love.[282:2]
Oroonoka. Act ii. Sc. 1.
Of the king's creation you may be; but he who makes a count ne'er made a man.[282:3]
Sir Anthony Love. Act ii. Sc. 1.
[282:3] I weigh the man, not his title; 't is not the king's stamp can make the metal better.—Wycherley: The Plaindealer, act i. sc. 1.
A prince can make a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, and a' that;
But an honest man 's aboon his might:
Guid faith, he maunna fa' that.
Burns: For a' that and a' that.
The better day, the worse deed.[282:5]
Commentaries. Genesis iii.
Many a dangerous temptation comes to us in fine gay colours that are but skin-deep.[282:6]
Commentaries. Genesis iii.
[283]
So great was the extremity of his pain and anguish that he did not only sigh but roar.[283:1]
Commentaries. Job iii.
To their own second thoughts.[283:2]
Commentaries. Job vi.
He rolls it under his tongue as a sweet morsel.
Commentaries. Psalm xxxvi.
Our creature comforts.
Commentaries. Psalm xxxvii.
None so deaf as those that will not hear.[283:3]
Commentaries. Psalm lviii.
They that die by famine die by inches.
Commentaries. Psalm lix.
To fish in troubled waters.
Commentaries. Psalm lx.
Here is bread, which strengthens man's heart, and therefore called the staff of life.[283:4]
Commentaries. Psalm civ.
Hearkners, we say, seldom hear good of themselves.
Commentaries. Ecclesiastes vii.
It was a common saying among the Puritans, "Brown bread and the Gospel is good fare."
Commentaries. Isaiah xxx.
Blushing is the colour of virtue.[283:5]
Commentaries. Jeremiah iii.
It is common for those that are farthest from God, to boast themselves most of their being near to the Church.[283:6]
Commentaries. Jeremiah vii.
None so blind as those that will not see.[283:7]
Commentaries. Jeremiah xx.
Not lost, but gone before.[283:8]
Commentaries. Matthew ii.
[284]
Those that are above business.
Commentaries. Matthew xx.
Better late than never.[284:1]
Commentaries. Matthew xxi.
Saying and doing are two things.
Commentaries. Matthew xxi.
Judas had given them the slip.
Commentaries. Matthew xxii.
After a storm comes a calm.
Commentaries. Acts ix.
Men of polite learning and a liberal education.
Commentaries. Acts x.
It is good news, worthy of all acceptation; and yet not too good to be true.
Commentaries. Timothy i.
It is not fit the public trusts should be lodged in the hands of any, till they are first proved and found fit for the business they are to be entrusted with.[284:2]
Commentaries. Timothy iii.
[282:4] Mathew Henry says of his father, Rev. Philip Henry (1631-1691): "He would say sometimes, when he was in the midst of the comforts of this life, 'All this, and heaven too!'"—Life of Rev. Philip Henry, p. 70. (London, 1830.)
[283:1] Nature says best; and she says, Roar!—Edgeworth: Ormond, chap. v. (King Corny in a paroxysm of gout.)
[283:2] I consider biennial elections as a security that the sober second thought of the people shall be law.—Fisher Ames: On Biennial Elections, 1788.
[283:4] Bread is the staff of life.—Swift: Tale of a Tub.
Corne, which is the staffe of life.—Winslow: Good Newes from New England, p. 47. (London, 1624.)
The stay and the staff, the whole staff of bread.—Isaiah iii. 1.
[283:5] Diogenes once saw a youth blushing, and said: "Courage, my boy! that is the complexion of virtue."—Diogenes Laertius: Diogenes, vi.
[283:7] There is none so blind as they that won't see.—Swift: Polite Conversation, dialogue iii.
[283:8] Literally from Seneca, Epistola lxiii. 16.
Not dead, but gone before.—Rogers: Human Life.
It is a maxim with me that no man was ever written out of reputation but by himself.
Monk's Life of Bentley. Page 90.
"Whatever is, is not," is the maxim of the anarchist, as often as anything comes across him in the shape of a law which he happens not to like.[284:3]
Declaration of Rights.
The fortuitous or casual concourse of atoms.[284:4]
Sermons, vii. Works, Vol. iii. p. 147 (1692).
[284:4] That fortuitous concourse of atoms.—Review of Sir Robert Peel's Address. Quarterly Review, vol. liii. p. 270 (1835).
In this article a party was described as a fortuitous concourse of atoms,—a phrase supposed to have been used for the first time many years afterwards by Lord John Russell.—Croker Papers, vol. ii. p. 54.
[285]
God save our gracious king!
Long live our noble king!
God save the king!
God save the King.
Aldeborontiphoscophornio!
Where left you Chrononhotonthologos?
Chrononhotonthologos. Act i. Sc. 1.
His cogitative faculties immersed
In cogibundity of cogitation.
Chrononhotonthologos. Act i. Sc. 1.
Let the singing singers
With vocal voices, most vociferous,
In sweet vociferation out-vociferize
Even sound itself.
Chrononhotonthologos. Act i. Sc. 1.
To thee, and gentle Rigdom Funnidos,
Our gratulations flow in streams unbounded.
Chrononhotonthologos. Act i. Sc. 3.
Go call a coach, and let a coach be called;
And let the man who calleth be the caller;
And in his calling let him nothing call
But "Coach! Coach! Coach! Oh for a coach, ye gods!"
Chrononhotonthologos. Act ii. Sc. 4.
Genteel in personage,
Conduct, and equipage;
Noble by heritage,
Generous and free.
The Contrivances. Act i. Sc. 2.
What a monstrous tail our cat has got!
The Dragon of Wantley. Act ii. Sc. 1.
Of all the days that 's in the week
I dearly love but one day,
And that 's the day that comes betwixt
A Saturday and Monday.
Sally in our Alley.
Of all the girls that e'er was seen,
There 's none so fine as Nelly.
Swift: Ballad on Miss Nelly Bennet.
[286]
Wherever God erects a house of prayer,
The Devil always builds a chapel there;[286:1]
And 't will be found, upon examination,
The latter has the largest congregation.
The True-Born Englishman. Part i. Line 1.
Great families of yesterday we show,
And lords, whose parents were the Lord knows who.
The True-Born Englishman. Part i. Line 1.
I do not love thee, Doctor Fell,
The reason why I cannot tell;
But this alone I know full well,
I do not love thee, Doctor Fell.[286:2]
Laconics.
To treat a poor wretch with a bottle of Burgundy, and fill his snuff-box, is like giving a pair of laced ruffles to a man that has never a shirt on his back.[286:3]
Laconics.
In the reign of Charles II. a certain worthy divine at Whitehall thus addressed himself to the auditory at the conclusion of his sermon: "In short, if you don't live up to the precepts of the Gospel, but abandon yourselves to [287]your irregular appetites, you must expect to receive your reward in a certain place which 't is not good manners to mention here."[287:1]
Laconics.
[286:2] A slightly different version is found in Brown's Works collected and published after his death:—
Non amo te, Sabidi, nec possum dicere quare;
Hoc tantum possum dicere, non amo te
(I do not love thee, Sabidius, nor can I say why; this only I can say, I do not love thee).—Martial: Epigram i. 33.
Je ne vous aime pas, Hylas;
Je n'en saurois dire la cause,
Je sais seulement une chose;
C'est que je ne vous aime pas.
Bussy: Comte de Rabutin. (1618-1693.)
[286:3] Like sending them ruffles, when wanting a shirt.—Sorbienne (1610-1670).
Goldsmith: The Haunch of Venison.
[287:1] Who never mentions hell to ears polite.—Pope: Moral Essays, epistle iv. line 149.
All jargon of the schools.[287:2]
I am that I am. An Ode.
Our hopes, like towering falcons, aim
At objects in an airy height;
The little pleasure of the game
Is from afar to view the flight.[287:3]
To the Hon. Charles Montague.
From ignorance our comfort flows.
The only wretched are the wise.[287:4]
To the Hon. Charles Montague.
Odds life! must one swear to the truth of a song?
A Better Answer.
Be to her virtues very kind;
Be to her faults a little blind.
An English Padlock.
That if weak women went astray,
Their stars were more in fault than they.
Hans Carvel.
The end must justify the means.
Hans Carvel.
And thought the nation ne'er would thrive
Till all the whores were burnt alive.
Paulo Purganti.
They never taste who always drink;
They always talk who never think.[287:5]
Upon a passage in the Scaligerana.
That air and harmony of shape express,
Fine by degrees, and beautifully less.[287:6]
Henry and Emma.
[288]
Now fitted the halter, now traversed the cart,
And often took leave, but was loth to depart.[288:1]
The Thief and the Cordelier.
Nobles and heralds, by your leave,
Here lies what once was Matthew Prior;
The son of Adam and of Eve:
Can Bourbon or Nassau claim higher?[288:2]
Epitaph. Extempore.
Soft peace she brings; wherever she arrives
She builds our quiet as she forms our lives;
Lays the rough paths of peevish Nature even,
And opens in each heart a little heaven.
Charity.
His noble negligences teach
What others' toils despair to reach.
Alma. Canto ii. Line 7.
Till their own dreams at length deceive 'em,
And oft repeating, they believe 'em.
Alma. Canto iii. Line 13.
Abra was ready ere I called her name;
And though I called another, Abra came.
Solomon on the Vanity of the World. Book ii. Line 364.
For hope is but the dream of those that wake.[288:3]
Solomon on the Vanity of the World. Book iii. Line 102.
[289]
Who breathes must suffer, and who thinks must mourn;
And he alone is bless'd who ne'er was born.
Solomon on the Vanity of the World. Book iii. Line 240.
[287:2] Noisy jargon of the schools.—Pomfret: Reason.
The sounding jargon of the schools.—Cowper: Truth, line 367.
But all the pleasure of the game
Is afar off to view the flight.
Variations in a copy dated 1692.
[287:6] Fine by defect, and delicately weak.—Pope: Moral Essays, epistle ii. line 43.
[288:1] As men that be lothe to departe do often take their leff. [John Clerk to Wolsey.]—Ellis: Letters, third series, vol. i. p. 262.
"A loth to depart" was the common term for a song, or a tune played, on taking leave of friends. Tarlton: News out of Purgatory (about 1689). Chapman: Widow's Tears. Middleton: The Old Law, act iv. sc. 1. Beaumont and Fletcher: Wit at Several Weapons, act ii. sc. 2.
[288:2] The following epitaph was written long before the time of Prior:—
Johnnie Carnegie lais heer,
Descendit of Adam and Eve.
Gif ony con gang hieher,
Ise willing give him leve.
[288:3] This thought is ascribed to Aristotle by Diogenes Laertius (Aristotle, v. xi.), who, when asked what hope is, answered, "The dream of a waking man." Menage, in his "Observations upon Laertius," says that Stobæus (Serm. cix.) ascribes it to Pindar, while Ælian (Var. Hist. xiii. 29) refers it to Plato.
Et spes inanes, et velut somnia quædam, vigilantium (Vain hopes are like certain dreams of those who wake).—Quintilian: vi. 2, 27.
[289:1] A cup of cold Adam from the next purling stream.—Tom Brown: Works, vol. iv. p. 11.
We bear it calmly, though a ponderous woe,
And still adore the hand that gives the blow.[289:2]
Verses to his Friend under Affliction.
Heaven is not always angry when he strikes,
But most chastises those whom most he likes.
Verses to his Friend under Affliction.
I 've often wish'd that I had clear,
For life, six hundred pounds a year;
A handsome house to lodge a friend;
A river at my garden's end;
A terrace walk, and half a rood
Of land set out to plant a wood.
Imitation of Horace, Book ii. Sat. 6.
So geographers, in Afric maps,
With savage pictures fill their gaps,
And o'er unhabitable downs
Place elephants for want of towns.[289:3]
Poetry, a Rhapsody.
[290]
Where Young must torture his invention
To flatter knaves, or lose his pension.
Poetry, a Rhapsody.
Hobbes clearly proves that every creature
Lives in a state of war by nature.
Poetry, a Rhapsody.
So, naturalists observe, a flea
Has smaller fleas that on him prey;
And these have smaller still to bite 'em;
And so proceed ad infinitum.[290:1]
Poetry, a Rhapsody.
Libertas et natale solum:
Fine words! I wonder where you stole 'em.
Verses occasioned by Whitshed's Motto on his Coach.
A college joke to cure the dumps.
Cassinus and Peter.
'T is an old maxim in the schools,
That flattery 's the food of fools;
Yet now and then your men of wit
Will condescend to take a bit.
Cadenus and Vanessa.
Hail fellow, well met.[290:2]
My Lady's Lamentation.
Big-endians and small-endians.[290:3]
Gulliver's Travels. Part i. Chap. iv. Voyage to Lilliput.
And he gave it for his opinion, that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together.
Gulliver's Travels. Part ii. Chap. vii. Voyage to Brobdingnag.
[291]
He had been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put in phials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw inclement summers.
Gulliver's Travels. Part iii. Chap. v. Voyage to Laputa.
It is a maxim, that those to whom everybody allows the second place have an undoubted title to the first.
Tale of a Tub. Dedication.
Seamen have a custom, when they meet a whale, to fling him out an empty tub by way of amusement, to divert him from laying violent hands upon the ship.[291:1]
Tale of a Tub. Preface.
Bread is the staff of life.[291:2]
Tale of a Tub. Preface.
Books, the children of the brain.
Tale of a Tub. Sect. i.
As boys do sparrows, with flinging salt upon their tails.[291:3]
Tale of a Tub. Sect. vii.
He made it a part of his religion never to say grace to his meat.
Tale of a Tub. Sect. xi.
How we apples swim![291:4]
Brother Protestants.
The two noblest things, which are sweetness and light.
Battle of the Books.
The reason why so few marriages are happy is because young ladies spend their time in making nets, not in making cages.
Thoughts on Various Subjects.
Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent.
Thoughts on Various Subjects.
A nice man is a man of nasty ideas.
Thoughts on Various Subjects.
[292]
If Heaven had looked upon riches to be a valuable thing, it would not have given them to such a scoundrel.
Letter to Miss Vanbromrigh, Aug. 12, 1720.
Not die here in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a hole.
Letter to Bolingbroke, March 21, 1729.
A penny for your thoughts.[292:1]
Introduction to Polite Conversation.
Do you think I was born in a wood to be afraid of an owl?
Polite Conversation. Dialogue i.
The sight of you is good for sore eyes.
Polite Conversation. Dialogue i.
'T is as cheap sitting as standing.
Polite Conversation. Dialogue i.
I hate nobody: I am in charity with the world.
Polite Conversation. Dialogue i.
I won't quarrel with my bread and butter.
Polite Conversation. Dialogue i.
She 's no chicken; she 's on the wrong side of thirty, if she be a day.
Polite Conversation. Dialogue i.
She looks as if butter wou'dn't melt in her mouth.[292:2]
Polite Conversation. Dialogue i.
If it had been a bear it would have bit you.
Polite Conversation. Dialogue i.
She wears her clothes as if they were thrown on with a pitchfork.
Polite Conversation. Dialogue i.
I mean you lie—under a mistake.[292:3]
Polite Conversation. Dialogue i.
Lord M. What religion is he of?
Lord Sp. Why, he is an Anythingarian.
Polite Conversation. Dialogue i.
He was a bold man that first eat an oyster.
Polite Conversation. Dialogue ii.
That is as well said as if I had said it myself.
Polite Conversation. Dialogue ii.
You must take the will for the deed.[292:4]
Polite Conversation. Dialogue ii.
[293]
Fingers were made before forks, and hands before knives.
Polite Conversation. Dialogue ii.
She has more goodness in her little finger than he has in his whole body.
Polite Conversation. Dialogue ii.
Lord! I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing.
Polite Conversation. Dialogue ii.
They say a carpenter 's known by his chips.
Polite Conversation. Dialogue ii.
The best doctors in the world are Doctor Diet, Doctor Quiet, and Doctor Merryman.[293:1]
Polite Conversation. Dialogue ii.
I 'll give you leave to call me anything, if you don't call me "spade."
Polite Conversation. Dialogue ii.
May you live all the days of your life.
Polite Conversation. Dialogue ii.
I have fed like a farmer: I shall grow as fat as a porpoise.
Polite Conversation. Dialogue ii.
I always like to begin a journey on Sundays, because I shall have the prayers of the Church to preserve all that travel by land or by water.
Polite Conversation. Dialogue ii.
I know Sir John will go, though he was sure it would rain cats and dogs.
Polite Conversation. Dialogue ii.
I thought you and he were hand-in-glove.
Polite Conversation. Dialogue ii.
'T is happy for him that his father was before him.
Polite Conversation. Dialogue iii.
There is none so blind as they that won't see.[293:2]
Polite Conversation. Dialogue iii.
She watches him as a cat would watch a mouse.
Polite Conversation. Dialogue iii.
She pays him in his own coin.
Polite Conversation. Dialogue iii.
There was all the world and his wife.
Polite Conversation. Dialogue iii.
[294]
Sharp 's the word with her.
Polite Conversation. Dialogue iii.
There 's two words to that bargain.
Polite Conversation. Dialogue iii.
I shall be like that tree,—I shall die at the top.
Scott's Life of Swift.[294:1]
[289:3] As geographers, Sosius, crowd into the edges of their maps parts of the world which they do not know about, adding notes in the margin to the effect that beyond this lies nothing but sandy deserts full of wild beasts and unapproachable bogs.—Plutarch: Theseus.
Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.
And the great fleas themselves, in turn, have greater fleas to go on;
While these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on.
De Morgan: A Budget of Paradoxes, p. 377.
[290:2] Rowland: Knave of Hearts (1612). Ray: Proverbs. Tom Brown: Amusement, viii.
[290:3] As the political parties of Whig and Tory are pointed out by the high and low heels of the Lilliputians (Framecksan and Hamecksan), those of Papist and Protestant are designated under the Big-endians and Small-endians.
[291:1] In Sebastian Munster's "Cosmography" there is a cut of a ship to which a whale was coming too close for her safety, and of the sailors throwing a tub to the whale, evidently to play with. This practice is also mentioned in an old prose translation of the "Ship of Fools."—Sir James Mackintosh: Appendix to the Life of Sir Thomas More.
[291:3] Till they be bobbed on the tails after the manner of sparrows.—Rabelais: book ii. chap. xiv.
[291:4] Ray: Proverbs. Mallet: Tyburn.
[292:3] You lie—under a mistake.—Shelley: Magico Prodigioso, scene 1 (a translation of Calderon).
[292:4] The will for deed I doe accept.—Du Bartas: Divine Weeks and Works, third day, week ii. part 2.
The will for the deed.—Cibber: The Rival Fools, act iii.
Use three physicians
Still: first, Dr. Quiet;
Next, Dr. Merryman,
And Dr. Dyet.
Regimen Sanitatis Salernitanum (edition 1607).
[294:1] When the poem of "Cadenus and Vanessa" was the general topic of conversation, some one said, "Surely that Vanessa must be an extraordinary woman that could inspire the Dean to write so finely upon her." Mrs. Johnson smiled, and answered that "she thought that point not quite so clear; for it was well known the Dean could write finely upon a broomstick."—Johnson: Life of Swift.
Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast,
To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.
The Mourning Bride. Act i. Sc. 1.
By magic numbers and persuasive sound.
The Mourning Bride. Act i. Sc. 1.
Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned,
Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.[294:2]
The Mourning Bride. Act iii. Sc. 8.
For blessings ever wait on virtuous deeds,
And though a late, a sure reward succeeds.
The Mourning Bride. Act v. Sc. 12.
If there 's delight in love, 't is when I see
That heart which others bleed for, bleed for me.
The Way of the World. Act iii. Sc. 12.
Ferdinand Mendez Pinto was but a type of thee, thou liar of the first magnitude.
Love for Love. Act ii. Sc. 5.
I came up stairs into the world, for I was born in a cellar.[294:3]
Love for Love. Act ii. Sc. 7.
[295]
Hannibal was a very pretty fellow in those days.
The Old Bachelor. Act ii. Sc. 2.
Thus grief still treads upon the heels of pleasure;
Married in haste, we may repent at leisure.[295:1]
The Old Bachelor. Act v. Sc. 1.
Defer not till to-morrow to be wise,
To-morrow's sun to thee may never rise.[295:2]
Letter to Cobham.
[294:2] We shall find no fiend in hell can match the fury of a disappointed woman.—Cibber: Love's Last Shift, act iv.
[294:3] Born in a cellar, and living in a garret.—Foote: The Author, act 2.
Born in the garret, in the kitchen bred.—Byron: A Sketch.
[295:2] Be wise to-day, 't is madness to defer.—Young: Night Thoughts, night i. line 390.
To die is landing on some silent shore
Where billows never break, nor tempests roar;
Ere well we feel the friendly stroke, 't is o'er.
The Dispensary. Canto iii. Line 225.
I see the right, and I approve it too,
Condemn the wrong, and yet the wrong pursue.[295:4]
Ovid, Metamorphoses, vii. 20 (translated by Tate and Stonestreet, edited by Garth).
For all their luxury was doing good.[295:5]
Claremont. Line 149.
Thou hast no faults, or I no faults can spy;
Thou art all beauty, or all blindness I.
Christopher Codrington: Lines addressed to Garth on his Dispensary.
[295:4] I know and love the good, yet, ah! the worst pursue.—Petrarch: Sonnet ccxxv. canzone xxi. To Laura in Life.
See Shakespeare, page 60.
[295:5] And learn the luxury of doing good.—Goldsmith: The Traveller, line 22. Crabbe: Tales of the Hall, book iii. Graves: The Epicure.
So mourn'd the dame of Ephesus her love,
And thus the soldier arm'd with resolution
Told his soft tale, and was a thriving wooer.
Richard III. (altered). Act ii. Sc. 1.
Now, by St. Paul, the work goes bravely on.
Richard III. (altered). Act iii. Sc. 1.
[296]
The aspiring youth that fired the Ephesian dome
Outlives in fame the pious fool that rais'd it.[296:1]
Richard III. (altered). Act iii. Sc. 1.
I 've lately had two spiders
Crawling upon my startled hopes.
Now though thy friendly hand has brush'd 'em from me,
Yet still they crawl offensive to my eyes:
I would have some kind friend to tread upon 'em.
Richard III. (altered). Act iv. Sc. 3.
Off with his head! so much for Buckingham!
Richard III. (altered). Act iv. Sc. 3.
And the ripe harvest of the new-mown hay
Gives it a sweet and wholesome odour.
Richard III. (altered). Act v. Sc. 3.
With clink of hammers closing rivets up.[296:2]
Richard III. (altered). Act v. Sc. 3.
Perish that thought! No, never be it said
That Fate itself could awe the soul of Richard.
Hence, babbling dreams! you threaten here in vain!
Conscience, avaunt! Richard 's himself again!
Hark! the shrill trumpet sounds to horse! away!
My soul 's in arms, and eager for the fray.
Richard III. (altered). Act v. Sc. 3.
A weak invention of the enemy.[296:3]
Richard III. (altered). Act v. Sc. 3.
As good be out of the world as out of the fashion.
Love's Last Shift. Act ii.
We shall find no fiend in hell can match the fury of a disappointed woman,—scorned, slighted, dismissed without a parting pang.[296:4]
Love's Last Shift. Act iv.
Old houses mended,
Cost little less than new before they 're ended.
Prologue to the Double Gallant.
Possession is eleven points in the law.
Woman's Wit. Act i.
Words are but empty thanks.
Woman's Wit. Act v.
This business will never hold water.
She Wou'd and She Wou'd Not. Act iv.
[297]
Losers must have leave to speak.
The Rival Fools. Act i.
Stolen sweets are best.
The Rival Fools. Act i.
The will for the deed.[297:1]
The Rival Fools. Act iii.
Within one of her.
The Rival Fools. Act v.
I don't see it.
The Careless Husband. Act ii. Sc. 2.
Persuasion tips his tongue whene'er he talks,
And he has chambers in King's Bench walks.[297:2]
[297:2] A parody on Pope's lines:—
Graced as thou art with all the power of words,
So known, so honoured at the House of Lords.
Though her mien carries much more invitation than command, to behold her is an immediate check to loose behaviour; to love her was a liberal education.[297:3]
Tatler. No. 49.
Will. Honeycomb calls these over-offended ladies the outrageously virtuous.
Spectator. No. 266.
[297:3] Lady Elizabeth Hastings.
The dawn is overcast, the morning lowers,
And heavily in clouds brings on the day,
The great, the important day, big with the fate
Of Cato and of Rome.
Cato. Act i. Sc. 1.
Thy steady temper, Portius,
Can look on guilt, rebellion, fraud, and Cæsar,
In the calm lights of mild philosophy.
Cato. Act i. Sc. 1.
'T is not in mortals to command success,
But we 'll do more, Sempronius,—we 'll deserve it.
Cato. Act i. Sc. 2.
Blesses his stars and thinks it luxury.
Cato. Act i. Sc. 4.
[298]
'T 's pride, rank pride, and haughtiness of soul;
I think the Romans call it stoicism.
Cato. Act i. Sc. 4.
Were you with these, my prince, you 'd soon forget
The pale, unripened beauties of the north.
Cato. Act i. Sc. 4.
Beauty soon grows familiar to the lover,
Fades in his eye, and palls upon the sense.
The virtuous Marcia towers above her sex.
Cato. Act i. Sc. 4.
My voice is still for war.
Gods! can a Roman senate long debate
Which of the two to choose, slavery or death?
Cato. Act ii. Sc. 1.
Great Pompey's shade complains that we are slow,
And Scipio's ghost walks unaveng'd amongst us!
Cato. Act ii. Sc. 1.
A day, an hour, of virtuous liberty
Is worth a whole eternity in bondage.
Cato. Act ii. Sc. 1.
The woman that deliberates is lost.
Cato. Act iv. Sc. 1.
Curse all his virtues! they 've undone his country.
Cato. Act iv. Sc. 4.
What a pity is it
That we can die but once to save our country!
Cato. Act iv. Sc. 4.
When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway,
The post of honour is a private station.[298:1]
Cato. Act iv. Sc. 4.
It must be so,—Plato, thou reasonest well!
Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,
This longing after immortality?
Or whence this secret dread and inward horror
Of falling into naught? Why shrinks the soul
Back on herself, and startles at destruction?
'T is the divinity that stirs within us;
'T is Heaven itself that points out an hereafter,
[299]And intimates eternity to man.
Eternity! thou pleasing, dreadful thought!
Cato. Act v. Sc. 1.
I 'm weary of conjectures,—this must end 'em.
Thus am I doubly armed: my death and life,
My bane and antidote, are both before me:
This in a moment brings me to an end;
But this informs me I shall never die.
The soul, secured in her existence, smiles
At the drawn dagger, and defies its point.
The stars shall fade away, the sun himself
Grow dim with age, and Nature sink in years;
But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth,[299:1]
Unhurt amidst the war of elements,
The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds.
Cato. Act v. Sc. 1.
Sweet are the slumbers of the virtuous man.
Cato. Act v. Sc. 4.
From hence, let fierce contending nations know
What dire effects from civil discord flow.
Cato. Act v. Sc. 4.
For wheresoe'er I turn my ravish'd eyes,
Gay gilded scenes and shining prospects rise,
Poetic fields encompass me around,
And still I seem to tread on classic ground.[299:2]
A Letter from Italy.
Unbounded courage and compassion join'd,
Tempering each other in the victor's mind,
Alternately proclaim him good and great,
And make the hero and the man complete.
The Campaign. Line 219.
And, pleased the Almighty's orders to perform,
Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm.[299:3]
The Campaign. Line 291.
[300]
And those that paint them truest praise them most.[300:1]
The Campaign. Last line.
The spacious firmament on high,
With all the blue ethereal sky,
And spangled heavens, a shining frame,
Their great Original proclaim.
Ode.
Soon as the evening shades prevail,
The moon takes up the wondrous tale,
And nightly to the listening earth
Repeats the story of her birth;
While 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.
Ode.
For ever singing as they shine,
The hand that made us is divine.
Ode.
Should the whole frame of Nature round him break,
In ruin and confusion hurled,
He, unconcerned, would hear the mighty crack,
And stand secure amidst a falling world.
Horace. Ode iii. Book iii.
In all thy humours, whether grave or mellow,
Thou 'rt such a touchy, testy, pleasant fellow,
Hast so much wit and mirth and spleen about thee,
There is no living with thee, nor without thee.[300:2]
Spectator. No. 68.
Much may be said on both sides.[300:3]
Spectator. No. 122.
The Lord my pasture shall prepare,
And feed me with a shepherd's care;
His presence shall my wants supply,
And guard me with a watchful eye.
Spectator. No. 444.
Round-heads and wooden-shoes are standing jokes.
Prologue to The Drummer.
Give me, kind Heaven, a private station,
A mind serene for contemplation!
Title and profit I resign;
The post of honour shall be mine.
Gay: Fables, Part ii. The Vulture, the Sparrow, and other Birds.
[299:1] Smiling always with a never fading serenity of countenance, and flourishing in an immortal youth.—Isaac Barrow (1630-1677): Duty of Thanksgiving, Works, vol. i. p. 66.
[299:2] Malone states that this was the first time the phrase "classic ground," since so common, was ever used.
[299:3] This line is frequently ascribed to Pope, as it is found in the "Dunciad," book iii. line 264.
[300:1] He best can paint them who shall feel them most.—Pope: Eloisa to Abelard, last line.
[300:2] A translation of Martial, xii. 47, who imitated Ovid, Amores iii. 11, 39.
[300:3] Much may be said on both sides.—Fielding: The Covent Garden Tragedy, act i. sc. 8.
[301]
As if Misfortune made the throne her seat,
And none could be unhappy but the great.[301:1]
The Fair Penitent. Prologue.
At length the morn and cold indifference came.[301:2]
The Fair Penitent. Act i. Sc. 1.
Is she not more than painting can express,
Or youthful poets fancy when they love?
The Fair Penitent. Act iii. Sc. 1.
Is this that haughty gallant, gay Lothario?
The Fair Penitent. Act v. Sc. i.
[301:1] None think the great unhappy, but the great.—Young: The Love of Fame, satire 1, line 238.
[301:2] But with the morning cool reflection came.—Scott: Chronicles of the Canongate, chap. iv.
Scott also quotes it in his notes to "The Monastery," chap. iii. note 11; and with "calm" substituted for "cool" in "The Antiquary," chap. v.; and with "repentance" for "reflection" in "Rob Roy," chap. xii.
Whene'er I take my walks abroad,
How many poor I see!
What shall I render to my God
For all his gifts to me?
Divine Songs. Song iv.
A flower, when offered in the bud,
Is no vain sacrifice.
Divine Songs. Song xii.
And he that does one fault at first
And lies to hide it, makes it two.[301:3]
Divine Songs. Song xv.
Let dogs delight to bark and bite,
For God hath made them so;
Let bears and lions growl and fight,
For 't is their nature too.
Divine Songs. Song xvi.
[302]
But, children, you should never let
Such angry passions rise;
Your little hands were never made
To tear each other's eyes.
Divine Songs. Song xvi.
Birds in their little nests agree;
And 't is a shameful sight
When children of one family
Fall out, and chide, and fight.
Divine Songs. Song xvii.
How doth the little busy bee
Improve each shining hour,
And gather honey all the day
From every opening flower!
Divine Songs. Song xx.
For Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do.
Divine Songs. Song xx.
In books, or work, or healthful play.
Divine Songs. Song xx.
I have been there, and still would go;
'T is like a little heaven below.
Divine Songs. Song xxviii.
Hush, my dear, lie still and slumber!
Holy angels guard thy bed!
Heavenly blessings without number
Gently falling on thy head.
A Cradle Hymn.
'T is the voice of the sluggard; I heard him complain,
"You have wak'd me too soon, I must slumber again."
The Sluggard.
Lord, in the morning thou shalt hear
My voice ascending high.
Psalm v.
From all who dwell below the skies
Let the Creator's praise arise;
Let the Redeemer's name be sung
Through every land, by every tongue.
Psalm cxvii.
Fly, like a youthful hart or roe,
Over the hills where spices grow.
Hymns and Spiritual Songs. Book i. Hymn 79.
[303]
And while the lamp holds out to burn,
The vilest sinner may return.
Hymns and Spiritual Songs. Book i. Hymn 88.
Strange that a harp of thousand strings
Should keep in tune so long!
Hymns and Spiritual Songs. Book ii. Hymn 19.
Hark! from the tombs a doleful sound.
Hymns and Spiritual Songs. Book ii. Hymn 63.
The tall, the wise, the reverend head
Must lie as low as ours.
Hymns and Spiritual Songs. Book ii. Hymn 63.
When I can read my title clear
To mansions in the skies,
I 'll bid farewell to every fear,
And wipe my weeping eyes.
Hymns and Spiritual Songs. Book ii. Hymn 65.
There is a land of pure delight,
Where saints immortal reign;
Infinite day excludes the night,
And pleasures banish pain.
Hymns and Spiritual Songs. Book ii. Hymn 66.
So, when a raging fever burns,
We shift from side to side by turns;
And 't is a poor relief we gain
To change the place, but keep the pain.
Hymns and Spiritual Songs. Book ii. Hymn 146.
Were I so tall to reach the pole,
Or grasp the ocean with my span,
I must be measured by my soul:
The mind 's the standard of the man.[303:1]
Horæ Lyricæ. Book ii. False Greatness.
To God the Father, God the Son,
And God the Spirit, Three in One,
Be honour, praise, and glory given
By all on earth, and all in heaven.
Doxology.
[303:1] I do not distinguish by the eye, but by the mind, which is the proper judge of the man.—Seneca: On a Happy Life (L'Estrange's Abstract), chap. i.
It is the mind that makes the man, and our vigour is in our immortal soul.—Ovid: Metamorphoses, xiii.
[304]
The balance of power.
Speech, 1741.
Flowery oratory he despised. He ascribed to the interested views of themselves or their relatives the declarations of pretended patriots, of whom he said, "All those men have their price."[304:1]
Coxe: Memoirs of Walpole. Vol. iv. p. 369.
Anything but history, for history must be false.
Walpoliana. No. 141.
The gratitude of place-expectants is a lively sense of future favours.[304:2]
[304:1] "All men have their price" is commonly ascribed to Walpole.
[304:2] Hazlitt, in his "Wit and Humour," says, "This is Walpole's phrase."
The gratitude of most men is but a secret desire of receiving greater benefits.—Rochefoucauld: Maxim 298.
I have read somewhere or other,—in Dionysius of Halicarnassus, I think,—that history is philosophy teaching by examples.[304:3]
On the Study and Use of History. Letter 2.
The dignity of history.[304:4]
On the Study and Use of History. Letter v.
It is the modest, not the presumptuous, inquirer who makes a real and safe progress in the discovery of divine truths. One follows Nature and Nature's God; that is, he follows God in his works and in his word.[304:5]
Letter to Mr. Pope.
[304:3] Dionysius of Halicarnassus (quoting Thucydides), Ars Rhet. xi. 2, says: "The contact with manners then is education; and this Thucydides appears to assert when he says history is philosophy learned from examples."
[304:4] Henry Fielding: Tom Jones, book xi. chap. ii. Horace Walpole: Advertisement to Letter to Sir Horace Mann. Macaulay: History of England, vol. i. chap. i.
Slave to no sect, who takes no private road,
But looks through Nature up to Nature's God.
Pope: Essay on Man, epistle iv. line 331.
[305]
Cos. Pray now, what may be that same bed of honour?
Kite. Oh, a mighty large bed! bigger by half than the great bed at Ware: ten thousand people may lie in it together, and never feel one another.
The Recruiting Officer. Act i. Sc. 1.
I believe they talked of me, for they laughed consumedly.
The Beaux' Stratagem. Act iii. Sc. 1.
'T was for the good of my country that I should be abroad.[305:1]
The Beaux' Stratagem. Act iii. Sc. 2.
Necessity, the mother of invention.[305:2]
The Twin Rivals. Act i.
[305:1] Leaving his country for his country's sake.—Fitz-Geffrey: The Life and Death of Sir Francis Drake, stanza 213 (1596).
True patriots all; for, be it understood,
We left our country for our country's good.
George Barrington: Prologue written for the opening of the Play-house at New South Wales, Jan. 16, 1796. New South Wales, p. 152.
[305:2] Art imitates Nature, and necessity is the mother of invention.—Richard Franck: Northern Memoirs (written in 1658, printed in 1694).
Necessity is the mother of invention.—Wycherley: Love in a Wood, act iii. sc. 3 (1672).
Magister artis ingenique largitor
Venter
(Hunger is the teacher of the arts and the bestower of invention).
Persius: Prolog. line 10.
Still an angel appear to each lover beside,
But still be a woman to you.
When thy Beauty appears.
Remote from man, with God he passed the days;
Prayer all his business, all his pleasure praise.
The Hermit. Line 5.
We call it only pretty Fanny's way.
An Elegy to an Old Beauty.
[306]
Let those love now who never loved before;
Let those who always loved, now love the more.
Translation of the Pervigilium Veneris.[306:1]
[306:1] Written in the time of Julius Cæsar, and by some ascribed to Catullus:
Cras amet qui numquam amavit;
Quique amavit, cras amet
(Let him love to-morrow who never loved before; and he as well who has loved, let him love to-morrow).
Tired nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep!
Night thoughts. Night i. Line 1.
Night, sable goddess! from her ebon throne,
In rayless majesty, now stretches forth
Her leaden sceptre o'er a slumbering world.
Night thoughts. Night i. Line 18.
Creation sleeps! 'T is as the general pulse
Of life stood still, and Nature made a pause,—
An awful pause! prophetic of her end.
Night thoughts. Night i. Line 23.
The bell strikes one. We take no note of time
But from its loss.
Night thoughts. Night i. Line 55.
Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour.
Night thoughts. Night i. Line 67.
To waft a feather or to drown a fly.
Night thoughts. Night i. Line 154.
Insatiate archer! could not one suffice?
Thy shaft flew thrice, and thrice my peace was slain;
And thrice, ere thrice yon moon had filled her horn.
Night thoughts. Night i. Line 212.
Be wise to-day; 't is madness to defer.[306:3]
Night thoughts. Night i. Line 390.
[307]
Procrastination is the thief of time.
Night Thoughts. Night i. Line 393.
At thirty, man suspects himself a fool;
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan.
Night thoughts. Night i. Line 417.
All men think all men mortal but themselves.
Night thoughts. Night i. Line 424.
He mourns the dead who lives as they desire.
Night thoughts. Night ii. Line 24.
And what its worth, ask death-beds; they can tell.
Night thoughts. Night ii. Line 51.
Thy purpose firm is equal to the deed:
Who does the best his circumstance allows
Does well, acts nobly; angels could no more.
Night thoughts. Night ii. Line 90.
"I 've lost a day!"—the prince who nobly cried,
Had been an emperor without his crown.[307:1]
Night thoughts. Night ii. Line 99.
Ah, how unjust to Nature and himself
Is thoughtless, thankless, inconsistent man!
Night thoughts. Night ii. Line 112.
The spirit walks of every day deceased.
Night thoughts. Night ii. Line 180.
Time flies, death urges, knells call, Heaven invites,
Hell threatens.
Night thoughts. Night ii. Line 292.
Whose yesterdays look backwards with a smile.
Night thoughts. Night ii. Line 334.
'T is greatly wise to talk with our past hours,
And ask them what report they bore to heaven.
Night thoughts. Night ii. Line 376.
Thoughts shut up want air,
And spoil, like bales unopen'd to the sun.
Night thoughts. Night ii. Line 466.
How blessings brighten as they take their flight!
Night thoughts. Night ii. Line 602.
The chamber where the good man meets his fate
Is privileg'd beyond the common walk
Of virtuous life, quite in the verge of heaven.
Night thoughts. Night ii. Line 633.
A death-bed 's a detector of the heart.
Night thoughts. Night ii. Line 641.
[308]
Woes cluster. Rare are solitary woes;
They love a train, they tread each other's heel.[308:1]
Night Thoughts. Night iii. Line 63.
Beautiful as sweet,
And young as beautiful, and soft as young,
And gay as soft, and innocent as gay!
Night Thoughts. Night iii. Line 81.
Lovely in death the beauteous ruin lay;
And if in death still lovely, lovelier there;
Far lovelier! pity swells the tide of love.[308:2]
Night Thoughts. Night iii. Line 104.
Heaven's Sovereign saves all beings but himself
That hideous sight,—a naked human heart.
Night Thoughts. Night iii. Line 226.
The knell, the shroud, the mattock, and the grave,
The deep damp vault, the darkness and the worm.
Night Thoughts. Night iv. Line 10.
Man makes a death which Nature never made.
Night Thoughts. Night iv. Line 15.
And feels a thousand deaths in fearing one.
Night Thoughts. Night iv. Line 17.
Wishing, of all employments, is the worst.
Night Thoughts. Night iv. Line 71.
Man wants but little, nor that little long.[308:3]
Night Thoughts. Night iv. Line 118.
A God all mercy is a God unjust.
Night Thoughts. Night iv. Line 233.
'T is impious in a good man to be sad.
Night Thoughts. Night iv. Line 676.
A Christian is the highest style of man.[308:4]
Night Thoughts. Night iv. Line 788.
Men may live fools, but fools they cannot die.
Night Thoughts. Night iv. Line 843.
By night an atheist half believes a God.
Night Thoughts. Night v. Line 177.
Early, bright, transient, chaste as morning dew,
She sparkled, was exhal'd and went to heaven.[308:5]
Night Thoughts. Night v. Line 600.
[309]
We see time's furrows on another's brow,
And death intrench'd, preparing his assault;
How few themselves in that just mirror see!
Night Thoughts. Night v. Line 627.
Like our shadows,
Our wishes lengthen as our sun declines.[309:1]
Night Thoughts. Night v. Line 661.
While man is growing, life is in decrease;
And cradles rock us nearer to the tomb.
Our birth is nothing but our death begun.[309:2]
Night Thoughts. Night v. Line 717.
That life is long which answers life's great end.
Night Thoughts. Night v. Line 773.
The man of wisdom is the man of years.
Night Thoughts. Night v. Line 775.
Death loves a shining mark, a signal blow.[309:3]
Night Thoughts. Night v. Line 1011.
Pygmies are pygmies still, though percht on Alps;
And pyramids are pyramids in vales.
Each man makes his own stature, builds himself.
Virtue alone outbuilds the Pyramids;
Her monuments shall last when Egypt's fall.
Night Thoughts. Night vi. Line 309.
And all may do what has by man been done.
Night Thoughts. Night vi. Line 606.
The man that blushes is not quite a brute.
Night Thoughts. Night vii. Line 496.
Too low they build, who build beneath the stars.
Night Thoughts. Night viii. Line 215.
Prayer ardent opens heaven.
Night Thoughts. Night viii. Line 721.
A man of pleasure is a man of pains.
Night Thoughts. Night viii. Line 793.
To frown at pleasure, and to smile in pain.
Night Thoughts. Night viii. Line 1045.
Final Ruin fiercely drives
Her ploughshare o'er creation.[309:4]
Night Thoughts. Night ix. Line 167.
[310]
'T is elder Scripture, writ by God's own hand,—
Scripture authentic! uncorrupt by man.
Night Thoughts. Night ix. Line 644.
An undevout astronomer is mad.
Night Thoughts. Night ix. Line 771.
The course of Nature is the art of God.[310:1]
Night Thoughts. Night ix. Line 1267.
The love of praise, howe'er conceal'd by art,
Reigns more or less, and glows in ev'ry heart.
Love of Fame. Satire i. Line 51.
Some for renown, on scraps of learning dote,
And think they grow immortal as they quote.
Love of Fame. Satire i. Line 89.
Titles are marks of honest men, and wise;
The fool or knave that wears a title lies.
Love of Fame. Satire i. Line 145.
They that on glorious ancestors enlarge,
Produce their debt instead of their discharge.
Love of Fame. Satire i. Line 147.
None think the great unhappy but the great.[310:2]
Love of Fame. Satire i. Line 238.
Unlearned men of books assume the care,
As eunuchs are the guardians of the fair.
Love of Fame. Satire ii. Line 83.
The booby father craves a booby son,
And by Heaven's blessing thinks himself undone.
Love of Fame. Satire ii. Line 165.
Where Nature's end of language is declin'd,
And men talk only to conceal the mind.[310:3]
Love of Fame. Satire ii. Line 207.
[311]
Be wise with speed;
A fool at forty is a fool indeed.
Love of Fame. Satire ii. Line 282.
And waste their music on the savage race.[311:1]
Love of Fame. Satire v. Line 228.
For her own breakfast she 'll project a scheme,
Nor take her tea without a stratagem.
Love of Fame. Satire vi. Line 190.
Think naught a trifle, though it small appear;
Small sands the mountain, moments make the year,
And trifles life.
Love of Fame. Satire vi. Line 208.
One to destroy is murder by the law,
And gibbets keep the lifted hand in awe;
To murder thousands takes a specious name,
War's glorious art, and gives immortal fame.
Love of Fame. Satire vii. Line 55.
How commentators each dark passage shun,
And hold their farthing candle to the sun.
Love of Fame. Satire vii. Line 97.
The man that makes a character makes foes.
To Mr. Pope. Epistle i. Line 28.
Their feet through faithless leather met the dirt,
And oftener chang'd their principles than shirt.
To Mr. Pope. Epistle i. Line 277.
Accept a miracle instead of wit,—
See two dull lines with Stanhope's pencil writ.
Lines written with the Diamond Pencil of Lord Chesterfield.
Time elaborately thrown away.
The Last Day. Book i.
There buds the promise of celestial worth.
The Last Day. Book iii.
In records that defy the tooth of time.
The Statesman's Creed.
Great let me call him, for he conquered me.
The Revenge. Act i. Sc. 1.
Souls made of fire, and children of the sun,
With whom revenge is virtue.
The Revenge. Act v. Sc. 2.
[312]
The blood will follow where the knife is driven,
The flesh will quiver where the pincers tear.
The Revenge. Act v. Sc. 2.
And friend received with thumps upon the back.[312:1]
Universal Passion.
[307:1] Suetonius says of the Emperor Titus: "Once at supper, reflecting that he had done nothing for any that day, he broke out into that memorable and justly admired saying, 'My friends, I have lost a day!'"—Suetonius: Lives of the Twelve Cæsars. (Translation by Alexander Thomson.)
Man wants but little here below,
Nor wants that little long.
Goldsmith: The Hermit, stanza 8.
Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives elate
Full on thy bloom.
Burns: To a Mountain Daisy.
[310:3] Speech was made to open man to man, and not to hide him; to promote commerce, and not betray it.—Lloyd: State Worthies (1665; edited by Whitworth), vol. i. p. 503.
Speech was given to the ordinary sort of men whereby to communicate their mind; but to wise men, whereby to conceal it.—Robert South: Sermon, April 30, 1676.
The true use of speech is not so much to express our wants as to conceal them.—Goldsmith: The Bee, No. 3. (Oct. 20, 1759.)
Ils ne se servent de la pensée que pour autoriser leurs injustices, et emploient les paroles que pour déguiser leurs pensées (Men use thought only to justify their wrong doings, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts).—Voltaire: Dialogue xiv. Le Chapon et la Poularde (1766).
When Harel wished to put a joke or witticism into circulation, he was in the habit of connecting it with some celebrated name, on the chance of reclaiming it if it took. Thus he assigned to Talleyrand, in the "Nain Jaune," the phrase, "Speech was given to man to disguise his thoughts."—Fournier: L'Esprit dans l'Histoire.
[311:1] And waste their sweetness on the desert air.—Gray: Elegy, stanza 14. Churchill: Gotham, book ii. line 20.
The man that hails you Tom or Jack,
And proves, by thumping on your back.
Cowper: On Friendship.
Westward the course of empire takes its way;[312:2]
The four first acts already past,
A fifth shall close the drama with the day:
Time's noblest offspring is the last.
On the Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning in America.
Our youth we can have but to-day,
We may always find time to grow old.
Can Love be controlled by Advice?[312:3]
[Tar water] is of a nature so mild and benign and proportioned to the human constitution, as to warm without heating, to cheer but not inebriate.[312:4]
Siris. Par. 217.
Westward the star of empire takes its way.—John Quincy Adams: Oration at Plymouth, 1802.
[312:3] Aiken: Vocal Poetry (London, 1810).
Cups
That cheer but not inebriate.
Cowper: The Task, book iv.
The picture placed the busts between
Adds to the thought much strength;
Wisdom and Wit are little seen,
But Folly 's at full length.
On Beau Nash's Picture at full length between the Busts of Sir Isaac Newton and Mr. Pope.[312:5]
[312:5] Dyce: Specimens of British Poetesses. (This epigram is generally ascribed to Chesterfield. See Campbell, "English Poets," note, p. 521.)
[313]
First, then, a woman will or won't, depend on 't;
If she will do 't, she will; and there 's an end on 't.
But if she won't, since safe and sound your trust is,
Fear is affront, and jealousy injustice.[313:1]
Zara. Epilogue.
Tender-handed stroke a nettle,
And it stings you for your pains;
Grasp it like a man of mettle,
And it soft as silk remains.
'T is the same with common natures:
Use 'em kindly, they rebel;
But be rough as nutmeg-graters,
And the rogues obey you well.
Verses written on a window in Scotland.
[313:1] The following lines are copied from the pillar erected on the mount in the Dane John Field, Canterbury:—
Where is the man who has the power and skill
To stem the torrent of a woman's will?
For if she will, she will, you may depend on 't;
And if she won't, she won't; so there 's an end on 't.
The Examiner, May 31, 1829.
Just men, by whom impartial laws were given;
And saints who taught and led the way to heaven.
On the Death of Mr. Addison. Line 41.
Nor e'er was to the bowers of bliss conveyed
A fairer spirit or more welcome shade.
On the Death of Mr. Addison. Line 45.
There taught us how to live; and (oh, too high
The price for knowledge!) taught us how to die.[313:2]
On the Death of Mr. Addison. Line 81.
[314]
The sweetest garland to the sweetest maid.
To a Lady with a Present of Flowers.
I hear a voice you cannot hear,
Which says I must not stay;
I see a hand you cannot see,
Which beckons me away.
Colin and Lucy.
[313:2] He who should teach men to die, would at the same time teach them to live.—Montaigne: Essays, book i. chap. ix.
I have taught you, my dear flock, for above thirty years how to live; and I will show you in a very short time how to die.—Sandys: Anglorum Speculum, p. 903.
Teach him how to live,
And, oh still harder lesson! how to die.
Porteus: Death, line 316.
He taught them how to live and how to die.—Somerville: In Memory of the Rev. Mr. Moore.
Some write their wrongs in marble: he more just,
Stoop'd down serene and wrote them in the dust,—
Trod under foot, the sport of every wind,
Swept from the earth and blotted from his mind.
There, secret in the grave, he bade them lie,
And grieved they could not 'scape the Almighty eye.
Boulter's Monument.
Words are men's daughters, but God's sons are things.[314:1]
Boulter's Monument.
Awake, my St. John! leave all meaner things
To low ambition and the pride of kings.
Let us (since life can little more supply
Than just to look about us, and to die)
Expatiate free o'er all this scene of man;
A mighty maze! but not without a plan.[314:2]
Essay on Man. Epistle i. Line 1.
[315]
Together let us beat this ample field,
Try what the open, what the covert yield.
Essay on Man. Epistle i. Line 9.
Eye Nature's walks, shoot folly as it flies,
And catch the manners living as they rise;
Laugh where we must, be candid where we can,
But vindicate the ways of God to man.[315:1]
Essay on Man. Epistle i. Line 13.
Say first, of God above or man below,
What can we reason but from what we know?
Essay on Man. Epistle i. Line 17.
'T is but a part we see, and not a whole.
Essay on Man. Epistle i. Line 60.
Heaven from all creatures hides the book of Fate,
All but the page prescrib'd, their present state.
Essay on Man. Epistle i. Line 77.
Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food,
And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood.
Essay on Man. Epistle i. Line 83.
Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish or a sparrow fall,
Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd,
And now a bubble burst, and now a world.
Essay on Man. Epistle i. Line 87.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never is, but always to be blest.[315:2]
The soul, uneasy and confined from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.
Essay on Man. Epistle i. Line 95.
Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor'd mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;
His soul proud Science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk or milky way.
Essay on Man. Epistle i. Line 99.
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.
Essay on Man. Epistle i. Line 111.
In pride, in reasoning pride, our error lies;
All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies.
[316]Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes:
Men would be angels, angels would be gods.
Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell,
Aspiring to be angels, men rebel.
Essay on Man. Epistle i. Line 123.
Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise;
My footstool earth, my canopy the skies.[316:1]
Essay on Man. Epistle i. Line 139.
Why has not man a microscopic eye?
For this plain reason,—man is not a fly.
Essay on Man. Epistle i. Line 193.
Die of a rose in aromatic pain.
Essay on Man. Epistle i. Line 200.
The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine!
Feels at each thread, and lives along the line.[316:2]
Essay on Man. Epistle i. Line 217.
Remembrance and reflection how allied!
What thin partitions sense from thought divide![316:3]
Essay on Man. Epistle i. Line 225.
All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul.
Essay on Man. Epistle i. Line 267.
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees.
Essay on Man. Epistle i. Line 271.
As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns
As the rapt seraph that adores and burns:
To Him no high, no low, no great, no small;[316:4]
He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all!
Essay on Man. Epistle i. Line 277.
All nature is but art, unknown to thee;
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;
All discord, harmony not understood;
All partial evil, universal good;
And spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,
One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right.[316:5]
Essay on Man. Epistle i. Line 289.
[317]
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;
The proper study of mankind is man.[317:1]
Essay on Man. Epistle ii. Line 1.
Chaos of thought and passion, all confused;
Still by himself abused or disabused;
Created half to rise, and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled,—
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world.[317:2]
Essay on Man. Epistle ii. Line 13.
Fix'd like a plant on his peculiar spot,
To draw nutrition, propagate, and rot.
Essay on Man. Epistle ii. Line 63.
In lazy apathy let stoics boast
Their virtue fix'd: 't is fix'd as in a frost;
Contracted all, retiring to the breast;
But strength of mind is exercise, not rest.
Essay on Man. Epistle ii. Line 101.
On life's vast ocean diversely we sail,
Reason the card, but passion is the gale.
Essay on Man. Epistle ii. Line 107.
And hence one master-passion in the breast,
Like Aaron's serpent, swallows up the rest.
Essay on Man. Epistle ii. Line 131.
The young disease, that must subdue at length,
Grows with his growth, and strengthens with his strength.
Essay on Man. Epistle ii. Line 135.
Extremes in nature equal ends produce;
In man they join to some mysterious use.
Essay on Man. Epistle ii. Line 205.
Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,
As to be hated needs but to be seen;[317:3]
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.
Essay on Man. Epistle ii. Line 217.
[318]
Ask where 's the North? At York 't is on the Tweed;
In Scotland at the Orcades; and there,
At Greenland, Zembla, or the Lord knows where.
Essay on Man. Epistle ii. Line 222.
Virtuous and vicious every man must be,—
Few in the extreme, but all in the degree.
Essay on Man. Epistle ii. Line 231.
Hope travels through, nor quits us when we die.
Behold the child, by Nature's kindly law,
Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw;
Some livelier plaything gives his youth delight,
A little louder, but as empty quite;
Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his riper stage,
And beads and prayer-books are the toys of age.
Pleased with this bauble still, as that before,
Till tired he sleeps, and life's poor play is o'er.
Essay on Man. Epistle ii. Line 274.
While man exclaims, "See all things for my use!"
"See man for mine!" replies a pamper'd goose.[318:1]
Essay on Man. Epistle iii. Line 45.
Learn of the little nautilus to sail,
Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale.
Essay on Man. Epistle iii. Line 177.
The enormous faith of many made for one.
Essay on Man. Epistle iii. Line 242.
For forms of government let fools contest;
Whate'er is best administer'd is best.
For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight;
His can't be wrong whose life is in the right.[318:2]
In faith and hope the world will disagree,
But all mankind's concern is charity.
Essay on Man. Epistle iii. Line 303.
O happiness! our being's end and aim!
Good, pleasure, ease, content! whate'er thy name:
That something still which prompts the eternal sigh,
For which we bear to live, or dare to die.
Essay on Man. Epistle iv. Line 1.
[319]
Order is Heaven's first law.
Essay on Man. Epistle iv. Line 49.
Reason's whole pleasure, all the joys of sense,
Lie in three words,—health, peace, and competence.
Essay on Man. Epistle iv. Line 79.
The soul's calm sunshine and the heartfelt joy.
Essay on Man. Epistle iv. Line 168.
Honour and shame from no condition rise;
Act well your part, there all the honour lies.
Essay on Man. Epistle iv. Line 193.
Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow;
The rest is all but leather or prunello.
Essay on Man. Epistle iv. Line 203.
What can ennoble sots or slaves or cowards?
Alas! not all the blood of all the Howards.
Essay on Man. Epistle iv. Line 215.
A wit 's a feather, and a chief a rod;
An honest man 's the noblest work of God.[319:1]
Essay on Man. Epistle iv. Line 247.
Plays round the head, but comes not to the heart.
One self-approving hour whole years outweighs
Of stupid starers and of loud huzzas;
And more true joy Marcellus exil'd feels
Than Cæsar with a senate at his heels.
In parts superior what advantage lies?
Tell (for you can) what is it to be wise?
'T is but to know how little can be known;
To see all others' faults, and feel our own.
Essay on Man. Epistle iv. Line 254.
Truths would you teach, or save a sinking land?
All fear, none aid you, and few understand.
Essay on Man. Epistle iv. Line 261.
Know then this truth (enough for man to know),—
"Virtue alone is happiness below."
Essay on Man. Epistle iv. Line 309.
[320]
Never elated when one man 's oppress'd;
Never dejected while another 's bless'd.
Essay on Man. Epistle iv. Line 323.
Slave to no sect, who takes no private road,
But looks through Nature up to Nature's God.[320:1]
Essay on Man. Epistle iv. Line 331.
Form'd by thy converse, happily to steer
From grave to gay, from lively to severe.[320:2]
Essay on Man. Epistle iv. Line 379.
Say, shall my little bark attendant sail,
Pursue the triumph and partake the gale?
Essay on Man. Epistle iv. Line 385.
Thou wert my guide, philosopher, and friend.
Essay on Man. Epistle iv. Line 390.
That virtue only makes our bliss below,[320:3]
And all our knowledge is ourselves to know.
Essay on Man. Epistle iv. Line 397.
To observations which ourselves we make,
We grow more partial for th' observer's sake.
Moral Essays. Epistle i. Line 11.
Like following life through creatures you dissect,
You lose it in the moment you detect.
Moral Essays. Epistle i. Line 20.
In vain sedate reflections we would make
When half our knowledge we must snatch, not take.
Moral Essays. Epistle i. Line 39.
Not always actions show the man; we find
Who does a kindness is not therefore kind.
Moral Essays. Epistle i. Line 109.
Who combats bravely is not therefore brave,
He dreads a death-bed like the meanest slave:
Who reasons wisely is not therefore wise,—
His pride in reasoning, not in acting lies.
Moral Essays. Epistle i. Line 115.
'T is from high life high characters are drawn;
A saint in crape is twice a saint in lawn.
Moral Essays. Epistle i. Line 135.
'T is education forms the common mind:
Just as the twig is bent the tree 's inclined.
Moral Essays. Epistle i. Line 149.
[321]
Manners with fortunes, humours turn with climes,
Tenets with books, and principles with times.[321:1]
Moral Essays. Epistle i. Line 172.
"Odious! in woollen! 't would a saint provoke,"
Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke.
Moral Essays. Epistle i. Line 246.
And you, brave Cobham! to the latest breath
Shall feel your ruling passion strong in death.
Moral Essays. Epistle i. Line 262.
Whether the charmer sinner it or saint it,
If folly grow romantic, I must paint it.
Moral Essays. Epistle ii. Line 15.
Choose a firm cloud before it fall, and in it
Catch, ere she change, the Cynthia of this minute.
Moral Essays. Epistle ii. Line 19.
Fine by defect, and delicately weak.[321:2]
Moral Essays. Epistle ii. Line 43.
With too much quickness ever to be taught;
With too much thinking to have common thought.
Moral Essays. Epistle ii. Line 97.
Atossa, cursed with every granted prayer,
Childless with all her children, wants an heir;
To heirs unknown descends the unguarded store,
Or wanders heaven-directed to the poor.
Moral Essays. Epistle ii. Line 147.
Virtue she finds too painful an endeavour,
Content to dwell in decencies forever.
Moral Essays. Epistle ii. Line 163.
Men, some to business, some to pleasure take;
But every woman is at heart a rake.
Moral Essays. Epistle ii. Line 215.
See how the world its veterans rewards!
A youth of frolics, an old age of cards.
Moral Essays. Epistle ii. Line 243.
Oh, blest with temper whose unclouded ray
Can make to-morrow cheerful as to-day!
Moral Essays. Epistle ii. Line 257.
Most women have no characters at all.
Moral Essays. Epistle ii. Line 2.
She who ne'er answers till a husband cools,
Or if she rules him, never shows she rules.
Moral Essays. Epistle ii. Line 261.
[322]
And mistress of herself though china fall.
Moral Essays. Epistle ii. Line 268.
Woman 's at best a contradiction still.
Moral Essays. Epistle ii. Line 270.
Who shall decide when doctors disagree,
And soundest casuists doubt, like you and me?
Moral Essays. Epistle iii. Line 1.
Blest paper-credit! last and best supply!
That lends corruption lighter wings to fly.
Moral Essays. Epistle iii. Line 39.
P. What riches give us let us then inquire:
Meat, fire, and clothes. B. What more? P. Meat, fine clothes, and fire.
Moral Essays. Epistle iii. Line 79.
But thousands die without or this or that,—
Die, and endow a college or a cat.
Moral Essays. Epistle iii. Line 95.
The ruling passion, be it what it will,
The ruling passion conquers reason still.
Moral Essays. Epistle iii. Line 153.
Extremes in Nature equal good produce;
Extremes in man concur to general use.
Moral Essays. Epistle iii. Line 161.
Rise, honest muse! and sing The Man of Ross.
Moral Essays. Epistle iii. Line 250.
Ye little stars! hide your diminish'd rays.[322:1]
Moral Essays. Epistle iii. Line 282.
Who builds a church to God and not to fame,
Will never mark the marble with his name.
Moral Essays. Epistle iii. Line 285.
In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half hung.
Moral Essays. Epistle iii. Line 299.
Where London's column, pointing at the skies,
Like a tall bully, lifts the head and lies.
Moral Essays. Epistle iii. Line 339.
Good sense, which only is the gift of Heaven,
And though no science, fairly worth the seven.
Moral Essays. Epistle iv. Line 43.
To rest, the cushion and soft dean invite,
Who never mentions hell to ears polite.[322:2]
Moral Essays. Epistle iv. Line 149.
[323]
Statesman, yet friend to truth! of soul sincere,
In action faithful, and in honour clear;
Who broke no promise, serv'd no private end,
Who gain'd no title, and who lost no friend.
Epistle to Mr. Addison. Line 67.
'T is with our judgments as our watches,—none
Go just alike, yet each believes his own.[323:1]
Essay on Criticism. Part i. Line 9.
One science only will one genius fit:
So vast is art, so narrow human wit.
Essay on Criticism. Part i. Line 60.
From vulgar bounds with brave disorder part,
And snatch a grace beyond the reach of art.
Essay on Criticism. Part i. Line 152.
Those oft are stratagems which errors seem,
Nor is it Homer nods, but we that dream.[323:2]
Essay on Criticism. Part i. Line 177.
Of all the causes which conspire to blind
Man's erring judgment, and misguide the mind;
What the weak head with strongest bias rules,—
Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools.
Essay on Criticism. Part ii. Line 1.
A little learning is a dangerous thing;[323:3]
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.
Essay on Criticism. Part ii. Line 15.
Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise!
Essay on Criticism. Part ii. Line 32.
Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see,
Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be.[323:4]
Essay on Criticism. Part ii. Line 53.
True wit is Nature to advantage dress'd,
What oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd.
Essay on Criticism. Part ii. Line 97.
Words are like leaves; and where they most abound,
Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.
Essay on Criticism. Part ii. Line 109.
[324]
Such labour'd nothings, in so strange a style,
Amaze th' unlearn'd and make the learned smile.
Essay on Criticism. Part ii. Line 126.
In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold,
Alike fantastic if too new or old:
Be not the first by whom the new are tried,
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.
Essay on Criticism. Part ii. Line 133.
Some to church repair,
Not for the doctrine, but the music there.
These equal syllables alone require,
Though oft the ear the open vowels tire;
While expletives their feeble aid to join,
And ten low words oft creep in one dull line.
Essay on Criticism. Part ii. Line 142.
A needless Alexandrine ends the song,
That like a wounded snake drags its slow length along.
Essay on Criticism. Part ii. Line 156.
True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance.
'T is not enough no harshness gives offence,—
The sound must seem an echo to the sense.
Essay on Criticism. Part ii. Line 162.
Soft is the strain when zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,
The hoarse rough verse should like the torrent roar.
When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line too labours, and the words move slow:
Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main.
Essay on Criticism. Part ii. Line 166.
Yet let not each gay turn thy rapture move;
For fools admire, but men of sense approve.
Essay on Criticism. Part ii. Line 190.
But let a lord once own the happy lines,
How the wit brightens! how the style refines!
Essay on Criticism. Part ii. Line 220.
Envy will merit as its shade pursue,
But like a shadow proves the substance true.
Essay on Criticism. Part ii. Line 266.
[325]
To err is human, to forgive divine.[325:1]
Essay on Criticism. Part ii. Line 325.
All seems infected that th' infected spy,
As all looks yellow to the jaundic'd eye.
Essay on Criticism. Part ii. Line 358.
And make each day a critic on the last.
Essay on Criticism. Part iii. Line 12.
Men must be taught as if you taught them not,
And things unknown propos'd as things forgot.
Essay on Criticism. Part iii. Line 15.
The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read,
With loads of learned lumber in his head.
Essay on Criticism. Part iii. Line 53.
Most authors steal their works, or buy;
Garth did not write his own Dispensary.
Essay on Criticism. Part iii. Line 59.
For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.[325:2]
Essay on Criticism. Part iii. Line 66.
Led by the light of the Mæonian star.
Essay on Criticism. Part iii. Line 89.
Content if hence th' unlearn'd their wants may view,
The learn'd reflect on what before they knew.[325:3]
Essay on Criticism. Part iii. Line 180.
What dire offence from amorous causes springs!
What mighty contests rise from trivial things!
The Rape of the Lock. Canto i. Line 1.
And all Arabia breathes from yonder box.
The Rape of the Lock. Canto i. Line 134.
On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore
Which Jews might kiss, and infidels adore.
The Rape of the Lock. Canto ii. Line 7.
If to her share some female errors fall,
Look on her face, and you 'll forget them all.
The Rape of the Lock. Canto ii. Line 17.
[326]
Fair tresses man's imperial race insnare,
And beauty draws us with a single hair.[326:1]
The Rape of the Lock. Canto ii. Line 27.
Here thou, great Anna! whom three realms obey,
Dost sometimes counsel take—and sometimes tea.
The Rape of the Lock. Canto iii. Line 7.
At every word a reputation dies.
The Rape of the Lock. Canto iii. Line 16.
The hungry judges soon the sentence sign,
And wretches hang that jurymen may dine.
The Rape of the Lock. Canto iii. Line 21.
Coffee, which makes the politician wise,
And see through all things with his half-shut eyes.
The Rape of the Lock. Canto iii. Line 117.
The meeting points the sacred hair dissever
From the fair head, forever, and forever!
The Rape of the Lock. Canto iii. Line 153.
Sir Plume, of amber snuff-box justly vain,
And the nice conduct of a clouded cane.
The Rape of the Lock. Canto iv. Line 123.
Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.
The Rape of the Lock. Canto v. Line 34.
Shut, shut the door, good John! fatigued, I said;
Tie up the knocker! say I 'm sick, I 'm dead.
Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. Prologue to the Satires. Line 1.
Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand,
They rave, recite, and madden round the land.
Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. Prologue to the Satires. Line 5.
E'en Sunday shines no Sabbath day to me.
Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. Prologue to the Satires. Line 12.
Is there a parson much bemused in beer,
A maudlin poetess, a rhyming peer,
A clerk foredoom'd his father's soul to cross,
Who pens a stanza when he should engross?
Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. Prologue to the Satires. Line 15.
Friend to my life, which did not you prolong,
The world had wanted many an idle song.
Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. Prologue to the Satires. Line 27.
Obliged by hunger and request of friends.
Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. Prologue to the Satires. Line 44.
Fired that the house rejects him, "'Sdeath! I 'll print it,
And shame the fools."
Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. Prologue to the Satires. Line 61.
[327]
No creature smarts so little as a fool.
Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. Prologue to the Satires. Line 84.
Destroy his fib or sophistry—in vain!
The creature 's at his dirty work again.
Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. Prologue to the Satires. Line 91.
As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame,
I lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came.
Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. Prologue to the Satires. Line 127.
Pretty! in amber to observe the forms
Of hairs, or straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms![327:1]
The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare,
But wonder how the devil they got there.
Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. Prologue to the Satires. Line 169.
Means not, but blunders round about a meaning;
And he whose fustian 's so sublimely bad,
It is not poetry, but prose run mad.
Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. Prologue to the Satires. Line 186.
Should such a man, too fond to rule alone,
Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne.[327:2]
Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. Prologue to the Satires. Line 197.
Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
And without sneering teach the rest to sneer;[327:3]
Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,
Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike.
Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. Prologue to the Satires. Line 201.
By flatterers besieg'd,
And so obliging that he ne'er oblig'd;
Like Cato, give his little senate laws,[327:4]
And sit attentive to his own applause.
Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. Prologue to the Satires. Line 207.
Who but must laugh, if such a man there be?
Who would not weep, if Atticus were he?
Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. Prologue to the Satires. Line 213.
"On wings of winds came flying all abroad."[327:5]
Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. Prologue to the Satires. Line 218.
Cursed be the verse, how well so e'er it flow,
That tends to make one worthy man my foe.
Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. Prologue to the Satires. Line 283.
[328]
Satire or sense, alas! can Sporus feel?
Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?
Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. Prologue to the Satires. Line 307.
Eternal smiles his emptiness betray,
As shallow streams run dimpling all the way.
Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. Prologue to the Satires. Line 315.
Wit that can creep, and pride that licks the dust.
Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. Prologue to the Satires. Line 333.
That not in fancy's maze he wander'd long,
But stoop'd to truth, and moraliz'd his song.[328:1]
Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. Prologue to the Satires. Line 340.
Me let the tender office long engage
To rock the cradle of reposing age;
With lenient arts extend a mother's breath,
Make languor smile, and smooth the bed of death;
Explore the thought, explain the asking eye,
And keep awhile one parent from the sky.
Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. Prologue to the Satires. Line 408.
Lord Fanny spins a thousand such a day.
Satires, Epistles, and Odes of Horace. Satire i. Book ii. Line 6.
Satire 's my weapon, but I 'm too discreet
To run amuck, and tilt at all I meet.
Satires, Epistles, and Odes of Horace. Satire i. Book ii. Line 69.
But touch me, and no minister so sore;
Whoe'er offends at some unlucky time
Slides into verse, and hitches in a rhyme,
Sacred to ridicule his whole life long,
And the sad burden of some merry song.
Satires, Epistles, and Odes of Horace. Satire i. Book ii. Line 76.
Bare the mean heart that lurks behind a star.
Satires, Epistles, and Odes of Horace. Satire i. Book ii. Line 110.
There St. John mingles with my friendly bowl,
The feast of reason and the flow of soul.
Satires, Epistles, and Odes of Horace. Satire i. Book ii. Line 127.
For I, who hold sage Homer's rule the best,
Welcome the coming, speed the going guest.[328:2]
Satires, Epistles, and Odes of Horace. Satire ii. Book ii. Line 159.
Give me again my hollow tree,
A crust of bread, and liberty.
Satires, Epistles, and Odes of Horace. Satire vi. Book ii. Line 220.
[329]
Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.
Satires, Epistles, and Odes of Horace. Epilogue to the Satires. Dialogue i. Line 136.
To Berkeley every virtue under heaven.
Satires, Epistles, and Odes of Horace. Epilogue to the Satires. Dialogue ii. Line 73.
When the brisk minor pants for twenty-one.
Satires, Epistles, and Odes of Horace. Epistle i. Book i. Line 38.
He 's armed without that 's innocent within.
Satires, Epistles, and Odes of Horace. Epistle i. Book i. Line 94.
Get place and wealth, if possible, with grace;
If not, by any means get wealth and place.[329:1]
Satires, Epistles, and Odes of Horace. Epistle i. Book i. Line 103.
Above all Greek, above all Roman fame.[329:2]
Satires, Epistles, and Odes of Horace. Epistle i. Book ii. Line 26.
Authors, like coins, grow dear as they grow old.
Satires, Epistles, and Odes of Horace. Epistle i. Book ii. Line 35.
The mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease.
Satires, Epistles, and Odes of Horace. Epistle i. Book ii. Line 108.
One simile that solitary shines
In the dry desert of a thousand lines.
Satires, Epistles, and Odes of Horace. Epistle i. Book ii. Line 111.
Then marble soften'd into life grew warm,
And yielding, soft metal flow'd to human form.[329:3]
Satires, Epistles, and Odes of Horace. Epistle i. Book ii. Line 147.
Who says in verse what others say in prose.
Satires, Epistles, and Odes of Horace. Epistle i. Book ii. Line 202.
Waller was smooth; but Dryden taught to join
The varying verse, the full resounding line,
The long majestic march, and energy divine.
Satires, Epistles, and Odes of Horace. Epistle i. Book ii. Line 267.
E'en copious Dryden wanted or forgot
The last and greatest art,—the art to blot.
Satires, Epistles, and Odes of Horace. Epistle i. Book ii. Line 280.
Who pants for glory finds but short repose:
A breath revives him, or a breath o'erthrows.[329:4]
Satires, Epistles, and Odes of Horace. Epistle i. Book ii. Line 300.
There still remains to mortify a wit
The many-headed monster of the pit.[329:5]
Satires, Epistles, and Odes of Horace. Epistle i. Book ii. Line 304.
[330]
Praise undeserv'd is scandal in disguise.[330:1]
Satires, Epistles, and Odes of Horace. Epistle i. Book ii. Line 413.
Years following years steal something every day;
At last they steal us from ourselves away.
Satires, Epistles, and Odes of Horace. Epistle ii. Book ii. Line 72.
The vulgar boil, the learned roast, an egg.
Satires, Epistles, and Odes of Horace. Epistle ii. Book ii. Line 85.
Words that wise Bacon or brave Raleigh spoke.
Satires, Epistles, and Odes of Horace. Epistle ii. Book ii. Line 168.
Grac'd as thou art with all the power of words,
So known, so honour'd at the House of Lords.[330:2]
Satires, Epistles, and Odes of Horace. Epistle vi. Book i. To Mr. Murray.
Vain was the chief's the sage's pride!
They had no poet, and they died.
Satires, Epistles, and Odes of Horace. Odes. Book iv. Ode 9.
Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night:
God said, "Let Newton be!" and all was light.
Epitaph intended for Sir Isaac Newton.
Ye Gods! annihilate but space and time,
And make two lovers happy.
Martinus Scriblerus on the Art of Sinking in Poetry. Chap. xi.
O thou! whatever title please thine ear,
Dean, Drapier, Bickerstaff, or Gulliver!
Whether thou choose Cervantes' serious air,
Or laugh and shake in Rabelais' easy-chair.
The Dunciad. Book i. Line 19.
Poetic Justice, with her lifted scale,
Where in nice balance truth with gold she weighs,
And solid pudding against empty praise.
The Dunciad. Book i. Line 52.
[331]
Now night descending, the proud scene was o'er,
But lived in Settle's numbers one day more.
The Dunciad. Book i. Line 89.
While pensive poets painful vigils keep,
Sleepless themselves to give their readers sleep.
The Dunciad. Book i. Line 93.
Next o'er his books his eyes begin to roll,
In pleasing memory of all he stole.
The Dunciad. Book i. Line 127.
Or where the pictures for the page atone,
And Quarles is sav'd by beauties not his own.
The Dunciad. Book i. Line 139.
How index-learning turns no student pale,
Yet holds the eel of science by the tail.
The Dunciad. Book i. Line 279.
And gentle Dulness ever loves a joke.
The Dunciad. Book ii. Line 34.
Another, yet the same.[331:1]
The Dunciad. Book iii. Line 90.
Till Peter's keys some christen'd Jove adorn,
And Pan to Moses lends his pagan horn.
The Dunciad. Book iii. Line 109.
All crowd, who foremost shall be damn'd to fame.[331:2]
The Dunciad. Book iii. Line 158.
Silence, ye wolves! while Ralph to Cynthia howls,
And makes night hideous;[331:3]—answer him, ye owls!
The Dunciad. Book iii. Line 165.
And proud his mistress' order to perform,
Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm.[331:4]
The Dunciad. Book iii. Line 263.
A wit with dunces, and a dunce with wits.[331:5]
The Dunciad. Book iv. Line 90.
[332]
How sweet an Ovid, Murray was our boast!
The Dunciad. Book iv. Line 169.
The right divine of kings to govern wrong.
The Dunciad. Book iv. Line 188.
Stuff the head
With all such reading as was never read:
For thee explain a thing till all men doubt it,
And write about it, goddess, and about it.
The Dunciad. Book iv. Line 249.
To happy convents bosom'd deep in vines,
Where slumber abbots purple as their wines.
The Dunciad. Book iv. Line 301.
Led by my hand, he saunter'd Europe round,
And gather'd every vice on Christian ground.
The Dunciad. Book iv. Line 311.
Judicious drank, and greatly daring din'd.
The Dunciad. Book iv. Line 318.
Stretch'd on the rack of a too easy chair,
And heard thy everlasting yawn confess
The pains and penalties of idleness.
The Dunciad. Book iv. Line 342.
E'en Palinurus nodded at the helm.
The Dunciad. Book iv. Line 614.
Religion blushing, veils her sacred fires,
And unawares Morality expires.
Nor public flame nor private dares to shine;
Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine!
Lo! thy dread empire Chaos is restor'd,
Light dies before thy uncreating word;
Thy hand, great Anarch, lets the curtain fall,
And universal darkness buries all.
The Dunciad. Book iv. Line 649.
[333]
Heaven first taught letters for some wretch's aid,
Some banish'd lover, or some captive maid.
Eloisa to Abelard. Line 51.
Speed the soft intercourse from soul to soul,
And waft a sigh from Indus to the Pole.
Eloisa to Abelard. Line 57.
And truths divine came mended from that tongue.
Eloisa to Abelard. Line 66.
Curse on all laws but those which love has made!
Love, free as air at sight of human ties,
Spreads his light wings, and in a moment flies.
Eloisa to Abelard. Line 74.
And love the offender, yet detest the offence.[333:1]
Eloisa to Abelard. Line 192.
How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eloisa to Abelard. Line 207.
One thought of thee puts all the pomp to flight;
Priests, tapers, temples, swim before my sight.[333:2]
Eloisa to Abelard. Line 273.
See my lips tremble and my eyeballs roll,
Suck my last breath, and catch my flying soul.
Eloisa to Abelard. Line 323.
He best can paint them who shall feel them most.[333:3]
Eloisa to Abelard. Last line.
Not chaos-like together crush'd and bruis'd,
But as the world, harmoniously confus'd,
Where order in variety we see,
And where, though all things differ, all agree.
Windsor Forest. Line 13.
A mighty hunter, and his prey was man.
Windsor Forest. Line 61.
From old Belerium to the northern main.
Windsor Forest. Line 316.
Nor Fame I slight, nor for her favours call;
She comes unlooked for if she comes at all.
The Temple of Fame. Line 513.
Unblemish'd let me live, or die unknown;
O grant an honest fame, or grant me none!
The Temple of Fame. Last line.
[334]
I am his Highness' dog at Kew;
Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?
On the Collar of a Dog.
There, take (says Justice), take ye each a shell:
We thrive at Westminster on fools like you;
'T was a fat oyster,—live in peace,—adieu.[334:1]
Verbatim from Boileau.
Father of all! in every age,
In every clime adored,
By saint, by savage, and by sage,
Jehovah, Jove, or Lord.
The Universal Prayer. Stanza 1.
Thou great First Cause, least understood.
The Universal Prayer. Stanza 2.
And binding Nature fast in fate,
Left free the human will.
The Universal Prayer. Stanza 3.
And deal damnation round the land.
The Universal Prayer. Stanza 7.
Teach me to feel another's woe,
To hide the fault I see;
That mercy I to others show,
That mercy show to me.[334:2]
The Universal Prayer. Stanza 10.
Happy the man whose wish and care
A few paternal acres bound.
Ode on Solitude.
Thus let me live, unseen, unknown,
Thus unlamented let me die;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lie.
Ode on Solitude.
Vital spark of heavenly flame!
Quit, O quit this mortal frame!
The Dying Christian to his Soul.
Hark! they whisper; angels say,
Sister spirit, come away!
The Dying Christian to his Soul.
[335]
Tell me, my soul, can this be death?
The Dying Christian to his Soul.
Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly!
O grave! where is thy victory?
O death! where is thy sting?
The Dying Christian to his Soul.
What beckoning ghost along the moonlight shade
Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade?[335:1]
To the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady. Line 1.
Is there no bright reversion in the sky
For those who greatly think, or bravely die?
To the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady. Line 9.
The glorious fault of angels and of gods.
To the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady. Line 14.
So perish all, whose breast ne'er learn'd to glow
For others' good, or melt at others' woe.[335:2]
To the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady. Line 45.
By foreign hands thy dying eyes were clos'd,
By foreign hands thy decent limbs compos'd,
By foreign hands thy humble grave adorn'd,
By strangers honoured, and by strangers mourn'd!
To the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady. Line 51.
And bear about the mockery of woe
To midnight dances and the public show.
To the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady. Line 57.
How lov'd, how honour'd once avails thee not,
To whom related, or by whom begot;
A heap of dust alone remains of thee:
'T is all thou art, and all the proud shall be!
To the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady. Line 71.
Such were the notes thy once lov'd poet sung,
Till death untimely stopp'd his tuneful tongue.
Epistle to Robert, Earl of Oxford.
Who ne'er knew joy but friendship might divide,
Or gave his father grief but when he died.
Epitaph on the Hon. S. Harcourt.
The saint sustain'd it, but the woman died.
Epitaph on Mrs. Corbet.
[336]
A brave man struggling in the storms of fate,
And greatly falling with a falling state.
While Cato gives his little senate laws,
What bosom beats not in his country's cause?
Prologue to Mr. Addison's Cato.
The mouse that always trusts to one poor hole
Can never be a mouse of any soul.[336:1]
The Wife of Bath. Her Prologue. Line 298.
Love seldom haunts the breast where learning lies,
And Venus sets ere Mercury can rise.
The Wife of Bath. Her Prologue. Line 369.
You beat your pate, and fancy wit will come;
Knock as you please, there 's nobody at home.[336:2]
Epigram.
For he lives twice who can at once employ
The present well, and e'en the past enjoy.[336:3]
Imitation of Martial.
Who dared to love their country, and be poor.
On his Grotto at Twickenham.
Party is the madness of many for the gain of a few.[336:4]
Thoughts on Various Subjects.
I never knew any man in my life who could not bear another's misfortunes perfectly like a Christian.
Thoughts on Various Subjects.
Achilles' wrath, to Greece the direful spring
Of woes unnumber'd, heavenly goddess, sing!
The Iliad of Homer. Book i. Line 1.
[337]
The distant Trojans never injur'd me.
The Iliad of Homer. Book i. Line 200.
Words sweet as honey from his lips distill'd.
The Iliad of Homer. Book i. Line 332.
Shakes his ambrosial curls, and gives the nod,—
The stamp of fate, and sanction of the god.
The Iliad of Homer. Book i. Line 684.
And unextinguish'd laughter shakes the skies.[337:1]
The Iliad of Homer. Book i. Line 771.
Thick as autumnal leaves or driving sand.
The Iliad of Homer. Book ii. Line 970.
Chiefs who no more in bloody fights engage,
But wise through time, and narrative with age,
In summer-days like grasshoppers rejoice,—
A bloodless race, that send a feeble voice.
The Iliad of Homer. Book iii. Line 199.
She moves a goddess, and she looks a queen.
The Iliad of Homer. Book iii. Line 208.
Ajax the great . . . .
Himself a host.
The Iliad of Homer. Book iii. Line 293.
Plough the watery deep.
The Iliad of Homer. Book iii. Line 357.
The day shall come, that great avenging day
Which Troy's proud glories in the dust shall lay,
When Priam's powers and Priam's self shall fall,
And one prodigious ruin swallow all.
The Iliad of Homer. Book iv. Line 196.
First in the fight and every graceful deed.
The Iliad of Homer. Book iv. Line 295.
The first in banquets, but the last in fight.
The Iliad of Homer. Book iv. Line 401.
Gods! How the son degenerates from the sire!
The Iliad of Homer. Book iv. Line 451.
With all its beauteous honours on its head.
The Iliad of Homer. Book iv. Line 557.
A wealthy priest, but rich without a fault.
The Iliad of Homer. Book v. Line 16.
Not two strong men the enormous weight could raise,—
Such men as live in these degenerate days.[337:2]
The Iliad of Homer. Book v. Line 371.
[338]
Whose little body lodg'd a mighty mind.
The Iliad of Homer. Book v. Line 999.
He held his seat,—a friend to human race.
The Iliad of Homer. Book vi. Line 18.
Like leaves on trees the race of man is found,—
Now green in youth, now withering on the ground;[338:1]
Another race the following spring supplies:
They fall successive, and successive rise.
The Iliad of Homer. Book vi. Line 181.
Inflaming wine, pernicious to mankind.
The Iliad of Homer. Book vi. Line 330.
If yet not lost to all the sense of shame.
The Iliad of Homer. Book vi. Line 350.
'T is man's to fight, but Heaven's to give success.
The Iliad of Homer. Book vi. Line 427.
The young Astyanax, the hope of Troy.
The Iliad of Homer. Book vi. Line 467.
Yet while my Hector still survives, I see
My father, mother, brethren, all, in thee.
The Iliad of Homer. Book vi. Line 544.
Andromache! my soul's far better part.
The Iliad of Homer. Book vi. Line 624.
He from whose lips divine persuasion flows.
The Iliad of Homer. Book vii. Line 143.
Not hate, but glory, made these chiefs contend;
And each brave foe was in his soul a friend.
The Iliad of Homer. Book vii. Line 364.
I war not with the dead.
The Iliad of Homer. Book vii. Line 485.
Aurora now, fair daughter of the dawn,
Sprinkled with rosy light the dewy lawn.
The Iliad of Homer. Book viii. Line 1.
As full-blown poppies, overcharg'd with rain,
Decline the head, and drooping kiss the plain,—
So sinks the youth; his beauteous head, deprest
Beneath his helmet, drops upon his breast.
The Iliad of Homer. Book viii. Line 371.
Who dares think one thing, and another tell,
My heart detests him as the gates of hell.[338:2]
The Iliad of Homer. Book ix. Line 412.
[339]
Life is not to be bought with heaps of gold:
Not all Apollo's Pythian treasures hold,
Or Troy once held, in peace and pride of sway,
Can bribe the poor possession of a day.
The Iliad of Homer. Book ix. Line 524.
Short is my date, but deathless my renown.
The Iliad of Homer. Book ix. Line 535.
Injustice, swift, erect, and unconfin'd,
Sweeps the wide earth, and tramples o'er mankind.
The Iliad of Homer. Book ix. Line 628.
A generous friendship no cold medium knows,
Burns with one love, with one resentment glows.
The Iliad of Homer. Book ix. Line 725.
To labour is the lot of man below;
And when Jove gave us life, he gave us woe.
The Iliad of Homer. Book x. Line 78.
Content to follow when we lead the way.
The Iliad of Homer. Book x. Line 141.
He serves me most who serves his country best.[339:1]
The Iliad of Homer. Book x. Line 201.
Praise from a friend, or censure from a foe,
Are lost on hearers that our merits know.
The Iliad of Homer. Book x. Line 293.
The rest were vulgar deaths, unknown to fame.
The Iliad of Homer. Book xi. Line 394.
Without a sign his sword the brave man draws,
And asks no omen but his country's cause.
The Iliad of Homer. Book xii. Line 283.
The life which others pay let us bestow,
And give to fame what we to nature owe.
The Iliad of Homer. Book xii. Line 393.
And seem to walk on wings, and tread in air.
The Iliad of Homer. Book xiii. Line 106.
The best of things beyond their measure cloy.
The Iliad of Homer. Book xiii. Line 795.
To hide their ignominious heads in Troy.
The Iliad of Homer. Book xiv. Line 170.
Persuasive speech, and more persuasive sighs,
Silence that spoke, and eloquence of eyes.
The Iliad of Homer. Book xiv. Line 251.
[340]
Heroes as great have died, and yet shall fall.
The Iliad of Homer. Book xv. Line 157.
And for our country 't is a bliss to die.
The Iliad of Homer. Book xv. Line 583.
Like strength is felt from hope and from despair.
The Iliad of Homer. Book xv. Line 852.
Two friends, two bodies with one soul inspir'd.[340:1]
The Iliad of Homer. Book xvi. Line 267.
Dispel this cloud, the light of Heaven restore;
Give me to see, and Ajax asks no more.
The Iliad of Homer. Book xvii. Line 730.
The mildest manners, and the gentlest heart.
The Iliad of Homer. Book xvii. Line 756.
In death a hero, as in life a friend!
The Iliad of Homer. Book xvii. Line 758.
Patroclus, lov'd of all my martial train,
Beyond mankind, beyond myself, is slain!
The Iliad of Homer. Book xviii. Line 103.
I live an idle burden to the ground.
The Iliad of Homer. Book xviii. Line 134.
Ah, youth! forever dear, forever kind.
The Iliad of Homer. Book xix. Line 303.
Accept these grateful tears! for thee they flow,—
For thee, that ever felt another's woe!
The Iliad of Homer. Book xix. Line 319.
Where'er he mov'd, the goddess shone before.
The Iliad of Homer. Book xx. Line 127.
The matchless Ganymed, divinely fair.[340:2]
The Iliad of Homer. Book xx. Line 278.
'T is fortune gives us birth,
But Jove alone endues the soul with worth.
The Iliad of Homer. Book xx. Line 290.
Our business in the field of fight
Is not to question, but to prove our might.
The Iliad of Homer. Book xx. Line 304.
[341]
A mass enormous! which in modern days
No two of earth's degenerate sons could raise.[341:1]
The Iliad of Homer. Book xx. Line 337.
The bitter dregs of fortune's cup to drain.
The Iliad of Homer. Book xxii. Line 85.
Who dies in youth and vigour, dies the best.
The Iliad of Homer. Book xxii. Line 100.
This, this is misery! the last, the worst
That man can feel.
The Iliad of Homer. Book xxii. Line 106.
No season now for calm familiar talk.
The Iliad of Homer. Book xxii. Line 169.
Jove lifts the golden balances that show
The fates of mortal men, and things below.
The Iliad of Homer. Book xxii. Line 271.
Achilles absent was Achilles still.
The Iliad of Homer. Book xxii. Line 418.
Forever honour'd, and forever mourn'd.
The Iliad of Homer. Book xxii. Line 422.
Unwept, unhonour'd, uninterr'd he lies![341:2]
The Iliad of Homer. Book xxii. Line 484.
Grief tears his heart, and drives him to and fro
In all the raging impotence of woe.
The Iliad of Homer. Book xxii. Line 526.
Sinks my sad soul with sorrow to the grave.
The Iliad of Homer. Book xxii. Line 543.
'T is true, 't is certain; man though dead retains
Part of himself: the immortal mind remains.
The Iliad of Homer. Book xxiii. Line 122.
Base wealth preferring to eternal praise.
The Iliad of Homer. Book xxiii. Line 368.
It is not strength, but art, obtains the prize,[341:3]
And to be swift is less than to be wise.
'T is more by art than force of num'rous strokes.
The Iliad of Homer. Book xxiii. Line 383.
A green old age,[341:4] unconscious of decays,
That proves the hero born in better days.
The Iliad of Homer. Book xxiii. Line 929.
[342]
Two urns by Jove's high throne have ever stood,—
The source of evil one, and one of good.
The Iliad of Homer. Book xxiv. Line 663.
The mildest manners with the bravest mind.
The Iliad of Homer. Book xxiv. Line 963.
Fly, dotard, fly!
With thy wise dreams and fables of the sky.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book ii. Line 207.
And what he greatly thought, he nobly dar'd.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book ii. Line 312.
Few sons attain the praise
Of their great sires, and most their sires disgrace.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book ii. Line 315.
For never, never, wicked man was wise.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book ii. Line 320.
Urge him with truth to frame his fair replies;
And sure he will: for Wisdom never lies.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book iii. Line 25.
The lot of man,—to suffer and to die.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book iii. Line 117.
A faultless body and a blameless mind.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book iii. Line 138.
The long historian of my country's woes.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book iii. Line 142.
Forgetful youth! but know, the Power above
With ease can save each object of his love;
Wide as his will extends his boundless grace.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book iii. Line 285.
When now Aurora, daughter of the dawn,
With rosy lustre purpled o'er the lawn.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book iii. Line 516.
These riches are possess'd, but not enjoy'd!
The Odyssey of Homer. Book iv. Line 118.
Mirror of constant faith, rever'd and mourn'd!
The Odyssey of Homer. Book iv. Line 229.
There with commutual zeal we both had strove
In acts of dear benevolence and love:
Brothers in peace, not rivals in command.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book iv. Line 241.
The glory of a firm, capacious mind.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book iv. Line 262.
Wise to resolve, and patient to perform.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book iv. Line 372.
The leader, mingling with the vulgar host,
Is in the common mass of matter lost.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book iv. Line 397.
[343]
O thou, whose certain eye foresees
The fix'd events of fate's remote decrees.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book iv. Line 627.
Forget the brother, and resume the man.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book iv. Line 732.
Gentle of speech, beneficent of mind.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book iv. Line 917.
The people's parent, he protected all.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book iv. Line 921.
The big round tear stands trembling in her eye.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book iv. Line 936.
The windy satisfaction of the tongue.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book iv. Line 1092.
Heaven hears and pities hapless men like me,
For sacred ev'n to gods is misery.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book v. Line 572.
The bank he press'd, and gently kiss'd the ground.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book v. Line 596.
A heaven of charms divine Nausicaa lay.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book vi. Line 22.
Jove weighs affairs of earth in dubious scales,
And the good suffers while the bad prevails.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book vi. Line 229.
By Jove the stranger and the poor are sent,
And what to those we give, to Jove is lent.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book vi. Line 247.
A decent boldness ever meets with friends.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book vii. Line 67.
To heal divisions, to relieve th' opprest;
In virtue rich; in blessing others, blest.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book vii. Line 95.
Oh, pity human woe!
'T is what the happy to the unhappy owe.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book vii. Line 198.
Whose well-taught mind the present age surpast.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book vii. Line 210.
For fate has wove the thread of life with pain,
And twins ev'n from the birth are misery and man!
The Odyssey of Homer. Book vii. Line 263.
In youth and beauty wisdom is but rare!
The Odyssey of Homer. Book vii. Line 379.
And every eye
Gaz'd, as before some brother of the sky.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book viii. Line 17.
Nor can one word be chang'd but for a worse.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book viii. Line 192.
[344]
And unextinguish'd laughter shakes the sky.[344:1]
The Odyssey of Homer. Book viii. Line 366.
Behold on wrong
Swift vengeance waits; and art subdues the strong!
The Odyssey of Homer. Book viii. Line 367.
A gen'rous heart repairs a sland'rous tongue.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book viii. Line 432.
Just are the ways of Heaven: from Heaven proceed
The woes of man; Heaven doom'd the Greeks to bleed,—
A theme of future song!
The Odyssey of Homer. Book viii. Line 631.
Earth sounds my wisdom and high heaven my fame.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book ix. Line 20.
Strong are her sons, though rocky are her shores.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book ix. Line 28.
Lotus, the name; divine, nectareous juice!
The Odyssey of Homer. Book ix. Line 106.
Respect us human, and relieve us poor.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book ix. Line 318.
Rare gift! but oh what gift to fools avails!
The Odyssey of Homer. Book x. Line 29.
Our fruitless labours mourn,
And only rich in barren fame return.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book x. Line 46.
No more was seen the human form divine.[344:2]
The Odyssey of Homer. Book x. Line 278.
And not a man appears to tell their fate.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book x. Line 308.
Let him, oraculous, the end, the way,
The turns of all thy future fate display.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book x. Line 642.
Born but to banquet, and to drain the bowl.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book x. Line 662.
Thin airy shoals of visionary ghosts.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book xi. Line 48.
Who ne'er knew salt, or heard the billows roar.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book xi. Line 153.
Heav'd on Olympus tott'ring Ossa stood;
On Ossa, Pelion nods with all his wood.[344:3]
The Odyssey of Homer. Book xi. Line 387.
The first in glory, as the first in place.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book xi. Line 441.
[345]
Soft as some song divine thy story flows.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book xi. Line 458.
Oh woman, woman! when to ill thy mind
Is bent, all hell contains no fouler fiend.[345:1]
The Odyssey of Homer. Book xi. Line 531.
What mighty woes
To thy imperial race from woman rose!
The Odyssey of Homer. Book xi. Line 541.
But sure the eye of time beholds no name
So blest as thine in all the rolls of fame.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book xi. Line 591.
And pines with thirst amidst a sea of waves.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book xi. Line 722.
Up the high hill he heaves a huge round stone.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book xi. Line 736.
There in the bright assemblies of the skies.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book xi. Line 745.
Gloomy as night he stands.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book xi. Line 749.
All, soon or late, are doom'd that path to tread.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book xii. Line 31.
And what so tedious as a twice-told tale.[345:2]
The Odyssey of Homer. Book xii. Line 538.
He ceas'd; but left so pleasing on their ear
His voice, that list'ning still they seem'd to hear.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book xiii. Line 1.
His native home deep imag'd in his soul.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book xiii. Line 38.
And bear unmov'd the wrongs of base mankind,
The last and hardest conquest of the mind.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book xiii. Line 353.
How prone to doubt, how cautious are the wise!
The Odyssey of Homer. Book xiii. Line 375.
It never was our guise
To slight the poor, or aught humane despise.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book xiv. Line 65.
The sex is ever to a soldier kind.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book xiv. Line 246.
Far from gay cities and the ways of men.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book xiv. Line 410.
And wine can of their wits the wise beguile,
Make the sage frolic, and the serious smile.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book xiv. Line 520.
Who love too much, hate in the like extreme,
And both the golden mean alike condemn.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book xv. Line 79.
[346]
True friendship's laws are by this rule exprest,—
Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest.[346:1]
The Odyssey of Homer. Book xv. Line 83.
For too much rest itself becomes a pain.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book xv. Line 429.
Discourse, the sweeter banquet of the mind.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book xv. Line 433.
And taste
The melancholy joy of evils past:
For he who much has suffer'd, much will know.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book xv. Line 434.
For love deceives the best of womankind.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book xv. Line 463.
And would'st thou evil for his good repay?
The Odyssey of Homer. Book xvi. Line 448.
Whatever day
Makes man a slave, takes half his worth away.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book xvii. Line 392.
In ev'ry sorrowing soul I pour'd delight,
And poverty stood smiling in my sight.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book xvii. Line 505.
Unbless'd thy hand, if in this low disguise
Wander, perhaps, some inmate of the skies.[346:2]
The Odyssey of Homer. Book xvii. Line 576.
Know from the bounteous heaven all riches flow;
And what man gives, the gods by man bestow.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book xviii. Line 26.
Yet taught by time, my heart has learn'd to glow
For others' good, and melt at others' woe.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book xviii. Line 269.
A winy vapour melting in a tear.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book xix. Line 143.
But he whose inborn worth his acts commend,
Of gentle soul, to human race a friend.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book xix. Line 383.
The fool of fate,—thy manufacture, man.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book xx. Line 254.
Impatient straight to flesh his virgin sword.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book xx. Line 461.
[347]
Dogs, ye have had your day!
The Odyssey of Homer. Book xxii. Line 41.
For dear to gods and men is sacred song.
Self-taught I sing; by Heaven, and Heaven alone,
The genuine seeds of poesy are sown.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book xxii. Line 382.
So ends the bloody business of the day.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book xxii. Line 516.
And rest at last where souls unbodied dwell,
In ever-flowing meads of Asphodel.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book xxiv. Line 19.
The ruins of himself! now worn away
With age, yet still majestic in decay.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book xxiv. Line 271.
And o'er the past Oblivion stretch her wing.
The Odyssey of Homer. Book xxiv. Line 557.
Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.[347:1]
Letter to Gay, Oct. 6, 1727.
This is the Jew
That Shakespeare drew.[347:2]
There is no theme more plentiful to scan
Than is the glorious goodly frame of man.
Du Bartas: Days and Weeks, third day.
[315:2] Thus we never live, but we hope to live; and always disposing ourselves to be happy.—Pascal: Thoughts, chap. v. 2.
[316:1] All the parts of the universe I have an interest in: the earth serves me to walk upon; the sun to light me; the stars have their influence upon me.—Montaigne: Apology for Raimond Sebond.
[316:4] There is no great and no small.—Emerson: Epigraph to History.
[317:1] La vray science et le vray étude de l'homme c'est l'homme (The true science and the true study of man is man).—Charron: De la Sagesse, lib. i. chap. 1.
Trees and fields tell me nothing: men are my teachers.—Plato: Phædrus.
[317:2] What a chimera, then, is man! what a novelty, what a monster, what a chaos, what a subject of contradiction, what a prodigy! A judge of all things, feeble worm of the earth, depositary of the truth, cloaca of uncertainty and error, the glory and the shame of the universe.—Pascal: Thoughts, chap. x.
[318:1] Why may not a goose say thus? . . . there is nothing that yon heavenly roof looks upon so favourably as me; I am the darling of Nature. Is it not man that keeps and serves me?—Montaigne: Apology for Raimond Sebond.
May see thee now, though late, redeem thy name,
And glorify what else is damn'd to fame.
Savage: Character of Foster.
[320:3] 'T is virtue makes the bliss where'er we dwell.—Collins: Oriental Eclogues, i. line 5.
[321:1] Omnia mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis (All things change, and we change with them).—Matthais Borbonius: Deliciæ Poetarum Germanorum, i. 685.
[323:2] Quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus (Even the worthy Homer sometimes nods).—Horace: De Arte Poetica, 359.
Then gently scan your brother man,
Still gentler sister woman;
Though they may gang a kennin' wrang,
To step aside is human.
Burns: Address to the Unco Guid.
[325:3] Indocti discant et ament meminisse periti (Let the unlearned learn, and the learned delight in remembering). This Latin hexameter, which is commonly ascribed to Horace, appeared for the first time as an epigraph to President Hénault's "Abrégé Chronologique," and in the preface to the third edition of this work Hénault acknowledges that he had given it as a translation of this couplet.
When needs he must, yet faintly then he praises;
Somewhat the deed, much more the means he raises:
So marreth what he makes, and praising most, dispraises.
P. Fletcher: The Purple Island, canto vii.
[328:2] This line is repeated in the translation of the Odyssey, book xv. line 83, with "parting" instead of "going."
The canvas glow'd beyond ev'n Nature warm;
The pregnant quarry teem'd with human form.
Goldsmith: The Traveller, line 137.
[329:4] A breath can make them as a breath has made.—Goldsmith: The Deserted Village, line 54.
[330:1] This line is from a poem entitled "To the Celebrated Beauties of the British Court," given in Bell's "Fugitive Poetry," vol. iii. p. 118.
The following epigram is from "The Grove," London, 1721:—
When one good line did much my wonder raise,
In Br—st's works, I stood resolved to praise,
And had, but that the modest author cries,
"Praise undeserved is scandal in disguise."
On a certain line of Mr. Br——, Author of a Copy of Verses called the British Beauties.
[331:1] Another, yet the same.—Tickell: From a Lady in England. Johnson: Life of Dryden. Darwin: Botanic Garden, part i. canto iv. line 380. Wordsworth: The Excursion, Book ix. Scott: The Abbot, chap. i. Horace: carmen secundum, line 10.
May see thee now, though late, redeem thy name,
And glorify what else is damn'd to fame.
Savage: Character of Foster.
[331:5] See Shakespeare, page 93.
This man [Chesterfield], I thought, had been a lord among wits; but I find he is only a wit among lords.—Johnson (Boswell's Life): vol. ii. ch. i.
A fool with judges, amongst fools a judge.—Cowper: Conversation, line 298.
Although too much of a soldier among sovereigns, no one could claim with better right to be a sovereign among soldiers.—Walter Scott: Life of Napoleon.
He [Steele] was a rake among scholars, and a scholar among rakes.—Macaulay: Review of Aikin's Life of Addison.
Temple was a man of the world among men of letters, a man of letters among men of the world.—Macaulay: Review of Life and Writings of Sir William Temple.
Greswell in his "Memoirs of Politian" says that Sannazarius himself, inscribing to this lady [Cassandra Marchesia] an edition of his Italian Poems, terms her "delle belle eruditissima, delle erudite bellissima" (most learned of the fair; fairest of the learned).
Qui stultis videri eruditi volunt stulti eruditis videntur (Those who wish to appear wise among fools, among the wise seem foolish).—Quintilian, x. 7. 22.
[333:2] Priests, altars, victims, swam before my sight.—Edmund Smith: Phædra and Hippolytus, act i. sc. 1.
"Tenez voilà," dit-elle, "à chacun une écaille,
Des sottises d'autrui nous vivons au Palais;
Messieurs, l'huître étoit bonne. Adieu. Vivez en paix."
Boileau: Epître ii. (à M. l' Abbé des Roches).
His wit invites you by his looks to come,
But when you knock, it never is at home.
Cowper: Conversation, line 303.
Ampliat ætatis spatium sibi vir bonus; hoc est
Vivere bis vita posse priore frui
(The good man prolongs his life; to be able to enjoy one's past life is to live twice).—Martial: x. 237.
See Cowley, page 262.
[336:4] From Roscoe's edition of Pope, vol. v. p. 376; originally printed in Motte's "Miscellanies," 1727. In the edition of 1736 Pope says, "I must own that the prose part (the Thought on Various Subjects), at the end of the second volume, was wholly mine. January, 1734."
[337:1] The same line occurs in the translation of the Odyssey, book viii. line 366.
A mass enormous! which in modern days
No two of earth's degenerate sons could raise.
Book xx. line 337.
[338:1] As of the green leaves on a thick tree, some fall, and some grow.—Ecclesiasticus xiv. 18.
[338:2] The same line, with "soul" for "heart," occurs in the translation of the Odyssey, book xiv. line 181.
[339:1] He serves his party best who serves the country best.—Rutherford B. Hayes: Inaugural Address, March 5, 1877.
[340:1] A friend is one soul abiding in two bodies.—Diogenes Laertius: On Aristotle.
Two souls with but a single thought,
Two hearts that beat as one.
Bellinghausen: Ingomar the Barbarian, act ii.
[340:2] Divinely fair.—Tennyson: A Dream of Fair Women, xxii.
[341:2] Unwept, unhonoured, and unsung.—Scott: Lay of the Last Minstrel.
Unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.—Byron: Childe Harold, canto iv. stanza 179.
[344:2] Human face divine.—Milton: Paradise Lost, book iii. line 44.
[344:3] Then the Omnipotent Father with his thunder made Olympus tremble, and from Ossa hurled Pelion.—Ovid: Metamorphoses i.
[346:2] Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.—Hebrews xiii. 2.
[347:1] Pope calls this the eighth beatitude (Roscoe's edition of Pope, vol. x. page 184).
[347:2] On the 14th of February, 1741, Macklin established his fame as an actor in the character of Shylock, in the "Merchant of Venice." . . . Macklin's performance of this character so forcibly struck a gentleman in the pit that he, as it were involuntarily, exclaimed,—
"This is the Jew
That Shakespeare drew!"
It has been said that this gentleman was Mr. Pope, and that he meant his panegyric on Macklin as a satire against Lord Lansdowne.—Biographia Dramatica, vol. i. part ii. p. 469.
'T was when the sea was roaring
With hollow blasts of wind,
A damsel lay deploring,
All on a rock reclin'd.
The What d' ye call it. Act ii. Sc. 8.
[348]
So comes a reckoning when the banquet 's o'er,—
The dreadful reckoning, and men smile no more.[348:1]
The What d' ye call it. Act ii. Sc. 9.
'T is woman that seduces all mankind;
By her we first were taught the wheedling arts.
The Beggar's Opera. Act i. Sc. 1.
Over the hills and far away.[348:2]
The Beggar's Opera. Act i. Sc. 1.
If the heart of a man is depress'd with cares,
The mist is dispell'd when a woman appears.
The Beggar's Opera. Act ii. Sc. 1.
The fly that sips treacle is lost in the sweets.
The Beggar's Opera. Act ii. Sc. 2.
Brother, brother! we are both in the wrong.
The Beggar's Opera. Act ii. Sc. 2.
How happy could I be with either,
Were t' other dear charmer away!
The Beggar's Opera. Act ii. Sc. 2.
The charge is prepar'd, the lawyers are met,
The judges all ranged,—a terrible show!
The Beggar's Opera. Act iii. Sc. 2.
All in the Downs the fleet was moor'd.
Sweet William's Farewell to Black-eyed Susan.
Adieu, she cried, and waved her lily hand.
Sweet William's Farewell to Black-eyed Susan.
Remote from cities liv'd a swain,
Unvex'd with all the cares of gain;
His head was silver'd o'er with age,
And long experience made him sage.
Fables. Part i. The Shepherd and the Philosopher.
Whence is thy learning? Hath thy toil
O'er books consum'd the midnight oil?[348:3]
Fables. Part i. The Shepherd and the Philosopher.
Where yet was ever found a mother
Who 'd give her booby for another?
Fables. Part i. The Mother, the Nurse, and the Fairy.
[349]
No author ever spar'd a brother.
Fables. The Elephant and the Bookseller.
Lest men suspect your tale untrue,
Keep probability in view.
Fables. Part i. The Painter who pleased Nobody and Everybody.
In ev'ry age and clime we see
Two of a trade can never agree.[349:1]
Fables. Part i. The Rat-catcher and Cats.
Is there no hope? the sick man said;
The silent doctor shook his head.
Fables. Part i. The Sick Man and the Angel.
While there is life there 's hope, he cried.[349:2]
Fables. Part i. The Sick Man and the Angel.
Those who in quarrels interpose
Must often wipe a bloody nose.
Fables. Part i. The Mastiffs.
That raven on yon left-hand oak
(Curse on his ill-betiding croak!)
Bodes me no good.[349:3]
Fables. Part i. The Farmer's Wife and the Raven.
And when a lady 's in the case,
You know all other things give place.
Fables. Part i. The Hare and many Friends.
Give me, kind Heaven, a private station,
A mind serene for contemplation:
Title and profit I resign;
The post of honour shall be mine.[349:4]
Fables. Part ii. The Vulture, the Sparrow, and other Birds.
[350]
From wine what sudden friendship springs!
Fables. Part ii. The Squire and his Cur.
Life is a jest, and all things show it;
I thought so once, but now I know it.
My own Epitaph.
[348:1] The time of paying a shot in a tavern among good fellows, or Pantagruelists, is still called in France a "quart d'heure de Rabelais,"—that is, Rabelais's quarter of an hour, when a man is uneasy or melancholy.—Life of Rabelais (Bohn's edition), p. 13.
[348:2] O'er the hills and far away.—D'Urfey: Pills to purge Melancholy (1628-1723).
[348:3] "Midnight oil,"—a common phrase, used by Quarles, Shenstone, Cowper, Lloyd, and others.
[349:1] Potter is jealous of potter, and craftsman of craftsman; and poor man has a grudge against poor man, and poet against poet.—Hesiod: Works and Days, 24.
Le potier au potier porte envie (The potter envies the potter).—Bohn: Handbook of Proverbs.
Murphy: The Apprentice, act iii.
[349:2] Ἐλπίδες ἐν ζωοῖσιν, ἀνέλπιστοι δὲ θανόντες (For the living there is hope, but for the dead there is none.)—Theocritus: Idyl iv. 42.
Ægroto, dum anima est, spes est (While the sick man has life, there is hope).—Cicero: Epistolarum ad Atticum, ix. 10.
[349:3] It was n't for nothing that the raven was just now croaking on my left hand.—Plautus: Aulularia, act iv. sc. 3.
Let this great maxim be my virtue's guide,—
In part she is to blame that has been tried:
He comes too near that comes to be denied.[350:1]
The Lady's Resolve.
And we meet, with champagne and a chicken, at last.[350:2]
The Lover.
Be plain in dress, and sober in your diet;
In short, my deary, kiss me, and be quiet.
A Summary of Lord Lyttelton's Advice.
Satire should, like a polished razor keen,
Wound with a touch that 's scarcely felt or seen.
To the Imitator of the First Satire of Horace. Book ii.
But the fruit that can fall without shaking
Indeed is too mellow for me.
The Answer.
[350:1] A fugitive piece, written on a window by Lady Montagu, after her marriage (1713). See Overbury, page 193.
[350:2] What say you to such a supper with such a woman?—Byron: Note to a Second Letter on Bowles.
The law is a sort of hocus-pocus science, that smiles in yer face while it picks yer pocket; and the glorious uncertainty of it is of mair use to the professors than the justice of it.
Love à la Mode. Act ii. Sc. 1.
Every tub must stand upon its bottom.[350:3]
The Man of the World. Act i. Sc. 2.
[351]
God bless the King,—I mean the faith's defender!
God bless—no harm in blessing—the Pretender!
But who pretender is, or who is king,—
God bless us all!—that 's quite another thing.
To an Officer of the Army, extempore.
Take time enough: all other graces
Will soon fill up their proper places.[351:1]
Advice to Preach Slow.
Some say, compar'd to Bononcini,
That Mynheer Handel 's but a ninny;
Others aver that he to Handel
Is scarcely fit to hold a candle.
Strange all this difference should be
'Twixt Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
On the Feuds between Handel and Bononcini.[351:2]
As clear as a whistle.
Epistle to Lloyd. I.
The point is plain as a pike-staff.[351:3]
Epistle to a Friend.
Bone and Skin, two millers thin,
Would starve us all, or near it;
But be it known to Skin and Bone
That Flesh and Blood can't bear it.
Epigram on Two Monopolists.
Thus adorned, the two heroes, 'twixt shoulder and elbow,
Shook hands and went to 't; and the word it was bilbow.
Upon a Trial of Skill between the Great Masters of the Noble Science of Defence, Messrs. Figg and Sutton.
[351:2] Nourse asked me if I had seen the verses upon Handel and Bononcini, not knowing that they were mine.—Byrom's Remains (Chetham Soc.), vol. i. p. 173.
The last two lines have been attributed to Swift and Pope (see Scott's edition of Swift, and Dyce's edition of Pope).
[352]
None but himself can be his parallel.[352:1]
The Double Falsehood.
Quæris Alcidæ parem?
Nemo est nisi ipse
(Do you seek Alcides' equal? None is, except himself).—Seneca: Hercules Furens, i. 1; 84.
And but herself admits no parallel.—Massinger: Duke of Milan, act iv. sc. 3.
What 's not devoured by Time's devouring hand?
Where 's Troy, and where 's the Maypole in the Strand?
Art of Politics.
But Titus said, with his uncommon sense,
When the Exclusion Bill was in suspense:
"I hear a lion in the lobby roar;
Say, Mr. Speaker, shall we shut the door
And keep him there, or shall we let him in
To try if we can turn him out again?"[352:2]
Art of Politics.
So Britain's monarch once uncovered sat,
While Bradshaw bullied in a broad-brimmed hat.
Man of Taste.
[352:2] I hope, said Colonel Titus, we shall not be wise as the frogs to whom Jupiter gave a stork for their king. To trust expedients with such a king on the throne would be just as wise as if there were a lion in the lobby, and we should vote to let him in and chain him, instead of fastening the door to keep him out.—On the Exclusion Bill, Jan. 7, 1681.
Whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well.
Letter, March 10, 1746.
I knew once a very covetous, sordid fellow,[352:3] who used to say, "Take care of the pence, for the pounds will take care of themselves."
Letter, Nov. 6, 1747.
[353]
Sacrifice to the Graces.[353:1]
Letter, March 9, 1748.
Manners must adorn knowledge, and smooth its way through the world. Like a great rough diamond, it may do very well in a closet by way of curiosity, and also for its intrinsic value.
Letter, July 1, 1748.
Style is the dress of thoughts.
Letter, Nov. 24, 1749.
Despatch is the soul of business.
Letter, Feb. 5, 1750.
Chapter of accidents.[353:2]
Letter, Feb. 16, 1753.
I assisted at the birth of that most significant word "flirtation," which dropped from the most beautiful mouth in the world.
The World. No. 101.
Unlike my subject now shall be my song;
It shall be witty, and it sha'n't be long.
Impromptu Lines.
The dews of the evening most carefully shun,—
Those tears of the sky for the loss of the sun.
Advice to a Lady in Autumn.
The nation looked upon him as a deserter, and he shrunk into insignificancy and an earldom.
Character of Pulteney.
He adorned whatever subject he either spoke or wrote upon, by the most splendid eloquence.[353:3]
Character of Bolingbroke.
[352:3] W. Lowndes, Secretary of the Treasury in the reigns of King William, Queen Anne, and King George the Third.
[353:1] Plato was continually saying to Xenocrates, "Sacrifice to the Graces."—Diogenes Laertius: Xenocrates, book iv. sect. 2.
Let us sacrifice to the Muses.—Plutarch: The Banquet of the Seven Wise Men. (A saying of Solon.)
[353:2] Chapter of accidents.—Burke: Notes for Speeches (edition 1852), vol. ii. p. 426.
John Wilkes said that "the Chapter of Accidents is the longest chapter in the book."—Southey: The Doctor, chap. cxviii.
Who left scarcely any style of writing untouched,
And touched nothing that he did not adorn.
Johnson: Epitaph on Goldsmith.
Il embellit tout ce qu'il touche (He adorned whatever he touched).—Fénelon: Lettre sur les Occupations de l' Académie Française, sect. iv.
[354]
Fling but a stone, the giant dies.
The Spleen. Line 93.
Thus I steer my bark, and sail
On even keel, with gentle gale.
The Spleen.
Though pleased to see the dolphins play,
I mind my compass and my way.
The Spleen.
He lives to build, not boast, a generous race;
No tenth transmitter of a foolish face.
The Bastard. Line 7.
May see thee now, though late, redeem thy name,
And glorify what else is damn'd to fame.[354:1]
Character of Foster.
The Grave, dread thing!
Men shiver when thou 'rt named: Nature, appall'd,
Shakes off her wonted firmness.
The Grave. Part i. Line 9.
The schoolboy, with his satchel in his hand,
Whistling aloud to bear his courage up.[354:2]
The Grave. Part i. Line 58.
Friendship! mysterious cement of the soul!
Sweetener of life! and solder of society!
The Grave. Part i. Line 88.
Of joys departed,
Not to return, how painful the remembrance!
The Grave. Part i. Line 109.
[355]
The cup goes round:
And who so artful as to put it by!
'T is long since Death had the majority.
The Grave. Part ii. Line 449.
The good he scorn'd
Stalk'd off reluctant, like an ill-used ghost,
Not to return; or if it did, in visits
Like those of angels, short and far between.[355:1]
The Grave. Part ii. Line 586.
Come, gentle Spring! ethereal Mildness! come.
The Seasons. Spring. Line 1.
Base Envy withers at another's joy,
And hates that excellence it cannot reach.
The Seasons. Spring. Line 283.
But who can paint
Like Nature? Can imagination boast,
Amid its gay creation, hues like hers?
The Seasons. Spring. Line 465.
Amid the roses fierce Repentance rears
Her snaky crest.
The Seasons. Spring. Line 996.
Delightful task! to rear the tender thought,
To teach the young idea how to shoot.
The Seasons. Spring. Line 1149.
An elegant sufficiency, content,
Retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books,
Ease and alternate labour, useful life,
Progressive virtue, and approving Heaven!
The Seasons. Spring. Line 1158.
The meek-ey'd Morn appears, mother of dews.
The Seasons. Summer. Line 47.
Falsely luxurious, will not man awake?
The Seasons. Summer. Line 67.
But yonder comes the powerful king of day,
Rejoicing in the east.
The Seasons. Summer. Line 81.
[356]
Ships dim-discover'd dropping from the clouds.
The Seasons. Summer. Line 946.
And Mecca saddens at the long delay.
The Seasons. Summer. Line 979.
For many a day, and many a dreadful night,
Incessant lab'ring round the stormy cape.
The Seasons. Summer. Line 1003.
Sigh'd and look'd unutterable things.
The Seasons. Summer. Line 1188.
A lucky chance, that oft decides the fate
Of mighty monarchs.
The Seasons. Summer. Line 1285.
So stands the statue that enchants the world,
So bending tries to veil the matchless boast,
The mingled beauties of exulting Greece.
The Seasons. Summer. Line 1346.
Who stemm'd the torrent of a downward age.
The Seasons. Summer. Line 1516.
Autumn nodding o'er the yellow plain.
The Seasons. Autumn. Line 2.
Loveliness
Needs not the foreign aid of ornament,
But is when unadorn'd, adorn'd the most.[356:1]
The Seasons. Autumn. Line 204.
He saw her charming, but he saw not half
The charms her downcast modesty conceal'd.
The Seasons. Autumn. Line 229.
For still the world prevail'd, and its dread laugh,
Which scarce the firm philosopher can scorn.
The Seasons. Autumn. Line 233.
See, Winter comes to rule the varied year.[356:2]
The Seasons. Winter. Line 1.
Cruel as death, and hungry as the grave.
The Seasons. Winter. Line 393.
There studious let me sit,
And hold high converse with the mighty dead.
The Seasons. Winter. Line 431.
The kiss, snatch'd hasty from the sidelong maid.
The Seasons. Winter. Line 625.
[357]
These as they change, Almighty Father! these
Are but the varied God. The rolling year
Is full of Thee.
Hymn. Line 1.
Shade, unperceiv'd, so softening into shade.
Hymn. Line 25.
From seeming evil still educing good.
Hymn. Line 114.
Come then, expressive silence, muse His praise.
Hymn. Line 118.
A pleasing land of drowsyhed it was,
Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye;
And of gay castles in the clouds that pass,
Forever flushing round a summer sky:
There eke the soft delights that witchingly
Instil a wanton sweetness through the breast,
And the calm pleasures always hover'd nigh;
But whate'er smack'd of noyance or unrest
Was far, far off expell'd from this delicious nest.
The Castle of Indolence. Canto i. Stanza 6.
O fair undress, best dress! it checks no vein,
But every flowing limb in pleasure drowns,
And heightens ease with grace.
The Castle of Indolence. Canto i. Stanza 26.
Plac'd far amid the melancholy main.
The Castle of Indolence. Canto i. Stanza 30.
Scoundrel maxim.
The Castle of Indolence. Canto i. Stanza 30.
A bard here dwelt, more fat than bard beseems.
The Castle of Indolence. Canto i. Stanza 68.
A little round, fat, oily man of God.
The Castle of Indolence. Canto i. Stanza 69.
I care not, Fortune, what you me deny:
You cannot rob me of free Nature's grace,
You cannot shut the windows of the sky
Through which Aurora shows her brightening face;
You cannot bar my constant feet to trace
The woods and lawns, by living stream, at eve:
Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace,
And I their toys to the great children leave:
Of fancy, reason, virtue, naught can me bereave.
The Castle of Indolence. Canto ii. Stanza 3.
[358]
Health is the vital principle of bliss,
And exercise, of health.
The Castle of Indolence. Canto ii. Stanza 55.
Forever, Fortune, wilt thou prove
An unrelenting foe to love;
And when we meet a mutual heart,
Come in between and bid us part?
Song.
Whoe'er amidst the sons
Of reason, valour, liberty, and virtue
Displays distinguish'd merit, is a noble
Of Nature's own creating.
Coriolanus. Act iii. Sc. 3.
O Sophonisba! Sophonisba, O![358:1]
Sophonisba. Act iii. Sc. 2.
When Britain first, at Heaven's command,
Arose from out the azure main,
This was the charter of her land,
And guardian angels sung the strain:
Rule, Britannia! Britannia rules the waves!
Britons never shall be slaves.
Alfred. Act ii. Sc. 5.
Nam ut mulieres esse dicuntur nonnullæ inornatæ, quas id ipsum diceat, sic hæc subtilis oratio etiam incompta delectat (For as lack of adornment is said to become some women; so this subtle oration, though without embellishment, gives delight).—Cicero: Orator, 23, 78.
[356:2] O Winter, ruler of the inverted year.—Cowper: The Task, book iv. Winter Evening, line 34.
[358:1] The line was altered after the second edition to "O Sophonisba! I am wholly thine."
A little rule, a little sway,
A sunbeam in a winter's day,
Is all the proud and mighty have
Between the cradle and the grave.
Grongar Hill. Line 88.
Ever charming, ever new,
When will the landscape tire the view?
Grongar Hill. Line 102.
Disparting towers
Trembling all precipitate down dash'd,
Rattling around, loud thundering to the moon.
The Ruins of Rome. Line 40.
[359]
Live while you live, the epicure would say,
And seize the pleasures of the present day;
Live while you live, the sacred preacher cries,
And give to God each moment as it flies.
Lord, in my views, let both united be:
I live in pleasure when I live to thee.
Epigram on his Family Arms.[359:1]
Awake, my soul! stretch every nerve,
And press with vigour on;
A heavenly race demands thy zeal,
And an immortal crown.
Zeal and Vigour in the Christian Race.
[359:1] Dum vivimus vivamus (Let us live while we live).—Orton: Life of Doddridge.
That execrable sum of all villanies commonly called a Slave Trade.
Journal. Feb. 12, 1772.
Certainly this is a duty, not a sin. "Cleanliness is indeed next to godliness."[359:2]
Sermon xciii. On Dress.
I am always in haste, but never in a hurry.[359:3]
[359:3] Given as a saying of Wesley, in the "Saturday Review," Nov. 28, 1874.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.[359:5]
Historical Review of Pennsylvania.
[360]
God helps them that help themselves.[360:1]
Maxims prefixed to Poor Richard's Almanac, 1757.
Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.
Maxims prefixed to Poor Richard's Almanac, 1757.
Early to bed and early to rise,
Makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.[360:2]
Maxims prefixed to Poor Richard's Almanac, 1757.
Plough deep while sluggards sleep.
Maxims prefixed to Poor Richard's Almanac, 1757.
Never leave that till to-morrow which you can do to-day.
Maxims prefixed to Poor Richard's Almanac, 1757.
Three removes are as bad as a fire.
Maxims prefixed to Poor Richard's Almanac, 1757.
Little strokes fell great oaks.[360:3]
Maxims prefixed to Poor Richard's Almanac, 1757.
A little neglect may breed mischief: for want of a nail the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe the horse was lost; and for want of a horse the rider was lost.
Maxims prefixed to Poor Richard's Almanac, 1757.
He that goes a borrowing goes a sorrowing.[360:4]
Maxims prefixed to Poor Richard's Almanac, 1757.
A man may, if he knows not how to save as he gets, keep his nose to the grindstone.[360:5]
Maxims prefixed to Poor Richard's Almanac, 1757.
Vessels large may venture more,
But little boats should keep near shore.
Maxims prefixed to Poor Richard's Almanac, 1757.
It is hard for an empty bag to stand upright.
Maxims prefixed to Poor Richard's Almanac, 1757.
Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other.
Maxims prefixed to Poor Richard's Almanac, 1757.
[361]
We are a kind of posterity in respect to them.[361:1]
Letter to William Strahan, 1745.
Remember that time is money.
Advice to a Young Tradesman, 1748.
Idleness and pride tax with a heavier hand than kings and parliaments. If we can get rid of the former, we may easily bear the latter.
Letter on the Stamp Act, July 1, 1765.
There never was a good war or a bad peace.[361:3]
Letter to Josiah Quincy, Sept. 11, 1773.
You and I were long friends: you are now my enemy, and I am yours.
Letter to William Strahan, July 5, 1775.
We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.
At the signing of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776.
He has paid dear, very dear, for his whistle.
The Whistle. November, 1779.
Here you would know and enjoy what posterity will say of Washington. For a thousand leagues have nearly the same effect with a thousand years.
Letter to Washington, March 5, 1780.
Our Constitution is in actual operation; everything appears to promise that it will last; but in this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.
Letter to M. Leroy, 1789.
[359:4] Eripuit cœlo fulmen sceptrumque tyrannis (He snatched the lightning from heaven, and the sceptre from tyrants),—a line attributed to Turgot, and inscribed on Houdon's bust of Franklin. Frederick von der Trenck asserted on his trial, 1794, that he was the author of this line.
[359:5] This sentence was much used in the Revolutionary period. It occurs even so early as November, 1755, in an answer by the Assembly of Pennsylvania to the Governor, and forms the motto of Franklin's "Historical Review," 1759, appearing also in the body of the work.—Frothingham: Rise of the Republic of the United States, p. 413.
[360:2] Clarke: Paræmiolgia, 1639.
My hour is eight o'clock, though it is an infallible rule, "Sanat, sanctificat, et ditat, surgere mane" (That he may be healthy, happy, and wise, let him rise early).—A Health to the Gentle Profession of Serving-men, 1598 (reprinted in Roxburghe Library), p. 121.
[361:1] Byron's European fame is the best earnest of his immortality, for a foreign nation is a kind of contemporaneous posterity.—Horace Binney Wallace: Stanley, or the Recollections of a Man of the World, vol. ii. p. 89.
[361:2] Snug as a bug in a rug.—The Stratford Jubilee, ii. 1, 1779.
[361:3] It hath been said that an unjust peace is to be preferred before a just war.—Samuel Butler: Speeches in the Rump Parliament. Butler's Remains.
[362]
If solid happiness we prize,
Within our breast this jewel lies,
And they are fools who roam.
The world has nothing to bestow;
From our own selves our joys must flow,
And that dear hut, our home.
The Fireside. Stanza 3.
To be resign'd when ills betide,
Patient when favours are deni'd,
And pleas'd with favours given,—
Dear Chloe, this is wisdom's part;
This is that incense of the heart[362:1]
Whose fragrance smells to heaven.
The Fireside. Stanza 11.
Thus hand in hand through life we 'll go;
Its checker'd paths of joy and woe
With cautious steps we 'll tread.
The Fireside. Stanza 31.
Yet still we hug the dear deceit.
Content. Vision iv.
Hold the fleet angel fast until he bless thee.
To-morrow.
All Nature wears one universal grin.
Tom Thumb the Great. Act i. Sc. 1.
Petition me no petitions, sir, to-day;
Let other hours be set apart for business.
To-day it is our pleasure to be drunk;
And this our queen shall be as drunk as we.
Tom Thumb the Great. Act i. Sc. 2.
When I 'm not thank'd at all, I 'm thank'd enough;
I 've done my duty, and I 've done no more.
Tom Thumb the Great. Act i. Sc. 3.
Thy modesty 's a candle to thy merit.
Tom Thumb the Great. Act i. Sc. 3.
[363]
To sun myself in Huncamunca's eyes.
Tom Thumb the Great. Act i. Sc. 3.
Lo, when two dogs are fighting in the streets,
With a third dog one of the two dogs meets;
With angry teeth he bites him to the bone,
And this dog smarts for what that dog has done.[363:1]
Tom Thumb the Great. Act i. Sc. 6.
I am as sober as a judge.[363:2]
Don Quixote in England. Act iii. Sc. 14.
Much may be said on both sides.[363:3]
The Covent Garden Tragedy. Act i. Sc. 8.
Enough is equal to a feast.[363:4]
The Covent Garden Tragedy. Act v. Sc. 1.
We must eat to live and live to eat.[363:5]
The Miser. Act iii. Sc. 3.
Penny saved is a penny got.[363:6]
The Miser. Act iii. Sc. 12.
Oh, the roast beef of England,
And old England's roast beef!
The Grub Street Opera. Act iii. Sc. 2.
This story will not go down.
Tumble-down Dick.
[364]
Can any man have a higher notion of the rule of right and the eternal fitness of things?
Tom Jones. Book iv. Chap. iv.
Distinction without a difference.
Tom Jones. Book vi. Chap. xiii.
Amiable weakness.[364:1]
Tom Jones. Book x. chap. viii.
The dignity of history.[364:2]
Tom Jones. Book xi. Chap. ii.
Republic of letters.
Tom Jones. Book xiv. Chap. i.
Illustrious predecessors.[364:3]
Covent Garden Journal. Jan. 11, 1752.
[362:1] The incense of the heart may rise.—Pierpont: Every Place a Temple.
Thus when a barber and a collier fight,
The barber beats the luckless collier—white;
The dusty collier heaves his ponderous sack,
And big with vengeance beats the barber—black.
In comes the brick-dust man, with grime o'erspread,
And beats the collier and the barber—red:
Black, red, and white in various clouds are tost,
And in the dust they raise the combatants are lost.
Christopher Smart: The Trip to Cambridge (on "Campbell's Specimens of the British Poets," vol. vi. p. 185).
[363:2] Sober as a judge.—Charles Lamb: Letter to Mr. and Mrs. Moxon.
[363:5] Socrates said, Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live.—Plutarch: How a Young Man ought to hear Poems.
A penny saved is twopence dear;
A pin a day 's a groat a year.
Franklin: Hints to those that would be Rich (1736).
[364:1] Amiable weaknesses of human nature.—Gibbon: Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. xiv.
[364:3] Illustrious predecessor.—Burke: The Present Discontents.
I tread in the footsteps of illustrious men. . . . In receiving from the people the sacred trust confided to my illustrious predecessor.—Martin Van Buren: Inaugural Address, March 4, 1837.
Confidence is a plant of slow growth in an aged bosom.
Speech, Jan. 14, 1766.
A long train of these practices has at length unwillingly convinced me that there is something behind the throne greater than the King himself.[364:4]
Chatham Correspondence. Speech, March 2, 1770.
Where law ends, tyranny begins.
Case of Wilkes. Speech, Jan. 9, 1770.
Reparation for our rights at home, and security against the like future violations.[364:5]
Letter to the Earl of Shelburne, Sept. 29, 1770.
If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country I never would lay down my arms,—never! never! never!
Speech, Nov. 18, 1777.
[365]
The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the force of the Crown. It may be frail; its roof may shake; the wind may blow through it; the storms may enter, the rain may enter,—but the King of England cannot enter; all his forces dare not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement!
Speech on the Excise Bill.
We have a Calvinistic creed, a Popish liturgy, and an Arminian clergy.
Prior's Life of Burke (1790).
[364:4] Quoted by Lord Mahon, "greater than the throne itself."—History of England, vol. v. p. 258.
[364:5] "Indemnity for the past and security for the future."—Russell: Memoir of Fox, vol. iii. p. 345, Letter to the Hon. T. Maitland.
Let observation with extensive view
Survey mankind, from China to Peru.[365:1]
Vanity of Human Wishes. Line 1.
There mark what ills the scholar's life assail,—
Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the jail.
Vanity of Human Wishes. Line 159.
He left the name at which the world grew pale,
To point a moral, or adorn a tale.
Vanity of Human Wishes. Line 221.
Hides from himself his state, and shuns to know
That life protracted is protracted woe.
Vanity of Human Wishes. Line 257.
An age that melts in unperceiv'd decay,
And glides in modest innocence away.
Vanity of Human Wishes. Line 293.
Superfluous lags the veteran on the stage.
Vanity of Human Wishes. Line 308.
Fears of the brave, and follies of the wise!
From Marlb'rough's eyes the streams of dotage flow,
And Swift expires, a driv'ler and a show.
Vanity of Human Wishes. Line 316.
[366]
Must helpless man, in ignorance sedate,
Roll darkling down the torrent of his fate?
Vanity of Human Wishes. Line 345.
For patience, sov'reign o'er transmuted ill.
Vanity of Human Wishes. Line 362.
Of all the griefs that harass the distrest,
Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest.[366:1]
London. Line 166.
This mournful truth is ev'rywhere confess'd,—
Slow rises worth by poverty depress'd.[366:2]
London. Line 176.
Studious to please, yet not ashamed to fail.
Prologue to the Tragedy of Irene.
Each change of many-colour'd life he drew,
Exhausted worlds, and then imagin'd new.
Prologue on the Opening of Drury Lane Theatre.
And panting Time toil'd after him in vain.
Prologue on the Opening of Drury Lane Theatre.
For we that live to please must please to live.
Prologue on the Opening of Drury Lane Theatre.
Catch, then, oh catch the transient hour;
Improve each moment as it flies!
Life 's a short summer, man a flower;
He dies—alas! how soon he dies!
Winter. An Ode.
Officious, innocent, sincere,
Of every friendless name the friend.
Verses on the Death of Mr. Robert Levet. Stanza 2.
In misery's darkest cavern known,
His useful care was ever nigh[366:3]
Where hopeless anguish pour'd his groan,
And lonely want retir'd to die.
Verses on the Death of Mr. Robert Levet. Stanza 5.
And sure th' Eternal Master found
His single talent well employ'd.
Verses on the Death of Mr. Robert Levet. Stanza 7.
[367]
Then with no throbs of fiery pain,[367:1]
No cold gradations of decay,
Death broke at once the vital chain,
And freed his soul the nearest way.
Verses on the Death of Mr. Robert Levet. Stanza 9.
That saw the manners in the face.
Lines on the Death of Hogarth.
Philips, whose touch harmonious could remove
The pangs of guilty power and hapless love!
Rest here, distressed by poverty no more;
Here find that calm thou gav'st so oft before;
Sleep undisturb'd within this peaceful shrine,
Till angels wake thee with a note like thine!
Epitaph on Claudius Philips, the Musician.
A Poet, Naturalist, and Historian,
Who left scarcely any style of writing untouched,
And touched nothing that he did not adorn.[367:2]
Epitaph on Goldsmith.
How small of all that human hearts endure,
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure!
Still to ourselves in every place consigned,
Our own felicity we make or find.
With secret course, which no loud storms annoy,
Glides the smooth current of domestic joy.
Lines added to Goldsmith's Traveller.
Trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay.
Line added to Goldsmith's Deserted Village.
From thee, great God, we spring, to thee we tend,—
Path, motive, guide, original, and end.[367:3]
Motto to the Rambler. No. 7.
Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope; who [368]expect that age will perform the promises of youth, and that the deficiencies of the present day will be supplied by the morrow,—attend to the history of Rasselas, Prince Of Abyssinia.
Rasselas. Chap. i.
"I fly from pleasure," said the prince, "because pleasure has ceased to please; I am lonely because I am miserable, and am unwilling to cloud with my presence the happiness of others."
Rasselas. Chap. iii.
A man used to vicissitudes is not easily dejected.
Rasselas. Chap. xii.
Few things are impossible to diligence and skill.
Rasselas. Chap. xii.
Knowledge is more than equivalent to force.[368:1]
Rasselas. Chap. xiii.
I live in the crowd of jollity, not so much to enjoy company as to shun myself.
Rasselas. Chap. xvi.
Many things difficult to design prove easy to performance.
Rasselas. Chap. xvi.
The first years of man must make provision for the last.
Rasselas. Chap. xvii.
Example is always more efficacious than precept.
Rasselas. Chap. xxx.
The endearing elegance of female friendship.
Rasselas. Chap. xlvi.
I am not so lost in lexicography as to forget that words are the daughters of earth, and that things are the sons of heaven.[368:2]
Preface to his Dictionary.
Words are men's daughters, but God's sons are things.[368:3]
Boulter's Monument. (Supposed to have been inserted by Dr. Johnson, 1745.)
[369]
Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison.
Life of Addison.
To be of no church is dangerous. Religion, of which the rewards are distant, and which is animated only by faith and hope, will glide by degrees out of the mind unless it be invigorated and reimpressed by external ordinances, by stated calls to worship, and the salutary influence of example.
Life of Milton.
The trappings of a monarchy would set up an ordinary commonwealth.
Life of Milton.
His death eclipsed the gayety of nations, and impoverished the public stock of harmless pleasure.
Life of Edmund Smith (alluding to the death of Garrick).
That man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona.
Journey to the Western Islands: Inch Kenneth.
He is no wise man that will quit a certainty for an uncertainty.
The Idler. No. 57.
What is read twice is commonly better remembered than what is transcribed.
The Idler. No. 74.
Tom Birch is as brisk as a bee in conversation; but no sooner does he take a pen in his hand than it becomes a torpedo to him, and benumbs all his faculties.
Life of Johnson (Boswell).[369:1] Vol. i. Chap. vii. 1743.
Wretched un-idea'd girls.
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. i. Chap. x. 1752.
This man [Chesterfield], I thought, had been a lord among wits; but I find he is only a wit among lords.[369:2]
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. ii. Chap. i. 1754.
[370]
Sir, he [Bolingbroke] was a scoundrel and a coward: a scoundrel for charging a blunderbuss against religion and morality; a coward, because he had not resolution to fire it off himself, but left half a crown to a beggarly Scotchman to draw the trigger at his death.
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. ii. Chap. i. 1754.
Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and when he has reached ground encumbers him with help?
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. ii. Chap. ii. 1755.
I am glad that he thanks God for anything.
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. ii. Chap. ii. 1755.
If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, sir, should keep his friendship in a constant repair.
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. ii. Chap. ii. 1755.
Being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. ii. Chap. iii. 1759.
Sir, I think all Christians, whether Papists or Protestants, agree in the essential articles, and that their differences are trivial, and rather political than religious.[370:1]
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. ii. Chap. v. 1763.
The noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees is the high-road that leads him to England.
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. ii. Chap. v. 1763.
If he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, sir, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons.
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. ii. Chap. v. 1763.
Sir, your levellers wish to level down as far as themselves; but they cannot bear levelling up to themselves.
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. ii. Chap. v. 1763.
[371]
A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good.
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. ii. Chap. vi. 1763.
Sherry is dull, naturally dull; but it must have taken him a great deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such an access of stupidity, sir, is not in Nature.
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. ii. Chap. ix.
Sir, a woman preaching is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. ii. Chap. ix.
I look upon it, that he who does not mind his belly will hardly mind anything else.[371:1]
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. ii. Chap. ix.
This was a good dinner enough, to be sure, but it was not a dinner to ask a man to.
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. ii. Chap. ix.
A very unclubable man.
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. ii. Chap. ix. 1764.
I do not know, sir, that the fellow is an infidel; but if he be an infidel, he is an infidel as a dog is an infidel; that is to say, he has never thought upon the subject.
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. iii. Chap. iii. 1769.
It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives.
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. iii. Chap. iv.
That fellow seems to me to possess but one idea, and that is a wrong one.[371:2]
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. iii. Chap. v. 1770.
I am a great friend to public amusements; for they keep people from vice.
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. iii. Chap. viii. 1772.
A cow is a very good animal in the field; but we turn her out of a garden.
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. iii. Chap. viii. 1772.
Much may be made of a Scotchman if he be caught young.
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. iii. Chap. viii. 1772.
A man may write at any time if he will set himself doggedly to it.
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. iv. Chap. ii. 1773.
[372]
Let him go abroad to a distant country; let him go to some place where he is not known. Don't let him go to the devil, where he is known.
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. iv. Chap. ii. 1773.
Was ever poet so trusted before?
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. v. Chap. vi. 1774.
Attack is the reaction. I never think I have hit hard unless it rebounds.
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. v. Chap. vi. 1775.
A man will turn over half a library to make one book.
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. v. Chap. viii. 1775.
Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. v. Chap. ix.
Hell is paved with good intentions.[372:1]
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. v. Chap. ix.
Knowledge is of two kinds: we know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.[372:2]
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. v. Chap. ix.
I never take a nap after dinner but when I have had a bad night; and then the nap takes me.
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. vi. Chap. i. 1775.
In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath.
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. vi. Chap. i. 1775.
There is now less flogging in our great schools than formerly,—but then less is learned there; so that what the boys get at one end they lose at the other.
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. vi. Chap. i. 1775.
There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn.[372:3]
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. vi. Chap. iii. 1776.
[373]
No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. vi. Chap. iii. 1776.
Questioning is not the mode of conversation among gentlemen.
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. vi. Chap. iv. 1776.
A man is very apt to complain of the ingratitude of those who have risen far above him.
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. vi. Chap. iv. 1776.
All this [wealth] excludes but one evil,—poverty.
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. vi. Chap. ix. 1777.
Employment, sir, and hardships prevent melancholy.
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. vi. Chap. ix. 1777.
When a man is tired of London he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. vi. Chap. ix. 1777.
He was so generally civil that nobody thanked him for it.
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. vi. Chap. ix. 1777.
Goldsmith, however, was a man who whatever he wrote, did it better than any other man could do.
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. vii. Chap. iii. 1778.
Johnson had said that he could repeat a complete chapter of "The Natural History of Iceland," from the Danish of Horrebow, the whole of which was exactly (Ch. lxxii. Concerning snakes) thus: "There are no snakes to be met with throughout the whole island."[373:1]
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. vii. Chap. iv. 1778.
As the Spanish proverb says, "He who would bring home the wealth of the Indies must carry the wealth of the Indies with him," so it is in travelling,—a man must carry knowledge with him if he would bring home knowledge.
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. vii. Chap. v. 1778.
The true, strong, and sound mind is the mind that can embrace equally great things and small.
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. vii. Chap. vi. 1778.
I remember a passage in Goldsmith's "Vicar of Wakefield," which he was afterwards fool enough to expunge: "I do not love a man who is zealous for nothing." . . . . [374]There was another fine passage too which he struck out: "When I was a young man, being anxious to distinguish myself, I was perpetually starting new propositions. But I soon gave this over; for I found that generally what was new was false."
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. vii. Chap. viii. 1779.
Claret is the liquor for boys, port for men; but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy.
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. vii. Chap. viii. 1779.
A Frenchman must be always talking, whether he knows anything of the matter or not; an Englishman is content to say nothing when he has nothing to say.
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. vii. Chap. x.
Of Dr. Goldsmith he said, "No man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he had."
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. vii. Chap. x.
The applause of a single human being is of great consequence.
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. vii. Chap. x.
The potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice.[374:1]
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. viii. Chap. ii.
Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world.
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. viii. Chap. iii. 1781.
My friend was of opinion that when a man of rank appeared in that character [as an author], he deserved to have his merits handsomely allowed.[374:2]
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. viii. Chap. iii. 1781.
I never have sought the world; the world was not to seek me.[374:3]
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. viii. Chap. v. 1783.
He is not only dull himself, but the cause of dullness in others.[374:4]
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. viii. Chap. v. 1784.
[375]
You see they 'd have fitted him to a T.
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. viii. Chap. ix. 1784.
I have found you an argument; I am not obliged to find you an understanding.
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. viii. Chap. ix. 1784.
Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat.[375:1]
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. viii. Chap. ix. 1784.
Blown about with every wind of criticism.[375:2]
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. viii. Chap. x. 1784.
If the man who turnips cries
Cry not when his father dies,
'T is a proof that he had rather
Have a turnip than his father.
Johnsoniana. Piozzi, 30.
He was a very good hater.
Johnsoniana. Piozzi, 39.
The law is the last result of human wisdom acting upon human experience for the benefit of the public.
Johnsoniana. Piozzi, 58.
The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.
Johnsoniana. Piozzi, 154.
Dictionaries are like watches; the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.
Johnsoniana. Piozzi, 178.
Books that you may carry to the fire and hold readily in your hand, are the most useful after all.
Johnsoniana. Hawkins. 197.
Round numbers are always false.
Johnsoniana. Hawkins. 235.
Abstinence is as easy to me as temperance would be difficult.
Johnsoniana. Hannah More. 467.
The limbs will quiver and move after the soul is gone.
Johnsoniana. Northcote. 487.
[376]
Hawkesworth said of Johnson, "You have a memory that would convict any author of plagiarism in any court of literature in the world."
Johnsoniana. Kearsley. 600.
His conversation does not show the minute-hand, but he strikes the hour very correctly.
Johnsoniana. Kearsley. 604.
Hunting was the labour of the savages of North America, but the amusement of the gentlemen of England.
Johnsoniana. Kearsley. 606.
I am very fond of the company of ladies. I like their beauty, I like their delicacy, I like their vivacity, and I like their silence.
Johnsoniana. Seward. 617.
This world, where much is to be done and little to be known.
Prayers and Meditations. Against inquisitive and perplexing Thoughts.
Gratitude is a fruit of great cultivation; you do not find it among gross people.
Tour to the Hebrides. Sept. 20, 1773.
A fellow that makes no figure in company, and has a mind as narrow as the neck of a vinegar-cruet.
Tour to the Hebrides. Sept. 30, 1773.
The atrocious crime of being a young man, which the honourable gentleman has with such spirit and decency charged upon me, I shall neither attempt to palliate nor deny; but content myself with wishing that I may be one of those whose follies may cease with their youth, and not of that number who are ignorant in spite of experience.[376:1]
Pitt's Reply to Walpole. Speech, March 6, 1741.
Towering in the confidence of twenty-one.
Letter to Bennet Langton. Jan. 9, 1758.
Gloomy calm of idle vacancy.
Letter to Boswell. Dec. 8, 1763.
Wharton quotes Johnson as saying of Dr. Campbell, "He is the richest author that ever grazed the common of literature."
All human race, from China to Peru,
Pleasure, howe'er disguised by art, pursue.
Thomas Warton: Universal Love of Pleasure.
De Quincey (Works, vol. x. p. 72) quotes the criticism of some writer, who contends with some reason that this high-sounding couplet of Dr. Johnson amounts in effect to this: Let observation with extensive observation observe mankind extensively.
Nothing in poverty so ill is borne
As its exposing men to grinning scorn.
Oldham (1653-1683): Third Satire of Juvenal.
[366:2] Three years later Johnson wrote, "Mere unassisted merit advances slowly, if—what is not very common—it advances at all."
[366:3] Var. His ready help was always nigh.
[367:1] Var. Then with no fiery throbbing pain.
Qui nullum fere scribendi genus
Non tetigit,
Nullum quod tetigit non ornavit.
See Chesterfield, page 353.
[367:3] A translation of Boethius's "De Consolatione Philosophiæ," iii. 9, 27.
[368:2] The italics and the word "forget" would seem to imply that the saying was not his own.
[368:3] Sir William Jones gives a similar saying in India: "Words are the daughters of earth, and deeds are the sons of heaven."
See Herbert, page 206. Sir Thomas Bodley: Letter to his Librarian, 1604.
[369:1] From the London edition, 10 volumes, 1835.
Dr. Johnson, it is said, when he first heard of Boswell's intention to write a life of him, announced, with decision enough, that if he thought Boswell really meant to write his life he would prevent it by taking Boswell's!—Carlyle: Miscellanies, Jean Paul Frederic Richter.
[370:1] I do not find that the age or country makes the least difference; no, nor the language the actor spoke, nor the religion which they professed,—whether Arab in the desert, or Frenchman in the Academy. I see that sensible men and conscientious men all over the world were of one religion of well-doing and daring.—Emerson: The Preacher. Lectures and Biographical Sketches, p. 215.
[371:1] Every investigation which is guided by principles of nature fixes its ultimate aim entirely on gratifying the stomach.—Athenæus: Book vii. chap. ii.
[371:2] Mr. Kremlin was distinguished for ignorance; for he had only one idea, and that was wrong.—Disraeli: Sybil, book iv. chap. 5.
[372:1] See Herbert, page 205.
Do not be troubled by Saint Bernard's saying that hell is full of good intentions and wills.—Francis de Sales: Spiritual Letters. Letter xii. (Translated by the author of "A Dominican Artist.") 1605.
[372:2] Scire ubi aliquid invenire possis, ea demum maxima pars eruditionis est (To know where you can find anything, that in short is the largest part of learning).—Anonymous.
Whoe'er has travell'd life's dull round,
Where'er his stages may have been,
May sigh to think he still has found
The warmest welcome at an inn.
Shenstone: Written on a Window of an Inn.
[373:1] Chapter xlii. is still shorter: "There are no owls of any kind in the whole island."
[374:1] I am rich beyond the dreams of avarice.—Edward Moore: The Gamester, act ii. sc. 2. 1753.
[374:2] Usually quoted as "When a nobleman writes a book, he ought to be encouraged."
[374:3] I have not loved the world, nor the world me.—Byron: Childe Harold, canto iii. stanza 113.
[375:1] A parody on "Who rules o'er freemen should himself be free," from Brooke's "Gustavus Vasa," first edition.
[375:2] Carried about with every wind of doctrine.—Ephesians iv. 14.
[375:3] Elsewhere found, "I put my hat."
[375:4] A parody on Percy's "Hermit of Warkworth."
[376:1] This is the composition of Johnson, founded on some note or statement of the actual speech. Johnson said, "That speech I wrote in a garret, in Exeter Street." Boswell: Life of Johnson, 1741.
[377]
For his chaste Muse employ'd her heaven-taught lyre
None but the noblest passions to inspire,
Not one immoral, one corrupted thought,
One line which, dying, he could wish to blot.
Prologue to Thomson's Coriolanus.
Women, like princes, find few real friends.
Advice to a Lady.
What is your sex's earliest, latest care,
Your heart's supreme ambition? To be fair.
Advice to a Lady.
The lover in the husband may be lost.
Advice to a Lady.
How much the wife is dearer than the bride.
An Irregular Ode.
None without hope e'er lov'd the brightest fair,
But love can hope where reason would despair.
Epigram.
Where none admire, 't is useless to excel;
Where none are beaux, 't is vain to be a belle.
Soliloquy on a Beauty in the Country.
Alas! by some degree of woe
We every bliss must gain;
The heart can ne'er a transport know
That never feels a pain.
Song.
Can't I another's face commend,
And to her virtues be a friend,
But instantly your forehead lowers,
As if her merit lessen'd yours?
The Farmer, the Spaniel, and the Cat. Fable ix.
[378]
The maid who modestly conceals
Her beauties, while she hides, reveals;
Give but a glimpse, and fancy draws
Whate'er the Grecian Venus was.
The Spider and the Bee. Fable x.
But from the hoop's bewitching round,
Her very shoe has power to wound.
The Spider and the Bee. Fable x.
Time still, as he flies, brings increase to her truth,
And gives to her mind what he steals from her youth.
The Happy Marriage.
I am rich beyond the dreams of avarice.[378:1]
The Gamester. Act ii. Sc. 2.
'T is now the summer of your youth. Time has not cropt the roses from your cheek, though sorrow long has washed them.
The Gamester. Act iii. Sc. 4.
Labour for his pains.[378:2]
The Boy and the Rainbow.
Go, poor devil, get thee gone! Why should I hurt thee? This world surely is wide enough to hold both thee and me.
Tristram Shandy (orig. ed.). Vol. ii. chap. xii.
Great wits jump.[378:3]
Tristram Shandy (orig. ed.). Vol. iii. Chap. ix.
"Our armies swore terribly in Flanders," cried my Uncle Toby, "but nothing to this."
Tristram Shandy (orig. ed.). Vol. iii. Chap. xi.
Of all the cants which are canted in this canting world, though the cant of hypocrites may be the worst, the cant of criticism is the most tormenting!
Tristram Shandy (orig. ed.). Vol. iii. Chap. xii.
[379]
The accusing spirit, which flew up to heaven's chancery with the oath, blushed as he gave it in; and the recording angel as he wrote it down dropped a tear upon the word and blotted it out forever.[379:1]
Tristram Shandy (orig. ed.). Vol. vi. Chap. viii.
I am sick as a horse.
Tristram Shandy (orig. ed.). Vol. vii. Chap. xi.
"They order," said I, "this matter better in France."
Sentimental Journey. Page 1.
I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba and cry, "'T is all barren!"
In the Street. Calais.
God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb.[379:2]
Maria.
"Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery," said I, "still thou art a bitter draught."
The Passport. The Hotel at Paris.
The sad vicissitude of things.[379:3]
Sermon xvi.
Trust that man in nothing who has not a conscience in everything.
Sermon xxvii.
[378:3] Great wits jump.—Byrom: The Nimmers. Buckingham: The Chances, act. iv. sc. 1.
Good wits jump.—Cervantes: Don Quixote, part ii. Chap. xxxviii.
But sad as angels for the good man's sin,
Weep to record, and blush to give it in.
Campbell: Pleasures of Hope, part ii. line 357.
[379:2] Dieu mésure le froid à la brebis tondue (God measures the cold to the shorn lamb).—Henri Estienne (1594): Prémices, etc. p. 47.
See Herbert, page 206.
[379:3] Revolves the sad vicissitudes of things.—R. Gifford: Contemplation.
Whoe'er has travell'd life's dull round,
Where'er his stages may have been,
May sigh to think he still has found
The warmest welcome at an inn.[379:4]
Written on a Window of an Inn.
[380]
So sweetly she bade me adieu,
I thought that she bade me return.
A Pastoral. Part i.
I have found out a gift for my fair;
I have found where the wood-pigeons breed.
A Pastoral. Part i.
My banks they are furnish'd with bees,
Whose murmur invites one to sleep.
A Pastoral. Part ii. Hope.
For seldom shall she hear a tale
So sad, so tender, and so true.
Jemmy Dawson.
Her cap, far whiter than the driven snow,
Emblems right meet of decency does yield.
The Schoolmistress. Stanza 6.
Pun-provoking thyme.
The Schoolmistress. Stanza 11.
A little bench of heedless bishops here,
And there a chancellor in embryo.
The Schoolmistress. Stanza 28.
Now let us thank the Eternal Power: convinced
That Heaven but tries our virtue by affliction,—
That oft the cloud which wraps the present hour
Serves but to brighten all our future days.
Barbarossa. Act v. Sc. 3.
And coxcombs vanquish Berkeley by a grin.
An Essay on Satire, occasioned by the Death of Mr. Pope.[380:1]
[380:1] Anderson: British Poets, vol. x. p. 879. See note in "Contemporary Review," September, 1867, p. 4.
Kitty. Shikspur? Shikspur? Who wrote it? No, I never read Shikspur.
Lady Bab. Then you have an immense pleasure to come.
High Life below Stairs. Act ii. Sc. 1.
From humble Port to imperial Tokay.
High Life below Stairs. Act ii. Sc. 1.
[381]
What female heart can gold despise?
What cat 's averse to fish?
On the death of a Favourite Cat.
A fav'rite has no friend!
On the death of a Favourite Cat.
Ye distant spires, ye antique towers.
On a Distant Prospect of Eton College. Stanza 1.
Ah, happy hills! ah, pleasing shade!
Ah, fields beloved in vain!
Where once my careless childhood stray'd,
A stranger yet to pain!
I feel the gales that from ye blow
A momentary bliss bestow.
On a Distant Prospect of Eton College. Stanza 2.
They hear a voice in every wind,
And snatch a fearful joy.
On a Distant Prospect of Eton College. Stanza 4.
Gay hope is theirs by fancy fed,
Less pleasing when possest;
The tear forgot as soon as shed,
The sunshine of the breast.
On a Distant Prospect of Eton College. Stanza 5.
Alas! regardless of their doom,
The little victims play;
No sense have they of ills to come,
Nor care beyond to-day.
On a Distant Prospect of Eton College. Stanza 6.
Ah, tell them they are men!
On a Distant Prospect of Eton College. Stanza 6.
And moody madness laughing wild
Amid severest woe.
On a Distant Prospect of Eton College. Stanza 8.
To each his suff'rings; all are men,
Condemn'd alike to groan,—
The tender for another's pain,
Th' unfeeling for his own.
Yet ah! why should they know their fate,
Since sorrow never comes too late,
[382]And happiness too swiftly flies?
Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more; where ignorance is bliss,
'T is folly to be wise.[382:1]
On a Distant Prospect of Eton College. Stanza 10.
Daughter of Jove, relentless power,
Thou tamer of the human breast,
Whose iron scourge and tort'ring hour
The bad affright, afflict the best!
Hymn to Adversity.
From Helicon's harmonious springs
A thousand rills their mazy progress take.
The Progress of Poesy. I. 1, Line 3.
Glance their many-twinkling feet.
The Progress of Poesy. I. 3, Line 11.
O'er her warm cheek and rising bosom move
The bloom of young Desire and purple light of Love.[382:2]
The Progress of Poesy. I. 3, Line 16.
Her track, where'er the goddess roves,
Glory pursue, and gen'rous shame,
Th' unconquerable mind,[382:3] and freedom's holy flame.
The Progress of Poesy. II. 2, Line 10.
Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic tears.
The Progress of Poesy. III. 1, Line 12.
He pass'd the flaming bounds of place and time:
The living throne, the sapphire blaze,
Where angels tremble while they gaze,
He saw; but blasted with excess of light,
Closed his eyes in endless night.
The Progress of Poesy. III. 2, Line 4.
Bright-eyed Fancy, hov'ring o'er,
Scatters from her pictured urn
Thoughts that breathe and words that burn.[382:4]
The Progress of Poesy. III. 3, Line 2.
Beyond the limits of a vulgar fate,
Beneath the good how far,—but far above the great.
The Progress of Poesy. III. 3, Line 16.
[383]
Ruin seize thee, ruthless king!
Confusion on thy banners wait!
Though fann'd by Conquest's crimson wing,
They mock the air with idle state.
The Bard. I. 1, Line 1.
Loose his beard, and hoary hair
Stream'd like a meteor to the troubled air.[383:1]
The Bard. I. 2, Line 5.
To high-born Hoel's harp, or soft Llewellyn's lay.
The Bard. I. 2, Line 14.
Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes;
Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart.[383:2]
The Bard. I. 3, Line 12.
Weave the warp, and weave the woof,
The winding-sheet of Edward's race.
Give ample room and verge enough[383:3]
The characters of hell to trace.
The Bard. II. 1, Line 1.
Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows;
While proudly riding o'er the azure realm
In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes,
Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm;
Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind's sway,
That hush'd in grim repose expects his evening prey.
The Bard. II. 2, Line 9.
Ye towers of Julius, London's lasting shame,
With many a foul and midnight murder fed.
The Bard. II. 3, Line 11.
Visions of glory, spare my aching sight!
Ye unborn ages, crowd not on my soul!
The Bard. III. 1, Line 11.
And truth severe, by fairy fiction drest.
The Bard. III. 3, Line 3.
Comus and his midnight crew.
Ode for Music. Line 2.
While bright-eyed Science watches round.
Ode for Music. Chorus. Line 3.
The still small voice of gratitude.
Ode for Music. V. Line 8.
[384]
Iron sleet of arrowy shower
Hurtles in the darken'd air.
The Fatal Sisters. Line 3.
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,[384:1]
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 1.
Each in his narrow cell forever laid,
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.
Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 4.
The breezy call of incense-breathing morn.
Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 5.
Nor grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the poor.
Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 8.
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Await alike the inevitable hour.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 9.
Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault,
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.
Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 10.
Can storied urn, or animated bust,
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can honour's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or flatt'ry soothe the dull cold ear of death?
Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 11.
Hands that the rod of empire might have sway'd,
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre.
Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 12.
But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page,
Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll;[384:2]
Chill penury repress'd their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul.
Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 13.
[385]
Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear;
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.[385:1]
Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 14.
Some village Hampden, that with dauntless breast
The little tyrant of his fields withstood,
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood.
Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 15.
The applause of list'ning senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,
And read their history in a nation's eyes.
Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 16.
Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind.
Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 17.
Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife
Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;
Along the cool sequester'd vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.[385:2]
Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 19.
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.
Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 20.
And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.
Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 21.
For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,
This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd,
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing ling'ring look behind?
Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 22.
E'en from the tomb the voice of nature cries,
E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires.[385:3]
Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 23.
[386]
Brushing with hasty steps the dews away,
To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.
Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 25.
One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill,
Along the heath, and near his fav'rite tree:
Another came; nor yet beside the rill,
Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he.
Elegy in a Country Churchyard. Stanza 28.
Here rests his head upon the lap of earth,
A youth to fortune and to fame unknown:
Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth,
And Melancholy mark'd him for her own.[386:1]
The Epitaph.
Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
Heaven did a recompense as largely send:
He gave to mis'ry (all he had) a tear,
He gained from Heav'n ('t was all he wish'd) a friend.
The Epitaph.
No further seek his merits to disclose,
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode
(There they alike in trembling hope repose),
The bosom of his Father and his God.
The Epitaph.
And weep the more, because I weep in vain.
Sonnet. On the Death of Mr. West.
Rich windows that exclude the light,
And passages that lead to nothing.
A Long Story.
The hues of bliss more brightly glow,
Chastised by sabler tints of woe.
Ode on the Pleasure arising from Vicissitude. Line 45.
The meanest floweret of the vale,
The simplest note that swells the gale,
The common sun, the air, the skies,
To him are opening paradise.
Ode on the Pleasure arising from Vicissitude. Line 53.
And hie him home, at evening's close,
To sweet repast and calm repose.
Ode on the Pleasure arising from Vicissitude. Line 87.
[387]
From toil he wins his spirits light,
From busy day the peaceful night;
Rich, from the very want of wealth,
In heaven's best treasures, peace and health.
Ode on the Pleasure arising from Vicissitude. Line 93.
The social smile, the sympathetic tear.
Education and Government.
When love could teach a monarch to be wise,
And gospel-light first dawn'd from Bullen's eyes.[387:1]
Too poor for a bribe, and too proud to importune;
He had not the method of making a fortune.
On his own Character.
Now as the Paradisiacal pleasures of the Mahometans consist in playing upon the flute and lying with Houris, be mine to read eternal new romances of Marivaux and Crebillon.
To Mr. West. Letter iv. Third Series.
[382:2] The light of love.—Byron: Bride of Abydos, canto i. stanza 6.
[382:3] Unconquerable mind.—Wordsworth: To Toussaint L' Ouverture.
[384:1] The first edition reads,—
"The lowing herds wind slowly o'er the lea."
Nor waste their sweetness in the desert air.—Churchill: Gotham, book ii. line 20.
[385:2] Usually quoted "even tenor of their way."
[387:1] This was intended to be introduced in the "Alliance of Education and Government."—Mason's edition of Gray, vol. iii. p. 114.
Corrupted freemen are the worst of slaves.
Prologue to the Gamesters.
Their cause I plead,—plead it in heart and mind;
A fellow-feeling makes one wondrous kind.[387:2]
Prologue on Quitting the Stage in 1776.
Prologues like compliments are loss of time;
'T is penning bows and making legs in rhyme.
Prologue to Crisp's Tragedy of Virginia.
Let others hail the rising sun:
I bow to that whose course is run.[387:3]
On the Death of Mr. Pelham.
[388]
This scholar, rake, Christian, dupe, gamester, and poet.
Jupiter and Mercury.
Here lies James Quinn. Deign, reader, to be taught,
Whate'er thy strength of body, force of thought,
In Nature's happiest mould however cast,
To this complexion thou must come at last.
Epitaph on Quinn. Murphy's Life of Garrick, Vol. ii. p. 38.
Are these the choice dishes the Doctor has sent us?
Is this the great poet whose works so content us?
This Goldsmith's fine feast, who has written fine books?
Heaven sends us good meat, but the Devil sends cooks?[388:2]
Epigram on Goldsmith's Retaliation. Vol. ii. p. 157.
Here lies Nolly Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll,
Who wrote like an angel, and talk'd like poor Poll.
Impromptu Epitaph on Goldsmith.
[387:3] Pompey bade Sylla recollect that more worshipped the rising than the setting sun.—Plutarch: Life of Pompey.
Our ships were British oak,
And hearts of oak our men.
S. J. Arnold: Death of Nelson.
Who dares this pair of boots displace,
Must meet Bombastes face to face.[388:3]
Bombastes Furioso. Act i. Sc. 4.
Bom. So have I heard on Afric's burning shore
A hungry lion give a grievous roar;
The grievous roar echoed along the shore.
Artax. So have I heard on Afric's burning shore
Another lion give a grievous roar;
And the first lion thought the last a bore.
Bombastes Furioso. Act i. Sc. 4.
Let none but he these arms displace,
Who dares Orlando's fury face.
Cervantes: Don Quixote, part ii. chap. lxvi.
Ray: Proverbs. Thomas: English Prose Romance, page 85.
[389]
Nor peace nor ease the heart can know
Which, like the needle true,
Turns at the touch of joy or woe,
But turning, trembles too.
A Prayer for Indifference.
[389:1] The pretty Fanny Macartney.—Walpole: Memoirs.
Harry Vane, Pulteney's toad-eater,
Letter to Sir Horace Mann, 1742.
The world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those who feel.
Letter to Sir Horace Mann, 1770.
A careless song, with a little nonsense in it now and then, does not misbecome a monarch.[389:2]
Letter to Sir Horace Mann, 1774.
The whole [Scotch] nation hitherto has been void of wit and humour, and even incapable of relishing it.[389:3]
Letter to Sir Horace Mann, 1778.
A little nonsense now and then
Is relished by the wisest men.
Anonymous.
[389:3] It requires a surgical operation to get a joke well into a Scotch understanding.—Sydney Smith: Lady Holland's Memoir, vol i. p. 15.
In numbers warmly pure and sweetly strong.
Ode to Simplicity.
Well may your hearts believe the truths I tell:
'T is virtue makes the bliss, where'er we dwell.[389:4]
Oriental Eclogues. 1, Line 5.
How sleep the brave who sink to rest
By all their country's wishes bless'd!
Ode written in the year 1746.
When Music, heavenly maid, was young,
While yet in early Greece she sung.
The Passions. Line 1.
Fill'd with fury, rapt, inspired.
The Passions. Line 10.
'T was sad by fits, by starts 't was wild.
The Passions. Line 28.
In notes by distance made more sweet.[390:1]
The Passions. Line 60.
In hollow murmurs died away.
The Passions. Line 68.
O Music! sphere-descended maid,
Friend of Pleasure, Wisdom's aid!
The Passions. Line 95.
In yonder grave a Druid lies.
Death of Thomson.
Too nicely Jonson knew the critic's part;
Nature in him was almost lost in Art.
To Sir Thomas Hammer on his Edition of Shakespeare.
Each lonely scene shall thee restore;
For thee the tear be duly shed,
Belov'd till life can charm no more,
And mourn'd till Pity's self be dead.
Dirge in Cymbeline.
Var. By hands unseen the knell is rung;
By fairy forms their dirge is sung.
Sweetest melodies
Are those that are by distance made more sweet.
Wordsworth: Personal Talk, stanza 2.
Oft has it been my lot to mark
A proud, conceited, talking spark.
The Chameleon.
[390:2] Μή μοι γένοιθ' ᾶ βούλομ' ἀλλ' ἂ συμφέρει (Let not that happen which I wish, but that which is right).—Menander: Fragment.
[391]
He made him a hut, wherein he did put
The carcass of Robinson Crusoe.
O poor Robinson Crusoe!
The Mayor of Garratt. Act i. Sc. 1.
Born in a cellar, and living in a garret.[391:1]
The Author. Act ii.
Henceforth the majesty of God revere;
Fear Him, and you have nothing else to fear.[391:2]
Answer to a Gentleman who apologized to the Author for Swearing.
[391:2] Je crains Dieu, cher Abner, et n'ai point d'autre crainte (I fear God, dear Abner, and I have no other fear).—Racine: Athalie, act i. sc. 1 (1639-1699).
From Piety, whose soul sincere
Fears God, and knows no other fear.
W. Smyth: Ode for the Installation of the Duke of Gloucester as Chancellor of Cambridge.
Such and so various are the tastes of men.
Pleasures of the Imagination. Book iii. Line 567.
Than Timoleon's arms require,
And Tully's curule chair, and Milton's golden lyre.
Ode. On a Sermon against Glory. Stanza ii.
The man forget not, though in rags he lies,
And know the mortal through a crown's disguise.
Epistle to Curio.
Seeks painted trifles and fantastic toys,
And eagerly pursues imaginary joys.
The Virtuoso. Stanza x.
[392]
Thy spirit, Independence, let me share;
Lord of the lion heart and eagle eye,
Thy steps I follow with my bosom bare,
Nor heed the storm that howls along the sky.
Ode to Independence.
Thy fatal shafts unerring move,
I bow before thine altar, Love!
Roderick Random. Chap. xl.
Facts are stubborn things.[392:1]
Translation of Gil Blas. Book x. Chap. 1.
[392:1] Facts are stubborn things.—Elliot: Essay on Field Husbandry, p. 35 (1747).
The royal navy of England hath ever been its greatest defence and ornament; it is its ancient and natural strength,—the floating bulwark of our island.
Commentaries. Vol. i. Book i. Chap. xiii. § 418.
Time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary.
Commentaries. Vol. i. Book i. Chap. xviii. § 472.
In the first days
Of my distracting grief, I found myself
As women wish to be who love their lords.
Douglas. Act i. Sc. 1.
I 'll woo her as the lion wooes his brides.
Douglas. Act i. Sc. 1.
My name is Norval; on the Grampian hills
My father feeds his flocks; a frugal swain,
Whose constant cares were to increase his store,
And keep his only son, myself, at home.
Douglas. Act ii. Sc. 1.
A rude and boisterous captain of the sea.
Douglas. Act iv. Sc. 1.
Like Douglas conquer, or like Douglas die.
Douglas. Act v. Sc. 1.
[393]
The fattest hog in Epicurus' sty.[393:1]
Heroic Epistle.
Me pinguem et nitidum bene curata cute vises,
. . . . Epicuri de grege porcum
(You may see me, fat and shining, with well-cared for hide,— . . . a hog from Epicurus' herd).—Horace: Epistolæ, lib. i. iv. 15, 16.
[393:2] Thus altered by Johnson,—
All at her work the village maiden sings,
Nor, while she turns the giddy wheel around.
Thus far we run before the wind.
The Apprentice. Act v. Sc. 1.
Above the vulgar flight of common souls.
Zenobia. Act v.
Picked up his crumbs.
The Upholsterer. Act i.
The flowers of the forest are a' wide awae.[393:4]
The Flowers of the Forest.
[393:4] This line appears in the "Flowers of the Forest," part second, a later poem by Mrs. Cockburn. See Dyce's "Specimens of British Poetesses," p. 374.
[394]
Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow,
Or by the lazy Scheld or wandering Po.
The Traveller. Line 1.
Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see,
My heart untravell'd fondly turns to thee;
Still to my brother turns with ceaseless pain,
And drags at each remove a lengthening chain.
The Traveller. Line 7.
And learn the luxury of doing good.[394:1]
The Traveller. Line 22.
Some fleeting good, that mocks me with the view.
The Traveller. Line 26.
These little things are great to little man.
The Traveller. Line 42.
Creation's heir, the world, the world is mine!
The Traveller. Line 50.
Such is the patriot's boast, where'er we roam,—
His first, best country ever is at home.
The Traveller. Line 73.
Where wealth and freedom reign contentment fails,
And honour sinks where commerce long prevails.
The Traveller. Line 91.
Man seems the only growth that dwindles here.
The Traveller. Line 126.
The canvas glow'd beyond ev'n Nature warm,
The pregnant quarry teem'd with human form.[394:2]
The Traveller. Line 137.
By sports like these are all their cares beguil'd;
The sports of children satisfy the child.
The Traveller. Line 153.
But winter lingering chills the lap of May.
The Traveller. Line 172.
Cheerful at morn, he wakes from short repose,
Breasts the keen air, and carols as he goes.
The Traveller. Line 185.
So the loud torrent and the whirlwind's roar
But bind him to his native mountains more.
The Traveller. Line 217.
[395]
Alike all ages. Dames of ancient days
Have led their children through the mirthful maze,
And the gay grandsire, skill'd in gestic lore,
Has frisk'd beneath the burden of threescore.
The Traveller. Line 251.
They please, are pleas'd; they give to get esteem,
Till seeming blest, they grow to what they seem.[395:1]
The Traveller. Line 266.
Embosom'd in the deep where Holland lies.
Methinks her patient sons before me stand,
Where the broad ocean leans against the land.
The Traveller. Line 282.
Pride in their port, defiance in their eye,
I see the lords of humankind pass by.[395:2]
The Traveller. Line 327.
The land of scholars and the nurse of arms.
The Traveller. Line 356.
For just experience tells, in every soil,
That those that think must govern those that toil.
The Traveller. Line 372.
Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law.
The Traveller. Line 386.
Forc'd from their homes, a melancholy train,
To traverse climes beyond the western main;
Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around,
And Niagara stuns with thundering sound.
The Traveller. Line 409.
Vain, very vain, my weary search to find
That bliss which only centres in the mind.
The Traveller. Line 423.
Luke's iron crown, and Damien's bed of steel.[395:3]
The Traveller. Line 436.
Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plain.
The Deserted Village. Line 1.
The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade,
For talking age and whispering lovers made.
The Deserted Village. Line 13.
[396]
The bashful virgin's sidelong looks of love.
The Deserted Village. Line 29.
Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay.
Princes and lords may flourish or may fade,—
A breath can make them, as a breath has made;[396:1]
But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,
When once destroy'd, can never be supplied.
The Deserted Village. Line 51.
His best companions, innocence and health;
And his best riches, ignorance of wealth.
The Deserted Village. Line 61.
How blest is he who crowns in shades like these
A youth of labour with an age of ease!
The Deserted Village. Line 99.
While Resignation gently slopes away,
And all his prospects brightening to the last,
His heaven commences ere the world be past.
The Deserted Village. Line 110.
The watch-dog's voice that bay'd the whispering wind,
And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind.
The Deserted Village. Line 121.
A man he was to all the country dear,
And passing rich with forty pounds a year.
The Deserted Village. Line 141.
Wept o'er his wounds, or tales of sorrow done,
Shoulder'd his crutch, and shew'd how fields were won.
The Deserted Village. Line 157.
Careless their merits or their faults to scan,
His pity gave ere charity began.
Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride,
And even his failings lean'd to Virtue's side.
The Deserted Village. Line 161.
And as a bird each fond endearment tries
To tempt its new-fledg'd offspring to the skies,
He tried each art, reprov'd each dull delay,
Allur'd to brighter worlds, and led the way.
The Deserted Village. Line 167.
[397]
Truth from his lips prevail'd with double sway,
And fools who came to scoff, remain'd to pray.[397:1]
The Deserted Village. Line 179.
Even children follow'd with endearing wile,
And pluck'd his gown, to share the good man's smile.
The Deserted Village. Line 183.
As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form,
Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm,—
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,
Eternal sunshine settles on its head.
The Deserted Village. Line 189.
Well had the boding tremblers learn'd to trace
The day's disasters in his morning face;
Full well they laugh'd with counterfeited glee
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he;
Full well the busy whisper circling round
Convey'd the dismal tidings when he frown'd.
Yet was he kind, or if severe in aught,
The love he bore to learning was in fault;
The village all declar'd how much he knew,
'T was certain he could write and cipher too.
The Deserted Village. Line 199.
In arguing too, the parson own'd his skill,
For e'en though vanquish'd he could argue still;
While words of learned length and thundering sound
Amaz'd the gazing rustics rang'd around;
And still they gaz'd, and still the wonder grew
That one small head could carry all he knew.
The Deserted Village. Line 209.
Where village statesmen talk'd with looks profound,
And news much older than their ale went round.
The Deserted Village. Line 223.
The whitewash'd wall, the nicely sanded floor,
The varnish'd clock that click'd behind the door;
The chest, contriv'd a double debt to pay,—
A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day.[397:2]
The Deserted Village. Line 227.
[398]
The twelve good rules, the royal game of goose.[398:1]
The Deserted Village. Line 232.
To me more dear, congenial to my heart,
One native charm, than all the gloss of art.
The Deserted Village. Line 253.
And e'en while fashion's brightest arts decoy,
The heart distrusting asks if this be joy.
The Deserted Village. Line 263.
Her modest looks the cottage might adorn,
Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn.
The Deserted Village. Line 329.
Through torrid tracts with fainting steps they go,
Where wild Altama murmurs to their woe.
The Deserted Village. Line 344.
In all the silent manliness of grief.
The Deserted Village. Line 384.
O Luxury! thou curst by Heaven's decree!
The Deserted Village. Line 385.
Thou source of all my bliss and all my woe,
That found'st me poor at first, and keep'st me so.
The Deserted Village. Line 413.
Such dainties to them, their health it might hurt;
It 's like sending them ruffles when wanting a shirt.[398:2]
The Haunch of Venison.
As aromatic plants bestow
No spicy fragrance while they grow;
But crush'd or trodden to the ground,
Diffuse their balmy sweets around.[398:3]
The Captivity. Act i.
To the last moment of his breath,
On hope the wretch relies;
And even the pang preceding death
Bids expectation rise.[398:4]
The Captivity. Act ii.
[399]
Hope, like the gleaming taper's light,
Adorns and cheers our way;[399:1]
And still, as darker grows the night,
Emits a brighter ray.
The Captivity. Act ii.
Our Garrick 's a salad; for in him we see
Oil, vinegar, sugar, and saltness agree!
Retaliation. Line 11.
Who mix'd reason with pleasure, and wisdom with mirth:
If he had any faults, he has left us in doubt.
Retaliation. Line 24.
Who, born for the universe, narrow'd his mind,
And to party gave up what was meant for mankind;
Though fraught with all learning, yet straining his throat
To persuade Tommy Townshend to lend him a vote.
Who too deep for his hearers still went on refining,
And thought of convincing while they thought of dining:
Though equal to all things, for all things unfit;
Too nice for a statesman, too proud for a wit.
Retaliation. Line 31.
His conduct still right, with his argument wrong.
Retaliation. Line 46.
A flattering painter, who made it his care
To draw men as they ought to be, not as they are.
Retaliation. Line 63.
Here lies David Garrick, describe me who can,
An abridgment of all that was pleasant in man.
Retaliation. Line 93.
As a wit, if not first, in the very first line.
Retaliation. Line 96.
On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting;
'T was only that when he was off he was acting.
Retaliation. Line 101.
He cast off his friends as a huntsman his pack,
For he knew when he pleas'd he could whistle them back.
Retaliation. Line 107.
Who pepper'd the highest was surest to please.
Retaliation. Line 112.
[400]
When they talk'd of their Raphaels, Correggios, and stuff,
He shifted his trumpet and only took snuff.
Retaliation. Line 145.
The best-humour'd man, with the worst-humour'd Muse.[400:1]
Postscript.
Good people all, with one accord,
Lament for Madam Blaize,
Who never wanted a good word
From those who spoke her praise.
Elegy on Mrs. Mary Blaize.[400:2]
The king himself has followed her
When she has walk'd before.
Elegy on Mrs. Mary Blaize.
A kind and gentle heart he had,
To comfort friends and foes;
The naked every day he clad
When he put on his clothes.
Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog.
And in that town a dog was found,
As many dogs there be,
Both mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound,
And curs of low degree.
Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog.
The dog, to gain his private ends,
Went mad, and bit the man.
Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog.
[401]
A night-cap deck'd his brows instead of bay,—
A cap by night, a stocking all the day.[401:1]
Description of an Author's Bed-chamber.
This same philosophy is a good horse in the stable, but an arrant jade on a journey.[401:2]
The Good-Natured Man. Act i.
All his faults are such that one loves him still the better for them.
The Good-Natured Man. Act i.
Silence gives consent.[401:3]
The Good-Natured Man. Act ii.
Measures, not men, have always been my mark.[401:4]
The Good-Natured Man. Act ii.
I love everything that 's old: old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine.[401:5]
She Stoops to Conquer. Act i.
The very pink of perfection.
She Stoops to Conquer. Act i.
The genteel thing is the genteel thing any time, if as be that a gentleman bees in a concatenation accordingly.
She Stoops to Conquer. Act i.
I 'll be with you in the squeezing of a lemon.
She Stoops to Conquer. Act i.
Ask me no questions, and I 'll tell you no fibs.
She Stoops to Conquer. Act iii.
We sometimes had those little rubs which Providence sends to enhance the value of its favours.
Vicar of Wakefield. Chap. i.
Handsome is that handsome does.[401:6]
Vicar of Wakefield. Chap. i.
The premises being thus settled, I proceed to observe that the concatenation of self-existence, proceeding in a reciprocal duplicate ratio, naturally produces a problematical dialogism, which in some measure proves that the [402]essence of spirituality may be referred to the second predicable.
Vicar of Wakefield. Chap. vii.
I find you want me to furnish you with argument and intellect too.
Vicar of Wakefield. Chap. vii.
Turn, gentle Hermit of the Dale,
And guide my lonely way
To where yon taper cheers the vale
With hospitable ray.
The Hermit. Chap. viii. Stanza 1.
Man wants but little here below,
Nor wants that little long.[402:2]
The Hermit. Chap. viii. Stanza 8.
And what is friendship but a name,
A charm that lulls to sleep,
A shade that follows wealth or fame,
And leaves the wretch to weep?
The Hermit. Chap. viii. Stanza 19.
The sigh that rends thy constant heart
Shall break thy Edwin's too.
The Hermit. Chap. viii. Stanza 33.
By the living jingo, she was all of a muck of sweat.
The Hermit. Chap. ix.
They would talk of nothing but high life, and high-lived company, with other fashionable topics, such as pictures, taste, Shakespeare, and the musical glasses.
The Hermit. Chap. ix.
It has been a thousand times observed, and I must observe it once more, that the hours we pass with happy prospects in view are more pleasing than those crowned with fruition.[402:3]
The Hermit. Chap. x.
To what happy accident[402:4] is it that we owe so unexpected a visit?
The Hermit. Chap. xix.
[403]
When lovely woman stoops to folly,
And finds too late that men betray,
What charm can soothe her melancholy?
What art can wash her guilt away?
The Hermit. On Woman. Chap. xxiv.
The only art her guilt to cover,
To hide her shame from every eye,
To give repentance to her lover,
And wring his bosom, is—to die.
The Hermit. On Woman. Chap. xxiv.
To what fortuitous occurrence do we not owe every pleasure and convenience of our lives.
The Hermit. On Woman. Chap. xxi.
For he who fights and runs away
May live to fight another day;
But he who is in battle slain
Can never rise and fight again.[403:1]
The Art of Poetry on a New Plan (1761). Vol. ii. p. 147.
One writer, for instance, excels at a plan or a title-page, another works away the body of the book, and a third is a dab at an index.[403:2]
The Bee. No. 1, Oct. 6, 1759.
The true use of speech is not so much to express our wants as to conceal them.[403:3]
The Bee. No. iii. Oct. 20, 1759.
[395:1] The character of the French.
[395:3] When Davies asked for an explanation of "Luke's iron crown," Goldsmith referred him to a book called "Géographie Curieuse," and added that by "Damien's bed of steel" he meant the rack.—Granger: Letters, (1805), p. 52.
C'est un verre qui luit,
Qu'un souffle peut détruire, et qu'un souffle a produit
(It is a shining glass, which a breath may destroy, and which a breath has produced).—De Caux (comparing the world to his hour-glass).
[397:2] A cap by night, a stocking all the day—Goldsmith: A Description of an Author's Bed-Chamber.
[398:1] The twelve good rules were ascribed to King Charles I.: 1. Urge no healths. 2. Profane no divine ordinances. 3. Touch no state matters. 4. Reveal no secrets. 5. Pick no quarrels. 6. Make no comparisons. 7. Maintain no ill opinions. 8. Keep no bad company. 9. Encourage no vice. 10. Make no long meals. 11. Repeat no grievances. 12. Lay no wagers.
The wretch condemn'd with life to part
Still, still on hope relies;
And every pang that rends the heart
Bid expectation rise.
Original MS.
Hope, like the taper's gleamy light,
Adorns the wretch's way.
Original MS.
[400:2] Written in imitation of "Chanson sur le fameux La Palisse," which is attributed to Bernard de la Monnoye:—
On dit que dans ses amours
Il fut caressé des belles,
Qui le suivirent toujours,
Tant qu'il marcha devant elles
(They say that in his love affairs he was petted by beauties, who always followed him as long as he walked before them).
While Fell was reposing himself in the hay,
A reptile concealed bit his leg as he lay;
But, all venom himself, of the wound he made light,
And got well, while the scorpion died of the bite.
Lessing: Paraphrase of a Greek Epigram by Demodocus.
[401:2] Philosophy triumphs easily over past evils and future evils, but present evils triumph over it.—Rochefoucauld: Maxim 22.
[401:3] Ray: Proverbs. Fuller: Wise Sentences. Αύτὸ δὲ τὸ σιγᾶν ὁμολογοῦντος ἐστί σου.—Euripides: Iph. Aul., 1142.
[401:4] Measures, not men.—Chesterfield: Letter, Mar. 6, 1742. Not men, but measures.—Burke: Present Discontents.
[402:3] An object in possession seldom retains the same charm that it had in pursuit.—Pliny the Younger: Letters, book ii. letter xv. 1.
[403:1] See Butler, pages 215, 216.
[403:2] There are two things which I am confident I can do very well: one is an introduction to any literary work, stating what it is to contain, and how it should be executed in the most perfect manner.
Boswell: Life of Johnson, An. 1775.
All human race, from China to Peru,[403:4]
Pleasure, howe'er disguis'd by art, pursue.
Universal Love of Pleasure.
Nor rough, nor barren, are the winding ways
Of hoar antiquity, but strewn with flowers.
Written on a Blank Leaf of Dugdale's Monasticon.
[404]
Every white will have its blacke,
And every sweet its soure.
Reliques of Ancient Poetry. Sir Cauline.
He that had neyther been kith nor kin
Might have seen a full fayre sight.
Guy of Gisborne.
Have you not heard these many years ago
Jeptha was judge of Israel?
He had one only daughter and no mo,
The which he loved passing well;
And as by lott,
God wot,
It so came to pass,
As God's will was.[404:2]
Jepthah, Judge of Israel.
Where gripinge grefes the hart wounde,
And dolefulle dumps the mynde oppresse,
There music with her silver sound[404:4]
With spede is wont to send redresse.
A Song to the Lute in Musicke.
[405]
The blinded boy that shootes so trim,
From heaven downe did hie.[405:1]
King Cophetua and the Beggar-maid.
"What is thy name, faire maid?" quoth he.
"Penelophon, O King!" quoth she.[405:2]
King Cophetua and the Beggar-maid.
And how should I know your true love
From many another one?
Oh, by his cockle hat and staff,
And by his sandal shoone.
The Friar of Orders Gray.
O Lady, he is dead and gone!
Lady, he 's dead and gone!
And at his head a green grass turfe,
And at his heels a stone.[405:3]
The Friar of Orders Gray.
Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more!
Men were deceivers ever;
One foot in sea and one on shore,
To one thing constant never.[405:4]
The Friar of Orders Gray.
Weep no more, lady, weep no more,
Thy sorrowe is in vaine;
For violets pluckt, the sweetest showers
Will ne'er make grow againe.[405:5]
The Friar of Orders Gray.
[406]
And when with envy Time, transported,
Shall think to rob us of our joys,
You 'll in your girls again be courted,
And I 'll go wooing in my boys.
Winifreda (1720).
King Stephen was a worthy peere,
His breeches cost him but a croune;
He held them sixpence all too deere,
Therefore he call'd the taylor loune.
He was a wight of high renowne,
And those but of a low degree;
Itt 's pride that putts the countrye doune,
Then take thine old cloake about thee.[406:2]
Take thy old Cloak about Thee.
A poore soule sat sighing under a sycamore tree;
Oh willow, willow, willow!
With his hand on his bosom, his head on his knee,
Oh willow, willow, willow![406:3]
Willow, willow, willow.
Shall I bid her goe? What if I doe?
Shall I bid her goe and spare not?
Oh no, no, no! I dare not.[406:5]
Corydon's Farewell to Phillis.
[407]
But in vayne shee did conjure him
To depart her presence soe;
Having a thousand tongues to allure him,
And but one to bid him goe.
Dulcina.
I saw the new moon late yestreen,
Wi' the auld moon in her arm.
From Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.
[404:2] "As by lot, God wot;" and then you know, "It came to pass, as most like it was."—Shakespeare: Hamlet, act ii. sc. 2.
Hey, Robin, Jolly Robin,
Tell me how thy lady does.
Shakespeare: Twelfth Night, act iv. sc. 2.
When griping grief heart doth wound,
And doleful dumps the mind oppress,
Then music with her silver sound.
Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet, act iv. sc. 5.
Young Adam Cupid, he that shot so trim,
When King Cophetua loved the beggar-maid!
Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet, act ii. sc. 1.
[405:2] Shakespeare, who alludes to this ballad in "Love's Labour's Lost," act iv. sc. 1, gives the beggar's name Zenelophon. The story of the king and the beggar is also alluded to in "King Richard II.," act v. sc. 3.
[405:3] Quoted in "Hamlet," act iv. sc. 3.
He that will not when he may,
When he would, he should have nay.
Cervantes: Don Quixote, part i. book iii. chap. iv.
Nobilitas sola est atque unica virtus (Nobility is the one only virtue).—Juvenal: Satire viii. line 20.
[406:2] The first stanza is quoted in full, and the last line of the second, by Shakespeare in "Othello," act ii. sc. 3.
The poor soul sat sighing by a sycamore tree,
Sing all a green willow;
Her hand on her bosom, her head on her knee,
Sing willow, willow, willow.
Othello, act iv. sc. 3.
[406:4] Quoted by Shakespeare in Second Part of "Henry IV.," act ii. sc. 4.
[406:5] Quoted by Shakespeare in "Twelfth Night," act ii. sc. 3.
The writers against religion, whilst they oppose every system, are wisely careful never to set up any of their own.
A Vindication of Natural Society.[407:1] Preface, vol. i. p. 7.
"War," says Machiavel, "ought to be the only study of a prince;" and by a prince he means every sort of state, however constituted. "He ought," says this great political doctor, "to consider peace only as a breathing-time, which gives him leisure to contrive, and furnishes ability to execute military plans." A meditation on the conduct of political societies made old Hobbes imagine that war was the state of nature.
A Vindication of Natural Society. Vol. i. p. 15.
I am convinced that we have a degree of delight, and that no small one, in the real misfortunes and pains of others.[407:2]
On the Sublime and Beautiful. Sect. xiv. vol. 1. p. 118.
Custom reconciles us to everything.
On the Sublime and Beautiful. Sect. xviii. vol. i. p. 231.
There is, however, a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue.
Observations on a Late Publication on the Present State of the Nation. Vol. i. p. 273.
The wisdom of our ancestors.[407:3]
Observations on a Late Publication on the Present State of the Nation. Vol. i. p. 516. Also in the Discussion on the Traitorous Correspondence Bill, 1793.
[408]
Illustrious predecessor.[408:1]
Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents. Vol. i. p. 456.
In such a strait the wisest may well be perplexed and the boldest staggered.
Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents. Vol. i. p. 516.
When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.
Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents. Vol. i. p. 526.
Of this stamp is the cant of, Not men, but measures.[408:2]
Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents. Vol. i. p. 531.
The concessions of the weak are the concessions of fear.
Speech on the Conciliation of America. Vol. ii. p. 108.
There is America, which at this day serves for little more than to amuse you with stories of savage men and uncouth manners, yet shall, before you taste of death, show itself equal to the whole of that commerce which now attracts the envy of the world.
Speech on the Conciliation of America. Vol. ii. p. 115.
Fiction lags after truth, invention is unfruitful, and imagination cold and barren.
Speech on the Conciliation of America. Vol. ii. p. 116.
A people who are still, as it were, but in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood.
Speech on the Conciliation of America. Vol. ii. p. 117.
A wise and salutary neglect.
Speech on the Conciliation of America. Vol. ii. p. 117.
My vigour relents,—I pardon something to the spirit of liberty.
Speech on the Conciliation of America. Vol. ii. p. 118.
The religion most prevalent in our northern colonies is a refinement on the principles of resistance: it is the dissidence of dissent, and the protestantism of the Protestant religion.
Speech on the Conciliation of America. Vol. ii. p. 123.
I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against a whole people.
Speech on the Conciliation of America. Vol. ii. p. 136.
The march of the human mind is slow.[408:3]
Speech on the Conciliation of America. Vol. ii. p. 149.
[409]
All government,—indeed, every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue and every prudent act,—is founded on compromise and barter.
Speech on the Conciliation of America. Vol. ii. p. 169.
The worthy gentleman who has been snatched from us at the moment of the election, and in the middle of the contest, whilst his desires were as warm and his hopes as eager as ours, has feelingly told us what shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue.
Speech at Bristol on Declining the Poll. Vol. ii. p. 420.
They made and recorded a sort of institute and digest of anarchy, called the Rights of Man.
On the Army Estimates. Vol iii. p. 221.
People will not look forward to posterity who never look backward to their ancestors.
Reflections on the Revolution in France. Vol. iii. p. 274.
You had that action and counteraction which, in the natural and in the political world, from the reciprocal struggle of discordant powers draws out the harmony of the universe.[409:1]
Reflections on the Revolution in France. Vol. iii. p. 277.
It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the Queen of France, then the Dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in,—glittering like the morning star full of life and splendour and joy. . . . Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men,—in a nation of men of honour and of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from [410]their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded.
Reflections on the Revolution in France. Vol. iii. p. 331.
The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise is gone.
Reflections on the Revolution in France. Vol. iii. p. 331.
That chastity of honour which felt a stain like a wound.
Reflections on the Revolution in France. Vol. iii. p. 332.
Vice itself lost half its evil by losing all its grossness.
Reflections on the Revolution in France. Vol. iii. p. 332.
Kings will be tyrants from policy, when subjects are rebels from principle.
Reflections on the Revolution in France. Vol. iii. p. 334.
Learning will be cast into the mire and trodden down under the hoofs of a swinish multitude.[410:1]
Reflections on the Revolution in France. Vol. iii. p. 335.
Because half-a-dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field; that of course they are many in number; or that, after all, they are other than the little shrivelled, meagre, hopping, though loud and troublesome insects of the hour.
Reflections on the Revolution in France. Vol. iii. p. 344.
In their nomination to office they will not appoint to the exercise of authority as to a pitiful job, but as to a holy function.
Reflections on the Revolution in France. Vol. iii. p. 356.
The men of England,—the men, I mean, of light and leading in England.
Reflections on the Revolution in France. Vol. iii. p. 365.
[411]
He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.
Reflections on the Revolution in France. Vol. iii. p. 453.
To execute laws is a royal office; to execute orders is not to be a king. However, a political executive magistracy, though merely such, is a great trust.[411:1]
Reflections on the Revolution in France. Vol. iii. p. 497.
You can never plan the future by the past.[411:2]
Letter to a Member of the National Assembly. Vol. iv. p. 55.
The cold neutrality of an impartial judge.
Preface to Brissot's Address. Vol. v. p. 67.
And having looked to Government for bread, on the very first scarcity they will turn and bite the hand that fed them.[411:3]
Thoughts and Details on Scarcity. Vol. v. p. 156.
All men that are ruined, are ruined on the side of their natural propensities.
Letter i. On a Regicide Peace. Vol. v. p. 286.
All those instances to be found in history, whether real or fabulous, of a doubtful public spirit, at which morality is perplexed, reason is staggered, and from which affrighted Nature recoils, are their chosen and almost sole examples for the instruction of their youth.
Letter i. On a Regicide Peace. Vol. v. p. 311.
Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other.
Letter i. On a Regicide Peace. Vol. v. p. 331.
Early and provident fear is the mother of safety.
Speech on the Petition of the Unitarians. Vol. vii. p. 50.
There never was a bad man that had ability for good service.
Speech in opening the Impeachment of Warren Hastings. Third Day. Vol. x. p. 54.
The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.
Speech at County Meeting of Bucks, 1784.
[412]
I would rather sleep in the southern corner of a little country churchyard than in the tomb of the Capulets.[412:1]
Letter to Matthew Smith.
It has all the contortions of the sibyl without the inspiration.[412:2]
Prior's Life of Burke.[412:3]
He was not merely a chip of the old block, but the old block itself.[412:4]
On Pitt's First Speech, Feb. 26, 1781. From Wraxall's Memoirs, First Series, vol. i. p. 342.
[407:1] Boston edition. 1865-1867.
[407:2] In the adversity of our best friends we always find something which is not wholly displeasing to us.—Rochefoucauld: Reflections, xv.
[407:3] Lord Brougham says of Bacon, "He it was who first employed the well-known phrase of 'the wisdom of our ancestors.'"
Sydney Smith: Plymley's Letters, letter v. Lord Eldon: On Sir Samuel Romilly's Bill, 1815. Cicero: De Legibus, ii. 2, 3.
[408:3] The march of intellect.—Southey: Progress and Prospects of Society, vol. ii. p. 360.
[409:1] Quid velit et possit rerum concordia discors (What the discordant harmony of circumstances would and could effect).—Horace: Epistle i. 12, 19.
Mr. Breen, in his "Modern English Literature," says: "This remarkable thought Alison the historian has turned to good account; it occurs so often in his disquisitions that he seems to have made it the staple of all wisdom and the basis of every truth."
[410:1] This expression was tortured to mean that he actually thought the people no better than swine; and the phrase "the swinish multitude" was bruited about in every form of speech and writing, in order to excite popular indignation.
[411:2] I know no way of judging of the future but by the past.—Patrick Henry: Speech in the Virginia Convention, March, 1775.
[411:3] We set ourselves to bite the hand that feeds us.— Cause of the Present Discontents, vol. i. p. 439.
[412:1] Family vault of "all the Capulets."—Reflections on the Revolution in France, vol. iii. p. 349.
[412:2] When Croft's "Life of Dr. Young" was spoken of as a good imitation of Dr. Johnson's style, "No, no," said he, "it is not a good imitation of Johnson; it has all his pomp without his force; it has all the nodosities of the oak, without its strength; it has all the contortions of the sibyl, without the inspiration."—Prior: Life of Burke.
The gloomy comparisons of a disturbed imagination, the melancholy madness of poetry without the inspiration.—Junius: Letter No. viii. To Sir W. Draper.
[412:3] At the conclusion of one of Mr. Burke's eloquent harangues, Mr. Cruger, finding nothing to add, or perhaps as he thought to add with effect, exclaimed earnestly, in the language of the counting-house, "I say ditto to Mr. Burke! I say ditto to Mr. Burke!"—Prior: Life of Burke, p. 152.
He mouths a sentence as curs mouth a bone.
The Rosciad. Line 322.
But, spite of all the criticising elves,
Those who would make us feel—must feel themselves.[412:5]
The Rosciad. Line 961.
No statesman e'er will find it worth his pains
To tax our labours and excise our brains.
Night. Line 271.
Apt alliteration 's artful aid.
The Prophecy of Famine. Line 86.
There webs were spread of more than common size,
And half-starved spiders prey'd on half-starved flies.
The Prophecy of Famine. Line 327.
With curious art the brain, too finely wrought,
Preys on herself, and is destroyed by thought.
Epistle to William Hogarth. Line 645.
Men the most infamous are fond of fame,
And those who fear not guilt yet start at shame.
The Author. Line 233.
Be England what she will,
With all her faults she is my country still.[413:2]
The Farewell. Line 27.
Wherever waves can roll, and winds can blow.[413:3]
The Farewell. Line 38.
Si vis me flere, dolendum est
Primum ipsi tibi
(If you wish me to weep, you yourself must first feel grief).
Horace: Ars Poetica, v. 102.
[413:1] Steal! to be sure they may; and, egad, serve your best thoughts as gypsies do stolen children,—disguise them to make 'em pass for their own.—Sheridan: The Critic, act. i. sc. i.
England, with all thy faults I love thee still,
My country!
Cowper: The Task, book ii. The Timepiece, line 206.
[413:3] Far as the breeze can bear, the billows foam.—Byron: The Corsair, canto i. stanza 1.
Is base in kind, and born to be a slave.
Table Talk. Line 28.
As if the world and they were hand and glove.
Table Talk. Line 173.
Happiness depends, as Nature shows,
Less on exterior things than most suppose.
Table Talk. Line 246.
[414]
Freedom has a thousand charms to show,
That slaves, howe'er contented, never know.
Table Talk. Line 260.
Manner is all in all, whate'er is writ,
The substitute for genius, sense, and wit.
Table Talk. Line 542.
Ages elapsed ere Homer's lamp appear'd,
And ages ere the Mantuan swan was heard:
To carry nature lengths unknown before,
To give a Milton birth, ask'd ages more.
Table Talk. Line 556.
Elegant as simplicity, and warm
As ecstasy.
Table Talk. Line 588.
Low ambition and the thirst of praise.[414:1]
Table Talk. Line 591.
Made poetry a mere mechanic art.
Table Talk. Line 654.
Nature, exerting an unwearied power,
Forms, opens, and gives scent to every flower;
Spreads the fresh verdure of the field, and leads
The dancing Naiads through the dewy meads.
Table Talk. Line 690.
Lights of the world, and stars of human race.
The Progress of Error. Line 97.
How much a dunce that has been sent to roam
Excels a dunce that has been kept at home!
The Progress of Error. Line 415.
Just knows, and knows no more, her Bible true,—
A truth the brilliant Frenchman never knew.
Truth. Line 327.
The sounding jargon of the schools.[414:2]
Truth. Line 367.
When one that holds communion with the skies
Has fill'd his urn where these pure waters rise,
And once more mingles with us meaner things,
'T is e'en as if an angel shook his wings.
Charity. Line 435.
A fool must now and then be right by chance.
Conversation. Line 96.
[415]
He would not, with a peremptory tone,
Assert the nose upon his face his own.
Conversation. Line 121.
A moral, sensible, and well-bred man
Will not affront me,—and no other can.
Conversation. Line 193.
Pernicious weed! whose scent the fair annoys,
Unfriendly to society's chief joys:
Thy worst effect is banishing for hours
The sex whose presence civilizes ours.
Conversation. Line 251.
I cannot talk with civet in the room,
A fine puss-gentleman that 's all perfume.
Conversation. Line 283.
The solemn fop; significant and budge;
A fool with judges, amongst fools a judge.[415:1]
Conversation. Line 299.
His wit invites you by his looks to come,
But when you knock, it never is at home.[415:2]
Conversation. Line 303.
Our wasted oil unprofitably burns,
Like hidden lamps in old sepulchral urns.[415:3]
Conversation. Line 357.
That good diffused may more abundant grow.
Conversation. Line 443.
A business with an income at its heels
Furnishes always oil for its own wheels.
Retirement. Line 614.
Absence of occupation is not rest,
A mind quite vacant is a mind distress'd.
Retirement. Line 623.
An idler is a watch that wants both hands,
As useless if it goes as if it stands.
Retirement. Line 681.
Built God a church, and laugh'd his word to scorn.
Retirement. Line 688.
[416]
Philologists, who chase
A panting syllable through time and space,
Start it at home, and hunt it in the dark
To Gaul, to Greece, and into Noah's ark.
Retirement. Line 691.
I praise the Frenchman,[416:1] his remark was shrewd,—
How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude!
But grant me still a friend in my retreat,
Whom I may whisper, Solitude is sweet.
Retirement. Line 739.
A kick that scarce would move a horse
May kill a sound divine.
The Yearly Distress.
I am monarch of all I survey,
My right there is none to dispute.
Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk.
O Solitude! where are the charms
That sages have seen in thy face?
Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk.
But the sound of the church-going bell
These valleys and rocks never heard;
Ne'er sigh'd at the sound of a knell,
Or smiled when a Sabbath appear'd.
Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk.
How fleet is a glance of the mind!
Compared with the speed of its flight
The tempest itself lags behind,
And the swift-winged, arrows of light.
Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk.
There goes the parson, O illustrious spark!
And there, scarce less illustrious, goes the clerk.
On observing some Names of Little Note.
But oars alone can ne'er prevail
To reach the distant coast;
The breath of heaven must swell the sail,
Or all the toil is lost.
Human Frailty.
And the tear that is wiped with a little address,
May be follow'd perhaps by a smile.
The Rose.
[417]
'T is Providence alone secures
In every change both mine and yours.
A Fable. Moral.
I shall not ask Jean Jacques Rousseau
If birds confabulate or no.
Pairing Time Anticipated.
Misses! the tale that I relate
This lesson seems to carry,—
Choose not alone a proper mate,
But proper time to marry.
Pairing Time Anticipated.
That though on pleasure she was bent,
She had a frugal mind.
History of John Gilpin.
A hat not much the worse for wear.
History of John Gilpin.
Now let us sing, Long live the king!
And Gilpin, Long live he!
And when he next doth ride abroad,
May I be there to see!
History of John Gilpin.
The path of sorrow, and that path alone,
Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown.
To an Afflicted Protestant Lady.
United yet divided, twain at once:
So sit two kings of Brentford on one throne.[417:1]
The Task. Book i. The Sofa. Line 77.
Nor rural sights alone, but rural sounds,
Exhilarate the spirit, and restore
The tone of languid nature.
The Task. Book i. The Sofa. Line 181.
The earth was made so various, that the mind
Of desultory man, studious of change
And pleased with novelty, might be indulged.
The Task. Book i. The Sofa. Line 506.
Doing good,
Disinterested good, is not our trade.
The Task. Book i. The Sofa. Line 673.
God made the country, and man made the town.[417:2]
The Task. Book i. The Sofa. Line 749.
[418]
Oh for a lodge in some vast wilderness,[418:1]
Some boundless contiguity of shade,
Where rumour of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,
Might never reach me more.
The Task. Book ii. The Timepiece. Line 1.
Mountains interposed
Make enemies of nations who had else,
Like kindred drops, been mingled into one.
The Task. Book ii. The Timepiece. Line 17.
I would not have a slave to till my ground,
To carry me, to fan me while I sleep
And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth
That sinews bought and sold have ever earn'd.
The Task. Book ii. The Timepiece. Line 29.
Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs
Receive our air, that moment they are free!
They touch our country, and their shackles fall.[418:2]
The Task. Book ii. The Timepiece. Line 40.
Fast-anchor'd isle.
The Task. Book ii. The Timepiece. Line 151.
England, with all thy faults I love thee still,
My country![418:3]
The Task. Book ii. The Timepiece. Line 206.
Presume to lay their hand upon the ark
Of her magnificent and awful cause.
The Task. Book ii. The Timepiece. Line 231.
[419]
Praise enough
To fill the ambition of a private man,
That Chatham's language was his mother tongue.
The Task. Book ii. The Timepiece. Line 235.
There is a pleasure in poetic pains
Which only poets know.[419:1]
The Task. Book ii. The Timepiece. Line 285.
Transforms old print
To zigzag manuscript, and cheats the eyes
Of gallery critics by a thousand arts.
The Task. Book ii. The Timepiece. Line 363.
Reading what they never wrote,
Just fifteen minutes, huddle up their work,
And with a well-bred whisper close the scene.
The Task. Book ii. The Timepiece. Line 411.
Whoe'er was edified, themselves were not.
The Task. Book ii. The Timepiece. Line 444.
Variety 's the very spice of life.[419:2]
The Task. Book ii. The Timepiece. Line 606.
She that asks
Her dear five hundred friends.
The Task. Book ii. The Timepiece. Line 642.
His head,
Not yet by time completely silver'd o'er,
Bespoke him past the bounds of freakish youth,
But strong for service still, and unimpair'd.
The Task. Book ii. The Timepiece. Line 702.
Domestic happiness, thou only bliss
Of Paradise that has survived the fall!
The Task. Book iii. The Garden. Line 41.
Great contest follows, and much learned dust.
The Task. Book iii. The Garden. Line 161.
From reveries so airy, from the toil
Of dropping buckets into empty wells,
And growing old in drawing nothing up.[419:3]
The Task. Book iii. The Garden. Line 188.
[420]
How various his employments whom the world
Calls idle, and who justly in return
Esteems that busy world an idler too!
The Task. Book iii. The Garden. Line 352.
Who loves a garden loves a greenhouse too.
The Task. Book iii. The Garden. Line 566.
I burn to set the imprison'd wranglers free,
And give them voice and utterance once again.
Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,
Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,
And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups
That cheer but not inebriate[420:1] wait on each,
So let us welcome peaceful evening in.
The Task. Book iv. The Winter Evening. Line 34.
Which not even critics criticise.
The Task. Book iv. The Winter Evening. Line 51.
What is it but a map of busy life,
Its fluctuations, and its vast concerns?
The Task. Book iv. The Winter Evening. Line 55.
And Katerfelto, with his hair on end
At his own wonders, wondering for his bread.
'T is pleasant, through the loopholes of retreat,
To peep at such a world,—to see the stir
Of the great Babel, and not feel the crowd.
The Task. Book iv. The Winter Evening. Line 86.
While fancy, like the finger of a clock,
Runs the great circuit, and is still at home.
The Task. Book iv. The Winter Evening. Line 118.
O Winter, ruler of the inverted year![420:2]
The Task. Book iv. The Winter Evening. Line 120.
With spots quadrangular of diamond form,
Ensanguined hearts, clubs typical of strife,
And spades, the emblems of untimely graves.
The Task. Book iv. The Winter Evening. Line 217.
In indolent vacuity of thought.
The Task. Book iv. The Winter Evening. Line 297.
It seems the part of wisdom.
The Task. Book iv. The Winter Evening. Line 336.
All learned, and all drunk!
The Task. Book iv. The Winter Evening. Line 478.
[421]
Gloriously drunk, obey the important call.
The Task. Book iv. The Winter Evening, Line 510.
Those golden times
And those Arcadian scenes that Maro sings,
And Sidney, warbler of poetic prose.
The Task. Book iv. The Winter Evening. Line 514.
The Frenchman's darling.[421:1]
The Task. Book iv. The Winter Evening. Line 765.
Some must be great. Great offices will have
Great talents. And God gives to every man
The virtue, temper, understanding, taste,
That lifts him into life, and lets him fall
Just in the niche he was ordain'd to fill.
The Task. Book iv. The Winter Evening. Line 788.
Silently as a dream the fabric rose,
No sound of hammer or of saw was there.[421:2]
The Task. Book v. The Winter Morning Walk. Line 144.
But war 's a game which were their subjects wise
Kings would not play at.
The Task. Book v. The Winter Morning Walk. Line 187.
The beggarly last doit.
The Task. Book v. The Winter Morning Walk. Line 316.
As dreadful as the Manichean god,
Adored through fear, strong only to destroy.
The Task. Book v. The Winter Morning Walk. Line 444.
He is the freeman whom the truth makes free.
The Task. Book v. The Winter Morning Walk. Line 733.
With filial confidence inspired,
Can lift to Heaven an unpresumptuous eye,
And smiling say, My Father made them all!
The Task. Book v. The Winter Morning Walk. Line 745.
Give what thou canst, without Thee we are poor;
And with Thee rich, take what Thou wilt away.
The Task. Book v. The Winter Morning Walk. Line 905.
There is in souls a sympathy with sounds;
And as the mind is pitch'd the ear is pleased.
[422]With melting airs or martial, brisk or grave;
Some chord in unison with what we hear
Is touch'd within us, and the heart replies.
How soft the music of those village bells
Falling at intervals upon the ear
In cadence sweet!
The Task. Book vi. Winter Walk at Noon. Line 1.
Here the heart
May give a useful lesson to the head,
And Learning wiser grow without his books.
The Task. Book vi. Winter Walk at Noon. Line 85.
Knowledge is proud that he has learn'd so much;
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.
Books are not seldom talismans and spells.
The Task. Book vi. Winter Walk at Noon. Line 96.
Some to the fascination of a name
Surrender judgment hoodwink'd.
The Task. Book vi. Winter Walk at Noon. Line 101.
I would not enter on my list of friends
(Though graced with polish'd manners and fine sense,
Yet wanting sensibility) the man
Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.
The Task. Book vi. Winter Walk at Noon. Line 560.
An honest man, close-button'd to the chin,
Broadcloth without, and a warm heart within.
Epistle to Joseph Hill.
Shine by the side of every path we tread
With such a lustre, he that runs may read.[422:1]
Tirocinium. Line 79.
What peaceful hours I once enjoy'd!
How sweet their memory still!
But they have left an aching void
The world can never fill.
Walking with God.
And Satan trembles when he sees
The weakest saint upon his knees.
Exhortation to Prayer.
[423]
God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea
And rides upon the storm.
Light shining out of Darkness.
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a shining face.
Light shining out of Darkness.
Beware of desperate steps! The darkest day,
Live till to-morrow, will have pass'd away.
The Needless Alarm. Moral.
Oh that those lips had language! Life has pass'd
With me but roughly since I heard thee last.
On the Receipt of my Mother's Picture.
The son of parents pass'd into the skies.
On the Receipt of my Mother's Picture.
A worm is in the bud of youth,
And at the root of age.
Stanzas subjoined to a Bill of Mortality.
Toll for the brave!—
The brave that are no more!
All sunk beneath the wave,
Fast by their native shore!
On the Loss of the Royal George.
There is a bird who by his coat,
And by the hoarseness of his note,
Might be supposed a crow.
The Jackdaw. (Translation from Vincent Bourne.)
[424]
He sees that this great roundabout
The world, with all its motley rout,
Church, army, physic, law,
Its customs and its businesses,
Is no concern at all of his,
And says—what says he?—Caw.
The Jackdaw. (Translation from Vincent Bourne.)
For 't is a truth well known to most,
That whatsoever thing is lost,
We seek it, ere it come to light,
In every cranny but the right.
The Retired Cat.
He that holds fast the golden mean,[424:1]
And lives contentedly between
The little and the great,
Feels not the wants that pinch the poor,
Nor plagues that haunt the rich man's door.
Translation of Horace. Book ii. Ode x.
But strive still to be a man before your mother.[424:2]
Connoisseur. Motto of No. iii.
The story of a lamp which was supposed to have burned about fifteen hundred years in the sepulchre of Tullia, the daughter of Cicero, is told by Pancirollus and others.
[416:1] La Bruyère.
[417:1] Buckingham: The Rehearsal (the two Kings of Brentford).
[418:1] Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging-place of wayfaring men!—Jeremiah ix. 2.
Oh that the desert were my dwelling-place!—Byron: Childe Harold, canto iv. stanza 177.
[418:2] Servi peregrini, ut primum Galliæ fines penetraverint eodem momento liberi sunt (Foreign slaves, as soon as they come within the limits of Gaul, that moment they are free).—Bodinus: Liber i. c. 5.
Lord Campbell ("Lives of the Chief Justices," vol. ii. p. 418) says that "Lord Mansfield first established the grand doctrine that the air of England is too pure to be breathed by a slave." The words attributed to Lord Mansfield, however, are not found in his judgment. They are in Hargrave's argument, May 14, 1772, where he speaks of England as "a soil whose air is deemed too pure for slaves to breathe in."—Lofft: Reports, p. 2.
[419:2] No pleasure endures unseasoned by variety—Pub. Syrus: Maxim 406.
[419:3] He has spent all his life in letting down buckets into empty wells; and he is frittering away his age in trying to draw them up again.—Lady Holland's Memoir of Sydney Smith, vol. i. p. 259.
[421:1] It was Cowper who gave this now common name to the mignonette.
No hammers fell, no ponderous axes rung;
Like some tall palm the mystic fabric sprung.
Heber: Palestine.
So that there was neither hammer nor axe, nor any tool of iron heard in the house while it was in building.—1 Kings vi. 7.
[422:1] Write the vision, and make it plain, upon tables, that he may run that readeth it.—Habakkuk ii. 2.
He that runs may read.—Tennyson: The Flower.
[423:2] Var. How he esteems your merit.
[424:1] Keep the golden mean.—Publius Syrus: Maxim 1072.
Soon shall thy arm, unconquer'd steam! afar
Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car;
Or on wide-waving wings expanded bear
The flying chariot through the field of air.
The Botanic Garden. Part i. Canto i. Line 289.
No radiant pearl which crested Fortune wears,
No gem that twinkling hangs from Beauty's ears,
Not the bright stars which Night's blue arch adorn,
Nor rising suns that gild the vernal morn,
Shine with such lustre as the tear that flows
Down Virtue's manly cheek for others' woes.
The Botanic Garden. Part ii. Canto iii. Line 459.
[425]
In sober state,
Through the sequestered vale of rural life,
The venerable patriarch guileless held
The tenor of his way.[425:1]
Death. Line 108.
One murder made a villain,
Millions a hero. Princes were privileged
To kill, and numbers sanctified the crime.[425:2]
Death. Line 154.
War its thousands slays, Peace its ten thousands.
Death. Line 178.
Labour to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire,—conscience.
Rule from the Copy-book of Washington when a schoolboy.
To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.[425:4]
Speech to both Houses of Congress, Jan. 8, 1790.
'T is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world.
His Farewell Address.
[425:4] Qui desiderat pacem præparet bellum (Who would desire peace should be prepared for war).—Vegetius: Rei Militari 3, Prolog.
In pace, ut sapiens, aptarit idonea bello (In peace, as a wise man, he should make suitable preparation for war).—Horace: Book ii. satire ii.
[426]
The accident of an accident.
Speech in Reply to the Duke of Grafton. Butler's Reminiscences, vol. i. p. 142.
When I forget my sovereign, may my God forget me.[426:1]
27 Parliamentary History, 680; Annual Register, 1789.
[426:1] Whereupon Wilkes is reported to have said, somewhat coarsely, but not unhappily it must be allowed, "Forget you! He'll see you d——d first." Burke also exclaimed, "The best thing that could happen to you!"—Brougham: Statesman of the Time of George III. (Thurlow.)
Then join in hand, brave Americans all!
By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall.
The Liberty Song (1768).
Our cause is just, our union is perfect.
Declaration on taking up Arms in 1775.[426:2]
[426:2] From the original manuscript draft in Dickinson's handwriting, which has given rise to the belief that he, not Jefferson (as formerly claimed), is the real author of this sentence.
The dews of summer nights did fall,
The moon, sweet regent of the sky,[426:3]
Silvered the walls of Cumnor Hall
And many an oak that grew thereby.
Cumnor Hall.
His very foot has music in 't
As he comes up the stairs.
The Mariner's Wife.
[426:3] Jove, thou regent of the skies.—Pope: The Odyssey, book ii. line 42.
Now Cynthia, named fair regent of the night.—Gay: Trivia, book iii.
And hail their queen, fair regent of the night.—Darwin: The Botanic Garden, part i. canto ii. line 90.
[427:1] "The Mariner's Wife" is now given "by common consent," says Sarah Tytler, to Jean Adam (1710-1765).
Cold on Canadian hills or Minden's plain,
Perhaps that parent mourned her soldier slain;
Bent o'er her babe, her eye dissolved in dew,
The big drops mingling with the milk he drew
Gave the sad presage of his future years,—
The child of misery, baptized in tears.[427:2]
The Country Justice. Part i.
[427:2] This allusion to the dead soldier and his widow on the field of battle was made the subject of a print by Bunbury, under which were engraved the pathetic lines of Langhorne. Sir Walter Scott has mentioned that the only time he saw Burns this picture was in the room. Burns shed tears over it; and Scott, then a lad of fifteen, was the only person present who could tell him where the lines were to be found.—Lockhart: Life of Scott, vol. i. chap. iv.
Hope! thou nurse of young desire.
Love in a Village. Act i. Sc. 1.
There was a jolly miller once,
Lived on the river Dee;
He worked and sung from morn till night:
No lark more blithe than he.
Love in a Village. Act i. Sc. 2.
And this the burden of his song
Forever used to be,—
I care for nobody, no, not I,
If no one cares for me.[427:3]
Love in a Village. Act i. Sc. 2.
[428]
Young fellows will be young fellows.
Love in a Village. Act ii. Sc. 2.
Ay, do despise me! I 'm the prouder for it; I like to be despised.
The Hypocrite. Act v. Sc. 1.
If naebody care for me,
I 'll care for naebody.
Burns: I hae a Wife o' my Ain.
Ah, who can tell how hard it is to climb
The steep where Fame's proud temple shines afar?
The Minstrel. Book i. Stanza 1.
Zealous, yet modest; innocent, though free;
Patient of toil, serene amidst alarms;
Inflexible in faith, invincible in arms.
The Minstrel. Book i. Stanza 11.
Old age comes on apace to ravage all the clime.
The Minstrel. Book i. Stanza 25.
Mine be the breezy hill that skirts the down,
Where a green grassy turf is all I crave,
With here and there a violet bestrewn,
Fast by a brook or fountain's murmuring wave;
And many an evening sun shine sweetly on my grave!
The Minstrel. Book ii. Stanza 17.
At the close of the day when the hamlet is still,
And mortals the sweets of forgetfulness prove,
When naught but the torrent is heard on the hill,
And naught but the nightingale's song in the grove.
The Hermit.
He thought as a sage, though he felt as a man.
The Hermit.
But when shall spring visit the mouldering urn?
Oh when shall it dawn on the night of the grave?
The Hermit.
By the glare of false science betray'd,
That leads to bewilder, and dazzles to blind.
The Hermit.
And beauty immortal awakes from the tomb.
The Hermit.
[429]
Yesterday the greatest question was decided which ever was debated in America; and a greater perhaps never was, nor will be, decided among men. A resolution was passed without one dissenting colony, that those United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States.
Letter to Mrs. Adams, July 3, 1776.
The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epocha in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward for evermore.
Letter to Mrs. Adams, July 3, 1776.
Cæsar had his Brutus; Charles the First, his Cromwell; and George the Third ["Treason!" cried the Speaker]—may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it.
Speech in the Virginia Convention, 1765.
I am not a Virginian, but an American.[428:1]
Speech in the Virginia Convention. September, 1774.
I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know no way of judging of the future but by the past.[428:2]
Speech in the Virginia Convention. March, 1775.
[430]
Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!
Speech in the Virginia Convention. March, 1775.
[428:1] I was born an American; I will live an American; I shall die an American!—Webster: Speech, July 17, 1850.
The reign of Antoninus is marked by the rare advantage of furnishing very few materials for history, which is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.[430:1]
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776). Chap. iii.
Revenge is profitable, gratitude is expensive.
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776). Chap. xi.
Amiable weaknesses of human nature.[430:2]
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776). Chap. xiv.
In every deed of mischief he had a heart to resolve, a head to contrive, and a hand to execute.[430:3]
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776). Chap. xlviii.
Our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery.
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776). Chap. xlix.
The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.[430:4]
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776). Chap. lxviii.
Vicissitudes of fortune, which spares neither man nor the proudest of his works, which buries empires and cities in a common grave.
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776). Chap. lxxi.
All that is human must retrograde if it do not advance.
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776). Chap. lxxi.
I saw and loved.[430:5]
Memoirs. Vol. i. p. 106.
[431]
On the approach of spring I withdraw without reluctance from the noisy and extensive scene of crowds without company, and dissipation without pleasure.
Memoirs. Vol. i. p. 116.
I was never less alone than when by myself.[431:1]
Memoirs. Vol. i. p. 117.
[430:1] L'histoire n'est que le tableau des crimes et des malheurs (History is but the record of crimes and misfortunes).—Voltaire: L' Ingénu, chap. x.
[430:4] On dit que Dieu est toujours pour les gros bataillons (It is said that God is always on the side of the heaviest battalions).—Voltaire: Letter to M. le Riche. 1770.
J'ai toujours vu Dieu du coté des gros bataillons (I have always noticed that God is on the side of the heaviest battalions).—De la Ferté to Anne of Austria.
[431:1] Never less alone than when alone.—Rogers: Human Life.
And the final event to himself [Mr. Burke] has been, that, as he rose like a rocket, he fell like the stick.
Letter to the Addressers.
These are the times that try men's souls.
The American Crisis. No. 1.
The sublime and the ridiculous are often so nearly related, that it is difficult to class them separately. One step above the sublime makes the ridiculous, and one step above the ridiculous makes the sublime again.[431:2]
Age of Reason. Part ii. note.
[431:2] Probably this is the original of Napoleon's celebrated mot, "Du sublime au ridicule il n'y a qu'un pas" (From the sublime to the ridiculous there is but one step).
What rage for fame attends both great and small!
Better be damned than mentioned not at all.
To the Royal Academicians.
No, let the monarch's bags and others hold
The flattering, mighty, nay, al-mighty gold.[431:3]
To Kien Long. Ode iv.
Care to our coffin adds a nail, no doubt,
And every grin so merry draws one out.
Expostulatory Odes. Ode xv.
[432]
A fellow in a market town,
Most musical, cried razors up and down.
Farewell Odes. Ode iii.
The tree of deepest root is found
Least willing still to quit the ground:
'T was therefore said by ancient sages,
That love of life increased with years
So much, that in our latter stages,
When pain grows sharp and sickness rages,
The greatest love of life appears.
Three Warnings.
Solid men of Boston, banish long potations!
Solid men of Boston, make no long orations![432:1]
Pitt and Dundas's Return to London from Wimbledon. American Song. From Lyra Urbanica.
O give me the sweet shady side of Pall Mall!
Town and Country.
Solid men of Boston, make no long orations!
Solid men of Boston, banish strong potations!
Billy Pitt and the Farmer. From Debrett's Asylum for Fugitive Pieces, vol. ii. p. 250.
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in thee.
Salvation through Christ.
[433]
Pity the sorrows of a poor old man,
Whose trembling limbs have borne him to your door,
Whose days are dwindled to the shortest span;
Oh give relief, and Heaven will bless your store.
The Beggar.
A pampered menial drove me from the door.[433:1]
The Beggar.
[433:1] This line stood originally, "A liveried servant," etc., and was altered as above by Goldsmith.—Forster: Life of Goldsmith, vol. i. p. 215 (fifth edition, 1871).
Man is the nobler growth our realms supply,
And souls are ripened in our northern sky.
The Invitation.
This dead of midnight is the noon of thought,
And Wisdom mounts her zenith with the stars.
A Summer's Evening Meditation.
It is to hope, though hope were lost.[433:2]
Come here, Fond Youth.
Life! we 've been long together
Through pleasant and through cloudy weather;
'T is hard to part when friends are dear,—
Perhaps 't will cost a sigh, a tear;
Then steal away, give little warning,
Choose thine own time;
Say not "Good night," but in some brighter clime
Bid me "Good morning."
Life.
[434]
So fades a summer cloud away;
So sinks the gale when storms are o'er;
So gently shuts the eye of day;[434:1]
So dies a wave along the shore.
The Death of the Virtuous.
Child of mortality, whence comest thou? Why is thy countenance sad, and why are thine eyes red with weeping?
Hymns in Prose. xiii.
[433:2] Who against hope believed in hope.—Romans iv. 18.
Hope against hope, and ask till ye receive.—Montgomery: The World before the Flood.
The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.
Summary View of the Rights of British America.
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God[434:2] entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
Declaration of Independence.
We hold these truths to be self-evident,—that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights;[434:3] that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Declaration of Independence.
We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honour.
Declaration of Independence.
Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.
First Inaugural Address. March 4, 1801.
[435]
Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations,—entangling alliances with none; the support of the State governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns, and the surest bulwarks against anti-republican tendencies; the preservation of the general government in its whole constitutional vigour, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad; . . . . freedom of religion; freedom of the press; freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus; and trial by juries impartially selected,—these principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us, and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation.
First Inaugural Address. March 4, 1801.
In the full tide of successful experiment.
First Inaugural Address. March 4, 1801.
Of the various executive abilities, no one excited more anxious concern than that of placing the interests of our fellow-citizens in the hands of honest men, with understanding sufficient for their stations.[435:1] No duty is at the same time more difficult to fulfil. The knowledge of character possessed by a single individual is of necessity limited. To seek out the best through the whole Union, we must resort to the information which from the best of men, acting disinterestedly and with the purest motives, is sometimes incorrect.
Letter to Elias Shipman and others of New Haven, July 12, 1801.
If a due participation of office is a matter of right, how are vacancies to be obtained? Those by death are few; by resignation, none.[435:2]
Letter to Elias Shipman and others of New Haven, July 12, 1801.
[436]
When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself as public property.[436:1]
Life of Jefferson (Rayner), p. 356.
Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.
Notes on Virginia. Query xviii. Manners.
[434:3] All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights.—Constitution of Massachusetts.
[435:1] This passage is thus paraphrased by John B. McMaster in his "History of the People of the United States" (ii. 586): "One sentence will undoubtedly be remembered till our republic ceases to exist. 'No duty the Executive had to perform was so trying,' he observed, 'as to put the right man in the right place.'"
[435:2] Usually quoted, "Few die and none resign."
Blandishments will not fascinate us, nor will threats of a "halter" intimidate. For, under God, we are determined that wheresoever, whensoever, or howsoever we shall be called to make our exit, we will die free men.
Observations on the Boston Port Bill, 1774.
There 's a sweet little cherub that sits up aloft,
To keep watch for the life of poor Jack.
Poor Jack.
Did you ever hear of Captain Wattle?
He was all for love, and a little for the bottle.
Captain Wattle and Miss Roe.
His form was of the manliest beauty,
His heart was kind and soft;
Faithful below he did his duty,
But now he 's gone aloft.
Tom Bowling.
For though his body 's under hatches,
His soul has gone aloft.
Tom Bowling.
Spanking Jack was so comely, so pleasant, so jolly,
Though winds blew great guns, still he 'd whistle and sing;
Jack loved his friend, and was true to his Molly,
And if honour gives greatness, was great as a king.
The Sailor's Consolation.[436:2]
[436:2] A song with this title, beginning, "One night came on a hurricane," was written by William Pitt, of Malta, who died in 1840.
[437]
To those who know thee not, no words can paint!
And those who know thee, know all words are faint!
Sensibility.
Since trifles make the sum of human things,
And half our misery from our foibles springs.
Sensibility.
In men this blunder still you find,—
All think their little set mankind.
Florio. Part i.
Small habits well pursued betimes
May reach the dignity of crimes.
Florio. Part i.
A dinner lubricates business.
Life of Johnson (Boswell). Vol. viii. p. 67, note.
The elegant simplicity of the three per cents.[437:1]
Lives of the Lord Chancellors (Campbell). Vol. x. Chap. 212.
[437:1] The sweet simplicity of the three per cents.—Disraeli (Earl Beaconsfield): Endymion.
Than all Bocara's vaunted gold,
Than all the gems of Samarcand.
A Persian Song of Hafiz.
Go boldly forth, my simple lay,
Whose accents flow with artless ease,
Like orient pearls at random strung.[437:2]
A Persian Song of Hafiz.
[438]
On parent knees, a naked new-born child,
Weeping thou sat'st while all around thee smiled;
So live, that sinking in thy last long sleep,
Calm thou mayst smile, while all around thee weep.
From the Persian.
What constitutes a state?
. . . . . . .
Men who their duties know,
But know their rights, and knowing, dare maintain.
. . . . . . .
And sovereign law, that state's collected will,
O'er thrones and globes elate,
Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill.[438:1]
Ode in Imitation of Alcæus.
Seven hours to law, to soothing slumber seven,
Ten to the world allot, and all to heaven.[438:2]
'T was he that ranged the words at random flung,
Pierced the fair pearls and them together strung.
Eastwick: Anvari Suhaili. (Translated from Firdousi.)
[438:1] Neither walls, theatres, porches, nor senseless equipage, make states, but men who are able to rely upon themselves.—Aristides: Orations (Jebb's edition), vol. i. (trans. by A. W. Austin).
By Themistocles alone, or with very few others, does this saying appear to be approved, which, though Alcæus formerly had produced, many afterwards claimed: "Not stones, nor wood, nor the art of artisans, make a state; but where men are who know how to take care of themselves, these are cities and walls."—Ibid. vol. ii.
Thou hast no sorrow in thy song,
No winter in thy year.
To the Cuckoo.
Oh could I fly, I 'd fly with thee!
We 'd make with joyful wing
Our annual visit o'er the globe,
Companions of the spring.
To the Cuckoo.
[439]
No pent-up Utica contracts your powers,
But the whole boundless continent is yours.
Epilogue to Cato.[439:1]
[439:1] Written for the Bow Street Theatre, Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
A man's ingress into the world is naked and bare,
His progress through the world is trouble and care;
And lastly, his egress out of the world, is nobody knows where.
If we do well here, we shall do well there:
I can tell you no more if I preach a whole year.[439:2]
The Eccentricities of John Edwin (second edition), vol. i. p. 74. London, 1791.
[439:2] These lines Edwin offers as heads of a "sermon." Longfellow places them in the mouth of "The Cobbler of Hagenau," as a "familiar tune." See "The Wayside Inn, part ii. The Student's Tale."
But optics sharp it needs, I ween,
To see what is not to be seen.
McFingal. Canto i. Line 67.
But as some muskets so contrive it
As oft to miss the mark they drive at,
And though well aimed at duck or plover,
Bear wide, and kick their owners over.
McFingal. Canto i. Line 93.
As though there were a tie
And obligation to posterity.
We get them, bear them, breed, and nurse:
What has posterity done for us
[440]That we, lest they their rights should lose,
Should trust our necks to gripe of noose?
McFingal. Canto ii. Line 121.
No man e'er felt the halter draw,
With good opinion of the law.
McFingal. Canto iii. Line 489.
Illiterate him, I say, quite from your memory.
The Rivals. Act i. Sc. 2.
'T is safest in matrimony to begin with a little aversion.
The Rivals. Act i. Sc. 2.
A progeny of learning.
The Rivals. Act i. Sc. 2.
A circulating library in a town is as an evergreen tree of diabolical knowledge.
The Rivals. Act iii. Sc. 1.
He is the very pine-apple of politeness!
The Rivals. Act iii. Sc. 3.
If I reprehend anything in this world, it is the use of my oracular tongue, and a nice derangement of epitaphs!
The Rivals. Act iii. Sc. 3.
As headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile.
The Rivals. Act iii. Sc. 3.
Too civil by half.
The Rivals. Act iii. Sc. 4.
Our ancestors are very good kind of folks; but they are the last people I should choose to have a visiting acquaintance with.
The Rivals. Act iv. Sc. 1.
No caparisons, miss, if you please. Caparisons don't become a young woman.
The Rivals. Act iv. Sc. 2.
We will not anticipate the past; so mind, young people,—our retrospection will be all to the future.
The Rivals. Act iv. Sc. 2.
You are not like Cerberus, three gentlemen at once, are you?
The Rivals. Act iv. Sc. 2.
[441]
The quarrel is a very pretty quarrel as it stands; we should only spoil it by trying to explain it.
The Rivals. Act iv. Sc. 3.
You 're our enemy; lead the way, and we 'll precede.
The Rivals. Act v. Sc. 1.
There 's nothing like being used to a thing.[441:1]
The Rivals. Act v. Sc. 3.
As there are three of us come on purpose for the game, you won't be so cantankerous as to spoil the party by sitting out.
The Rivals. Act v. Sc. 3.
My valour is certainly going! it is sneaking off! I feel it oozing out, as it were, at the palm of my hands!
The Rivals. Act v. Sc. 3.
I own the soft impeachment.
The Rivals. Act v. Sc. 3.
Steal! to be sure they may; and, egad, serve your best thoughts as gypsies do stolen children,—disfigure them to make 'em pass for their own.[441:2]
The Critic. Act i. Sc. 1.
The newspapers! Sir, they are the most villanous, licentious, abominable, infernal— Not that I ever read them! No, I make it a rule never to look into a newspaper.
The Critic. Act i. Sc. 2.
Egad, I think the interpreter is the hardest to be understood of the two!
The Critic. Act i. Sc. 2.
Sheer necessity,—the proper parent of an art so nearly allied to invention.
The Critic. Act i. Sc. 2.
No scandal about Queen Elizabeth, I hope?
The Critic. Act ii. Sc. 1.
Certainly nothing is unnatural that is not physically impossible.
The Critic. Act ii. Sc. 1.
Where they do agree on the stage, their unanimity is wonderful.
The Critic. Act ii. Sc. 2.
Inconsolable to the minuet in Ariadne.
The Critic. Act ii. Sc. 2.
The Spanish fleet thou canst not see, because—it is not yet in sight!
The Critic. Act ii. Sc. 2.
[442]
An oyster may be crossed in love.
The Critic. Act iii. Sc. 1.
You shall see them on a beautiful quarto page, where a neat rivulet of text shall meander through a meadow of margin.
School for Scandal. Act i. Sc. 1.
Here is the whole set! a character dead at every word.
School for Scandal. Act ii. Sc. 2.
I leave my character behind me.
School for Scandal. Act ii. Sc. 2.
Here 's to the maiden of bashful fifteen;
Here 's to the widow of fifty;
Here 's to the flaunting, extravagant quean,
And here 's to the housewife that 's thrifty!
Let the toast pass;
Drink to the lass;
I 'll warrant she 'll prove an excuse for the glass.
School for Scandal. Act iii. Sc. 3.
An unforgiving eye, and a damned disinheriting countenance.
School for Scandal. Act v. Sc. 1.
It was an amiable weakness.[442:1]
School for Scandal. Act v. Sc. 1.
I ne'er could any lustre see
In eyes that would not look on me;
I ne'er saw nectar on a lip
But where my own did hope to sip.
The Duenna. Act i. Sc. 2.
Had I a heart for falsehood framed,
I ne'er could injure you.
The Duenna. Act i. Sc. 5.
Conscience has no more to do with gallantry than it has with politics.
The Duenna. Act ii. Sc. 4.
While his off-heel, insidiously aside.
Provokes the caper which he seems to chide.
Pizarro. The Prologue.
Such protection as vultures give to lambs.
Pizarro. Act ii. Sc. 2.
[443]
A life spent worthily should be measured by a nobler line,—by deeds, not years.[443:1]
Pizarro. Act iv. Sc. 1.
The Right Honorable gentleman is indebted to his memory for his jests, and to his imagination for his facts.[443:2]
Speech in Reply to Mr. Dundas. Sheridaniana.
You write with ease to show your breeding,
But easy writing 's curst hard reading.
Clio's Protest. Life of Sheridan (Moore). Vol. i. p. 155.
[441:1] 'T is nothing when you are used to it.—Swift: Polite Conversation, iii.
He who grown aged in this world of woe,
In deeds, not years, piercing the depths of life,
So that no wonder waits him.
Byron: Childe Harold, canto iii. stanza 5.
We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths.—Bailey: Festus. A Country Town.
Who well lives, long lives; for this age of ours
Should not be numbered by years, daies, and hours.
Du Bartas: Days and Weekes. Fourth Day. Book ii.
[443:2] On peut dire que son esprit brille aux dépens de sa mémoire (One may say that his wit shines by the help of his memory).—Le Sage: Gil Blas, livre iii. chap. xi.
The hunter and the deer a shade.[443:3]
The Indian Burying-Ground.
Then rushed to meet the insulting foe;
They took the spear, but left the shield.[443:4]
To the Memory of the Americans who fell at Eutaw.
[443:3] This line was appropriated by Campbell in "O'Connor's Child."
When Prussia hurried to the field,
And snatched the spear, but left the shield.
Scott: Marmion, Introduction to canto iii.
Oh, rather give me commentators plain,
Who with no deep researches vex the brain;
Who from the dark and doubtful love to run,
And hold their glimmering tapers to the sun.[443:5]
The Parish Register. Part i. Introduction.
[444]
Her air, her manners, all who saw admir'd;
Courteous though coy, and gentle though retir'd;
The joy of youth and health her eyes display'd,
And ease of heart her every look convey'd.
The Parish Register. Part ii. Marriages.
In this fool's paradise he drank delight.[444:1]
The Borough. Letter xii. Players.
Books cannot always please, however good;
Minds are not ever craving for their food.
The Borough. Letter xxiv. Schools.
In idle wishes fools supinely stay;
Be there a will, and wisdom finds a way.
The Birth of Flattery.
Cut and come again.
Tales. Tale vii. The Widow's Tale.
Better to love amiss than nothing to have loved.[444:2]
Tales. Tale xiv. The Struggles of Conscience.
But 't was a maxim he had often tried,
That right was right, and there he would abide.[444:3]
Tales. Tale xv. The Squire and the Priest.
'T was good advice, and meant, my son, Be good.
Tales. Tale xxi. The Learned Boy.
He tried the luxury of doing good.[444:4]
Tales of the Hall. Book iii. Boys at School.
To sigh, yet not recede; to grieve, yet not repent.[444:5]
Tales of the Hall. Book iii. Boys at School.
And took for truth the test of ridicule.[444:6]
Tales of the Hall. Book viii. The Sisters.
[445]
Time has touched me gently in his race,
And left no odious furrows in my face.[445:1]
Tales of the Hall. Book xvii. The Widow.
'T is better to have loved and lost,
Than never to have loved at all.
Tennyson: In Memoriam, xxvii.
[444:3] For right is right, since God is God.—Faber: The Right must win.
[444:5] To sigh, yet feel no pain.—Moore: The Blue Stocking.
[445:1] Touch us gently, Time.—B. W. Procter: Touch us gently, Time.
Time has laid his hand
Upon my heart, gently.
Longfellow: The Golden Legend, iv.
True patriots all; for be it understood
We left our country for our country's good.[445:2]
Prologue written for the Opening of the Play-house at New South Wales, Jan. 16, 1796.
To the memory of the Man, first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.
Memoirs of Lee. Eulogy on Washington, Dec. 26, 1799.[445:3]
[445:3] To the memory of the Man, first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his fellow-citizens.—Resolutions presented to the United States' House of Representatives, on the Death of Washington, December, 1799.
The eulogy was delivered a week later. Marshall, in his "Life of Washington," vol. v. p. 767, says in a note that these resolutions were prepared by Colonel Henry Lee, who was then not in his place to read them. General Robert E. Lee, in the Life of his father (1869), prefixed to the Report of his father's "Memoirs of the War of the Revolution," gives (p. 5) the expression "fellow-citizens;" but on p. 52 he says: "But there is a line, a single line, in the Works of Lee which would hand him over to immortality, though he had never written another: 'First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen' will last while language lasts."
Perhaps it was right to dissemble your love,
But—why did you kick me down stairs?[445:4]
The Panel. Act i. Sc. 1.
[445:4] Altered from Bickerstaff's "'T is Well 't is no Worse." The lines are also found in Debrett's "Asylum for Fugitive Pieces," vol. i. p. 15.
[446]
In the battle off Cape St. Vincent, Nelson gave orders for boarding the "San Josef," exclaiming "Westminster Abbey, or victory!"
Life of Nelson (Southey). Vol. i. p. 93.
England expects every man to do his duty.[446:1]
Life of Nelson (Southey). Vol. ii. p. 131.
[446:1] This famous sentence is thus first reported: "Say to the fleet, England confides that every man will do his duty." Captain Pasco, Nelson's flag-lieutenant, suggested to substitute "expects" for "confides," which was adopted. Captain Blackwood, who commanded the "Euryalis," says that the correction suggested was from "Nelson expects" to "England expects."
Auld Nature swears the lovely dears
Her noblest work she classes, O;
Her 'prentice han' she tried on man,
And then she made the lasses, O![446:2]
Green grow the Rashes.
Some books are lies frae end to end.
Death and Dr. Hornbook.
Some wee short hours ayont the twal.
Death and Dr. Hornbook.
The best laid schemes o' mice and men
Gang aft a-gley;
And leave us naught but grief and pain
For promised joy.
To a Mouse.
When chill November's surly blast
Made fields and forests bare.
Man was made to Mourn.
Man's inhumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mourn.
Man was made to Mourn.
[447]
Gars auld claes look amaist as weel 's the new.
The Cotter's Saturday Night.
Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the evening gale.
The Cotter's Saturday Night.
He wales a portion with judicious care;
And "Let us worship God," he says with solemn air.
The Cotter's Saturday Night.
Perhaps Dundee's wild-warbling measures rise,
Or plaintive Martyrs, worthy of the name.
The Cotter's Saturday Night.
From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs,
That makes her loved at home, revered abroad:
Princes and lords are but the breath of kings,
"An honest man 's the noblest work of God."[447:1]
The Cotter's Saturday Night.
For a' that, and a' that,
And twice as muckle 's a' that.
The Jolly Beggars.
O Life! how pleasant is thy morning,
Young Fancy's rays the hills adorning!
Cold-pausing Caution's lesson scorning,
We frisk away,
Like schoolboys at th' expected warning,
To joy and play.
Epistle to James Smith.
Misled by fancy's meteor ray,
By passion driven;
But yet the light that led astray
Was light from heaven.
The Vision.
And like a passing thought, she fled
In light away.
The Vision.
Affliction's sons are brothers in distress;
A brother to relieve,—how exquisite the bliss!
A Winter Night.
His locked, lettered, braw brass collar
Showed him the gentleman and scholar.
The Twa Dogs.
[448]
And there began a lang digression
About the lords o' the creation.
The Twa Dogs.
Oh wad some power the giftie gie us
To see oursel's as others see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us,
And foolish notion.
To a Louse.
Then gently scan your brother man,
Still gentler sister woman;
Though they may gang a kennin' wrang,
To step aside is human.[448:1]
Address to the Unco Guid.
What 's done we partly may compute,
But know not what 's resisted.
Address to the Unco Guid.
O life! thou art a galling load,
Along a rough, a weary road,
To wretches such as I!
Despondency.
Perhaps it may turn out a sang,
Perhaps turn out a sermon.
Epistle to a Young Friend.
I waive the quantum o' the sin,
The hazard of concealing;
But, och! it hardens a' within,
And petrifies the feeling!
Epistle to a Young Friend.
The fear o' hell 's a hangman's whip
To haud the wretch in order;[448:3]
But where ye feel your honour grip,
Let that aye be your border.
Epistle to a Young Friend.
An atheist's laugh 's a poor exchange
For Deity offended!
Epistle to a Young Friend.
[449]
Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes;
Flow gently, I 'll sing thee a song in thy praise.
Flow gently, sweet Afton.
Oh whistle, and I 'll come to ye, my lad.[449:1]
Whistle, and I 'll come to ye.
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And days o' lang syne?
Auld Lang Syne.
We twa hae run about the braes,
And pu'd the gowans fine.
Auld Lang Syne.
Dweller in yon dungeon dark,
Hangman of creation, mark!
Who in widow weeds appears,
Laden with unhonoured years,
Noosing with care a bursting purse,
Baited with many a deadly curse?
Ode on Mrs. Oswald.
To make a happy fireside clime
To weans and wife,—
That 's the true pathos and sublime
Of human life.
Epistle to Dr. Blacklock.
If there 's a hole in a' your coats,
I rede ye tent it;
A chiel 's amang ye takin' notes,
And, faith, he 'll prent it.
On Captain Grose's Peregrinations through Scotland.
John Anderson my jo, John,
When we were first acquent,
Your locks were like the raven,
Your bonny brow was brent.
John Anderson.
[450]
My heart 's in the Highlands, my heart is not here;
My heart 's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer.[450:1]
My Heart 's in the Highlands.
She is a winsome wee thing,
She is a handsome wee thing,
She is a bonny wee thing,
This sweet wee wife o' mine.
My Wife 's a Winsome Wee Thing.
The golden hours on angel wings
Flew o'er me and my dearie;
For dear to me as light and life
Was my sweet Highland Mary.
Highland Mary.
But, oh! fell death's untimely frost
That nipt my flower sae early.
Highland Mary.
It 's guid to be merry and wise,[450:2]
It 's guid to be honest and true,
It 's guid to support Caledonia's cause,
And bide by the buff and the blue.
Here 's a Health to Them that 's Awa'.
Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled,
Scots, wham Bruce has aften led,
Welcome to your gory bed,
Or to victory!
Now 's the day and now 's the hour;
See the front o' battle lour.
Bannockburn.
In durance vile[450:4] here must I wake and weep,
And all my frowsy couch in sorrow steep.
Epistle from Esopus to Maria.
[451]
Oh, my luve 's like a red, red rose,
That 's newly sprung in June;
Oh, my luve 's like the melodie
That 's sweetly played in tune.
A Red, Red Rose.
Contented wi' little, and cantie wi' mair.
Contented wi' Little.
Where sits our sulky, sullen dame,
Gathering her brows like gathering storm,
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.
Tam o' Shanter.
Ah, gentle dames! it gars me greet
To think how monie counsels sweet,
How monie lengthened sage advices,
The husband frae the wife despises.
Tam o' Shanter.
His ancient, trusty, drouthy crony;
Tam lo'ed him like a vera brither,—
They had been fou for weeks thegither.
Tam o' Shanter.
The landlady and Tam grew gracious
Wi' favours secret, sweet, and precious.
Tam o' Shanter.
The landlord's laugh was ready chorus.
Tam o' Shanter.
Kings may be blest, but Tam was glorious,
O'er a' the ills o' life victorious.
Tam o' Shanter.
But pleasures are like poppies spread,
You seize the flower, its bloom is shed;
Or, like the snow-fall in the river,
A moment white, then melts forever.
Tam o' Shanter.
Nae man can tether time or tide.[451:1]
Tam o' Shanter.
That hour, o' night's black arch the keystane.
Tam o' Shanter.
Inspiring, bold John Barleycorn,
What dangers thou canst make us scorn!
Tam o' Shanter.
As Tammie glow'red, amazed and curious,
The mirth and fun grew fast and furious.
Tam o' Shanter.
[452]
Had we never loved sae kindly,
Had we never loved sae blindly,
Never met or never parted,
We had ne'er been broken-hearted!
Ae Fond Kiss.
To see her is to love her,
And love but her forever;
For Nature made her what she is,
And never made anither!
Bonny Lesley.
Ye banks and braes o' bonny Doon,
How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair?
How can ye chant, ye little birds,
And I sae weary fu' o' care?
The Banks of Doon.
Chords that vibrate sweetest pleasure
Thrill the deepest notes of woe.
Sweet Sensibility.
The rank is but the guinea's stamp,
The man 's the gowd for a' that.[452:2]
For a' that and a' that.
A prince can make a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, and a' that;
But an honest man 's aboon his might,
Guid faith, he maunna fa' that.[452:3]
For a' that and a' that.
'T is sweeter for thee despairing
Than aught in the world beside,—Jessy!
Jessy.
Some hae meat and canna eat,
And some would eat that want it;
But we hae meat, and we can eat,
Sae let the Lord be thankit.
Grace before Meat.
[453]
Now a' is done that men can do,
And a' is done in vain.
A' for our Rightfu' King.
He turn'd him right and round about
Upon the Irish shore,
And gae his bridle reins a shake,
With, "Adieu for evermore, my dear,
And adieu for evermore."[453:1]
A' for our Rightfu' King.
Man was made when Nature was
But an apprentice, but woman when she
Was a skilful mistress of her art.
Cupid's Whirligig (1607).
[450:1] These lines from an old song, entitled "The Strong Walls of Derry," Burns made a basis for his own beautiful ditty.
[450:4] Durance vile.—W. Kenrick (1766): Falstaff's Wedding, act i. sc. 2. Burke: The Present Discontents.
[452:1] To know her was to love her.—Rogers: Jacqueline, stanza 1.
[452:2] I weigh the man, not his title; 't is not the king's stamp can make the metal better.—Wycherley: The Plaindealer, act. i. sc. 1.
[452:4] This ballad first appeared in Johnson's "Museum," 1796. Sir Walter Scott was never tired of hearing it sung.
[453:1] Under the impression that this stanza is ancient, Scott has made very free use of it, first in "Rokeby" (1813), and then in the "Monastery" (1816). In "Rokeby" he thus introduces the verse:—
He turn'd his charger as he spake,
Upon the river shore,
He gave his bridle reins a shake,
Said, "Adieu for evermore, my love,
And adieu for evermore."
Necessity is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.[453:2]
Speech on the India Bill, November, 1783.
Prostrate the beauteous ruin lies; and all
That shared its shelter perish in its fall.
The Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin. No. xxxvi.
Loud roared the dreadful thunder,
The rain a deluge showers.
The Bay of Biscay.
As she lay, on that day,
In the bay of Biscay, O!
The Bay of Biscay.
[454]
On their own merits modest men are dumb.
Epilogue to the Heir at Law.
And what 's impossible can't be,
And never, never comes to pass.
The Maid of the Moor.
Three stories high, long, dull, and old,
As great lords' stories often are.
The Maid of the Moor.
Like two single gentlemen rolled into one.
Lodgings for Single Gentlemen.
But when ill indeed,
E'en dismissing the doctor don't always succeed.
Lodgings for Single Gentlemen.
When taken,
To be well shaken.
The Newcastle Apothecary.
Thank you, good sir, I owe you one.
The Poor Gentleman. Act i. Sc. 2.
O Miss Bailey!
Unfortunate Miss Bailey!
Love laughs at Locksmiths. Act ii. Song.
'T is a very fine thing to be father-in-law
To a very magnificent three-tailed Bashaw!
Blue Beard. Act ii. Sc. 5.
I had a soul above buttons.
Sylvester Daggerwood, or New Hay at the Old Market. Sc. 1.
Mynheer Vandunck, though he never was drunk,
Sipped brandy and water gayly.
Mynheer Vandunck.
Rise with the lark, and with the lark to bed.[454:1]
The Village Curate.
[454:1] To rise with the lark, and go to bed with the lamb.—Breton: Court and Country (1618; reprint, p. 183).
[455]
Sweet Memory! wafted by thy gentle gale,
Oft up the stream of Time I turn my sail.
The Pleasures of Memory. Part ii. i.
She was good as she was fair,
None—none on earth above her!
As pure in thought as angels are:
To know her was to love her.[455:1]
Jacqueline. Stanza 1.
A guardian angel o'er his life presiding,
Doubling his pleasures, and his cares dividing.
Human Life.
Fireside happiness, to hours of ease
Blest with that charm, the certainty to please.
Human Life.
The soul of music slumbers in the shell
Till waked and kindled by the master's spell;
And feeling hearts, touch them but rightly, pour
A thousand melodies unheard before!
Human Life.
Then never less alone than when alone.[455:3]
Human Life.
Those that he loved so long and sees no more,
Loved and still loves,—not dead, but gone before,[455:4]—
He gathers round him.
Human Life.
Mine be a cot beside the hill;
A beehive's hum shall soothe my ear;
A willowy brook that turns a mill,
With many a fall, shall linger near.
A Wish.
[456]
That very law which moulds a tear
And bids it trickle from its source,—
That law preserves the earth a sphere,
And guides the planets in their course.
On a Tear.
Go! you may call it madness, folly;
You shall not chase my gloom away!
There 's such a charm in melancholy
I would not if I could be gay.
To ——.
To vanish in the chinks that Time has made.[456:1]
Pæstum.
Ward has no heart, they say, but I deny it:
He has a heart, and gets his speeches by it.
Epigram.
Numquam se minus otiosum esse, quam quum otiosus, nec minus solum, quam quum solus esset (He is never less at leisure than when at leisure, nor less alone than when he is alone).—Cicero: De Officiis, liber iii. c. 1.
The princeps copy, clad in blue and gold.
Illustrations of Sterne. Bibliomania. Line 6.
Now cheaply bought for thrice their weight in gold.
Illustrations of Sterne. Bibliomania. Line 65.
Torn from their destined page (unworthy meed
Of knightly counsel and heroic deed).
Illustrations of Sterne. Bibliomania. Line 121.
How pure the joy, when first my hands unfold
The small, rare volume, black with tarnished gold!
Illustrations of Sterne. Bibliomania. Line 137.
Fate sits on these dark battlements and frowns,
And as the portal opens to receive me,
A voice in hollow murmurs through the courts
Tells of a nameless deed.[456:2]
[456:2] These lines form the motto to Mrs. Radcliffe's novel, "The Mysteries of Udolpho," and are presumably of her own composition.
[457]
His [Burke's] imperial fancy has laid all Nature under tribute, and has collected riches from every scene of the creation and every walk of art.
Apology for the Freedom of the Press.
He [Kippis] might be a very clever man by nature for aught I know, but he laid so many books upon his head that his brains could not move.
Gregory's Life of Hall.
Call things by their right names. . . . Glass of brandy and water! That is the current but not the appropriate name: ask for a glass of liquid fire and distilled damnation.[457:1]
Gregory's Life of Hall.
What will Mrs. Grundy say?
Speed the Plough. Act i. Sc. 1.
Push on,—keep moving.
A Cure for the Heartache. Act ii. Sc. 1.
Approbation from Sir Hubert Stanley is praise indeed.
A Cure for the Heartache. Act v. Sc. 2.
Diffused knowledge immortalizes itself.
Vindiciæ Gallicæ.
The Commons, faithful to their system, remained in a wise and masterly inactivity.
Vindiciæ Gallicæ.
Disciplined inaction.
Causes of the Revolution of 1688. Chap. vii.
The frivolous work of polished idleness.
Dissertation on Ethical Philosophy. Remarks on Thomas Brown.
[458]
There 's nae sorrow there, John,
There 's neither cauld nor care, John,
The day is aye fair,
In the land o' the leal.
The Land o' the Leal.
Gude nicht, and joy be wi' you a'.
Gude Nicht, etc.[458:1]
Oh, we 're a' noddin', nid, nid, noddin';
Oh, we 're a' noddin' at our house at hame.
We 're a' Noddin'.
A penniless lass wi' a lang pedigree.
The Laird o' Cockpen.
[458:1] Sir Alexander Boswell composed a version of this song.
Our Federal Union: it must be preserved.
Toast given on the Jefferson Birthday Celebration in 1830.
You are uneasy; you never sailed with me before, I see.[458:2]
Life of Jackson (Parton). Vol. iii. p. 493.
[458:2] A remark made to an elderly gentleman who was sailing with Jackson down Chesapeake Bay in an old steamboat, and who exhibited a little fear.
Think of your forefathers! Think of your posterity![458:3]
Speech at Plymouth, Dec. 22, 1802.
In charity to all mankind, bearing no malice or ill-will to any human being, and even compassionating those who hold in bondage their fellow-men, not knowing what they do.[458:4]
Letter to A. Bronson. July 30, 1838.
[459]
This hand, to tyrants ever sworn the foe,
For Freedom only deals the deadly blow;
Then sheathes in calm repose the vengeful blade,
For gentle peace in Freedom's hallowed shade.[459:1]
Written in an Album, 1842.
This is the last of earth! I am content.
His Last Words, Feb. 21, 1848.
[458:3] Et majores vestros et posteros cogitate.—Tacitus: Agricola, c. 32. 31.
[458:4] With malice towards none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right.—Abraham Lincoln: Second Inaugural Address.
You 'd scarce expect one of my age
To speak in public on the stage;
And if I chance to fall below
Demosthenes or Cicero,
Don't view me with a critic's eye,
But pass my imperfections by.
Large streams from little fountains flow,
Tall oaks from little acorns grow.[459:2]
Lines written for a School Declamation.
[459:2] The lofty oak from a small acorn grows.—Lewis Duncombe (1711-1730): De Minimis Maxima (translation).
It requires a surgical operation to get a joke well into a Scotch understanding.[459:3]
Lady Holland's Memoir. Vol. i. p. 15.
That knuckle-end of England,—that land of Calvin, oat-cakes, and sulphur.
Lady Holland's Memoir. Vol. i. p. 17.
No one minds what Jeffrey says: . . . it is not more than a week ago that I heard him speak disrespectfully of the equator.
Lady Holland's Memoir. Vol. i. p. 17.
[460]
We cultivate literature on a little oatmeal.[460:1]
Lady Holland's Memoir. Vol. i. p. 23.
Truth is its [justice's] handmaid, freedom is its child, peace is its companion, safety walks in its steps, victory follows in its train; it is the brightest emanation from the Gospel; it is the attribute of God.
Lady Holland's Memoir. Vol. i. p. 29.
It is always right that a man should be able to render a reason for the faith that is within him.
Lady Holland's Memoir. Vol. i. p. 53.
Avoid shame, but do not seek glory,—nothing so expensive as glory.[460:2]
Lady Holland's Memoir. Vol. i. p. 88.
Let every man be occupied, and occupied in the highest employment of which his nature is capable, and die with the consciousness that he has done his best.
Lady Holland's Memoir. Vol. i. p. 130.
Looked as if she had walked straight out of the ark.
Lady Holland's Memoir. Vol. i. p. 157.
The Smiths never had any arms, and have invariably sealed their letters with their thumbs.
Lady Holland's Memoir. Vol. i. p. 244.
Not body enough to cover his mind decently with; his intellect is improperly exposed.
Lady Holland's Memoir. Vol. i. p. 258.
He has spent all his life in letting down empty buckets into empty wells; and he is frittering away his age in trying to draw them up again.[460:3]
Lady Holland's Memoir. Vol. i. p. 259.
You find people ready enough to do the Samaritan, without the oil and twopence.
Lady Holland's Memoir. Vol. i. p. 261.
Ah, you flavour everything; you are the vanilla of society.
Lady Holland's Memoir. Vol. i. p. 262.
My living in Yorkshire was so far out of the way, that it was actually twelve miles from a lemon.
Lady Holland's Memoir. Vol. i. p. 262.
[461]
As the French say, there are three sexes,—men, women, and clergymen.[461:1]
Lady Holland's Memoir. Vol. i. p. 262.
To take Macaulay out of literature and society and put him in the House of Commons, is like taking the chief physician out of London during a pestilence.
Lady Holland's Memoir. Vol. i. p. 265.
Daniel Webster struck me much like a steam-engine in trousers.
Lady Holland's Memoir. Vol. i. p. 267.
"Heat, ma'am!" I said; "it was so dreadful here, that I found there was nothing left for it but to take off my flesh and sit in my bones."
Lady Holland's Memoir. Vol. i. p. 267.
Macaulay is like a book in breeches. . . . He has occasional flashes of silence, that make his conversation perfectly delightful.
Lady Holland's Memoir. Vol. i. p. 363.
Serenely full, the epicure would say,
Fate cannot harm me,—I have dined to-day.[461:2]
Recipe for Salad. P. 374.
Thank God for tea! What would the world do without tea?—how did it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea.
Recipe for Salad. P. 383.
If you choose to represent the various parts in life by holes upon a table, of different shapes,—some circular, some triangular, some square, some oblong,—and the persons acting these parts by bits of wood of similar shapes, we shall generally find that the triangular person has got into the square hole, the oblong into the triangular, and a square person has squeezed himself into the round hole. The officer and the office, the doer and the thing done, seldom fit so exactly that we can say they were almost made for each other.[461:3]
Sketches of Moral Philosophy.
[462]
The schoolboy whips his taxed top; the beardless youth manages his taxed horse with a taxed bridle on a taxed road; and the dying Englishman, pouring his medicine, which has paid seven per cent, into a spoon that has paid fifteen per cent, flings himself back upon his chintz bed which has paid twenty-two per cent, and expires in the arms of an apothecary who has paid a license of a hundred pounds for the privilege of putting him to death.
Review of Seybert's Annals of the United States, 1820.
In the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book, or goes to an American play, or looks at an American picture or statue?
Review of Seybert's Annals of the United States, 1820.
Magnificent spectacle of human happiness.
America. Edinburgh Review, July, 1824.
In the midst of this sublime and terrible storm [at Sidmouth], Dame Partington, who lived upon the beach, was seen at the door of her house with mop and pattens, trundling her mop, squeezing out the sea-water, and vigorously pushing away the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic was roused; Mrs. Partington's spirit was up. But I need not tell you that the contest was unequal; the Atlantic Ocean beat Mrs. Partington.
Speech at Taunton, 1813.
Men who prefer any load of infamy, however great, to any pressure of taxation, however light.
On American Debts.
[460:1] Mr. Smith, with reference to the "Edinburgh Review," says: "The motto I proposed for the 'Review' was 'Tenui musam meditamur avena;' but this was too near the truth to be admitted; so we took our present grave motto from Publius Syrus, of whom none of us had, I am sure, read a single line."
[460:2] A favorite motto, which through life Mr. Smith inculcated on his family.
[461:1] Lord Wharncliffe says, "The well-known sentence, almost a proverb, that 'this world consists of men, women, and Herveys,' was originally Lady Montagu's."—Montagu Letters, vol. i. p. 64.
[461:2] See Dryden, p. 273.
[461:3] The right man to fill the right place.—Layard: Speech, Jan. 15, 1855.
And don't confound the language of the nation
With long-tailed words in osity and ation.
The Monks and the Giants. Canto i. Line 6.
A sudden thought strikes me,—let us swear an eternal friendship.[462:1]
The Rovers. Act i. Sc. 1.
[463]
Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won.
Despatch, 1815.
It is very true that I have said that I considered Napoleon's presence in the field equal to forty thousand men in the balance. This is a very loose way of talking; but the idea is a very different one from that of his presence at a battle being equal to a reinforcement of forty thousand men.
Mem. by the Duke,[463:1] Sept. 18, 1836.
Circumstances over which I have no control.[463:2]
I never saw so many shocking bad hats in my life.[463:3]
Upon seeing the first Reformed Parliament.
There is no mistake; there has been no mistake; and there shall be no mistake.[463:4]
Letter to Mr. Huskisson.
[463:1] Stanhope: Conversations with the Duke of Wellington, p. 81.
[463:2] This phrase was first used by the Duke of Wellington in a letter, about 1839 or 1840.—Sala: Echoes of the Week, in London Illustrated News, Aug. 23, 1884. Greville, Mem., ch. ii. (1823), gives an earlier instance.
[463:3] Sir William Fraser, in "Words on Wellington" (1889), p. 12, says this phrase originated with the Duke. Captain Gronow, in his "Recollections," says it originated with the Duke of York, second son of George III., about 1817.
[463:4] This gave rise to the slang expression, "And no mistake."—Words on Wellington, p. 122.
The man that lays his hand upon a woman,
Save in the way of kindness, is a wretch
Whom 't were gross flattery to name a coward.
The Honeymoon. Act ii. Sc. 1.
She 's adorned
Amply that in her husband's eye looks lovely,—
The truest mirror that an honest wife
Can see her beauty in.
The Honeymoon. Act iii. Sc. 4.
[464]
Story! God bless you! I have none to tell, sir.
The Friend of Humanity and the Knife-Grinder.
I give thee sixpence! I will see thee damned first.
The Friend of Humanity and the Knife-Grinder.
So down thy hill, romantic Ashbourn, glides
The Derby dilly, carrying three INSIDES.
The Loves of the Triangles. Line 178.
And finds, with keen, discriminating sight,
Black 's not so black,—nor white so very white.
New Morality.
Give me the avowed, the erect, the manly foe,
Bold I can meet,—perhaps may turn his blow!
But of all plagues, good Heaven, thy wrath can send,
Save, save, oh save me from the candid friend![464:1]
New Morality.
I called the New World into existence to redress the balance of the Old.
The King's Message, Dec. 12, 1826.
No, here 's to the pilot that weathered the storm!
The Pilot that weathered the Storm.
[464:1] "Defend me from my friends; I can defend myself from my enemies." The French Ana assign to Maréchal Villars this aphorism when taking leave of Louis XIV.
Too late I stayed,—forgive the crime!
Unheeded flew the hours;
How noiseless falls the foot of time[464:2]
That only treads on flowers.
Lines to Lady A. Hamilton.
[465]
Hail, Columbia! happy land!
Hail, ye heroes! heaven-born band!
Who fought and bled in Freedom's cause,
Who fought and bled in Freedom's cause,
And when the storm of war was gone,
Enjoyed the peace your valor won.
Let independence be our boast,
Ever mindful what it cost;
Ever grateful for the prize,
Let its altar reach the skies!
Hail, Columbia!
Oh, be wiser thou!
Instructed that true knowledge leads to love.
Lines left upon a Seat in a Yew-tree.
And homeless near a thousand homes I stood,
And near a thousand tables pined and wanted food.
Guilt and Sorrow. Stanza 41.
Action is transitory,—a step, a blow;
The motion of a muscle, this way or that.
The Borderers. Act iii.
Three sleepless nights I passed in sounding on,
Through words and things, a dim and perilous way.[465:2]
The Borderers. Act iv. Sc. 2.
[466]
A simple child
That lightly draws its breath,
And feels its life in every limb,
What should it know of death?
We are Seven.
O Reader! Had you in your mind
Such stores as silent thought can bring,
O gentle Reader! you would find
A tale in everything.
Simon Lee.
I 've heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds
With coldness still returning;
Alas! the gratitude of men
Hath oftener left me mourning.
Simon Lee.
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.
Lines written in Early Spring.
And 't is my faith, that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.
Lines written in Early Spring.
Nor less I deem that there are Powers
Which of themselves our minds impress;
That we can feed this mind of ours
In a wise passiveness.
Expostulation and Reply.
Up! up! my friend, and quit your books,
Or surely you 'll grow double!
Up! up! my friend, and clear your looks!
Why all this toil and trouble?
The Tables Turned.
Come forth into the light of things,
Let Nature be your teacher.
The Tables Turned.
One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can.
The Tables Turned.
The bane of all that dread the Devil.
The Idiot Boy.
[467]
Sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart.
Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey.
That best portion of a good man's life,—
His little, nameless, unremembered acts
Of kindness and of love.
Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey.
That blessed mood,
In which the burden of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world,
Is lightened.
Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey.
The fretful stir
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world
Have hung upon the beatings of my heart.
Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey.
The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion; the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colours and their forms, were then to me
An appetite,—a feeling and a love,
That had no need of a remoter charm
By thoughts supplied, nor any interest
Unborrowed from the eye.
Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey.
But hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity.
Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey.
A sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man,—
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.
Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey.
Knowing that Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her.
Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey.
[468]
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life.
Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey.
Men who can hear the Decalogue, and feel
No self-reproach.
The Old Cumberland Beggar.
As in the eye of Nature he has lived,
So in the eye of Nature let him die!
The Old Cumberland Beggar.
There 's something in a flying horse,
There 's something in a huge balloon.
Peter Bell. Prologue. Stanza 1.
The common growth of Mother Earth
Suffices me,—her tears, her mirth,
Her humblest mirth and tears.
Peter Bell. Prologue. Stanza 27.
Full twenty times was Peter feared,
For once that Peter was respected.
Peter Bell. Part i. Stanza 3.
A primrose by a river's brim
A yellow primrose was to him,
And it was nothing more.
Peter Bell. Part i. Stanza 12.
The soft blue sky did never melt
Into his heart; he never felt
The witchery of the soft blue sky!
Peter Bell. Part i. Stanza 15.
On a fair prospect some have looked,
And felt, as I have heard them say,
As if the moving time had been
A thing as steadfast as the scene
On which they gazed themselves away.
Peter Bell. Part i. Stanza 16.
As if the man had fixed his face,
In many a solitary place,
Against the wind and open sky!
Peter Bell. Part i. Stanza 26.[468:1]
[469]
One of those heavenly days that cannot die.
Nutting.
She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,—
A maid whom there were none to praise
And very few to love.
She dwelt among the untrodden ways.
A violet by a mossy stone
Half hidden from the eye;
Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.
She dwelt among the untrodden ways.
She lived unknown, and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be;
But she is in her grave, and oh
The difference to me!
She dwelt among the untrodden ways.
The stars of midnight shall be dear
To her; and she shall lean her ear
In many a secret place
Where rivulets dance their wayward round,
And beauty born of murmuring sound
Shall pass into her face.
Three years she grew in Sun and Shower.
May no rude hand deface it,
And its forlorn hic jacet!
Ellen Irwin.
She gave me eyes, she gave me ears;
And humble cares, and delicate fears;
A heart, the fountain of sweet tears;
And love and thought and joy.
The Sparrow's Nest.
The child is father of the man.[469:1]
My heart leaps up when I behold.
The cattle are grazing,
Their heads never raising;
There are forty feeding like one!
The Cock is crowing.
[470]
Sweet childish days, that were as long
As twenty days are now.
To a Butterfly. I 've watched you now a full half-hour.
Often have I sighed to measure
By myself a lonely pleasure,—
Sighed to think I read a book,
Only read, perhaps, by me.
To the Small Celandine.
As high as we have mounted in delight,
In our dejection do we sink as low.
Resolution and Independence. Stanza 4.
But how can he expect that others should
Build for him, sow for him, and at his call
Love him, who for himself will take no heed at all?
Resolution and Independence. Stanza 6.
I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous boy,
The sleepless soul that perished in his pride;
Of him who walked in glory and in joy,
Following his plough, along the mountain-side.
By our own spirits we are deified;
We Poets in our youth begin in gladness,
But thereof come in the end despondency and madness.
Resolution and Independence. Stanza 7.
That heareth not the loud winds when they call,
And moveth all together, if it moves at all.
Resolution and Independence. Stanza 11.
Choice word and measured phrase above the reach
Of ordinary men.
Resolution and Independence. Stanza 14.
And mighty poets in their misery dead.
Resolution and Independence. Stanza 17.
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will;
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!
Earth has not anything to show more fair.
The holy time is quiet as a nun
Breathless with adoration.
It is a beauteous Evening.
[471]
Men are we, and must grieve when even the shade
Of that which once was great is passed away.
On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic.
Thou has left behind
Powers that will work for thee,—air, earth, and skies!
There 's not a breathing of the common wind
That will forget thee; thou hast great allies;
Thy friends are exultations, agonies,
And love, and man's unconquerable mind.[471:1]
To Toussaint L' Ouverture.
One that would peep and botanize
Upon his mother's grave.
A Poet's Epitaph. Stanza 5.
He murmurs near the running brooks
A music sweeter than their own.
A Poet's Epitaph. Stanza 10.
And you must love him, ere to you
He will seem worthy of your love.
A Poet's Epitaph. Stanza 11.
The harvest of a quiet eye,
That broods and sleeps on his own heart.
A Poet's Epitaph. Stanza 13.
Yet sometimes, when the secret cup
Of still and serious thought went round,
It seemed as if he drank it up,
He felt with spirit so profound.
Matthew.
My eyes are dim with childish tears,
My heart is idly stirred,
For the same sound is in my ears
Which in those days I heard.
The Fountain.
A happy youth, and their old age
Is beautiful and free.
The Fountain.
And often, glad no more,
We wear a face of joy because
We have been glad of yore.
The Fountain.
[472]
The sweetest thing that ever grew
Beside a human door.
Lucy Gray. Stanza 2.
A youth to whom was given
So much of earth, so much of heaven.
Ruth.
Until a man might travel twelve stout miles,
Or reap an acre of his neighbor's corn.
The Brothers.
Something between a hindrance and a help.
Michael.
Drink, pretty creature, drink!
The Pet Lamb.
Lady of the Mere,
Sole-sitting by the shores of old romance.
A narrow Girdle of rough Stones and Crags.
And he is oft the wisest man
Who is not wise at all.
The Oak and the Broom.
"A jolly place," said he, "in times of old!
But something ails it now: the spot is cursed."
Hart-leap Well. Part ii.
Hunt half a day for a forgotten dream.
Hart-leap Well. Part ii.
Never to blend our pleasure or our pride
With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels.
Hart-leap Well. Part ii.
Plain living and high thinking are no more.
The homely beauty of the good old cause
Is gone; our peace, our fearful innocence,
And pure religion breathing household laws.
O Friend! I know not which way I must look.
Milton! thou should'st be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee!
. . . . .
Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart:
So didst thou travel on life's common way
In cheerful godliness.
London, 1802.
We must be free or die who speak the tongue
That Shakespeare spake, the faith and morals hold
Which Milton held.
It is not to be thought of.
A noticeable man, with large gray eyes.
Stanzas written in Thomson's Castle of Indolence.
[473]
We meet thee, like a pleasant thought,
When such are wanted.
To the Daisy.
The poet's darling.
To the Daisy.
Thou unassuming commonplace
Of Nature.
To the same Flower.
Oft on the dappled turf at ease
I sit, and play with similes,
Loose type of things through all degrees.
To the same Flower.
Sweet Mercy! to the gates of heaven
This minstrel lead, his sins forgiven;
The rueful conflict, the heart riven
With vain endeavour,
And memory of Earth's bitter leaven
Effaced forever.
Thoughts suggested on the Banks of the Nith.
The best of what we do and are,
Just God, forgive!
Thoughts suggested on the Banks of the Nith.
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago.
The Solitary Reaper.
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain
That has been, and may be again.
The Solitary Reaper.
The music in my heart I bore
Long after it was heard no more.
The Solitary Reaper.
Yon foaming flood seems motionless as ice;
Its dizzy turbulence eludes the eye,
Frozen by distance.
Address to Kilchurn Castle.
A famous man is Robin Hood,
The English ballad-singer's joy.
Rob Roy's Grave.
Because the good old rule
Sufficeth them,—the simple plan,
That they should take who have the power,
And they should keep who can.
Rob Roy's Grave.
[474]
The Eagle, he was lord above,
And Rob was lord below.
Rob Roy's Grave.
A brotherhood of venerable trees.
Sonnet composed at —— Castle.
Let beeves and home-bred kine partake
The sweets of Burn-mill meadow;
The swan on still St. Mary's Lake
Float double, swan and shadow!
Yarrow Unvisited.
Every gift of noble origin
Is breathed upon by Hope's perpetual breath.
These Times strike Monied Worldlings.
A remnant of uneasy light.
The Matron of Jedborough.
Oh for a single hour of that Dundee
Who on that day the word of onset gave![474:1]
Sonnet, in the Pass of Killicranky.
O Cuckoo! shall I call thee bird,
Or but a wandering voice?
To the Cuckoo.
She was a phantom of delight
When first she gleamed upon my sight,
A lovely apparition, sent
To be a moment's ornament;
Her eyes as stars of twilight fair,
Like twilights too her dusky hair,
But all things else about her drawn
From May-time and the cheerful dawn.
She was a Phantom of Delight.
A creature not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food;
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.
She was a Phantom of Delight.
[475]
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;
A perfect woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command.
She was a Phantom of Delight.
That inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude.
I wandered lonely.
To be a Prodigal's favourite,—then, worse truth,
A Miser's pensioner,—behold our lot!
The Small Celandine.
Stern Daughter of the Voice of God![475:1]
Ode to Duty.
A light to guide, a rod
To check the erring, and reprove.
Ode to Duty.
Give unto me, made lowly wise,
The spirit of self-sacrifice;
The confidence of reason give,
And in the light of truth thy bondman let me live!
Ode to Duty.
The light that never was, on sea or land;
The consecration, and the Poet's dream.
Suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle in a Storm. Stanza 4.
Shalt show us how divine a thing
A woman may be made.
To a Young Lady. Dear Child of Nature.
But an old age serene and bright,
And lovely as a Lapland night,
Shall lead thee to thy grave.
To a Young Lady. Dear Child of Nature.
Where the statue stood
Of Newton, with his prism and silent face,
The marble index of a mind forever
Voyaging through strange seas of thought alone.
The Prelude. Book iii.
[476]
Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven!
The Prelude. Book xi.
The budding rose above the rose full blown.
The Prelude. Book xi.
There is
One great society alone on earth:
The noble living and the noble dead.
The Prelude. Book xi.
Who, doomed to go in company with Pain
And Fear and Bloodshed,—miserable train!—
Turns his necessity to glorious gain.
Character of the Happy Warrior.
Controls them and subdues, transmutes, bereaves
Of their bad influence, and their good receives.
Character of the Happy Warrior.
But who, if he be called upon to face
Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined
Great issues, good or bad for humankind,
Is happy as a lover.
Character of the Happy Warrior.
And through the heat of conflict keeps the law
In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw.
Character of the Happy Warrior.
Whom neither shape of danger can dismay,
Nor thought of tender happiness betray.
Character of the Happy Warrior.
Like,—but oh how different!
Yes, it was the Mountain Echo.
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours.
Miscellaneous Sonnets. Part i. xxxiii.
Great God! I 'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn,
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
[477]Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea,
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
Miscellaneous Sonnets. Part i. xxxiii.
Maidens withering on the stalk.[477:1]
Personal Talk. Stanza 1.
Dreams, books, are each a world; and books, we know,
Are a substantial world, both pure and good.
Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,
Our pastime and our happiness will grow.
Personal Talk. Stanza 3.
The gentle Lady married to the Moor,
And heavenly Una with her milk-white lamb.
Personal Talk. Stanza 3.
Blessings be with them, and eternal praise,
Who gave us nobler loves, and nobler cares!—
The Poets, who on earth have made us heirs
Of truth and pure delight by heavenly lays.
Personal Talk. Stanza 4.
A power is passing from the earth.
Lines on the expected Dissolution of Mr. Fox.
The rainbow comes and goes,
And lovely is the rose.
Ode. Intimations of Immortality. Stanza 2.
The sunshine is a glorious birth;
But yet I know, where'er I go,
That there hath passed away a glory from the earth.
Ode. Intimations of Immortality. Stanza 2.
Where is it now, the glory and the dream?
Ode. Intimations of Immortality. Stanza 5.
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar.
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory, do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy.
Ode. Intimations of Immortality. Stanza 5.
[478]
At length the man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.
Ode. Intimations of Immortality. Stanza 5.
The thought of our past years in me doth breed
Perpetual benediction.
Ode. Intimations of Immortality. Stanza 9.
Those obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings,
Blank misgivings of a creature
Moving about in worlds not realized,
High instincts before which our mortal nature
Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised.
Ode. Intimations of Immortality. Stanza 9.
Truths that wake,
To perish never.
Ode. Intimations of Immortality. Stanza 9.
Though inland far we be,
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither.
Ode. Intimations of Immortality. Stanza 9.
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower.
Ode. Intimations of Immortality. Stanza 10.
In years that bring the philosophic mind.
Ode. Intimations of Immortality. Stanza 10.
The clouds that gather round the setting sun
Do take a sober colouring from an eye
That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality.
Ode. Intimations of Immortality. Stanza 11.
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.
Ode. Intimations of Immortality. Stanza 11.
Two voices are there: one is of the sea,
One of the mountains,—each a mighty voice.
Thought of a Briton on the Subjugation of Switzerland.
Earth helped him with the cry of blood.[478:1]
Song at the Feast of Broughton Castle.
The silence that is in the starry sky.
Song at the Feast of Broughton Castle.
[479]
The monumental pomp of age
Was with this goodly personage;
A stature undepressed in size,
Unbent, which rather seemed to rise
In open victory o'er the weight
Of seventy years, to loftier height.
The White Doe of Rylstone. Canto iii.
"What is good for a bootless bene?"
With these dark words begins my tale;
And their meaning is, Whence can comfort spring
When prayer is of no avail?
Force of Prayer.
A few strong instincts, and a few plain rules.
Alas! what boots the long laborious Quest?
Of blessed consolations in distress.
Preface to the Excursion. (Edition, 1814.)
The vision and the faculty divine;
Yet wanting the accomplishment of verse.
The Excursion. Book i.
The imperfect offices of prayer and praise.
The Excursion. Book i.
That mighty orb of song,
The divine Milton.
The Excursion. Book i.
The good die first,[479:1]
And they whose hearts are dry as summer dust
Burn to the socket.
The Excursion. Book i.
This dull product of a scoffer's pen.
The Excursion. Book ii.
With battlements that on their restless fronts
Bore stars.
The Excursion. Book ii.
Wisdom is ofttimes nearer when we stoop
Than when we soar.
The Excursion. Book iii.
[480]
Wrongs unredressed, or insults unavenged.
The Excursion. Book iii.
Monastic brotherhood, upon rock
Aerial.
The Excursion. Book iii.
The intellectual power, through words and things,
Went sounding on a dim and perilous way![480:1]
The Excursion. Book iii.
Society became my glittering bride,
And airy hopes my children.
The Excursion. Book iii.
And the most difficult of tasks to keep
Heights which the soul is competent to gain.
The Excursion. Book iv.
There is a luxury in self-dispraise;
And inward self-disparagement affords
To meditative spleen a grateful feast.
The Excursion. Book iv.
Recognizes ever and anon
The breeze of Nature stirring in his soul.
The Excursion. Book iv.
Pan himself,
The simple shepherd's awe-inspiring god!
The Excursion. Book iv.
I have seen
A curious child, who dwelt upon a tract
Of inland ground, applying to his ear
The convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell,
To which, in silence hushed, his very soul
Listened intensely; and his countenance soon
Brightened with joy, for from within were heard
Murmurings, whereby the monitor expressed
Mysterious union with his native sea.[480:2]
The Excursion. Book iv.
So build we up the being that we are.
The Excursion. Book iv.
[481]
One in whom persuasion and belief
Had ripened into faith, and faith become
A passionate intuition.
The Excursion. Book iv.
Spires whose "silent finger points to heaven."[481:1]
The Excursion. Book vi.
Ah, what a warning for a thoughtless man,
Could field or grove, could any spot of earth,
Show to his eye an image of the pangs
Which it hath witnessed,—render back an echo
Of the sad steps by which it hath been trod!
The Excursion. Book vi.
And when the stream
Which overflowed the soul was passed away,
A consciousness remained that it had left
Deposited upon the silent shore
Of memory images and precious thoughts
That shall not die, and cannot be destroyed.
The Excursion. Book vii.
Wisdom married to immortal verse.[481:2]
The Excursion. Book vii.
A man he seems of cheerful yesterdays
And confident to-morrows.
The Excursion. Book vii.
The primal duties shine aloft, like stars;
The charities that soothe and heal and bless
Are scattered at the feet of man like flowers.
The Excursion. Book ix.
By happy chance we saw
A twofold image: on a grassy bank
A snow-white ram, and in the crystal flood
Another and the same![481:3]
The Excursion. Book ix.
The gods approve
The depth, and not the tumult, of the soul.
Laodamia.
[482]
Mightier far
Than strength of nerve or sinew, or the sway
Of magic potent over sun and star,
Is Love, though oft to agony distrest,
And though his favorite seat be feeble woman's breast.
Laodamia.
Elysian beauty, melancholy grace,
Brought from a pensive though a happy place.
Laodamia.
He spake of love, such love as spirits feel
In worlds whose course is equable and pure;
No fears to beat away, no strife to heal,—
The past unsighed for, and the future sure.
Laodamia.
Of all that is most beauteous, imaged there
In happier beauty; more pellucid streams,
An ampler ether, a diviner air,
And fields invested with purpureal gleams.
Laodamia.
Yet tears to human suffering are due;
And mortal hopes defeated and o'erthrown
Are mourned by man, and not by man alone.
Laodamia.
But shapes that come not at an earthly call
Will not depart when mortal voices bid.
Dion.
But thou that didst appear so fair
To fond imagination,
Dost rival in the light of day
Her delicate creation.
Yarrow Visited.
'T is hers to pluck the amaranthine flower
Of faith, and round the sufferer's temples bind
Wreaths that endure affliction's heaviest shower,
And do not shrink from sorrow's keenest wind.
Weak is the Will of Man.
We bow our heads before Thee, and we laud
And magnify thy name Almighty God!
But man is thy most awful instrument
In working out a pure intent.
Ode. Imagination before Content.
[483]
Sad fancies do we then affect,
In luxury of disrespect
To our own prodigal excess
Of too familiar happiness.
Ode to Lycoris.
That kill the bloom before its time,
And blanch, without the owner's crime,
The most resplendent hair.
Lament of Mary Queen of Scots.
The sightless Milton, with his hair
Around his placid temples curled;
And Shakespeare at his side,—a freight,
If clay could think and mind were weight,
For him who bore the world!
The Italian Itinerant.
Meek Nature's evening comment on the shows
That for oblivion take their daily birth
From all the fuming vanities of earth.
Sky-Prospect from the Plain of France.
Turning, for them who pass, the common dust
Of servile opportunity to gold.
Desultory Stanza.
Babylon,
Learned and wise, hath perished utterly,
Nor leaves her speech one word to aid the sigh
That would lament her.
Ecclesiastical Sonnets. Part i. xxv. Missions and Travels.
As thou these ashes, little brook, wilt bear
Into the Avon, Avon to the tide
Of Severn, Severn to the narrow seas,
Into main ocean they, this deed accursed
An emblem yields to friends and enemies
How the bold teacher's doctrine, sanctified
By truth, shall spread, throughout the world dispersed.[483:1]
Ecclesiastical Sonnets. Part ii. xvii. To Wickliffe.
[484]
The feather, whence the pen
Was shaped that traced the lives of these good men,
Dropped from an angel's wing.[484:1]
Ecclesiastical Sonnets. Part iii. v. Walton's Book of Lives.
Meek Walton's heavenly memory.
Ecclesiastical Sonnets. Part iii. v. Walton's Book of Lives.
But who would force the soul tilts with a straw
Against a champion cased in adamant.
Ecclesiastical Sonnets. Part iii. vii. Persecution of the Scottish Covenanters.
Where music dwells
Lingering and wandering on as loth to die,
Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof
That they were born for immortality.
Ecclesiastical Sonnets. Part iii. xliii. Inside of King's Chapel, Cambridge.
Or shipwrecked, kindles on the coast
False fires, that others may be lost.
To the Lady Fleming.
But hushed be every thought that springs
From out the bitterness of things.
Elegiac Stanzas. Addressed to Sir G. H. B.
[485]
To the solid ground
Of Nature trusts the mind that builds for aye.
A Volant Tribe of Bards on Earth.
Soft is the music that would charm forever;
The flower of sweetest smell is shy and lowly.
Not Love, not War.
True beauty dwells in deep retreats,
Whose veil is unremoved
Till heart with heart in concord beats,
And the lover is beloved.
To ——. Let other Bards of Angels sing.
Type of the wise who soar but never roam,
True to the kindred points of heaven and home.
To a Skylark.
A Briton even in love should be
A subject, not a slave!
Ere with Cold Beads of Midnight Dew.
Scorn not the sonnet. Critic, you have frowned,
Mindless of its just honours; with this key
Shakespeare unlocked his heart.[485:1]
Scorn not the Sonnet.
And when a damp
Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand
The thing became a trumpet; whence he blew
Soul-animating strains,—alas! too few.
Scorn not the Sonnet.
But he is risen, a later star of dawn.
A Morning Exercise.
Bright gem instinct with music, vocal spark.
A Morning Exercise.
When his veering gait
And every motion of his starry train
Seem governed by a strain
Of music, audible to him alone.
The Triad.
[486]
Alas! how little can a moment show
Of an eye where feeling plays
In ten thousand dewy rays:
A face o'er which a thousand shadows go!
The Triad.
Stern Winter loves a dirge-like sound.
On the Power of Sound. xii.
The bosom-weight, your stubborn gift,
That no philosophy can lift.
Presentiments.
Nature's old felicities.
The Trosachs.
Myriads of daisies have shone forth in flower
Near the lark's nest, and in their natural hour
Have passed away; less happy than the one
That by the unwilling ploughshare died to prove
The tender charm of poetry and love.
Poems composed during a Tour in the Summer of 1833. xxxvii.
Small service is true service while it lasts.
Of humblest friends, bright creature! scorn not one:
The daisy, by the shadow that it casts,
Protects the lingering dewdrop from the sun.
To a Child. Written in her Album.
Since every mortal power of Coleridge
Was frozen at its marvellous source,
The rapt one, of the godlike forehead,
The heaven-eyed creature sleeps in earth:
And Lamb, the frolic and the gentle,
Has vanished from his lonely hearth.
Extempore Effusion upon the Death of James Hogg.
How fast has brother followed brother,
From sunshine to the sunless land!
Extempore Effusion upon the Death of James Hogg.
Those old credulities, to Nature dear,
Shall they no longer bloom upon the stock
Of history?
Memorials of a Tour in Italy. iv.
[487]
How does the meadow-flower its bloom unfold?
Because the lovely little flower is free
Down to its root, and in that freedom bold.
A Poet! He hath put his Heart to School.
Minds that have nothing to confer
Find little to perceive.
Yes, Thou art Fair.
[465:1] Coleridge said to Wordsworth ("Memoirs" by his nephew, vol. ii. p. 74), "Since Milton, I know of no poet with so many felicities and unforgettable lines and stanzas as you."
The intellectual power, through words and things,
Went sounding on a dim and perilous way!
The Excursion, book iii.
[468:1] The original edition (London, 1819, 8vo) had the following as the fourth stanza from the end of Part i., which was omitted in all subsequent editions:—
Is it a party in a parlour?
Crammed just as they on earth were crammed,—
Some sipping punch, some sipping tea,
But, as you by their faces see,
All silent and all damned.
[474:1] It was on this occasion [the failure in energy of Lord Mar at the battle of Sheriffmuir] that Gordon of Glenbucket made the celebrated exclamation, "Oh for an hour of Dundee!"—Mahon: History of England, vol. i. p. 184.
Oh for one hour of blind old Dandolo,
The octogenarian chief, Byzantium's conquering foe!
Byron: Childe Harold, canto iv. stanza 12.
[478:1] This line is from Sir John Beaumont's "Battle of Bosworth Field."
[479:1] Heaven gives its favourites—early death.—Byron: Childe Harold, canto iv. stanza 102. Also Don Juan, canto iv. stanza 12.
Quem Di diligunt
Adolescens moritur
(He whom the gods favor dies in youth).
Plautus: Bacchides, act iv. sc. 7.
But I have sinuous shells of pearly hue;
. . . . .
Shake one, and it awakens; then apply
Its polisht lips to your attentive ear,
And it remembers its august abodes,
And murmurs as the ocean murmurs there.
Landor: Gebir, book v.
[481:1] An instinctive taste teaches men to build their churches in flat countries with spire steeples, which, as they cannot be referred to any other object, point as with silent finger to the sky and stars.—Coleridge: The Friend, No. 14.
[481:3] Another and the same.—Darwin: The Botanic Garden.
[483:1] In obedience to the order of the Council of Constance (1415), the remains of Wickliffe were exhumed and burned to ashes, and these cast into the Swift, a neighbouring brook running hard by; and "thus this brook hath conveyed his ashes into Avon, Avon into Severn, Severn into the narrow seas, they into the main ocean. And thus the ashes of Wickliffe are the emblem of his doctrine, which now is dispersed all the world over."—Fuller: Church history, sect. ii. book iv. paragraph 53.
What Heraclitus would not laugh, or what Democritus would not weep? . . . For though they digged up his body, burned his bones, and drowned his ashes, yet the word of God and truth of his doctrine, with the fruit and success thereof, they could not burn.—Fox: Book of Martyrs, vol. i. p. 606 (edition, 1641).
"Some prophet of that day said,—
"'The Avon to the Severn runs,
The Severn to the sea;
And Wickliffe's dust shall spread abroad
Wide as the waters be.'"
Daniel Webster: Address before the Sons of New Hampshire, 1849.
These lines are similarly quoted by the Rev. John Cumming in the "Voices of the Dead."
The pen wherewith thou dost so heavenly sing
Made of a quill from an angel's wing.
Henry Constable: Sonnet.
Whose noble praise
Deserves a quill pluckt from an angel's wing.
Dorothy Berry: Sonnet.
With this same key
Shakespeare unlocked his heart.
Browning: House.
Such is the custom of Branksome Hall.
Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto i. Stanza 7.
If thou would'st view fair Melrose aright,
Go visit it by the pale moonlight.
Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto ii. Stanza 1.
O fading honours of the dead!
O high ambition, lowly laid!
Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto ii. Stanza 10.
I was not always a man of woe.
Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto ii. Stanza 12.
I cannot tell how the truth may be;
I say the tale as 't was said to me.
Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto ii. Stanza 22.
In peace, Love tunes the shepherd's reed;
In war, he mounts the warrior's steed;
In halls, in gay attire is seen;
In hamlets, dances on the green.
Love rules the court, the camp, the grove,
And men below and saints above;
For love is heaven, and heaven is love.
Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto iii. Stanza 1.
Her blue eyes sought the west afar,
For lovers love the western star.
Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto iii. Stanza 24.
Along thy wild and willow'd shore.
Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto iv. Stanza 1.
Ne'er
Was flattery lost on poet's ear;
A simple race! they waste their toil
For the vain tribute of a smile.
Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto iv. Stanza 35.
[488]
Call it not vain: they do not err
Who say that when the poet dies
Mute Nature mourns her worshipper,
And celebrates his obsequies.
Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto v. Stanza 1.
True love 's the gift which God has given
To man alone beneath the heaven:
It is not fantasy's hot fire,
Whose wishes soon as granted fly;
It liveth not in fierce desire,
With dead desire it doth not die;
It is the secret sympathy,
The silver link, the silken tie,
Which heart to heart and mind to mind
In body and in soul can bind.
Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto v. Stanza 13.
Breathes there the man with soul so dead
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd[488:1]
As home his footsteps he hath turn'd
From wandering on a foreign strand?
If such there breathe, go, mark him well!
For him no minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim,—
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonour'd, and unsung.[488:2]
Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto vi. Stanza 1.
[489]
O Caledonia! stern and wild,
Meet nurse for a poetic child!
Land of brown heath and shaggy wood;
Land of the mountain and the flood!
Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto vi. Stanza 2.
Profan'd the God-given strength, and marr'd the lofty line.
Marmion. Introduction to Canto i.
Just at the age 'twixt boy and youth,
When thought is speech, and speech is truth.
Marmion. Introduction to Canto ii.
When, musing on companions gone,
We doubly feel ourselves alone.
Marmion. Introduction to Canto ii.
'T is an old tale and often told;
But did my fate and wish agree,
Ne'er had been read, in story old,
Of maiden true betray'd for gold,
That loved, or was avenged, like me.
Marmion. Canto ii. Stanza 27.
When Prussia hurried to the field,
And snatch'd the spear, but left the shield.[489:1]
Marmion. Introduction to Canto iii.
In the lost battle,
Borne down by the flying,
Where mingles war's rattle
With groans of the dying.
Marmion. Canto iii. Stanza 11.
Where 's the coward that would not dare
To fight for such a land?
Marmion. Canto iv. Stanza 30.
Lightly from fair to fair he flew,
And loved to plead, lament, and sue;
Suit lightly won, and short-lived pain,
For monarchs seldom sigh in vain.
Marmion. Canto v. Stanza 9.
With a smile on her lips and a tear in her eye.[489:2]
Marmion. Canto v. Stanza 12.
But woe awaits a country when
She sees the tears of bearded men.
Marmion. Canto v. Stanza 16.
[490]
And dar'st thou then
To beard the lion in his den,
The Douglas in his hall?
Marmion. Canto vi. Stanza 14.
Oh what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive!
Marmion. Canto vi. Stanza 17.
O woman! in our hours of ease
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,
And variable as the shade
By the light quivering aspen made;
When pain and anguish wring the brow,
A ministering angel thou![490:1]
Marmion. Canto vi. Stanza 30.
"Charge, Chester, charge! on, Stanley, on!"
Were the last words of Marmion.
Marmion. Canto vi. Stanza 32.
To all, to each, a fair good-night,
And pleasing dreams, and slumbers light.
L' Envoy. To the Reader.
In listening mood she seemed to stand,
The guardian Naiad of the strand.
Lady of the Lake. Canto i. Stanza 17.
And ne'er did Grecian chisel trace
A Nymph, a Naiad, or a Grace
Of finer form or lovelier face.
Lady of the Lake. Canto i. Stanza 18.
[491]
A foot more light, a step more true,
Ne'er from the heath-flower dash'd the dew.
Lady of the Lake. Canto i. Stanza 18.
On his bold visage middle age
Had slightly press'd its signet sage,
Yet had not quench'd the open truth
And fiery vehemence of youth:
Forward and frolic glee was there,
The will to do, the soul to dare.
Lady of the Lake. Canto i. Stanza 21.
Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking,
Morn of toil nor night of waking.
Lady of the Lake. Canto i. Stanza 31.
Hail to the chief who in triumph advances!
Lady of the Lake. Canto ii. Stanza 19.
Some feelings are to mortals given
With less of earth in them than heaven.
Lady of the Lake. Canto ii. Stanza 22.
Time rolls his ceaseless course.
Lady of the Lake. Canto iii. Stanza 1.
Like the dew on the mountain,
Like the foam on the river,
Like the bubble on the fountain,
Thou art gone, and forever!
Lady of the Lake. Canto iii. Stanza 16.
The rose is fairest when 't is budding new,
And hope is brightest when it dawns from fears.
The rose is sweetest wash'd with morning dew,
And love is loveliest when embalm'd in tears.
Lady of the Lake. Canto iv. Stanza 1.
Art thou a friend to Roderick?
Lady of the Lake. Canto iv. Stanza 30.
Come one, come all! this rock shall fly
From its firm base as soon as I.
Lady of the Lake. Canto v. Stanza 10.
And the stern joy which warriors feel
In foemen worthy of their steel.
Lady of the Lake. Canto v. Stanza 10.
Who o'er the herd would wish to reign,
Fantastic, fickle, fierce, and vain!
Vain as the leaf upon the stream,
And fickle as a changeful dream;
[492]Fantastic as a woman's mood,
And fierce as Frenzy's fever'd blood.
Thou many-headed monster[492:1] thing,
Oh who would wish to be thy king!
Lady of the Lake. Canto v. Stanza 30.
Where, where was Roderick then?
One blast upon his bugle horn
Were worth a thousand men.
Lady of the Lake. Canto vi. Stanza 18.
In man's most dark extremity
Oft succour dawns from Heaven.
Lord of the Isles. Canto i. Stanza 20.
Spangling the wave with lights as vain
As pleasures in the vale of pain,
That dazzle as they fade.
Lord of the Isles. Canto i. Stanza 23.
Oh, many a shaft at random sent
Finds mark the archer little meant!
And many a word at random spoken
May soothe, or wound, a heart that 's broken!
Lord of the Isles. Canto v. Stanza 18.
Where lives the man that has not tried
How mirth can into folly glide,
And folly into sin!
Bridal of Triermain. Canto i. Stanza 21.
Still are the thoughts to memory dear.
Rokeby. Canto i. Stanza 32.
A mother's pride, a father's joy.
Rokeby. Canto iii. Stanza 15.
Oh, Brignall banks are wild and fair,
And Greta woods are green,
And you may gather garlands there
Would grace a summer's queen.
Rokeby. Canto iii. Stanza 16.
Thus aged men, full loth and slow,
The vanities of life forego,
And count their youthful follies o'er,
Till Memory lends her light no more.
Rokeby. Canto v. Stanza 1.
[493]
No pale gradations quench his ray,
No twilight dews his wrath allay.
Rokeby. Canto vi. Stanza 21.
Come as the winds come, when
Forests are rended;
Come as the waves come, when
Navies are stranded.
Pibroch of Donald Dhu.
A lawyer without history or literature is a mechanic, a mere working mason; if he possesses some knowledge of these, he may venture to call himself an architect.
Guy Mannering. Chap. xxxvii.
Bluid is thicker than water.[493:1]
Guy Mannering. Chap. xxxviii.
It 's no fish ye 're buying, it 's men's lives.[493:2]
The Antiquary. Chap. xi.
When Israel, of the Lord belov'd,
Out of the land of bondage came,
Her fathers' God before her mov'd,
An awful guide in smoke and flame.
Ivanhoe. Chap. xxxix.
Sea of upturned faces.[493:3]
Rob Roy. Chap. xx.
There 's a gude time coming.
Rob Roy. Chap. xxxii.
My foot is on my native heath, and my name is MacGregor.
Rob Roy. Chap. xxxiv.
Scared out of his seven senses.[493:4]
Rob Roy. Chap. xxxiv.
Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife!
To all the sensual world proclaim,
One crowded hour of glorious life
Is worth an age without a name.
Old Mortality. Chap. xxxiv.
[494]
The happy combination of fortuitous circumstances.[494:1]
Answer to the Author of Waverley to the Letter of Captain Clutterbuck. The Monastery.
Within that awful volume lies
The mystery of mysteries!
The Monastery. Chap. xii.
And better had they ne'er been born,
Who read to doubt, or read to scorn.
The Monastery. Chap. xii.
Ah, County Guy, the hour is nigh,
The sun has left the lea.
The orange flower perfumes the bower,
The breeze is on the sea.
Quentin Durward. Chap. iv.
Widowed wife and wedded maid.
The Betrothed. Chap. xv.
Woman's faith and woman's trust,
Write the characters in dust.
The Betrothed. Chap. xx.
I am she, O most bucolical juvenal, under whose charge are placed the milky mothers of the herd.[494:2]
The Betrothed. Chap. xxviii.
But with the morning cool reflection came.[494:3]
Chronicles of the Canongate. Chap. iv.
What can they see in the longest kingly line in Europe, save that it runs back to a successful soldier?[494:4]
Woodstock. Chap. xxxvii.
The playbill, which is said to have announced the tragedy of Hamlet, the character of the Prince of Denmark being left out.
The Talisman. Introduction.
[495]
Rouse the lion from his lair.
The Talisman. Chap. vi.
Jock, when ye hae naething else to do, ye may be aye sticking in a tree; it will be growing, Jock, when ye 're sleeping.[495:1]
The Heart of Midlothian. Chap. viii.
Fat, fair, and forty.[495:2]
St. Ronan's Well. Chap. vii.
"Lambe them, lads! lambe them!" a cant phrase of the time derived from the fate of Dr. Lambe, an astrologer and quack, who was knocked on the head by the rabble in Charles the First's time.
Peveril of the Peak. Chap. xlii.
Although too much of a soldier among sovereigns, no one could claim with better right to be a sovereign among soldiers.[495:3]
Life of Napoleon.
The sun never sets on the immense empire of Charles V.[495:4]
Life of Napoleon. (February, 1807.)
[488:1] Did not our heart burn within us while he talked with us by the way?—Luke xxiv. 32.
Hath not thy heart within thee burned
At evening's calm and holy hour?
S. G. Bulfinch: The Voice of God in the Garden.
[489:2] Reproof on her lips, but a smile in her eye.—Lover: Rory O'More.
[490:1] See Shakespeare, page 144.
Scott, writing to Southey in 1810, said: "A witty rogue the other day, who sent me a letter signed Detector, proved me guilty of stealing a passage from one of Vida's Latin poems, which I had never seen or heard of." The passage alleged to be stolen ends with,—
"When pain and anguish wring the brow,
A ministering angel thou!"
which in Vida "ad Eranen," El. ii. v. 21, ran,—
"Cum dolor atque supercilio gravis imminet angor,
Fungeris angelico sola ministerio."
"It is almost needless to add," says Mr. Lockhart, "there are no such lines."—Life of Scott, vol. iii. p. 294. (American edition.)
[490:2] Oh for the voice of that wild horn!—Rob Roy, chap. ii.
[493:1] This proverb, so frequently ascribed to Scott, is a common proverb of the seventeenth century. It is found in Ray and other collections of proverbs.
It is not linen you 're wearing out,
But human creatures's lives.
Hood: Song of the Shirt.
[493:3] Daniel Webster: Speech, Sept. 30, 1842.
[493:4] Huzzaed out of my seven senses.—Spectator, No. 616, Nov. 5, 1774.
[494:1] Fearful concatenation of circumstances.—Daniel Webster: Argument on the Murder of Captain White, 1830.
Fortuitous combination of circumstances.—Dickens: Our Mutual Friend, vol. ii. chap. vii. (American edition).
Le premier qui fut roi, fut un soldat heureux:
Qui sert bien son pays, n'a pas besoin d'aïeux
(The first who was king was a successful soldier. He who serves well his country has no need of ancestors).—Voltaire: Merope, act i. sc. 3.
[495:1] The very words of a Highland laird, while on his death-bed, to his son.
[495:4] A power which has dotted over the surface of the whole globe with her possessions and military posts, whose morning drum-beat, following the sun, and keeping company with the hours, circles the earth with one continuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of England.—Daniel Webster: Speech, May 7, 1834.
Why should the brave Spanish soldier brag the sun never sets in the Spanish dominions, but ever shineth on one part or other we have conquered for our king?—Captain John Smith: Advertisements for the Unexperienced, &c. (Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Third Series, vol. iii. p. 49).
It may be said of them (the Hollanders) as of the Spaniards, that the sun never sets on their dominions.—Gage: New Survey of the West Indies. Epistle Dedicatory. (London, 1648.)
I am called
The richest monarch in the Christian world;
The sun in my dominions never sets.
Schiller: Don Karlos, act. i. sc. 6.
Altera figlia
Di quel monarca, a cui
Nè anco, quando annotta il sol tramonta
(The proud daughter of that monarch to whom when it grows dark [elsewhere] the sun never sets).—Guarini: Pastor Fido (1590). On the marriage of the Duke of Savoy with Catherine of Austria.
[496]
When the good man yields his breath
(For the good man never dies).[496:1]
The Wanderer of Switzerland. Part v.
Gashed with honourable scars,
Low in Glory's lap they lie;
Though they fell, they fell like stars,
Streaming splendour through the sky.
The Battle of Alexandria.
Distinct as the billows, yet one as the sea.
The Ocean. Line 54.
Once, in the flight of ages past,
There lived a man.
The Common Lot.
Counts his sure gains, and hurries back for more.
The West Indies. Part iii.
Hope against hope, and ask till ye receive.[496:2]
The World before the Flood. Canto v.
Joys too exquisite to last,
And yet more exquisite when past.
The Little Cloud.
Bliss in possession will not last;
Remembered joys are never past;
At once the fountain, stream, and sea,
They were, they are, they yet shall be.
The Little Cloud.
Friend after friend departs;
Who hath not lost a friend?
There is no union here of hearts
That finds not here an end.
Friends.
Nor sink those stars in empty night:
They hide themselves in heaven's own light.
Friends.
'T is not the whole of life to live,
Nor all of death to die.
The Issues of Life and Death.
[497]
Beyond this vale of tears
There is a life above,
Unmeasured by the flight of years;
And all that life is love.
The Issues of Life and Death.
Night is the time to weep,
To wet with unseen tears
Those graves of memory where sleep
The joys of other years.
The Issues of Life and Death.
Who that hath ever been
Could bear to be no more?
Yet who would tread again the scene
He trod through life before?
The Falling Leaf.
Here in the body pent,
Absent from Him I roam,
Yet nightly pitch my moving tent
A day's march nearer home.
At Home in Heaven.
If God hath made this world so fair,
Where sin and death abound,
How beautiful beyond compare
Will paradise be found!
The Earth full of God's Goodness.
Return unto thy rest, my soul,
From all the wanderings of thy thought,
From sickness unto death made whole,
Safe through a thousand perils brought.
Rest for the Soul.
Prayer is the soul's sincere desire,
Uttered or unexpressed,—
The motion of a hidden fire
That trembles in the breast.
What is Prayer?
Prayer is the burden of a sigh,
The falling of a tear,
The upward glancing of an eye
When none but God is near.
What is Prayer?
[496:1] Θνήσκειν μὴ λέγε τοὺς ἀγαθούς (Say not that the good die).—Callimachus: Epigram x.
[498]
He holds him with his glittering eye,
And listens like a three years' child.[498:1]
The Ancient Mariner. Part i.
Red as a rose is she.
The Ancient Mariner. Part i.
We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea.
The Ancient Mariner. Part ii.
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.
The Ancient Mariner. Part ii.
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.
The Ancient Mariner. Part ii.
Without a breeze, without a tide,
She steadies with upright keel.
The Ancient Mariner. Part iii.
The nightmare Life-in-Death was she.
The Ancient Mariner. Part iii.
The sun's rim dips; the stars rush out:
At one stride comes the dark;
With far-heard whisper o'er the sea,
Off shot the spectre-bark.
The Ancient Mariner. Part iii.
And thou art long and lank and brown,
As is the ribbed sea-sand.[498:2]
The Ancient Mariner. Part iv.
Alone, alone,—all, all alone;
Alone on a wide, wide sea.
The Ancient Mariner. Part iv.
The moving moon went up the sky,
And nowhere did abide;
Softly she was going up,
And a star or two beside.
The Ancient Mariner. Part iv.
A spring of love gush'd from my heart,
And I bless'd them unaware.
The Ancient Mariner. Part iv.
[499]
Oh sleep! it is a gentle thing,
Beloved from pole to pole.
The Ancient Mariner. Part v.
A noise like of a hidden brook
In the leafy month of June,
That to the sleeping woods all night
Singeth a quiet tune.
The Ancient Mariner. Part v.
Like one that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turned round walks on,
And turns no more his head,
Because he knows a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.
The Ancient Mariner. Part vi.
So lonely 't was, that God himself
Scarce seemed there to be.
The Ancient Mariner. Part vii.
He prayeth well who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.
The Ancient Mariner. Part vii.
He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small.
The Ancient Mariner. Part vii.
A sadder and a wiser man,
He rose the morrow morn.
The Ancient Mariner. Part vii.
And the spring comes slowly up this way.
Christabel. Part i.
A lady richly clad as she,
Beautiful exceedingly.
Christabel. Part i.
Carv'd with figures strange and sweet,
All made out of the carver's brain.
Christabel. Part i.
Her gentle limbs did she undress,
And lay down in her loveliness.
Christabel. Part i.
A sight to dream of, not to tell!
Christabel. Part i.
That saints will aid if men will call;
For the blue sky bends over all!
Christabel. Conclusion to part i.
[500]
Each matin bell, the Baron saith,
Knells us back to a world of death.
Christabel. Part ii.
Her face, oh call it fair, not pale!
Christabel. Part ii.
Alas! they had been friends in youth;
But whispering tongues can poison truth,
And constancy lives in realms above;
And life is thorny, and youth is vain,
And to be wroth with one we love
Doth work like madness in the brain.
Christabel. Part ii.
They stood aloof, the scars remaining,—
Like cliffs which had been rent asunder:
A dreary sea now flows between.
Christabel. Part ii.
Perhaps 't is pretty to force together
Thoughts so all unlike each other;
To mutter and mock a broken charm,
To dally with wrong that does no harm.
Christabel. Conclusion to Part ii.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree,
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
Kubla Khan.
Ancestral voices prophesying war.
Kubla Khan.
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Kubla Khan.
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
Kubla Khan.
Ere sin could blight or sorrow fade,
Death came with friendly care;
The opening bud to heaven conveyed,
And bade it blossom there.
Epitaph on an Infant.
[501]
Yes, while I stood and gazed, my temples bare,
And shot my being through earth, sea, and air,
Possessing all things with intensest love,
O Liberty! my spirit felt thee there.
France. An Ode. v.
Forth from his dark and lonely hiding-place
(Portentous sight!) the owlet Atheism,
Sailing on obscene wings athwart the noon,
Drops his blue-fring'd lids, and holds them close,
And hooting at the glorious sun in heaven
Cries out, "Where is it?"
Fears in Solitude.
And the Devil did grin, for his darling sin
Is pride that apes humility.[501:1]
The Devil's Thoughts.
All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
All are but ministers of Love,
And feed his sacred flame.
Love.
Blest hour! it was a luxury—to be!
Reflections on having left a Place of Retirement.
A charm
For thee, my gentle-hearted Charles, to whom
No sound is dissonant which tells of life.
This Lime-tree Bower my Prison.
Hast thou a charm to stay the morning star
In his steep course?
Hymn in the Vale of Chamouni.
Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines.
Hymn in the Vale of Chamouni.
Motionless torrents! silent cataracts!
Hymn in the Vale of Chamouni.
Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost.
Hymn in the Vale of Chamouni.
Earth with her thousand voices praises God.
Hymn in the Vale of Chamouni.
Tranquillity! thou better name
Than all the family of Fame.
Ode to Tranquillity.
[502]
The grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spence.
Dejection. An Ode. Stanza 1.
Joy is the sweet voice, joy the luminous cloud.
We in ourselves rejoice!
And thence flows all that charms or ear or sight,
All melodies the echoes of that voice,
All colours a suffusion from that light.
Dejection. An Ode. Stanza 5.
A mother is a mother still,
The holiest thing alive.
The Three Graves.
Never, believe me,
Appear the Immortals,
Never alone.
The Visit of the Gods. (Imitated from Schiller.)
Joy rises in me, like a summer's morn.
A Christmas Carol. viii.
The knight's bones are dust,
And his good sword rust;
His soul is with the saints, I trust.
The Knight's Tomb.
It sounds like stories from the land of spirits
If any man obtains that which he merits,
Or any merit that which he obtains.
. . . . . . .
Greatness and goodness are not means, but ends!
Hath he not always treasures, always friends,
The good great man? Three treasures,—love and light,
And calm thoughts, regular as infants' breath;
And three firm friends, more sure than day and night,—
Himself, his Maker, and the angel Death.
Complaint. Ed. 1852. The Good Great Man. Ed. 1893.
My eyes make pictures when they are shut.
A Day-Dream.
To know, to esteem, to love, and then to part,
Makes up life's tale to many a feeling heart!
On taking Leave of ——, 1817.
In many ways doth the full heart reveal
The presence of the love it would conceal.
Motto to Poems written in Later Life.
[503]
Nought cared this body for wind or weather
When youth and I lived in 't together.
Youth and Age.
Flowers are lovely; love is flower-like;
Friendship is a sheltering tree;
Oh the joys that came down shower-like,
Of friendship, love, and liberty,
Ere I was old!
Youth and Age.
I have heard of reasons manifold
Why Love must needs be blind,
But this the best of all I hold,—
His eyes are in his mind.[503:1]
To a Lady, Offended by a Sportive Observation.
What outward form and feature are
He guesseth but in part;
But what within is good and fair
He seeth with the heart.
To a Lady, Offended by a Sportive Observation.
Be that blind bard who on the Chian strand,
By those deep sounds possessed with inward light,
Beheld the Iliad and the Odyssey
Rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea.[503:2]
Fancy in Nubibus.
I counted two-and-seventy stenches,
All well defined, and several stinks.
Cologne.
The river Rhine, it is well known,
Doth wash your city of Cologne;
But tell me, nymphs! what power divine
Shall henceforth wash the river Rhine?
Cologne.
Strongly it bears us along in swelling and limitless billows;
Nothing before and nothing behind but the sky and the ocean.
The Homeric Hexameter. (Translated from Schiller.)
[504]
In the hexameter rises the fountain's silvery column,
In the pentameter aye falling in melody back.
The Ovidian Elegiac Metre. (From Schiller.)
I stood in unimaginable trance
And agony that cannot be remembered.
Remorse. Act iv. Sc. 3.
The intelligible forms of ancient poets,
The fair humanities of old religion,
The power, the beauty, and the majesty
That had their haunts in dale or piny mountain,
Or forest by slow stream, or pebbly spring,
Or chasms and watery depths,—all these have vanished;
They live no longer in the faith of reason.
Wallenstein. Part i. Act ii. Sc. 4. (Translated from Schiller.)
I 've lived and loved.
Wallenstein. Part i. Act ii. Sc. 6.
Clothing the palpable and familiar
With golden exhalations of the dawn.
The Death of Wallenstein. Act i. Sc. 1.
Often do the spirits
Of great events stride on before the events,
And in to-day already walks to-morrow.[504:1]
The Death of Wallenstein. Act v. Sc. 1.
Our myriad-minded Shakespeare.[504:2]
Biog. Lit. Chap. xv.
A dwarf sees farther than the giant when he has the giant's shoulder to mount on.[504:3]
The Friend. Sec. i. Essay 8.
An instinctive taste teaches men to build their churches in flat countries, with spire steeples, which, as they cannot be referred to any other object, point as with silent finger to the sky and star.[504:4]
Ibid., No. 14.
[505]
Reviewers are usually people who would have been poets, historians, biographers, if they could; they have tried their talents at one or the other, and have failed; therefore they turn critics.[505:1]
Lectures on Shakespeare and Milton, p. 36. Delivered 1811-1812.
Schiller has the material sublime.
Table Talk.
I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is, prose,—words in their best order; poetry,—the best words in their best order.
Table Talk.
That passage is what I call the sublime dashed to pieces by cutting too close with the fiery four-in-hand round the corner of nonsense.
Table Talk.
Iago's soliloquy, the motive-hunting of a motiveless malignity—how awful it is!
Notes on some other Plays of Shakespeare.
[498:1] Wordsworth, in his Notes to "We are Seven," claims to have written this line.
[498:2] Coleridge says: "For these lines I am indebted to Mr. Wordsworth."
His favourite sin
Is pride that apes humility.
Southey: The Devil's Walk.
And Iliad and Odyssey
Rose to the music of the sea.
Thalatta, p. 133. (From the German of Stolberg.)
[504:1] Sed ita a principio inchoatum esse mundum ut certis rebus certa signa præcurrerent (Thus in the beginning the world was so made that certain signs come before certain events).—Cicero: Divinatione, liber i. cap. 52.
Coming events cast their shadows before.—Campbell: Lochiel's Warning.
Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present.—Shelley: A Defence of Poetry.
[504:2] "A phrase," says Coleridge, "which I have borrowed from a Greek monk, who applies it to a patriarch of Constantinople."
[505:1] Reviewers, with some rare exceptions, are a most stupid and malignant race. As a bankrupt thief turns thief-taker in despair, so an unsuccessful author turns critic.—Shelley: Fragments of Adonais.
You know who critics are? The men who have failed in literature and art.—Disraeli: Lothair, chap. xxxv.
If this bill [for the admission of Orleans Territory as a State] passes, it is my deliberate opinion that it is virtually a dissolution of the Union; that it will free the States from their moral obligation; and, as it will be the right of all, so it will be the duty of some, definitely to prepare for a separation,—amicably if they can, violently if they must.[505:2]
Abridged Cong. Debates, Jan. 14, 1811. Vol. iv. p. 327.
[505:2] The gentleman [Mr. Quincy] cannot have forgotten his own sentiment, uttered even on the floor of this House, "Peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must."—Henry Clay: Speech, Jan. 8, 1813.
[506]
"You are old, Father William," the young man cried,
"The few locks which are left you are gray;
You are hale, Father William, a hearty old man,—
Now tell me the reason I pray."
The Old Man's Comforts, and how he gained them.
The march of intellect.[506:1]
Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects of Society. Vol. ii. p. 360. The Doctor, Chap. Extraordinary.
The laws are with us, and God on our side.
On the Rise and Progress of Popular Disaffection (1817), Essay viii. Vol. ii. p. 107.
Agreed to differ.
Life of Wesley.
My days among the dead are passed;
Around me I behold,
Where'er these casual eyes are cast,
The mighty minds of old;
My never-failing friends are they,
With whom I converse day by day.
Occasional Pieces. xxiii.
How does the water
Come down at Lodore?
The Cataract of Lodore.
So I told them in rhyme,
For of rhymes I had store.
The Cataract of Lodore.
Through moss and through brake.
The Cataract of Lodore.
Helter-skelter,
Hurry-scurry.
The Cataract of Lodore.
A sight to delight in.
The Cataract of Lodore.
And so never ending, but always descending.
The Cataract of Lodore.
And this way the water comes down at Lodore.
The Cataract of Lodore.
[507]
From his brimstone bed, at break of day,
A-walking the Devil is gone,
To look at his little snug farm of the World,
And see how his stock went on.
The Devil's Walk. Stanza 1.
He passed a cottage with a double coach-house,—
A cottage of gentility;
And he owned with a grin,
That his favourite sin
Is pride that apes humility.[507:1]
The Devil's Walk. Stanza 8.
Where Washington hath left
His awful memory
A light for after times!
Ode written during the War with America, 1814.
How beautiful is night!
A dewy freshness fills the silent air;
No mist obscures; nor cloud, or speck, nor stain,
Breaks the serene of heaven:
In full-orbed glory, yonder moon divine
Rolls through the dark blue depths;
Beneath her steady ray
The desert circle spreads
Like the round ocean, girdled with the sky.
How beautiful is night!
Thalaba. Book i. Stanza 1.
"But what good came of it at last?"
Quoth little Peterkin.
"Why, that I cannot tell," said he;
"But 't was a famous victory."
The Battle of Blenheim.
Blue, darkly, deeply, beautifully blue.[507:2]
Madoc in Wales. Part i. 5.
What will not woman, gentle woman dare,
When strong affection stirs her spirit up?
Madoc in Wales. Part ii. 2.
[508]
And last of all an Admiral came,
A terrible man with a terrible name,—
A name which you all know by sight very well,
But which no one can speak, and no one can spell.
The March to Moscow. Stanza 8.
They sin who tell us love can die;
With life all other passions fly,
All others are but vanity.
. . . . .
Love is indestructible,
Its holy flame forever burneth;
From heaven it came, to heaven returneth.
. . . . .
It soweth here with toil and care,
But the harvest-time of love is there.
The Curse of Kehama. Canto x. Stanza 10.
Oh, when a mother meets on high
The babe she lost in infancy,
Hath she not then for pains and fears,
The day of woe, the watchful night,
For all her sorrow, all her tears,
An over-payment of delight?
The Curse of Kehama. Canto x. Stanza 11.
Thou hast been called, O sleep! the friend of woe;
But 't is the happy that have called thee so.
The Curse of Kehama. Canto xv. Stanza 11.
The Satanic School.
Vision of Judgment. Original Preface.
"Darkly, deeply, beautifully blue,"
As some one somewhere sings about the sky.
Byron: Don Juan, canto iv. stanza 110.
The red-letter days now become, to all intents and purposes, dead-letter days.
Oxford in the Vacation.
For with G. D., to be absent from the body is sometimes (not to speak profanely) to be present with the Lord.
Oxford in the Vacation.
A clear fire, a clean hearth, and the rigour of the game.
Mrs. Battle's Opinions on Whist.
[509]
Sentimentally I am disposed to harmony; but organically I am incapable of a tune.
A Chapter on Ears.
Not if I know myself at all.
The Old and New Schoolmaster.
It is good to love the unknown.
Valentine's Day.
The pilasters reaching down were adorned with a glistering substance (I know not what) under glass (as it seemed), resembling—a homely fancy, but I judged it to be sugar-candy; yet to my raised imagination, divested of its homelier qualities, it appeared a glorified candy.
My First Play.
Presents, I often say, endear absents.
A Dissertation upon Roast Pig.
It argues an insensibility.
A Dissertation upon Roast Pig.
Books which are no books.
Detached Thoughts on Books.
Your absence of mind we have borne, till your presence of body came to be called in question by it.
Amicus Redivivus.
Gone before
To that unknown and silent shore.
Hester. Stanza 7.
I have had playmates, I have had companions,
In my days of childhood, in my joyful school-days.
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
Old Familiar Faces.
For thy sake, tobacco, I
Would do anything but die.
A Farewell to Tobacco.
And half had staggered that stout Stagirite.
Written at Cambridge.
Who first invented work, and bound the free
And holiday-rejoicing spirit down
. . . . . .
To that dry drudgery at the desk's dead wood?
. . . . . .
Sabbathless Satan!
Work.
I like you and your book, ingenious Hone!
In whose capacious all-embracing leaves
[510]The very marrow of tradition 's shown;
And all that history, much that fiction weaves.
To the Editor of the Every-Day Book.
He might have proved a useful adjunct, if not an ornament to society.
Captain Starkey.
Neat, not gaudy.[510:1]
Letter to Wordsworth, 1806.
Martin, if dirt was trumps, what hands you would hold!
Lamb's Suppers.
Returning to town in the stage-coach, which was filled with Mr. Gilman's guests, we stopped for a minute or two at Kentish Town. A woman asked the coachman, "Are you full inside?" Upon which Lamb put his head through the window and said, "I am quite full inside; that last piece of pudding at Mr. Gilman's did the business for me."
Autobiographical Recollections. (Leslie.)
No Drury Lane for you to-day.
Rejected Addresses. The Baby's Début.
I saw them go: one horse was blind,
The tails of both hung down behind,
Their shoes were on their feet.
Rejected Addresses. The Baby's Début.
Lax in their gaiters, laxer in their gait.
The Theatre.
A strong nor'-wester 's blowing, Bill!
Hark! don't ye hear it roar now?
Lord help 'em, how I pities them
Unhappy folks on shore now!
The Sailor's Consolation.
[511]
My eyes! what tiles and chimney-pots
About their heads are flying!
The Sailor's Consolation.
Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes
May weep, but never see,
A night of memories and of sighs
I consecrate to thee.
Rose Aylmer.
Wearers of rings and chains!
Pray do not take the pains
To set me right.
In vain my faults ye quote;
I write as others wrote
On Sunium's hight.
The last Fruit of an old Tree. Epigram cvi.
Shakespeare is not our poet, but the world's,[511:1]—
Therefore on him no speech! And brief for thee,
Browning! Since Chaucer was alive and hale,
No man hath walk'd along our roads with steps
So active, so inquiring eye, or tongue
So varied in discourse.
To Robert Browning.
The Siren waits thee, singing song for song.
To Robert Browning.
But I have sinuous shells of pearly hue
Within, and they that lustre have imbibed
In the sun's palace-porch, where when unyoked
His chariot-wheel stands midway in the wave:
Shake one, and it awakens; then apply
Its polisht lips to your attentive ear,
[512]And it remembers its august abodes,
And murmurs as the ocean murmurs there.[512:1]
Gebir. Book i. (1798).
Past are three summers since she first beheld
The ocean; all around the child await
Some exclamation of amazement here.
She coldly said, her long-lasht eyes abased,
Is this the mighty ocean? is this all?
That wondrous soul Charoba once possest,—
Capacious, then, as earth or heaven could hold,
Soul discontented with capacity,—
Is gone (I fear) forever. Need I say
She was enchanted by the wicked spells
Of Gebir, whom with lust of power inflamed
The western winds have landed on our coast?
I since have watcht her in lone retreat,
Have heard her sigh and soften out the name.[512:2]
Gebir. Book ii.
I strove with none, for none was worth my strife;
Nature I loved; and next to Nature, Art.
I warm'd both hands against the fire of life;
It sinks, and I am ready to depart.
Dying Speech of an old Philosopher.
Nor sequent centuries could hit
Orbit and sum of Shakespeare's wit.
R. W. Emerson: May-Day and Other Pieces. Solution.
[512:1] See Wordsworth, page 480.
Poor shell! that Wordsworth so pounded and flattened in his marsh it no longer had the hoarseness of a sea, but of a hospital.—Landor: Letter to John Forster.
[512:2] These lines were specially singled out for admiration by Shelley, Humphrey Davy, Scott, and many remarkable men.—Forster: Life of Landor, vol. i. p. 95.
'T is distance lends enchantment to the view,
And robes the mountain in its azure hue.[512:3]
Pleasures of Hope. Part i. Line 7.
[513]
But Hope, the charmer, linger'd still behind.
Pleasures of Hope. Part i. Line 40.
O Heaven! he cried, my bleeding country save!
Pleasures of Hope. Part i. Line 359.
Hope for a season bade the world farewell,
And Freedom shriek'd as Kosciusko fell![513:1]
Pleasures of Hope. Part i. Line 381.
On Prague's proud arch the fires of ruin glow,
His blood-dyed waters murmuring far below.
Pleasures of Hope. Part i. Line 385.
And rival all but Shakespeare's name below.
Pleasures of Hope. Part i. Line 472.
Who hath not own'd, with rapture-smitten frame,
The power of grace, the magic of a name?
Pleasures of Hope. Part ii. Line 5.
Without the smile from partial beauty won,
Oh what were man?—a world without a sun.
Pleasures of Hope. Part ii. Line 21.
The world was sad, the garden was a wild,
And man the hermit sigh'd—till woman smiled.
Pleasures of Hope. Part ii. Line 37.
While Memory watches o'er the sad review
Of joys that faded like the morning dew.
Pleasures of Hope. Part ii. Line 45.
There shall he love when genial morn appears,
Like pensive Beauty smiling in her tears.
Pleasures of Hope. Part ii. Line 95.
And muse on Nature with a poet's eye.
Pleasures of Hope. Part ii. Line 98.
That gems the starry girdle of the year.
Pleasures of Hope. Part ii. Line 194.
Melt and dispel, ye spectre-doubts, that roll
Cimmerian darkness o'er the parting soul!
Pleasures of Hope. Part ii. Line 263.
O star-eyed Science! hast thou wandered there,
To waft us home the message of despair?
Pleasures of Hope. Part ii. Line 325.
But sad as angels for the good man's sin,
Weep to record, and blush to give it in.[513:2]
Pleasures of Hope. Part ii. Line 357.
[514]
Cease, every joy, to glimmer on my mind,
But leave, oh leave the light of Hope behind!
What though my winged hours of bliss have been
Like angel visits, few and far between.[514:1]
Pleasures of Hope. Part ii. Line 375.
The hunter and the deer a shade.[514:2]
O'Connor's Child. Stanza 5.
Another's sword has laid him low,
Another's and another's;
And every hand that dealt the blow—
Ah me! it was a brother's!
O'Connor's Child. Stanza 10.
'T is the sunset of life gives me mystical lore,
And coming events cast their shadows before.[514:3]
Lochiel's Warning.
Shall victor exult, or in death be laid low,
With his back to the field and his feet to the foe,
And leaving in battle no blot on his name,
Look proudly to heaven from the death-bed of fame.
Lochiel's Warning.
And rustic life and poverty
Grow beautiful beneath his touch.
Ode to the Memory of Burns.
Whose lines are mottoes of the heart,
Whose truths electrify the sage.
Ode to the Memory of Burns.
Ye mariners of England,
That guard our native seas;
Whose flag has braved, a thousand years,
The battle and the breeze!
Ye Mariners of England.
Britannia needs no bulwarks,
No towers along the steep;
Her march is o'er the mountain waves,
Her home is on the deep.
Ye Mariners of England.
[515]
When the stormy winds do blow;[515:1]
When the battle rages loud and long,
And the stormy winds do blow.
Ye Mariners of England.
The meteor flag of England
Shall yet terrific burn,
Till danger's troubled night depart,
And the star of peace return.
Ye Mariners of England.
There was silence deep as death,
And the boldest held his breath
For a time.
Battle of the Baltic.
The combat deepens. On, ye brave,
Who rush to glory or the grave!
Wave, Munich! all thy banners wave,
And charge with all thy chivalry!
Hohenlinden.
Few, few shall part where many meet!
The snow shall be their winding-sheet,
And every turf beneath their feet
Shall be a soldier's sepulchre.
Hohenlinden.
There came to the beach a poor exile of Erin,
The dew on his thin robe was heavy and chill;
For his country he sigh'd, when at twilight repairing
To wander alone by the wind-beaten hill.
The Exile of Erin.
To bear is to conquer our fate.
On visiting a Scene in Argyleshire.
The sentinel stars set their watch in the sky.[515:2]
The Soldier's Dream.
In life's morning march, when my bosom was young.
The Soldier's Dream.
But sorrow return'd with the dawning of morn,
And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away.
The Soldier's Dream.
[516]
Triumphal arch, that fill'st the sky
When storms prepare to part,
I ask not proud Philosophy
To teach me what thou art.
To the Rainbow.
A stoic of the woods,—a man without a tear.
Gertrude of Wyoming. Part i. Stanza 23.
O Love! in such a wilderness as this.
Gertrude of Wyoming. Part iii. Stanza 1.
The torrent's smoothness, ere it dash below!
Gertrude of Wyoming. Part iii. Stanza 5.
Again to the battle, Achaians!
Our hearts bid the tyrants defiance!
Our land, the first garden of Liberty's tree,
It has been, and shall yet be, the land of the free.
Song of the Greeks.
Drink ye to her that each loves best!
And if you nurse a flame
That 's told but to her mutual breast,
We will not ask her name.
Drink ye to Her.
To live in hearts we leave behind
Is not to die.
Hallowed Ground.
Oh leave this barren spot to me!
Spare, woodman, spare the beechen tree![516:1]
The Beech-Tree's Petition.
[512:3] See John Webster, page 181.
The mountains too, at a distance, appear airy masses and smooth, but seen near at hand they are rough.—Diogenes Laertius: Pyrrho, ix.
At length, fatigued with life, he bravely fell,
And health with Boerhaave bade the world farewell.
Church: The Choice (1754).
[515:1] When the stormy winds do blow.—Martyn Parker: Ye Gentlemen of England.
[515:2] The starres, bright centinels of the skies.—Habington: Castara, Dialogue between Night and Araphil.
Woodman, spare that tree!
Touch not a single bough!
G. P. Morris: Woodman, spare that Tree.
The gentleman [Josiah Quincy] cannot have forgotten his own sentiment, uttered even on the floor of this House, "Peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must."[516:2]
Speech, 1813.
[517]
Government is a trust, and the officers of the government are trustees; and both the trust and the trustees are created for the benefit of the people.
Speech at Ashland, Ky., March, 1829.
I have heard something said about allegiance to the South. I know no South, no North, no East, no West, to which I owe any allegiance.
Speech, 1848.
Sir, I would rather be right than be President.
Speech, 1850 (referring to the Compromise Measures).
And the star-spangled banner, oh long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
The Star-Spangled Banner.
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation![517:1]
Then conquer we must when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto, "In God is our trust!"
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
The Star-Spangled Banner.
[517:1] It made and preserves us a nation.—Morris: The Flag of our Union.
Thinking is but an idle waste of thought,
And nought is everything and everything is nought.
Rejected Addresses. Cui Bono?
In the name of the Prophet—figs.
Johnson's Ghost.
And thou hast walked about (how strange a story!)
In Thebes's streets three thousand years ago,
When the Memnonium was in all its glory.
Address to the Mummy at Belzoni's Exhibition.
[518]
When Time who steals our years away
Shall steal our pleasures too,
The mem'ry of the past will stay,
And half our joys renew.
Song. From Juvenile Poems.
Weep on! and as thy sorrows flow,
I 'll taste the luxury of woe.
Anacreontic.
Where bastard Freedom waves
The fustian flag in mockery over slaves.
To the Lord Viscount Forbes, written from the City of Washington.
How shall we rank thee upon glory's page,
Thou more than soldier, and just less than sage?
To Thomas Hume.
I knew, by the smoke that so gracefully curl'd
Above the green elms, that a cottage was near;
And I said, "If there 's peace to be found in the world,
A heart that was humble might hope for it here."
Ballad Stanzas.
Faintly as tolls the evening chime,
Our voices keep tune and our oars keep time.
A Canadian Boat-Song.
Row, brothers, row, the stream runs fast,
The rapids are near, and the daylight 's past.
A Canadian Boat-Song.
The minds of some of our statesmen, like the pupil of the human eye, contract themselves the more, the stronger light there is shed upon them.
Preface to Corruption and Intolerance.
Like a young eagle who has lent his plume
To fledge the shaft by which he meets his doom,
See their own feathers pluck'd to wing the dart
Which rank corruption destines for their heart.[518:1]
Corruption.
[519]
A Persian's heaven is eas'ly made:
'T is but black eyes and lemonade.
Intercepted Letters. Letter vi.
There was a little man, and he had a little soul;
And he said, Little Soul, let us try, try, try!
Little Man and Little Soul.
Go where glory waits thee![519:1]
But while fame elates thee,
Oh, still remember me!
Go where Glory waits thee.
Oh, breathe not his name! let it sleep in the shade,
Where cold and unhonour'd his relics are laid,
Oh breathe not his Name.
And the tear that we shed, though in secret it rolls,
Shall long keep his memory green in our souls.
Oh breathe not his Name.
The harp that once through Tara's halls
The soul of music shed,
Now hangs as mute on Tara's walls
As if that soul were fled.
So sleeps the pride of former days,
So glory's thrill is o'er;
And hearts that once beat high for praise
Now feel that pulse no more.
The Harp that once through Tara's Halls.
Who ran
Through each mode of the lyre, and was master of all.
On the Death of Sheridan.
Whose wit in the combat, as gentle as bright,
Ne'er carried a heart-stain away on its blade.
On the Death of Sheridan.
Good at a fight, but better at a play;
Godlike in giving, but the devil to pay.
On a Cast of Sheridan's Hand.
[520]
Though an angel should write, still 't is devils must print.
The Fudges in England. Letter iii.
Fly not yet; 't is just the hour
When pleasure, like the midnight flower
That scorns the eye of vulgar light,
Begins to bloom for sons of night
And maids who love the moon.
Fly not yet.
Oh stay! oh stay!
Joy so seldom weaves a chain
Like this to-night, that oh 't is pain
To break its links so soon.
Fly not yet.
When did morning ever break,
And find such beaming eyes awake?
Fly not yet.
And the heart that is soonest awake to the flowers
Is always the first to be touch'd by the thorns.
Oh think not my Spirits are always as light.
Rich and rare were the gems she wore,
And a bright gold ring on her wand she bore.
Rich and rare were the Gems she wore.
There is not in the wide world a valley so sweet
As that vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet.
The Meeting of the Waters.
Oh, weep for the hour
When to Eveleen's bower
The lord of the valley with false vows came.
Eveleen's Bower.
Shall I ask the brave soldier who fights by my side
In the cause of mankind, if our creeds agree?
Come, send round the Wine.
No, the heart that has truly lov'd never forgets,
But as truly loves on to the close;
As the sunflower turns on her god when he sets
The same look which she turn'd when he rose.
Believe me, if all those endearing young Charms.
[521]
The moon looks
On many brooks
"The brook can see no moon but this."[521:1]
While gazing on the Moon's Light.
And when once the young heart of a maiden is stolen,
The maiden herself will steal after it soon.
Ill Omens.
'T is sweet to think that where'er we rove
We are sure to find something blissful and dear;
And that when we 're far from the lips we love,
We 've but to make love to the lips we are near.
'T is sweet to think.
'T is believ'd that this harp which I wake now for thee
Was a siren of old who sung under the sea.
The Origin of the Harp.
But there 's nothing half so sweet in life
As love's young dream.
Love's Young Dream.
Eyes of unholy blue.
By that Lake whose gloomy Shore.
'T is the last rose of summer,
Left blooming alone.
The Last Rose of Summer.
When true hearts lie wither'd
And fond ones are flown,
Oh, who would inhabit
This bleak world alone?
The Last Rose of Summer.
And the best of all ways
To lengthen our days
Is to steal a few hours from the night, my dear.
The Young May Moon.
[522]
You may break, you may shatter the vase if you will,
But the scent of the roses will hang round it still.
Farewell! But whenever you welcome the Hour.
Thus, when the lamp that lighted
The traveller at first goes out,
He feels awhile benighted,
And looks around in fear and doubt.
But soon, the prospect clearing,
By cloudless starlight on he treads,
And thinks no lamp so cheering
As that light which Heaven sheds.
I 'd mourn the Hopes.
No eye to watch, and no tongue to wound us,
All earth forgot, and all heaven around us.
Come o'er the Sea.
The light that lies
In woman's eyes.
The Time I 've lost in wooing.
My only books
Were woman's looks,—
And folly 's all they 've taught me.
The Time I 've lost in wooing.
I know not, I ask not, if guilt 's in that heart,
I but know that I love thee whatever thou art.
Come, rest in this Bosom.
To live and die in scenes like this,
With some we 've left behind us.
As slow our Ship.
Wert thou all that I wish thee, great, glorious, and free,
First flower of the earth and first gem of the sea.
Remember Thee.
All that 's bright must fade,—
The brightest still the fleetest;
All that 's sweet was made
But to be lost when sweetest.
All that 's Bright must fade.
[523]
Those evening bells! those evening bells!
How many a tale their music tells
Of youth and home, and that sweet time
When last I heard their soothing chime!
Those Evening Bells.
Oft in the stilly night,
Ere slumber's chain has bound me,
Fond memory brings the light
Of other days around me;
The smiles, the tears,
Of boyhood's years,
The words of love then spoken;
The eyes that shone
Now dimmed and gone,
The cheerful hearts now broken.
Oft in the Stilly Night.
I feel like one
Who treads alone
Some banquet-hall deserted,
Whose lights are fled,
Whose garlands dead,
And all but he departed.
Oft in the Stilly Night.
As half in shade and half in sun
This world along its path advances,
May that side the sun 's upon
Be all that e'er shall meet thy glances!
Peace be around Thee.
If I speak to thee in friendship's name,
Thou think'st I speak too coldly;
If I mention love's devoted flame,
Thou say'st I speak too boldly.
How shall I woo?
A friendship that like love is warm;
A love like friendship, steady.
How shall I woo?
The bird let loose in Eastern skies,
Returning fondly home,
Ne'er stoops to earth her wing, nor flies
Where idle warblers roam;
[524]But high she shoots through air and light,
Above all low delay,
Where nothing earthly bounds her flight,
Nor shadow dims her way.
Oh that I had Wings.
This world is all a fleeting show,
For man's illusion given;
The smiles of joy, the tears of woe,
Deceitful shine, deceitful flow,—
There 's nothing true but Heaven.
This World is all a fleeting Show.
Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea!
Jehovah has triumph'd,—his people are free.
Sound the loud Timbrel.
As down in the sunless retreats of the ocean
Sweet flowers are springing no mortal can see,
So deep in my soul the still prayer of devotion,
Unheard by the world, rises silent to Thee.
As still to the star of its worship, though clouded,
The needle points faithfully o'er the dim sea,
So dark when I roam in this wintry world shrouded,
The hope of my spirit turns trembling to Thee.
The Heart's Prayer.
Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish;
Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot heal.
Come, ye Disconsolate.
Oh call it by some better name,
For friendship sounds too cold.
Oh call it by some better Name.
When twilight dews are falling soft
Upon the rosy sea, love,
I watch the star whose beam so oft
Has lighted me to thee, love.
When Twilight Dews.
[525]
I give thee all,—I can no more,
Though poor the off'ring be;
My heart and lute are all the store
That I can bring to thee.[525:1]
My Heart and Lute.
Who has not felt how sadly sweet
The dream of home, the dream of home,
Steals o'er the heart, too soon to fleet,
When far o'er sea or land we roam?
The Dream of Home.
To Greece we give our shining blades.
Evenings in Greece. First Evening.
When thus the heart is in a vein
Of tender thought, the simplest strain
Can touch it with peculiar power.
Evenings in Greece. First Evening.
If thou would'st have me sing and play
As once I play'd and sung,
First take this time-worn lute away,
And bring one freshly strung.
If Thou would'st have Me sing and play.
To sigh, yet feel no pain;
To weep, yet scarce know why;
To sport an hour with Beauty's chain,
Then throw it idly by.
The Blue Stocking.
Ay, down to the dust with them, slaves as they are!
From this hour let the blood in their dastardly veins,
That shrunk at the first touch of Liberty's war,
Be wasted for tyrants, or stagnate in chains.
On the Entry of the Austrians into Naples, 1821.
This narrow isthmus 'twixt two boundless seas,
The past, the future,—two eternities!
Lalla Rookh. The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan.
But Faith, fanatic Faith, once wedded fast
To some dear falsehood, hugs it to the last.
Lalla Rookh. The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan.
[526]
There 's a bower of roses by Bendemeer's stream.
Lalla Rookh. The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan.
Like the stain'd web that whitens in the sun,
Grow pure by being purely shone upon.
Lalla Rookh. The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan.
One morn a Peri at the gate
Of Eden stood disconsolate.
Paradise and the Peri.
Take all the pleasures of all the spheres,
And multiply each through endless years,—
One minute of heaven is worth them all.
Paradise and the Peri.
But the trail of the serpent is over them all.
Paradise and the Peri.
Oh, ever thus, from childhood's hour,
I 've seen my fondest hopes decay;
I never loved a tree or flower
But 't was the first to fade away.
I never nurs'd a dear gazelle,
To glad me with its soft black eye,
But when it came to know me well
And love me, it was sure to die.
The Fire-Worshippers.
Oh for a tongue to curse the slave
Whose treason, like a deadly blight,
Comes o'er the councils of the brave,
And blasts them in their hour of might!
The Fire-Worshippers.
Beholding heaven, and feeling hell.
The Fire-Worshippers.
As sunshine broken in the rill,
Though turned astray, is sunshine still.
The Fire-Worshippers.
Farewell, farewell to thee, Araby's daughter!
Thus warbled a Peri beneath the dark sea.
The Fire-Worshippers.
Alas! how light a cause may move
Dissension between hearts that love!
Hearts that the world in vain had tried,
And sorrow but more closely tied;
That stood the storm when waves were rough,
Yet in a sunny hour fall off,
[527]Like ships that have gone down at sea
When heaven was all tranquillity.
Lalla Rookh. The Light of the Harem.
Love on through all ills, and love on till they die.
Lalla Rookh. The Light of the Harem.
And oh if there be an Elysium on earth,
It is this, it is this!
Lalla Rookh. The Light of the Harem.
Humility, that low, sweet root
From which all heavenly virtues shoot.
The Loves of the Angels. The Third Angel's Story.
[519:1] This goin ware glory waits ye haint one agreeable feetur.—Lowell: The Biglow Papers. First Series, No. 11.
[521:1] This image was suggested by the following thought, which occurs somewhere in Sir William Jones's Works: "The moon looks upon many night-flowers; the night-flower sees but one moon."
[521:2] In imitation of Shenstone's inscription, "Heu! quanto minus est cum reliquis versari quam tui meminisse."
[525:1] This song was introduced in Kemble's "Lodoiska," act iii. sc. 1.
A delusion, a mockery, and a snare.
O'Connell v. The Queen, 11 Clark and Finnelly Reports.
The mere repetition of the Cantilena of lawyers cannot make it law, unless it can be traced to some competent authority; and if it be irreconcilable, to some clear legal principle.
O'Connell v. The Queen, 11 Clark and Finnelly Reports.
'T was the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring,—not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there.
A Visit from St. Nicholas.
Let the soldier be abroad if he will, he can do nothing in this age. There is another personage,—a personage less imposing in the eyes of some, perhaps insignificant. The schoolmaster is abroad, and I trust to him, armed with his primer, against the soldier in full military array.
Speech, Jan. 29, 1828.
[528]
In my mind, he was guilty of no error, he was chargeable with no exaggeration, he was betrayed by his fancy into no metaphor, who once said that all we see about us, kings, lords, and Commons, the whole machinery of the State, all the apparatus of the system, and its varied workings, end in simply bringing twelve good men into a box.
Present State of the Law, Feb. 7, 1828.
Pursuit of knowledge under difficulties.[528:1]
Death was now armed with a new terror.[528:2]
[528:1] The title given by Lord Brougham to a book published in 1830.
[528:2] Brougham delivered a very warm panegyric upon the ex-Chancellor, and expressed a hope that he would make a good end, although to an expiring Chancellor death was now armed with a new terror.—Campbell: Lives of the Chancellors, vol. vii. p. 163.
Lord St. Leonards attributes this phrase to Sir Charles Wetherell, who used it on the occasion referred to by Lord Campbell.
From Edmund Curll's practice of issuing miserable catch-penny lives of every eminent person immediately after his decease, Arbuthnot wittily styled him "one of the new terrors of death."—Carruthers: Life of Pope (second edition), p. 149.
The scene was more beautiful far to the eye
Than if day in its pride had arrayed it.
The Beacon.
And o'er them the lighthouse looked lovely as hope,—
That star of life's tremulous ocean.
The Beacon.
When I see a merchant over-polite to his customers, begging them to taste a little brandy and throwing half his goods on the counter,—thinks I, that man has an axe to grind.
Who 'll turn Grindstones.[528:3]
[528:3] From "Essays from the Desk of Poor Robert the Scribe," Doylestown, Pa., 1815. It first appeared in the "Wilkesbarre Gleaner," 1811.
[529]
The very essence of a free government consists in considering offices as public trusts,[529:1] bestowed for the good of the country, and not for the benefit of an individual or a party.
Speech, Feb. 13, 1835.
A power has risen up in the government greater than the people themselves, consisting of many and various and powerful interests, combined into one mass, and held together by the cohesive power of the vast surplus in the banks.[529:2]
Speech, May 27, 1836.
[529:2] From this comes the phrase, "Cohesive power of public plunder."
(From Webster's Works. Boston. 1857.)
Whatever makes men good Christians, makes them good citizens.
Speech at Plymouth, Dec. 22, 1820.[529:3] Vol. i. p. 44.
We wish that this column, rising towards heaven among the pointed spires of so many temples dedicated to God, may contribute also to produce in all minds a pious feeling of dependence and gratitude. We wish, finally, that the last object to the sight of him who leaves his native shore, and the first to gladden his who revisits it, may be something which shall remind him of the liberty and the glory of his country. Let it rise! let it rise, till it meet the sun in his coming; let the earliest light of the morning gild it, and parting day linger and play on its summit!
Address on laying the Corner-Stone of the Bunker Hill Monument, 1825. P. 62.
[530]
Venerable men! you have come down to us from a former generation. Heaven has bounteously lengthened out your lives, that you might behold this joyous day.
Address on laying the Corner-Stone of the Bunker Hill Monument, 1825. Vol. i. p. 64.
Mind is the great lever of all things; human thought is the process by which human ends are ultimately answered.
Address on laying the Corner-Stone of the Bunker Hill Monument, 1825. Vol. i. p. 71.
Knowledge, in truth, is the great sun in the firmament. Life and power are scattered with all its beams.
Address on laying the Corner-Stone of the Bunker Hill Monument, 1825. Vol. i. p. 74.
Let our object be our country, our whole country, and nothing but our country.
Address on laying the Corner-Stone of the Bunker Hill Monument, 1825. Vol. i. p. 78.
Knowledge is the only fountain both of the love and the principles of human liberty.
Completion of Bunker Hill Monument, June 17, 1843. P. 93.
The Bible is a book of faith, and a book of doctrine, and a book of morals, and a book of religion, of especial revelation from God.
Completion of Bunker Hill Monument, June 17, 1843. P. 102.
America has furnished to the world the character of Washington. And if our American institutions had done nothing else, that alone would have entitled them to the respect of mankind.
Completion of Bunker Hill Monument, June 17, 1843. P. 105.
Thank God! I—I also—am an American!
Completion of Bunker Hill Monument, June 17, 1843. P. 107.
Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hand and my heart to this vote.[530:1]
Eulogy on Adams and Jefferson, Aug. 2, 1826. P. 133.
[531]
It is my living sentiment, and by the blessing of God it shall be my dying sentiment,—Independence now and Independence forever.[531:1]
Eulogy on Adams and Jefferson, Aug. 2, 1826. Vol. i. p. 136.
Although no sculptured marble should rise to their memory, nor engraved stone bear record of their deeds, yet will their remembrance be as lasting as the land they honored.
Eulogy on Adams and Jefferson, Aug. 2, 1826. Vol. i. p. 146.
Washington is in the clear upper sky.[531:2]
Eulogy on Adams and Jefferson, Aug. 2, 1826. Vol. i. p. 148.
He smote the rock of the national resources, and abundant streams of revenue gushed forth. He touched the dead corpse of Public Credit, and it sprung upon its feet.[531:3]
Speech on Hamilton, March 10, 1831. P. 200.
One country, one constitution, one destiny.
Speech, March 15, 1837. P. 349.
When tillage begins, other arts follow. The farmers therefore are the founders of human civilization.
Remarks on Agriculture, Jan. 13, 1840. P. 457.
Sea of upturned faces.[531:4]
Speech, Sept. 30, 1842. Vol. ii. p. 117.
Justice, sir, is the great interest of man on earth.
On Mr. Justice Story, 1845. P. 300.
Liberty exists in proportion to wholesome restraint.
Speech at the Charleston Bar Dinner, May 10, 1847. Vol. ii. p. 393.
[532]
The law: It has honored us; may we honor it.
Toast at the Charleston Bar Dinner, May 10, 1847. Vol. ii. p. 394.
I have read their platform, and though I think there are some unsound places in it, I can stand upon it pretty well. But I see nothing in it both new and valuable. "What is valuable is not new, and what is new is not valuable."
Speech at Marshfield, Sept. 1, 1848. P. 433.
Labour in this country is independent and proud. It has not to ask the patronage of capital, but capital solicits the aid of labor.
Speech, April, 1824. Vol. iii. p. 141.
The gentleman has not seen how to reply to this, otherwise than by supposing me to have advanced the doctrine that a national debt is a national blessing.[532:1]
Second Speech on Foot's Resolution, Jan. 26, 1830. P. 303.
I thank God, that if I am gifted with little of the spirit which is able to raise mortals to the skies, I have yet none, as I trust, of that other spirit which would drag angels down.
Second Speech on Foot's Resolution, Jan. 26, 1830. P. 316.
I shall enter on no encomium upon Massachusetts; she needs none. There she is. Behold her, and judge for yourselves. There is her history; the world knows it by heart. The past, at least, is secure. There is Boston and Concord and Lexington and Bunker Hill; and there they will remain forever.
Second Speech on Foot's Resolution, Jan. 26, 1830. P. 317.
The people's government, made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people.[532:2]
Second Speech on Foot's Resolution, Jan. 26, 1830. P. 321.
[533]
When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood.
Second Speech on Foot's Resolution, Jan. 26, 1830. Vol. iii. p. 342.
Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable.
Second Speech on Foot's Resolution, Jan. 26, 1830. Vol. iii. p. 342.
God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it.
Speech, June 3, 1834. Vol. iv. p. 47.
On this question of principle, while actual suffering was yet afar off, they [the Colonies] raised their flag against a power to which, for purposes of foreign conquest and subjugation, Rome in the height of her glory is not to be compared,—a power which has dotted over the surface of the whole globe with her possessions and military posts, whose morning drum-beat, following the sun,[533:1] and keeping company with the hours, circles the earth with one continuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of England.[533:2]
Speech, May 7, 1834. P. 110.
Inconsistencies of opinion, arising from changes of circumstances, are often justifiable.
Speech, July 25 and 27, 1846. Vol. v. p. 187.
I was born an American; I will live an American; I shall die an American.[533:3]
Speech, July 17, 1850. P. 437.
There is no refuge from confession but suicide; and suicide is confession.
Argument on the Murder of Captain White, April 6, 1830. Vol. vi. p. 54.
[534]
There is nothing so powerful as truth,—and often nothing so strange.
Argument on the Murder of Captain White. Vol. vi. p. 68.
Fearful concatenation of circumstances.[534:1]
Argument on the Murder of Captain White. Vol. vi. p. 88.
A sense of duty pursues us ever. It is omnipresent, like the Deity. If we take to ourselves the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, duty performed or duty violated is still with us, for our happiness or our misery. If we say the darkness shall cover us, in the darkness as in the light our obligations are yet with us.
Argument on the Murder of Captain White. Vol. vi. p. 105.
I shall defer my visit to Faneuil Hall, the cradle of American liberty, until its doors shall fly open on golden hinges to lovers of Union as well as lovers of liberty.[534:2]
Letter, April, 1851.
[529:3] This oration will be read five hundred years hence with as much rapture as it was heard. It ought to be read at the end of every century, and indeed at the end of every year, forever and ever.—John Adams: Letter to Webster, Dec. 23, 1821.
[530:1] Mr. Adams, describing a conversation with Jonathan Sewall in 1774, says: "I answered that the die was now cast; I had passed the Rubicon. Swim or sink, live or die, survive or perish with my country was my unalterable determination."—John Adams: Works, vol. iv. p. 8.
Live or die, sink or swim.—Peele: Edward I. (1584?).
[531:1] Mr. Webster says of Mr. Adams: "On the day of his death, hearing the noise of bells and cannon, he asked the occasion. On being reminded that it was 'Independent Day,' he replied, 'Independence forever.'"—Works, vol. i. p. 150. Bancroft: History of the United States, vol. vii. p. 65.
We shall be strong to run the race,
And climb the upper sky.
Watts: Spiritual Hymns, xxiv.
[531:3] He it was that first gave to the law the air of a science. He found it a skeleton, and clothed it with life, colour, and complexion; he embraced the cold statue, and by his touch it grew into youth, health, and beauty.—Barry Yelverton (Lord Avonmore): On Blackstone.
[532:1] A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing.—Alexander Hamilton.
[532:2] When the State of Pennsylvania held its convention to consider the Constitution of the United States, Judge Wilson said of the introductory clause, "We, the people, do ordain and establish," etc.: "It is not an unmeaning flourish. The expressions declare in a practical manner the principle of this Constitution. It is ordained and established by the people themselves." This was regarded as an authoritative exposition.—The Nation.
That government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.—Abraham Lincoln: Speech at Gettysburg, Nov. 19, 1863.
The martial airs of England
Encircle still the earth.
Amelia B. Richards: The Martial Airs of England.
[534:2] Mr. Webster's reply to the invitation of his friends, who had been refused the use of Faneuil Hall by the Mayor and Aldermen of Boston.
Though man a thinking being is defined,
Few use the grand prerogative of mind.
How few think justly of the thinking few!
How many never think, who think they do!
Essays in Rhyme. (On Morals and Manners. Prejudice.) Essay i. Stanza 45.
Far from mortal cares retreating,
Sordid hopes and vain desires,
Here, our willing footsteps meeting,
Every heart to heaven aspires.
Hymn.
I thank the goodness and the grace
Which on my birth have smiled,
And made me, in these Christian days,
A happy Christian child.
A Child's Hymn of Praise.
[535]
Oh that it were my chief delight
To do the things I ought!
Then let me try with all my might
To mind what I am taught.
For a Very Little Child.[535:1]
Who ran to help me when I fell,
And would some pretty story tell,
Or kiss the place to make it well?
My mother.
My Mother.
[535:1] Written by Ann Taylor.
Failed the bright promise of your early day.
Palestine.
No hammers fell, no ponderous axes rung;
Like some tall palm the mystic fabric sprung.[535:2]
Majestic silence!
Palestine.
Brightest and best of the sons of the morning,
Dawn on our darkness, and lend us thine aid.
Epiphany.
By cool Siloam's shady rill
How sweet the lily grows!
First Sunday after Epiphany. No. ii.
When Spring unlocks the flowers to paint the laughing soil.
Seventh Sunday after Trinity.
Death rides on every passing breeze,
He lurks in every flower.
At a Funeral. No. i.
Thou art gone to the grave; but we will not deplore thee,
Though sorrows and darkness encompass the tomb.
At a Funeral. No. ii.
Thus heavenly hope is all serene,
But earthly hope, how bright soe'er,
Still fluctuates o'er this changing scene,
As false and fleeting as 't is fair.
On Heavenly Hope and Earthly Hope.
[536]
From Greenland's icy mountains,
From India's coral strand,
Where Afric's sunny fountains
Roll down their golden sand.
Missionary Hymn.
Though every prospect pleases,
And only man is vile.
Missionary Hymn.
I see them on their winding way,
About their ranks the moonbeams play.
Lines written to a March.
[535:2] Altered in later editions to—
No workman's steel, no ponderous axes rung,
Like some tall palm the noiseless fabric sprung.
Free-livers on a small scale, who are prodigal within the compass of a guinea.
The Stout Gentleman.
The almighty dollar,[536:1] that great object of universal devotion throughout our land, seems to have no genuine devotees in these peculiar villages.
The Creole Village.
Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace.
Abou Ben Adhem.
Write me as one who loves his fellow-men.
Abou Ben Adhem.
And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest.
Abou Ben Adhem.
Oh for a seat in some poetic nook,
Just hid with trees and sparkling with a brook!
Politics and Poetics.
With spots of sunny openings, and with nooks
To lie and read in, sloping into brooks.
The Story of Rimini.
[537]
How dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood,
When fond recollection presents them to view.
The Old Oaken Bucket.
Then soon with the emblem of truth overflowing,
And dripping with coolness, it rose from the well.
The Old Oaken Bucket.
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,
The moss-covered bucket, which hung in the well.
The Old Oaken Bucket.
A wet sheet and a flowing sea,
A wind that follows fast,
And fills the white and rustling sail,
And bends the gallant mast.
And bends the gallant mast, my boys,
While like the eagle free
Away the good ship flies, and leaves
Old England on the lee.
A Wet Sheet and a Flowing Sea.
While the hollow oak our palace is,
Our heritage the sea.
A Wet Sheet and a Flowing Sea.
When looks were fond and words were few.
Poet's Bridal-day Song.
Napoleon's troops fought in bright fields, where every helmet caught some gleams of glory; but the British soldier conquered under the cool shade of aristocracy. No honours awaited his daring, no despatch gave his name to the applauses of his countrymen; his life of danger and hardship was uncheered by hope, his death unnoticed.
Peninsular War (1810). Vol. ii. Book xi. Chap. iii.
[538]
A weapon that comes down as still
As snowflakes fall upon the sod;
But executes a freeman's will,
As lightning does the will of God;
And from its force nor doors nor locks
Can shield you,—'t is the ballot-box.
A Word from a Petitioner.
From every place below the skies
The grateful song, the fervent prayer,—
The incense of the heart,[538:1]—may rise
To heaven, and find acceptance there.
Every Place a Temple.
The sea! the sea! the open sea!
The blue, the fresh, the ever free!
The Sea.
I 'm on the sea! I 'm on the sea!
I am where I would ever be,
With the blue above and the blue below,
And silence wheresoe'er I go.
The Sea.
I never was on the dull, tame shore,
But I loved the great sea more and more.
The Sea.
Touch us gently, Time![538:2]
Let us glide adown thy stream
Gently,—as we sometimes glide
Through a quiet dream.
Touch us gently, Time.
[539]
Farewell! if ever fondest prayer
For other's weal avail'd on high,
Mine will not all be lost in air,
But waft thy name beyond the sky.
Farewell! if ever fondest Prayer.
I only know we loved in vain;
I only feel—farewell! farewell!
Farewell! if ever fondest Prayer.
When we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted,
To sever for years.
When we Two parted.
Fools are my theme, let satire be my song.
English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. Line 6.
'T is pleasant, sure, to see one's name in print;
A book 's a book, although there 's nothing in 't.
English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. Line 51.
With just enough of learning to misquote.
English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. Line 66.
As soon
Seek roses in December, ice in June;
Hope constancy in wind, or corn in chaff;
Believe a woman or an epitaph,
Or any other thing that 's false, before
You trust in critics.
English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. Line 75.
Perverts the Prophets and purloins the Psalms.
English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. Line 326.
Oh, Amos Cottle! Phœbus! what a name!
English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. Line 399.
So the struck eagle, stretch'd upon the plain,
No more through rolling clouds to soar again,
View'd his own feather on the fatal dart,
And wing'd the shaft that quiver'd in his heart.[539:1]
English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. Line 826.
[540]
Yet truth will sometimes lend her noblest fires,
And decorate the verse herself inspires:
This fact, in virtue's name, let Crabbe attest,—
Though Nature's sternest painter, yet the best.
English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. Line 839.
Maid of Athens, ere we part,
Give, oh give me back my heart!
Maid of Athens.
Had sigh'd to many, though he loved but one.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto i. Stanza 5.
If ancient tales say true, nor wrong these holy men.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto i. Stanza 7.
Maidens, like moths, are ever caught by glare,
And Mammon wins his way where seraphs might despair.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto i. Stanza 9.
Such partings break the heart they fondly hope to heal.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto i. Stanza 10.
Might shake the saintship of an anchorite.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto i. Stanza 11.
Adieu! adieu! my native shore
Fades o'er the waters blue.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto i. Stanza 13.
My native land, good night!
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto i. Stanza 13.
O Christ! it is a goodly sight to see
What Heaven hath done for this delicious land.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto i. Stanza 15.
In hope to merit heaven by making earth a hell.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto i. Stanza 20.
By Heaven! it is a splendid sight to see
For one who hath no friend, no brother there.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto i. Stanza 40.
Still from the fount of joy's delicious springs
Some bitter o'er the flowers its bubbling venom flings.[540:1]
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto i. Stanza 82.
[541]
War, war is still the cry,—"war even to the knife!"[541:1]
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto i. Stanza 86.
Gone, glimmering through the dream of things that were.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto ii. Stanza 2.
A schoolboy's tale, the wonder of an hour!
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto ii. Stanza 2.
Dim with the mist of years, gray flits the shade of power.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto ii. Stanza 2.
The dome of thought, the palace of the soul.[541:2]
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto ii. Stanza 6.
Ah, happy years! once more who would not be a boy?
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto ii. Stanza 23.
None are so desolate but something dear,
Dearer than self, possesses or possess'd
A thought, and claims the homage of a tear.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto ii. Stanza 24.
But 'midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men,
To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess,
And roam along, the world's tired denizen,
With none who bless us, none whom we can bless.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto ii. Stanza 26.
Coop'd in their winged, sea-girt citadel.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto ii. Stanza 28.
Fair Greece! sad relic of departed worth!
Immortal, though no more! though fallen, great!
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto ii. Stanza 73.
Hereditary bondsmen! know ye not,
Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow?
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto ii. Stanza 76.
A thousand years scarce serve to form a state:
An hour may lay it in the dust.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto ii. Stanza 84.
Land of lost gods and godlike men.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto ii. Stanza 85.
Where'er we tread, 't is haunted, holy ground.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto ii. Stanza 88.
Age shakes Athena's tower, but spares gray Marathon.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto ii. Stanza 88.
[542]
Ada! sole daughter of my house and heart.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iii. Stanza 1.
Once more upon the waters! yet once more!
And the waves bound beneath me as a steed
That knows his rider.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iii. Stanza 2.
I am as a weed
Flung from the rock, on Ocean's foam to sail
Where'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's breath prevail.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iii. Stanza 2.
He who grown aged in this world of woe,
In deeds, not years, piercing the depths of life,[542:1]
So that no wonder waits him.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iii. Stanza 5.
Years steal
Fire from the mind as vigour from the limb,
And life's enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iii. Stanza 8.
There was a sound of revelry by night,
And Belgium's capital had gather'd then
Her beauty and her chivalry, and bright
The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men.
A thousand hearts beat happily; and when
Music arose with its voluptuous swell,
Soft eyes look'd love to eyes which spake again,
And all went merry as a marriage bell.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iii. Stanza 21.
But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!
Did ye not hear it?—No! 't was but the wind,
Or the car rattling o'er the stony street.
On with the dance! let joy be unconfined;
No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet
To chase the glowing hours with flying feet.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iii. Stanza 22.
He rush'd into the field, and foremost fighting fell.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iii. Stanza 23.
And there was mounting in hot haste.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iii. Stanza 25.
[543]
Or whispering with white lips, "The foe! They come! they come!"
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iii. Stanza 25.
Grieving, if aught inanimate e'er grieves,
Over the unreturning brave.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iii. Stanza 27.
Battle's magnificently stern array.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iii. Stanza 28.
And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly live on.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iii. Stanza 32.
But quiet to quick bosoms is a hell.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iii. Stanza 42.
He who ascends to mountain-tops shall find
The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow;
He who surpasses or subdues mankind
Must look down on the hate of those below.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iii. Stanza 45.
All tenantless, save to the crannying wind.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iii. Stanza 47.
The castled crag of Drachenfels
Frowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iii. Stanza 55.
He had kept
The whiteness of his soul, and thus men o'er him wept.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iii. Stanza 57.
But there are wanderers o'er Eternity
Whose bark drives on and on, and anchor'd ne'er shall be.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iii. Stanza 70.
By the blue rushing of the arrowy Rhone.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iii. Stanza 71.
I live not in myself, but I become
Portion of that around me;[543:1] and to me
High mountains are a feeling, but the hum
Of human cities torture.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iii. Stanza 72.
This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing
To waft me from distraction.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iii. Stanza 85.
On the ear
Drops the light drip of the suspended oar.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iii. Stanza 86.
[544]
All is concentr'd in a life intense,
Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost,
But hath a part of being.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iii. Stanza 89.
In solitude, where we are least alone.[544:1]
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iii. Stanza 90.
The sky is changed,—and such a change! O night
And storm and darkness! ye are wondrous strong,
Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light
Of a dark eye in woman! Far along,
From peak to peak, the rattling crags among,
Leaps the live thunder.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iii. Stanza 92.
Exhausting thought,
And hiving wisdom with each studious year.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iii. Stanza 107.
Sapping a solemn creed with solemn sneer.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iii. Stanza 107.
I have not loved the world, nor the world me.[544:2]
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iii. Stanza 113.
I stood
Among them, but not of them; in a shroud
Of thoughts which were not their thoughts.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iii. Stanza 113.
I stood in Venice on the Bridge of Sighs,
A palace and a prison on each hand.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 1.
Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 1.
Venice once was dear,
The pleasant place of all festivity,
The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 3.
The thorns which I have reap'd are of the tree
I planted; they have torn me, and I bleed.
I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 10.
[545]
Oh for one hour of blind old Dandolo,
The octogenarian chief, Byzantium's conquering foe![545:1]
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 12.
There are some feelings time cannot benumb,
Nor torture shake.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 19.
Striking the electric chain wherewith we are darkly bound.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 23.
The cold, the changed, perchance the dead, anew,
The mourn'd, the loved, the lost,—too many, yet how few!
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 24.
Parting day
Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues
With a new colour as it gasps away,
The last still loveliest, till—'t is gone, and all is gray.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 29.
The Ariosto of the North.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 40.
Italia! O Italia! thou who hast
The fatal gift of beauty.[545:2]
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 42.
Fills
The air around with beauty.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 49.
Let these describe the undescribable.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 53.
The starry Galileo with his woes.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 54.
Ungrateful Florence! Dante sleeps afar,
Like Scipio, buried by the upbraiding shore.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 57.
The poetry of speech.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 58.
The hell of waters! where they howl and hiss,
And boil in endless torture.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 69.
Then farewell Horace, whom I hated so,—
Not for thy faults, but mine.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 77.
[546]
O Rome! my country! city of the soul!
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 78.
The Niobe of nations! there she stands.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 79.
Yet, Freedom! yet thy banner, torn, but flying,
Streams like the thunder-storm against the wind.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 98.
Heaven gives its favourites—early death.[546:1]
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 102.
History, with all her volumes vast,
Hath but one page.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 108.
Man!
Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 109.
Tully was not so eloquent as thou,
Thou nameless column with the buried base.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 110.
Egeria! sweet creation of some heart
Which found no mortal resting-place so fair
As thine ideal breast.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 115.
The nympholepsy of some fond despair.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 115.
Thou wert a beautiful thought, and softly bodied forth.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 115.
Alas! our young affections run to waste,
Or water but the desert.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 120.
I see before me the gladiator lie.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 140.
There were his young barbarians all at play;
There was their Dacian mother: he, their sire,
Butcher'd to make a Roman holiday!
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 141.
"While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand;
When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall;
And when Rome falls—the world."[546:2]
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 145.
[547]
Scion of chiefs and monarchs, where art thou?
Fond hope of many nations, art thou dead?
Could not the grave forget thee, and lay low
Some less majestic, less beloved head?
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 168.
Oh that the desert were my dwelling-place,[547:1]
With one fair spirit for my minister,
That I might all forget the human race,
And hating no one, love but only her!
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 177.
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods;
There is a rapture on the lonely shore;
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 178.
Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin,—his control
Stops with the shore.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 179.
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown.[547:2]
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 179.
Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow,—
Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.[547:3]
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 182.
Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form
Glasses itself in tempests.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 183.
And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward; from a boy
[548]I wantoned with thy breakers,
. . . . .
And trusted to thy billows far and near,
And laid my hand upon thy mane,—as I do here.[548:1]
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 184.
And what is writ is writ,—
Would it were worthier!
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 185.
Farewell! a word that must be, and hath been,—
A sound which makes us linger; yet—farewell!
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 186.
Hands promiscuously applied,
Round the slight waist, or down the glowing side.
The Waltz.
He who hath bent him o'er the dead
Ere the first day of death is fled,—
The first dark day of nothingness,
The last of danger and distress,
Before decay's effacing fingers
Have swept the lines where beauty lingers.
The Giaour. Line 68.
Such is the aspect of this shore;
'T is Greece, but living Greece no more!
So coldly sweet, so deadly fair,
We start, for soul is wanting there.
The Giaour. Line 90.
Shrine of the mighty! can it be
That this is all remains of thee?
The Giaour. Line 106.
For freedom's battle, once begun,
Bequeath'd by bleeding sire to son,
Though baffled oft, is ever won.
The Giaour. Line 123.
And lovelier things have mercy shown
To every failing but their own;
And every woe a tear can claim,
Except an erring sister's shame.
The Giaour. Line 418.
[549]
The keenest pangs the wretched find
Are rapture to the dreary void,
The leafless desert of the mind,
The waste of feelings unemployed.
The Giaour. Line 957.
Better to sink beneath the shock
Than moulder piecemeal on the rock.
The Giaour. Line 969.
The cold in clime are cold in blood,
Their love can scarce deserve the name.
The Giaour. Line 1099.
I die,—but first I have possess'd,
And come what may, I have been bless'd.
The Giaour. Line 1114.
She was a form of life and light
That seen, became a part of sight,
And rose, where'er I turn'd mine eye,
The morning-star of memory!
Yes, love indeed is light from heaven;
A spark of that immortal fire
With angels shared, by Alla given,
To lift from earth our low desire.
The Giaour. Line 1127.
Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle
Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime;
Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle,
Now melt into sorrow, now madden to crime?[549:1]
The Bride of Abydos. Canto i. Stanza 1.
Where the virgins are soft as the roses they twine,
And all save the spirit of man is divine?
The Bride of Abydos. Canto i. Stanza 1.
Who hath not proved how feebly words essay
To fix one spark of beauty's heavenly ray?
Who doth not feel, until his failing sight
Faints into dimness with its own delight,
[550]His changing cheek, his sinking heart, confess
The might, the majesty of loveliness?
The Bride of Abydos. Canto i. Stanza 6.
The blind old man of Scio's rocky isle.
The Bride of Abydos. Canto ii. Stanza 2.
Be thou the rainbow to the storms of life,
The evening beam that smiles the clouds away,
And tints to-morrow with prophetic ray!
The Bride of Abydos. Canto ii. Stanza 20.
He makes a solitude, and calls it—peace![550:3]
The Bride of Abydos. Canto ii. Stanza 20.
Hark! to the hurried question of despair:
"Where is my child?"—an echo answers, "Where?"[550:4]
The Bride of Abydos. Canto ii. Stanza 27.
The fatal facility of the octosyllabic verse.
The Corsair. Preface.
O'er the glad waters of the dark blue sea,
Our thoughts as boundless, and our souls as free,
Far as the breeze can bear, the billows foam,[550:5]
Survey our empire, and behold our home!
These are our realms, no limit to their sway,—
Our flag the sceptre all who meet obey.
The Corsair. Canto i. Stanza 1.
Oh who can tell, save he whose heart hath tried.
The Corsair. Canto i. Stanza 1.
She walks the waters like a thing of life,
And seems to dare the elements to strife.
The Corsair. Canto i. Stanza 3.
[551]
The power of thought,—the magic of the mind!
The Corsair. Canto i. Stanza 8.
The many still must labour for the one.
The Corsair. Canto i. Stanza 8.
There was a laughing devil in his sneer.
The Corsair. Canto i. Stanza 9.
Hope withering fled, and Mercy sighed farewell!
The Corsair. Canto i. Stanza 9.
Farewell!
For in that word, that fatal word,—howe'er
We promise, hope, believe,—there breathes despair.
The Corsair. Canto i. Stanza 15.
No words suffice the secret soul to show,
For truth denies all eloquence to woe.
The Corsair. Canto iii. Stanza 22.
He left a corsair's name to other times,
Link'd with one virtue and a thousand crimes.[551:1]
The Corsair. Canto iii. Stanza 24.
Lord of himself,—that heritage of woe!
Lara. Canto i. Stanza 2.
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that 's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which Heaven to gaudy day denies.[551:2]
Hebrew Melodies. She walks in Beauty.
The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold.
The Destruction of Sennacherib.
It is the hour when from the boughs
The nightingale's high note is heard;
It is the hour when lovers' vows
Seem sweet in every whisper'd word.
Parisina. Stanza 1.
[552]
Yet in my lineaments they trace
Some features of my father's face.
Parisina. Stanza 13.
Fare thee well! and if forever,
Still forever fare thee well.
Fare thee well.
Born in the garret, in the kitchen bred.[552:1]
A Sketch.
In the desert a fountain is springing,
In the wide waste there still is a tree,
And a bird in the solitude singing,
Which speaks to my spirit of thee.
Stanzas to Augusta.
The careful pilot of my proper woe.
Epistle to Augusta. Stanza 3.
When all of genius which can perish dies.
Monody on the Death of Sheridan. Line 22.
Folly loves the martyrdom of fame.
Monody on the Death of Sheridan. Line 68.
Who track the steps of glory to the grave.
Monody on the Death of Sheridan. Line 74.
Sighing that Nature form'd but one such man,
And broke the die, in moulding Sheridan.[552:2]
Monody on the Death of Sheridan. Line 117.
O God! it is a fearful thing
To see the human soul take wing
In any shape, in any mood.
Prisoner of Chillon. Stanza 8.
And both were young, and one was beautiful.
The Dream. Stanza 2.
And to his eye
There was but one beloved face on earth,
And that was shining on him.
The Dream. Stanza 2.
[553]
She was his life,
The ocean to the river of his thoughts,[553:1]
Which terminated all.
The Dream. Stanza 2.
A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The Dream. Stanza 3.
And they were canopied by the blue sky,
So cloudless, clear, and purely beautiful
That God alone was to be seen in heaven.
The Dream. Stanza 4.
There 's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away.
Stanzas for Music.
I had a dream which was not all a dream.
Darkness.
My boat is on the shore,
And my bark is on the sea;
But before I go, Tom Moore,
Here 's a double health to thee!
To Thomas Moore.
Here 's a sigh to those who love me,
And a smile to those who hate;
And whatever sky 's above me,
Here 's a heart for every fate.[553:2]
To Thomas Moore.
Were 't the last drop in the well,
As I gasp'd upon the brink,
Ere my fainting spirit fell
'T is to thee that I would drink.
To Thomas Moore.
So we 'll go no more a-roving
So late into the night.
So we 'll go.
Mont Blanc is the monarch of mountains;
They crowned him long ago
On a throne of rocks, in a robe of clouds,
With a diadem of snow.
Manfred. Act i. Sc. 1.
[554]
But we, who name ourselves its sovereigns, we,
Half dust, half deity, alike unfit
To sink or soar.
Manfred. Act i. Sc. 2.
Think'st thou existence doth depend on time?
It doth; but actions are our epochs.
Manfred. Act ii. Sc. 1.
The heart ran o'er
With silent worship of the great of old!
The dead but sceptred sovereigns, who still rule
Our spirits from their urns.
Manfred. Act iii. Sc. 4.
Which makes life itself a lie,
Flattering dust with eternity.
Sardanapalus. Act i. Sc. 2.
By all that 's good and glorious.
Sardanapalus. Act i. Sc. 2.
I am the very slave of circumstance
And impulse,—borne away with every breath!
Sardanapalus. Act iv. Sc. 1.
The dust we tread upon was once alive.
Sardanapalus. Act iv. Sc. 1.
For most men (till by losing rendered sager)
Will back their own opinions by a wager.
Beppo. Stanza 27.
Soprano, basso, even the contra-alto,
Wished him five fathom under the Rialto.
Beppo. Stanza 32.
His heart was one of those which most enamour us,—
Wax to receive, and marble to retain.[554:1]
Beppo. Stanza 34.
Besides, they always smell of bread and butter.
Beppo. Stanza 39.
That soft bastard Latin,
Which melts like kisses from a female mouth.
Beppo. Stanza 44.
Heart on her lips, and soul within her eyes,
Soft as her clime, and sunny as her skies.
Beppo. Stanza 45.
O Mirth and Innocence! O milk and water!
Ye happy mixtures of more happy days.
Beppo. Stanza 80.
[555]
And if we do but watch the hour,
There never yet was human power
Which could evade, if unforgiven,
The patient search and vigil long
Of him who treasures up a wrong.
Mazeppa. Stanza 10.
They never fail who die
In a great cause.
Marino Faliero. Act ii. Sc. 2.
Whose game was empires and whose stakes were thrones,
Whose table earth, whose dice were human bones.
Age of Bronze. Stanza 3.
I loved my country, and I hated him.
The Vision of Judgment. lxxxiii.
Sublime tobacco! which from east to west
Cheers the tar's labour or the Turkman's rest.
The Island. Canto ii. Stanza 19.
Divine in hookas, glorious in a pipe
When tipp'd with amber, mellow, rich, and ripe;
Like other charmers, wooing the caress
More dazzlingly when daring in full dress;
Yet thy true lovers more admire by far
Thy naked beauties—give me a cigar!
The Island. Canto ii. Stanza 19.
My days are in the yellow leaf;
The flowers and fruits of love are gone;
The worm, the canker, and the grief
Are mine alone!
On my Thirty-sixth Year.
Brave men were living before Agamemnon.[555:1]
Don Juan. Canto i. Stanza 5.
In virtues nothing earthly could surpass her,
Save thine "incomparable oil," Macassar!
Don Juan. Canto i. Stanza 17.
But, oh ye lords of ladies intellectual,
Inform us truly,—have they not henpeck'd you all?
Don Juan. Canto i. Stanza 22.
[556]
The languages, especially the dead,
The sciences, and most of all the abstruse,
The arts, at least all such as could be said
To be the most remote from common use.
Don Juan. Canto i. Stanza 40.
Her stature tall,—I hate a dumpy woman.
Don Juan. Canto i. Stanza 61.
Christians have burnt each other, quite persuaded
That all the Apostles would have done as they did.
Don Juan. Canto i. Stanza 83.
And whispering, "I will ne'er consent,"—consented.
Don Juan. Canto i. Stanza 117.
'T is sweet to hear the watch-dog's honest bark
Bay deep-mouth'd welcome as we draw near home;
'T is sweet to know there is an eye will mark
Our coming, and look brighter when we come.
Don Juan. Canto i. Stanza 123.
Sweet is revenge—especially to women.
Don Juan. Canto i. Stanza 124.
And truant husband should return, and say,
"My dear, I was the first who came away."
Don Juan. Canto i. Stanza 141.
Man's love is of man's life a thing apart;
'T is woman's whole existence.
Don Juan. Canto i. Stanza 194.
In my hot youth, when George the Third was king.
Don Juan. Canto i. Stanza 212.
So for a good old-gentlemanly vice
I think I must take up with avarice.[556:1]
Don Juan. Canto i. Stanza 216.
What is the end of fame? 'T is but to fill
A certain portion of uncertain paper.
Don Juan. Canto i. Stanza 218.
At leaving even the most unpleasant people
And places, one keeps looking at the steeple.
Don Juan. Canto ii. Stanza 14.
There 's nought, no doubt, so much the spirit calms
As rum and true religion.
Don Juan. Canto ii. Stanza 34.
[557]
A solitary shriek, the bubbling cry
Of some strong swimmer in his agony.
Don Juan. Canto ii. Stanza 53.
All who joy would win
Must share it, happiness was born a twin.
Don Juan. Canto ii. Stanza 172.
Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter,
Sermons and soda-water the day after.
Don Juan. Canto ii. Stanza 178.
A long, long kiss,—a kiss of youth and love.
Don Juan. Canto ii. Stanza 186.
Alas, the love of women! it is known
To be a lovely and a fearful thing.
Don Juan. Canto ii. Stanza 199.
In her first passion woman loves her lover:
In all the others, all she loves is love.[557:1]
Don Juan. Canto iii. Stanza 3.
He was the mildest manner'd man
That ever scuttled ship or cut a throat.
Don Juan. Canto iii. Stanza 41.
The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece!
Where burning Sappho loved and sung.
. . . . .
Eternal summer gilds them yet,
But all except their sun is set.
Don Juan. Canto iii. Stanza 86. 1.
The mountains look on Marathon,
And Marathon looks on the sea;
And musing there an hour alone,
I dreamed that Greece might still be free.
Don Juan. Canto iii. Stanza 86. 3.
Earth! render back from out thy breast
A remnant of our Spartan dead!
Of the three hundred grant but three
To make a new Thermopylæ.
Don Juan. Canto iii. Stanza 86. 7.
You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet,
Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone?
[558]Of two such lessons, why forget
The nobler and the manlier one?
You have the letters Cadmus gave,—
Think ye he meant them for a slave?
Don Juan. Canto iii. Stanza 86. 10.
Place me on Sunium's marbled steep,
Where nothing save the waves and I
May hear our mutual murmurs sweep;
There, swan-like, let me sing and die.[558:1]
Don Juan. Canto iii. Stanza 86. 16.
But words are things, and a small drop of ink,
Falling like dew upon a thought, produces
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.
Don Juan. Canto iii. Stanza 88.
Ah, surely nothing dies but something mourns.
Don Juan. Canto iii. Stanza 108.
And if I laugh at any mortal thing,
'T is that I may not weep.
Don Juan. Canto iv. Stanza 4.
The precious porcelain of human clay.[558:2]
Don Juan. Canto iv. Stanza 11.
"Whom the gods love die young," was said of yore.[558:3]
Don Juan. Canto iv. Stanza 12.
Perhaps the early grave
Which men weep over may be meant to save.
Don Juan. Canto iv. Stanza 12.
And her face so fair
Stirr'd with her dream, as rose-leaves with the air.[558:4]
Don Juan. Canto iv. Stanza 29.
These two hated with a hate
Found only on the stage.
Don Juan. Canto iv. Stanza 93.
"Arcades ambo,"—id est, blackguards both.
Don Juan. Canto iv. Stanza 93.
I 've stood upon Achilles' tomb,
And heard Troy doubted: time will doubt of Rome.
Don Juan. Canto iv. Stanza 101.
[559]
Oh "darkly, deeply, beautifully blue!"[559:1]
As some one somewhere sings about the sky.
Don Juan. Canto iv. Stanza 110.
There 's not a sea the passenger e'er pukes in,
Turns up more dangerous breakers than the Euxine.
Don Juan. Canto v. Stanza 5.
But all have prices,
From crowns to kicks, according to their vices.[559:2]
Don Juan. Canto v. Stanza 27.
And puts himself upon his good behaviour.
Don Juan. Canto v. Stanza 47.
That all-softening, overpowering knell,
The tocsin of the soul,—the dinner bell.
Don Juan. Canto v. Stanza 49.
The women pardon'd all except her face.
Don Juan. Canto v. Stanza 113.
Heroic, stoic Cato, the sententious,
Who lent his lady to his friend Hortensius.
Don Juan. Canto vi. Stanza 7.
A "strange coincidence," to use a phrase
By which such things are settled nowadays.
Don Juan. Canto vi. Stanza 78.
The drying up a single tear has more
Of honest fame than shedding seas of gore.
Don Juan. Canto viii. Stanza 3.
Thrice happy he whose name has been well spelt
In the despatch: I knew a man whose loss
Was printed Grove, although his name was Grose.
Don Juan. Canto viii. Stanza 18.
What a strange thing is man! and what a stranger
Is woman!
Don Juan. Canto ix. Stanza 64.
And wrinkles, the damned democrats, won't flatter.
Don Juan. Canto x. Stanza 24.
Oh for a forty-parson power!
Don Juan. Canto x. Stanza 34.
[560]
When Bishop Berkeley said "there was no matter,"
And proved it,—'t was no matter what he said.[560:1]
Don Juan. Canto xi. Stanza 1.
And after all, what is a lie? 'T is but
The truth in masquerade.
Don Juan. Canto xi. Stanza 37.
'T is strange the mind, that very fiery particle,
Should let itself be snuff'd out by an article.
Don Juan. Canto xi. Stanza 59.
Of all tales 't is the saddest,—and more sad,
Because it makes us smile.
Don Juan. Canto xiii. stanza 9.
Cervantes smil'd Spain's chivalry away.
Don Juan. Canto xiii. Stanza 11.
Society is now one polish'd horde,
Formed of two mighty tribes, the Bores and Bored.
Don Juan. Canto xiii. Stanza 95.
All human history attests
That happiness for man,—the hungry sinner!—
Since Eve ate apples, much depends on dinner.[560:2]
Don Juan. Canto xiii. Stanza 99.
'T is strange, but true; for truth is always strange,—
Stranger than fiction.
Don Juan. Canto xiv. Stanza 101.
The Devil hath not, in all his quiver's choice,
An arrow for the heart like a sweet voice.
Don Juan. Canto xv. Stanza 13.
A lovely being, scarcely formed or moulded,
A rose with all its sweetest leaves yet folded.
Don Juan. Canto xv. Stanza 43.
Friendship is Love without his wings.
L'Amitié est l'Amour sans Ailes.
I awoke one morning and found myself famous.
Memoranda from his Life, by Moore, Chap. xiv.
[561]
The best of prophets of the future is the past.
Letter, Jan. 28, 1821.
What say you to such a supper with such a woman?[561:1]
Note to a Letter on Bowles's Strictures.
[539:1] See Waller, pages 219-220.
Medio de fonte leporum
Surgit amari aliquid quod in ipsis floribus angat
(In the midst of the fountain of wit there arises something bitter, which stings in the very flowers).—Lucretius: iv. 1133.
[541:1] "War even to the knife" was the reply of Palafox, the governor of Saragossa, when summoned to surrender by the French, who besieged that city in 1808.
[543:1] I am a part of all that I have met.—Tennyson: Ulysses.
Good bye, proud world; I 'm going home.
Thou art not my friend, and I 'm not thine.
Emerson: Good Bye, proud World.
See Johnson, page 374.
[545:2] A translation of the famous sonnet of Filicaja: "Italia, Italia! O tu cui feo la sorte."
[546:2] Literally the exclamation of the pilgrims in the eighth century.
And thou vast ocean, on whose awful face
Time's iron feet can print no ruin-trace.
Robert Montgomery: The Omnipresence of the Deity.
He laid his hand upon "the ocean's mane,"
And played familiar with his hoary locks.
Pollok: The Course of Time, book iv. line 389.
Know'st thou the land where the lemon-trees bloom,
Where the gold orange glows in the deep thicket's gloom,
Where a wind ever soft from the blue heaven blows,
And the groves are of laurel and myrtle and rose!
Goethe: Wilhelm Meister.
[550:3] Solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant (They make solitude, which they call peace).—Tacitus: Agricola, c. 30.
[550:4] I came to the place of my birth, and cried, "The friends of my youth, where are they?" And echo answered, "Where are they?"—Arabic MS.
[550:5] See Churchill, page 413.
To all nations their empire will be dreadful, because their ships will sail wherever billows roll or winds can waft them.—Dalrymple: Memoirs, vol. iii. p. 152.
[551:2] The subject of these lines was Mrs. R. Wilmot.—Berry Memoirs, vol. iii. p. 7.
[552:2] Natura il fece, e poi ruppe la stampa (Nature made him, and then broke the mould).—Ariosto: Orlando Furioso, canto x. stanza 84.
The idea that Nature lost the perfect mould has been a favorite one with all song-writers and poets, and is found in the literature of all European nations.—Book of English Songs, p. 28.
[553:1] She floats upon the river of his thoughts.—Longfellow: The Spanish Student, act ii. sc. 3.
[553:2] With a heart for any fate.—Longfellow: A Psalm of Life.
[554:1] My heart is wax to be moulded as she pleases, but enduring as marble to retain.—Cervantes: The Little Gypsy.
Vixerunt fortes ante Agamemnona
Multi.
Horace: Ode iv. 9. 25.
[557:1] Dans les premières passions les femmes aiment l'amant, et dans les autres elles aiment l'amour.—Rochefoucauld: Maxim 471.
All her innocent thoughts
Like rose-leaves scatter'd.
John Wilson: On the Death of a Child. (1812.)
[560:1] What is mind? No matter. What is matter? Never mind.—T. H. Key (once Head Master of University College School). On the authority of F. J. Furnivall.
[560:2] For a man seldom thinks with more earnestness of anything than he does of his dinner.—Piozzi: Anecdotes of Samuel Johnson, p. 149.
[561:2] Abraham Lincoln was very fond of repeating these lines.
[561:3] From Knox's "Songs of Israel," 1824.
I dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls,
With vassals and serfs at my side.
Song.
The heart bowed down by weight of woe
To weakest hope will cling.
Song.
Strike—for your altars and your fires!
Strike—for the green graves of your sires!
God, and your native land!
Marco Bozzaris.
[562]
Come to the bridal chamber, Death!
Come to the mother's, when she feels
For the first time her first-born's breath!
Come when the blessed seals
That close the pestilence are broke,
And crowded cities wail its stroke!
Come in consumption's ghastly form,
The earthquake shock, the ocean storm!
Come when the heart beats high and warm,
With banquet song, and dance, and wine!
And thou art terrible!—the tear,
The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier,
And all we know or dream or fear
Of agony are thine.
Marco Bozzaris.
But to the hero, when his sword
Has won the battle for the free,
Thy voice sounds like a prophet's word;
And in its hollow tones are heard
The thanks of millions yet to be.
Marco Bozzaris.
One of the few, the immortal names,
That were not born to die.
Marco Bozzaris.
Such graves as his are pilgrim shrines,
Shrines to no code or creed confined,—
The Delphian vales, the Palestines,
The Meccas of the mind.
Burns.
Green be the turf above thee,
Friend of my better days!
None knew thee but to love thee,[562:1]
Nor named thee but to praise.
On the Death of Joseph Rodman Drake.
There is an evening twilight of the heart,
When its wild passion-waves are lulled to rest.
Twilight.
[563]
They love their land because it is their own,
And scorn to give aught other reason why;
Would shake hands with a king upon his throne,
And think it kindness to his Majesty.
Connecticut.
This bank-note world.
Alnwick Castle.
Lord Stafford mines for coal and salt,
The Duke of Norfolk deals in malt,
The Douglas in red herrings.
Alnwick Castle.
Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the rampart we hurried.
The Burial of Sir John Moore.
But he lay like a warrior taking his rest,
With his martial cloak around him.
The Burial of Sir John Moore.
Slowly and sadly we laid him down,
From the field of his fame fresh and gory;
We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone,
But we left him alone with his glory.
The Burial of Sir John Moore.
If I had thought thou couldst have died,
I might not weep for thee;
But I forgot, when by thy side,
That thou couldst mortal be.
To Mary.
Yet there was round thee such a dawn
Of light, ne'er seen before,
As fancy never could have drawn,
And never can restore.
To Mary.
Go, forget me! why should sorrow
O'er that brow a shadow fling?
Go, forget me, and to-morrow
Brightly smile and sweetly sing!
Smile,—though I shall not be near thee;
Sing,—though I shall never hear thee!
Go, forget me!
[564]
And the cold marble leapt to life a god.
The Belvedere Apollo.
Too fair to worship, too divine to love.
The Belvedere Apollo.
Lo where the stage, the poor, degraded stage,
Holds its warped mirror to a gaping age.
Curiosity.
Through life's dark road his sordid way he wends,
An incarnation of fat dividends.
Curiosity.
Behold! in Liberty's unclouded blaze
We lift our heads, a race of other days.
Centennial Ode. Stanza 22.
Yes, social friend, I love thee well,
In learned doctors' spite;
Thy clouds all other clouds dispel,
And lap me in delight.
To my Cigar.
Then black despair,
The shadow of a starless night, was thrown
Over the world in which I moved alone.
The Revolt of Islam. Dedication. Stanza 6.
With hue like that when some great painter dips
His pencil in the gloom of earthquake and eclipse.
The Revolt of Islam. Canto v. Stanza 23.
The awful shadow of some unseen Power
Floats, tho' unseen, amongst us.
Hymn to Intellectual Beauty.
[565]
The Pilgrim of Eternity, whose fame
Over his living head like heaven is bent,
An early but enduring monument,
Came, veiling all the lightnings of his song
In sorrow.
Adonais. xxx.
A pard-like spirit, beautiful and swift.
Adonais. xxxii.
Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of eternity.
Adonais. lii.
Oh thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the spring shall blow
Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth.
Ode to the West Wind.
Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
Lull'd by the coil of his crystalline streams
Beside a pumice isle in Baiæ's bay,
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the wave's intenser day,
All overgrown with azure moss and flowers
So sweet, the sense faints picturing them.
Ode to the West Wind.
That orbed maiden with white fire laden,
Whom mortals call the moon.
The Cloud. iv.
We look before and after,
And pine for what is not;
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.
To a Skylark. Line 86.
Kings are like stars,—they rise and set, they have
The worship of the world, but no repose.[565:1]
Hellas. Line 195.
[566]
The moon of Mahomet
Arose, and it shall set;
While, blazoned as on heaven's immortal noon,
The cross leads generations on.
Hellas. Line 221.
The world's great age begins anew,
The golden years return,
The earth doth like a snake renew
Her winter weeds outworn.
Hellas. Line 1060.
What! alive, and so bold, O earth?
Written on hearing the News of the Death of Napoleon.
All love is sweet,
Given or returned. Common as light is love,
And its familiar voice wearies not ever.
. . . . .
They who inspire it most are fortunate,
As I am now; but those who feel it most
Are happier still.[566:1]
Prometheus Unbound. Act ii. Sc. 5.
Those who inflict must suffer, for they see
The work of their own hearts, and this must be
Our chastisement or recompense.
Julian and Maddalo. Line 482.
Most wretched men
Are cradled into poetry by wrong:
They learn in suffering what they teach in song.[566:2]
Julian and Maddalo. Line 544.
I could lie down like a tired child,
And weep away the life of care
Which I have borne, and yet must bear.
Stanzas written in Dejection, near Naples. Stanza 4.
Peter was dull; he was at first
Dull,—oh so dull, so very dull!
Whether he talked, wrote, or rehearsed,
Still with this dulness was he cursed!
Dull,—beyond all conception, dull.
Peter Bell the Third. Part vii. xi.
[567]
A lovely lady, garmented in light
From her own beauty.
The Witch of Atlas. Stanza 5.
Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory;
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.
Music, when soft Voices die.
I love tranquil solitude
And such society
As is quiet, wise, and good.
Rarely, rarely comest Thou.
Sing again, with your dear voice revealing
A tone
Of some world far from ours,
Where music and moonlight and feeling
Are one.
To Jane. The keen Stars were twinkling.
The desire of the moth for the star,
Of the night for the morrow,
The devotion to something afar
From the sphere of our sorrow.
One Word is too often profaned.
You lie—under a mistake,[567:1]
For this is the most civil sort of lie
That can be given to a man's face. I now
Say what I think.
Translation of Calderon's Magico Prodigioso. Scene i.
How wonderful is Death!
Death and his brother Sleep.
Queen Mab. i.
Power, like a desolating pestilence,
Pollutes whate'er it touches; and obedience,
Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth,
Makes slaves of men, and of the human frame
A mechanized automaton.
Queen Mab. iii.
[568]
Heaven's ebon vault
Studded with stars unutterably bright,
Through which the moon's unclouded grandeur rolls,
Seems like a canopy which love has spread
To curtain her sleeping world.
Queen Mab. iv.
Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present.[568:1]
A Defence of Poetry.
[566:1] The pleasure of love is in loving. We are much happier in the passion we feel than in that we inspire.—Rochefoucauld: Maxim 259.
'Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there 's no place like home;[568:2]
A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there,
Which sought through the world is ne'er met with elsewhere.
An exile from home splendour dazzles in vain,
Oh give me my lowly thatched cottage again;
The birds singing gayly, that came at my call,
Give me them, and that peace of mind dearer than all.
Home, Sweet Home. (From the opera of "Clari, the Maid of Milan.")
[568:2] Home is home, though it be never so homely.—Clarke: Parœmiologia, p. 101. (1639.)
The cold winds swept the mountain-height,
And pathless was the dreary wild,
And 'mid the cheerless hours of night
A mother wandered with her child:
As through the drifting snows she press'd,
The babe was sleeping on her breast.
The Snow Storm.
[569]
The trivial round, the common task,
Would furnish all we ought to ask.
Morning.
Why should we faint and fear to live alone,
Since all alone, so Heaven has willed, we die?
Nor even the tenderest heart, and next our own,
Knows half the reasons why we smile and sigh.
The Christian Year. Twenty-fourth Sunday after Trinity.
'T is sweet, as year by year we lose
Friends out of sight, in faith to muse
How grows in Paradise our store.
Burial of the Dead.
Abide with me from morn till eve,
For without Thee I cannot live;
Abide with me when night is nigh,
For without Thee I dare not die.
Evening.
The stately homes of England,—
How beautiful they stand,
Amid their tall ancestral trees,
O'er all the pleasant land!
The Homes of England.
The breaking waves dashed high
On a stern and rock-bound coast,
And the woods against a stormy sky
Their giant branches tossed.
Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers.
What sought they thus afar?
Bright jewels of the mine,
The wealth of seas, the spoils of war?
They sought a faith's pure shrine.
Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers.
[570]
Ay, call it holy ground,
The soil where first they trod:
They have left unstained what there they found,—
Freedom to worship God.
Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers.
Through the laburnum's dropping gold
Rose the light shaft of Orient mould,
And Europe's violets, faintly sweet,
Purpled the mossbeds at its feet.
The Palm-Tree.
They grew in beauty side by side,
They filled one home with glee:
Their graves are severed far and wide
By mount and stream and sea.
The Graves of a Household.
Alas for love, if thou wert all,
And naught beyond, O Earth!
The Graves of a Household.
The boy stood on the burning deck,
Whence all but him had fled;
The flame that lit the battle's wreck
Shone round him o'er the dead.
Casabianca.
Leaves have their time to fall,
And flowers to wither at the north-wind's breath,
And stars to set; but all,
Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death!
The Hour of Death.
Come to the sunset tree!
The day is past and gone;
The woodman's axe lies free,
And the reaper's work is done.
Tyrolese Evening Song.
In the busy haunts of men.
Tale of the Secret Tribunal. Part i.
Calm on the bosom of thy God,
Fair spirit, rest thee now!
Siege of Valencia. Scene ix.
[571]
Oh, call my brother back to me!
I cannot play alone:
The summer comes with flower and bee,—
Where is my brother gone?
The Child's First Grief.
I have looked on the hills of the stormy North,
And the larch has hung his tassels forth.
The Voice of Spring.
I had a hat. It was not all a hat,—
Part of the brim was gone:
Yet still I wore it on.
Rhine Song of the German Soldiers after Victory.
When I am dead, no pageant train
Shall waste their sorrows at my bier,
Nor worthless pomp of homage vain
Stain it with hypocritic tear.
Alaric the Visigoth.
You shall not pile, with servile toil,
Your monuments upon my breast,
Nor yet within the common soil
Lay down the wreck of power to rest,
Where man can boast that he has trod
On him that was "the scourge of God."
Alaric the Visigoth.
No gilded dome swells from the lowly roof to catch the morning or evening beam; but the love and gratitude of united America settle upon it in one eternal sunshine. From beneath that humble roof went forth the intrepid and unselfish warrior, the magistrate who knew no glory but his country's good; to that he returned, happiest when his work was done. There he lived in noble simplicity, there he died in glory and peace. While it stands, the latest generations of the grateful children of America will make this pilgrimage [572]to it as to a shrine; and when it shall fall, if fall it must, the memory and the name of Washington shall shed an eternal glory on the spot.
Oration on the Character of Washington.
Here the free spirit of mankind, at length,
Throws its last fetters off; and who shall place
A limit to the giant's unchained strength,
Or curb his swiftness in the forward race?
The Ages. xxxiii.
To him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language.
Thanatopsis.
Go forth under the open sky, and list
To Nature's teachings.
Thanatopsis.
The hills,
Rock-ribbed, and ancient as the sun.
Thanatopsis.
Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste.
Thanatopsis.
All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom.
Thanatopsis.
So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan which moves[572:1]
To that mysterious realm where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one that wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
Thanatopsis.
[573]
The groves were God's first temples.
A Forest Hymn.
The stormy March has come at last,
With winds and clouds and changing skies;
I hear the rushing of the blast
That through the snowy valley flies.
March.
But 'neath yon crimson tree
Lover to listening maid might breathe his flame,
Nor mark, within its roseate canopy,
Her blush of maiden shame.
Autumn Woods.
The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year,
Of wailing winds and naked woods and meadows brown and sear.
The Death of the Flowers.
And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more.
The Death of the Flowers.
Loveliest of lovely things are they
On earth that soonest pass away.
The rose that lives its little hour
Is prized beyond the sculptured flower.
A Scene on the Banks of the Hudson.
The victory of endurance born.
The Battle-Field.
Truth crushed to earth shall rise again,—
The eternal years of God are hers;
But Error, wounded, writhes with pain,
And dies among his worshippers.
The Battle-Field.
[572:1] The edition of 1821 read,—
The innumerable caravan that moves
To the pale realms of shade, where each shall take.
When Freedom from her mountain-height
Unfurled her standard to the air,
She tore the azure robe of night,
And set the stars of glory there.
She mingled with its gorgeous dyes
The milky baldric of the skies,
[574]And striped its pure, celestial white
With streakings of the morning light.
Flag of the free heart's hope and home!
By angel hands to valour given!
Thy stars have lit the welkin dome,
And all thy hues were born in heaven.
Forever float that standard sheet!
Where breathes the foe but falls before us,
With Freedom's soil beneath our feet,
And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us?
The American Flag.
A thing of beauty is a joy forever;
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness.
Endymion. Book i.
He ne'er is crown'd
With immortality, who fears to follow
Where airy voices lead.
Endymion. Book ii.
To sorrow
I bade good-morrow,
And thought to leave her far away behind;
But cheerly, cheerly,
She loves me dearly;
She is so constant to me, and so kind.
Endymion. Book iv.
So many, and so many, and such glee.
Endymion. Book iv.
Love in a hut, with water and a crust,
Is—Love, forgive us!—cinders, ashes, dust.
Lamia. Part ii.
There was an awful rainbow once in heaven:
We know her woof, her texture; she is given
In the dull catalogue of common things.
Philosophy will clip an angel's wings.
Lamia. Part ii.
[575]
Music's golden tongue
Flatter'd to tears this aged man and poor.
The Eve of St. Agnes. Stanza 3.
The silver snarling trumpets 'gan to chide.
The Eve of St. Agnes. Stanza 4.
Asleep in lap of legends old.
The Eve of St. Agnes. Stanza 15.
Sudden a thought came like a full-blown rose,
Flushing his brow.
The Eve of St. Agnes. Stanza 16.
A poor, weak, palsy-stricken, churchyard thing.
The Eve of St. Agnes. Stanza 18.
As though a rose should shut and be a bud again.
The Eve of St. Agnes. Stanza 27.
And lucent syrops, tinct with cinnamon.
The Eve of St. Agnes. Stanza 30.
He play'd an ancient ditty long since mute,
In Provence call'd "La belle dame sans mercy."
The Eve of St. Agnes. Stanza 33.
That large utterance of the early gods!
Hyperion. Book i.
Those green-robed senators of mighty woods,
Tall oaks, branch-charmed by the earnest stars,
Dream, and so dream all night without a stir.
Hyperion. Book i.
The days of peace and slumberous calm are fled.
Hyperion. Book ii.
Dance and Provençal song and sunburnt mirth!
Oh for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene!
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stainèd mouth.
Ode to a Nightingale.
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when sick for home
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that ofttimes hath
Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
Ode to a Nightingale.
[576]
Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time.
Ode on a Grecian Urn.
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on,—
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone.
Ode on a Grecian Urn.
Thou, silent form, doth tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
Ode on a Grecian Urn.
Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
Ode on a Grecian Urn.
In a drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy tree,
Thy branches ne'er remember
Their green felicity.
Stanzas.
Hear ye not the hum
Of mighty workings?
Addressed to Haydon. Sonnet x.
Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne,
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific, and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise,
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
On first looking into Chapman's Homer.
E'en like the passage of an angel's tear
That falls through the clear ether silently.
To One who has been long in City pent.
[577]
The poetry of earth is never dead.
On the Grasshopper and Cricket.
Here lies one whose name was writ in water.[577:1]
So his life has flowed
From its mysterious urn a sacred stream,
In whose calm depth the beautiful and pure
Alone are mirrored; which, though shapes of ill
May hover round its surface, glides in light,
And takes no shadow from them.
Ion. Act i. Sc. 1.
'T is a little thing
To give a cup of water; yet its draught
Of cool refreshment, drained by fevered lips,
May give a shock of pleasure to the frame
More exquisite than when nectarean juice
Renews the life of joy in happiest hours.
Ion. Act i. Sc. 2.
Except by name, Jean Paul Friedrich Richter is little known out of Germany. The only thing connected with him, we think, that has reached this country is his saying,—imported by Madame de Staël, and thankfully pocketed by most newspaper critics,—"Providence has given to the French the empire of the land; to the English that of the sea; to the Germans that of—the air!"
Richter. Edinburgh Review, 1827.
Literary men are . . . a perpetual priesthood.
State of German Literature. Edinburgh Review, 1827.
[578]
Clever men are good, but they are not the best.
Goethe. Edinburgh Review, 1828.
We are firm believers in the maxim that for all right judgment of any man or thing it is useful, nay, essential, to see his good qualities before pronouncing on his bad.
Goethe. Edinburgh Review, 1828.
How does the poet speak to men with power, but by being still more a man than they?
Burns. Edinburgh Review, 1828.
A poet without love were a physical and metaphysical impossibility.
Burns. Edinburgh Review, 1828.
His religion at best is an anxious wish,—like that of Rabelais, a great Perhaps.
Burns. Edinburgh Review, 1828.
We have oftener than once endeavoured to attach some meaning to that aphorism, vulgarly imputed to Shaftesbury, which however we can find nowhere in his works, that "ridicule is the test of truth."[578:1]
Voltaire. Foreign Review, 1829.
We must repeat the often repeated saying, that it is unworthy a religious man to view an irreligious one either with alarm or aversion, or with any other feeling than regret and hope and brotherly commiseration.
Voltaire. Foreign Review, 1829.
There is no heroic poem in the world but is at bottom a biography, the life of a man; also it may be said, there is no life of a man, faithfully recorded, but is a heroic poem of its sort, rhymed or unrhymed.
Sir Walter Scott. London and Westminster Review, 1838.
[579]
Silence is deep as Eternity, speech is shallow as Time.
Sir Walter Scott. London and Westminster Review, 1838.
To the very last, he [Napoleon] had a kind of idea; that, namely, of la carrière ouverte aux talents,—the tools to him that can handle them.[579:1]
Sir Walter Scott. London and Westminster Review, 1838.
Blessed is the healthy nature; it is the coherent, sweetly co-operative, not incoherent, self-distracting, self-destructive one!
Sir Walter Scott. London and Westminster Review, 1838.
The uttered part of a man's life, let us always repeat, bears to the unuttered, unconscious part a small unknown proportion. He himself never knows it, much less do others.
Sir Walter Scott. London and Westminster Review, 1838.
Literature is the Thought of thinking Souls.
Sir Walter Scott. London and Westminster Review, 1838.
It can be said of him, when he departed he took a Man's life with him. No sounder piece of British manhood was put together in that eighteenth century of Time.
Sir Walter Scott. London and Westminster Review, 1838.
The eye of the intellect "sees in all objects what it brought with it the means of seeing."
Varnhagen Von Ense's Memoirs. London and Westminster Review, 1838.
Happy the people whose annals are blank in history-books.[579:2]
Life of Frederick the Great. Book xvi. Chap. i.
As the Swiss inscription says: Sprechen ist silbern, Schweigen ist golden,—"Speech is silvern, Silence is golden;" or, as I might rather express it, Speech is of Time, Silence is of Eternity.
Sartor Resartus. Book iii. Chap. iii.
The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none.[579:3]
Heroes and Hero-Worship. The Hero as a Prophet.
[580]
In books lies the soul of the whole Past Time: the articulate audible voice of the Past, when the body and material substance of it has altogether vanished like a dream.
Heroes and Hero-Worship. The Hero as a Man of Letters.
The true University of these days is a Collection of Books.
Heroes and Hero-Worship. The Hero as a Man of Letters.
One life,—a little gleam of time between two Eternities.
Heroes and Hero-Worship. The Hero as a Man of Letters.
Adversity is sometimes hard upon a man; but for one man who can stand prosperity there are a hundred that will stand adversity.
Heroes and Hero-Worship. The Hero as a Man of Letters.
[578:1] How comes it to pass, then, that we appear such cowards in reasoning, and are so afraid to stand the test of ridicule?—Shaftesbury: Characteristics. A Letter concerning Enthusiasm, sect. 2.
Truth, 't is supposed, may bear all lights; and one of those principal lights or natural mediums by which things are to be viewed in order to a thorough recognition is ridicule itself.—Shaftesbury: Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour, sect. 1.
'T was the saying of an ancient sage (Gorgias Leontinus, apud Aristotle's "Rhetoric," lib. iii. c. 18), that humour was the only test of gravity, and gravity of humour. For a subject which would not bear raillery was suspicious; and a jest which would not bear a serious examination was certainly false wit.—Ibid. sect. 5.
[579:1] Carlyle in his essay on Mirabeau, 1837, quotes this from a "New England book."
[579:2] Montesquieu: Aphorism.
[579:3] His only fault is that he has none.—Pliny the Younger: Book ix. Letter xxvi.
I want you to see Peel, Stanley, Graham, Sheil, Russell, Macaulay, Old Joe, and so on. They are all upper-crust here.[580:1]
Sam Slick In England.[580:2] Chap. xxiv.
Circumstances alter cases.
The Old Judge. Chap. xv.
[580:1] Those families, you know, are our upper-crust,—not upper ten thousand.—Cooper: The Ways of the Hour, chap. vi. (1850.)
At present there is no distinction among the upper ten thousand of the city.—N. P. Willis: Necessity for a Promenade Drive.
[580:2] "Sam Slick" first appeared in a weekly paper of Nova Scotia, 1835.
I 've wandered east, I 've wandered west,
Through many a weary way;
But never, never can forget
The love of life's young day.
Jeannie Morrison.
And we, with Nature's heart in tune,
Concerted harmonies.
Jeannie Morrison.
[581]
I 'd be a butterfly born in a bower,
Where roses and lilies and violets meet.
I 'd be a Butterfly.
Oh no! we never mention her,—
Her name is never heard;
My lips are now forbid to speak
That once familiar word.
Oh no! we never mention her.
We met,—'t was in a crowd.
We met.
Gayly the troubadour
Touched his guitar.
Welcome me Home.
Why don't the men propose, Mamma?
Why don't the men propose?
Why don't the Men propose?
She wore a wreath of roses
The night that first we met.
She wore a Wreath.
Friends depart, and memory takes them
To her caverns, pure and deep.
Teach me to forget.
Tell me the tales that to me were so dear,
Long, long ago, long, long ago.
Long, long ago.
The rose that all are praising
Is not the rose for me.
The Rose that all are praising.
Oh pilot, 't is a fearful night!
There 's danger on the deep.
The Pilot.
Fear not, but trust in Providence,
Wherever thou may'st be.
The Pilot.
[582]
The mistletoe hung in the castle hall,
The holly-branch shone on the old oak wall.
The Mistletoe Bough.
Oh, I have roamed o'er many lands,
And many friends I 've met;
Not one fair scene or kindly smile
Can this fond heart forget.
Oh, steer my Bark to Erin's Isle.
[581:1] I find that absence still increases love.—Charles Hopkins: To C. C.
Distance sometimes endears friendship, and absence sweeteneth it.—Howell: Familiar Letters, book i. sect. i. No. 6.
Property has its duties as well as its rights.[582:2]
Letter to the Landlords of Tipperary.
[582:1] Captain Drummond was the inventor of the Drummond light.
[582:2] Disraeli: Sybil, book i. chap. xi.
Whilst twilight's curtain spreading far,
Was pinned with a single star.[582:3]
Death in Disguise. Line 227. (Boston edition, 1833.)
[582:3] Mrs. Child says:
"He thus describes the closing day":—
Now twilight lets her curtain down,
And pins it with a star.
A baby was sleeping,
Its mother was weeping.
The Angel's Whisper.
Reproof on her lips, but a smile in her eye.[582:4]
Rory O'More.
For drames always go by conthraries, my dear.[582:5]
Rory O'More.
[583]
"Then here goes another," says he, "to make sure,
For there 's luck in odd numbers,"[583:1] says Rory O'More.
Rory O'More.
There was a place in childhood that I remember well,
And there a voice of sweetest tone bright fairy tales did tell.
My Mother dear.
Sure the shovel and tongs
To each other belongs.
Widow Machree.
There is a silence where hath been no sound,
There is a silence where no sound may be,—
In the cold grave, under the deep, deep sea,
Or in the wide desert where no life is found.
Sonnet. Silence.
We watch'd her breathing through the night,
Her breathing soft and low,
As in her breast the wave of life
Kept heaving to and fro.
The Death-Bed.
Our very hopes belied our fears,
Our fears our hopes belied;
We thought her dying when she slept,
And sleeping when she died.
The Death-Bed.
I remember, I remember
The fir-trees dark and high;
I used to think their slender tops
Were close against the sky;
It was a childish ignorance,
But now 't is little joy
To know I 'm farther off from heaven
Than when I was a boy.
I remember, I remember.
[584]
She stood breast-high amid the corn
Clasp'd by the golden light of morn,
Like the sweetheart of the sun,
Who many a glowing kiss had won.
Ruth.
Thus she stood amid the stooks,
Praising God with sweetest looks.
Ruth.
When he is forsaken,
Wither'd and shaken,
What can an old man do but die?
Spring it is cheery.
And there is even a happiness
That makes the heart afraid.
Ode to Melancholy.
But evil is wrought by want of thought,
As well as want of heart.
The Lady's Dream.
Oh would I were dead now,
Or up in my bed now,
To cover my head now,
And have a good cry!
A Table of Errata.
Straight down the crooked lane,
And all round the square.
A Plain Direction.
For my part, getting up seems not so easy
By half as lying.
Morning Meditations.
A man that 's fond precociously of stirring
Must be a spoon.
Morning Meditations.
Seem'd washing his hands with invisible soap
In imperceptible water.
Miss Kilmansegg. Her Christening.
O bed! O bed! delicious bed!
That heaven upon earth to the weary head!
Her Dream.
He lies like a hedgehog rolled up the wrong way,
Tormenting himself with his prickles.
Her Dream.
[585]
Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold!
Bright and yellow, hard and cold.
Her Moral.
Spurn'd by the young, but hugg'd by the old
To the very verge of the churchyard mould.
Her Moral.
How widely its agencies vary,—
To save, to ruin, to curse, to bless,—
As even its minted coins express,
Now stamp'd with the image of Good Queen Bess,
And now of a Bloody Mary.
Her Moral.
Another tumble! That 's his precious nose!
Parental Ode to my Infant Son.
Boughs are daily rifled
By the gusty thieves,
And the book of Nature
Getteth short of leaves.
The Season.
With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat in unwomanly rags
Plying her needle and thread,—
Stitch! Stitch! Stitch!
The Song of the Shirt.
O men with sisters dear,
O men with mothers and wives,
It is not linen you 're wearing out,
But human creatures' lives![585:1]
The Song of the Shirt.
Sewing at once a double thread,
A shroud as well as a shirt.
The Song of the Shirt.
O God! that bread should be so dear,
And flesh and blood so cheap!
The Song of the Shirt.
No blessed leisure for love or hope,
But only time for grief.
The Song of the Shirt.
My tears must stop, for every drop
Hinders needle and thread.
The Song of the Shirt.
[586]
One more unfortunate
Weary of breath,
Rashly importunate,
Gone to her death.
The Bridge of Sighs.
Take her up tenderly,
Lift her with care;
Fashioned so slenderly,
Young, and so fair!
The Bridge of Sighs.
Alas for the rarity
Of Christian charity
Under the sun!
The Bridge of Sighs.
Even God's providence
Seeming estrang'd.
The Bridge of Sighs.
No sun, no moon, no morn, no noon,
No dawn, no dusk, no proper time of day,
. . . . .
No road, no street, no t' other side the way,
. . . . .
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no buds.
November.
No solemn sanctimonious face I pull,
Nor think I 'm pious when I 'm only bilious;
Nor study in my sanctum supercilious,
To frame a Sabbath Bill or forge a Bull.
Ode to Rae Wilson.
The Quaker loves an ample brim,
A hat that bows to no salaam;
And dear the beaver is to him
As if it never made a dam.
All round my Hat.
Ever of thee I 'm fondly dreaming,
Thy gentle voice my spirit can cheer.
Ever of Thee.
[587]
Thou art gone from my gaze like a beautiful dream,
And I seek thee in vain by the meadow and stream.
Thou art gone.
Tho' lost to sight, to mem'ry dear
Thou ever wilt remain;
One only hope my heart can cheer,—
The hope to meet again.
Oh fondly on the past I dwell,
And oft recall those hours
When, wand'ring down the shady dell,
We gathered the wild-flowers.
Yes, life then seem'd one pure delight,
Tho' now each spot looks drear;
Yet tho' thy smile be lost to sight,
To mem'ry thou art dear.
Oft in the tranquil hour of night,
When stars illume the sky,
I gaze upon each orb of light,
And wish that thou wert by.
I think upon that happy time,
That time so fondly lov'd,
When last we heard the sweet bells chime,
As thro' the fields we rov'd.
Yes, life then seem'd one pure delight,
Tho' now each spot looks drear;
Yet tho' thy smile be lost to sight,
To mem'ry thou art dear.
Song.[587:1]
[587:1] This song—written and composed by Linley for Mr. Augustus Braham, and sung by him—is given entire, as so much inquiry has been made for the source of "Though lost to Sight, to Memory dear." It is not known when the song was written,—probably about 1830.
Another song, entitled "Though lost to Sight, to Memory dear," was published in London in 1880, purporting to have been "written by Ruthven Jenkyns in 1703." It is said to have been published in the "Magazine for Mariners." No such magazine, however, ever existed, and the composer of the music acknowledged, in a private letter, to have copied the song from an American newspaper. There is no other authority for the origin of this song, and the reputed author, Ruthven Jenkyns, was living, under the name of C——, in California in 1882.
[588]
Put your trust in God, my boys, and keep your powder dry.[588:1]
Oliver's Advice. 1834.
[588:1] There is a well-authenticated anecdote of Cromwell. On a certain occasion, when his troops were about crossing a river to attack the enemy, he concluded an address, couched in the usual fanatic terms in use among them, with these words: "Put your trust in God; but mind to keep your powder dry!"—Hayes: Ballads of Ireland, vol. i. p. 191.
Sorrows remember'd sweeten present joy.
The Course of Time. Book i. Line 464.
He laid his hand upon "the Ocean's mane,"
And played familiar with his hoary locks.[588:2]
The Course of Time. Book iv. Line 389.
He was a man
Who stole the livery of the court of Heaven
To serve the Devil in.
The Course of Time. Book viii. Line 616.
With one hand he put
A penny in the urn of poverty,
And with the other took a shilling out.
The Course of Time. Book viii. Line 632.
There was a state without king or nobles; there was a church without a bishop;[588:3] there was a people governed by grave magistrates which it had selected, and by equal laws which it had framed.
Speech before the New England Society, Dec. 22, 1843.
We join ourselves to no party that does not carry the flag and keep step to the music of the Union.
Letter to the Whig Convention, 1855.
[589]
Its constitution the glittering and sounding generalities[589:1] of natural right which make up the Declaration of Independence.
Letter to the Maine Whig Committee, 1856.
[588:3] The Americans equally detest the pageantry of a king and the supercilious hypocrisy of a bishop.—Junius: Letter xxxv. Dec. 19, 1769.
It [Calvinism] established a religion without a prelate, a government without a king.—George Bancroft: History of the United States, vol. iii. chap. vi.
[589:1] Although Mr. Choate has usually been credited with the original utterance of the words "glittering generalities," the following quotation will show that he was anticipated therein by several years:—
We fear that the glittering generalities of the speaker have left an impression more delightful than permanent.—Franklin J. Dickman: Review of a Lecture by Rufus Choate, Providence Journal, Dec. 14, 1849.
The tomb of him who would have made
The world too glad and free.
The Devil's Progress.
He stood beside a cottage lone
And listened to a lute,
One summer's eve, when the breeze was gone,
And the nightingale was mute.
The Devil's Progress.
A love that took an early root,
And had an early doom.
The Devil's Progress.
Like ships, that sailed for sunny isles,
But never came to shore.
The Devil's Progress.
A Hebrew knelt in the dying light,
His eye was dim and cold,
The hairs on his brow were silver-white,
And his blood was thin and old.
The Devil's Progress.
(From his Essays.)
That is the best government which desires to make the people happy, and knows how to make them happy.
On Mitford's History of Greece. 1824.
[590]
Free trade, one of the greatest blessings which a government can confer on a people, is in almost every country unpopular.
On Mitford's History of Greece. 1824.
The history of nations, in the sense in which I use the word, is often best studied in works not professedly historical.
On Mitford's History of Greece. 1824.
Wherever literature consoles sorrow or assuages pain; wherever it brings gladness to eyes which fail with wakefulness and tears, and ache for the dark house and the long sleep,—there is exhibited in its noblest form the immortal influence of Athens.
On Mitford's History of Greece. 1824.
We hold that the most wonderful and splendid proof of genius is a great poem produced in a civilized age.
On Milton. 1825.
Nobles by the right of an earlier creation, and priests by the imposition of a mightier hand.
On Milton. 1825.
Out of his surname they have coined an epithet for a knave, and out of his Christian name a synonym for the Devil.[590:1]
On Machiavelli. 1825.
The English Bible,—a book which if everything else in our language should perish, would alone suffice to show the whole extent of its beauty and power.
On John Dryden. 1828.
His imagination resembled the wings of an ostrich. It enabled him to run, though not to soar.
On John Dryden. 1828.
A man possessed of splendid talents, which he often abused, and of a sound judgment, the admonitions of which he often neglected; a man who succeeded only in an inferior department of his art, but who in that department succeeded pre-eminently.
On John Dryden. 1828.
He had a head which statuaries loved to copy, and a foot the deformity of which the beggars in the streets mimicked.
On Moore's Life of Lord Byron. 1830.
[591]
We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality.
On Moore's Life of Lord Byron. 1830.
From the poetry of Lord Byron they drew a system of ethics compounded of misanthropy and voluptuousness,—a system in which the two great commandments were to hate your neighbour and to love your neighbour's wife.
On Moore's Life of Lord Byron. 1830.
That wonderful book, while it obtains admiration from the most fastidious critics, is loved by those who are too simple to admire it.
On Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. 1831.
The conformation of his mind was such that whatever was little seemed to him great, and whatever was great seemed to him little.
On Horace Walpole. 1833.
What a singular destiny has been that of this remarkable man!—To be regarded in his own age as a classic, and in ours as a companion! To receive from his contemporaries that full homage which men of genius have in general received only from posterity; to be more intimately known to posterity than other men are known to their contemporaries!
On Boswell's Life of Johnson (Croker's ed.). 1831.
Temple was a man of the world amongst men of letters, a man of letters amongst men of the world.[591:1]
On Sir William Temple. 1838.
She [the Roman Catholic Church] may still exist in undiminished vigour when some traveller from New Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul's.[591:2]
On Ranke's History of the Popes. 1840.
[592]
The chief-justice was rich, quiet, and infamous.
On Warren Hastings. 1841.
In that temple of silence and reconciliation where the enmities of twenty generations lie buried, in the great Abbey which has during many ages afforded a quiet resting-place to those whose minds and bodies have been shattered by the contentions of the Great Hall.
On Warren Hastings. 1841.
In order that he might rob a neighbour whom he had promised to defend, black men fought on the coast of Coromandel and red men scalped each other by the great lakes of North America.
On Frederic the Great. 1842.
We hardly know an instance of the strength and weakness of human nature so striking and so grotesque as the character of this haughty, vigilant, resolute, sagacious [593]blue-stocking, half Mithridates and half Trissotin, bearing up against a world in arms, with an ounce of poison in one pocket and a quire of bad verses in the other.
On Frederic the Great. 1842.
I shall cheerfully bear the reproach of having descended below the dignity of history.[593:1]
History of England. Vol. i. Chap. i.
There were gentlemen and there were seamen in the navy of Charles II. But the seamen were not gentlemen, and the gentlemen were not seamen.
History of England. Vol. i. Chap. ii.
The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.[593:2]
History of England. Vol. i. Chap. iii.
I have not the Chancellor's encyclopedic mind. He is indeed a kind of semi-Solomon. He half knows everything, from the cedar to the hyssop.
Letter to Macvey Napier, Dec. 17, 1830.
To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late;
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds
For the ashes of his fathers
And the temples of his gods?
Lays of Ancient Rome. Horatius, xxvii.
How well Horatius kept the bridge
In the brave days of old.
Lays of Ancient Rome. Horatius, lxx.
These be the great Twin Brethren
To whom the Dorians pray.
The Battle of Lake Regillus.
The sweeter sound of woman's praise.
Lines written in August, 1847.
Ye diners-out from whom we guard our spoons.[593:3]
Political Georgics.
[591:2] The same image was employed by Macaulay in 1824 in the concluding paragraph of a review of Mitford's Greece, and he repeated it in his review of Mill's "Essay on Government" in 1829.
What cities, as great as this, have . . . promised themselves immortality! Posterity can hardly trace the situation of some. The sorrowful traveller wanders over the awful ruins of others. . . . Here stood their citadel, but now grown over with weeds; there their senate-house, but now the haunt of every noxious reptile; temples and theatres stood here, now only an undistinguished heap of ruins.—Goldsmith: The Bee, No. iv. (1759.) A City Night Piece.
Who knows but that hereafter some traveller like myself will sit down upon the banks of the Seine, the Thames, or the Zuyder Zee, where now, in the tumult of enjoyment, the heart and the eyes are too slow to take in the multitude of sensations? Who knows but he will sit down solitary amid silent ruins, and weep a people inurned and their greatness changed into an empty name?—Volney: Ruins, chap. ii.
At last some curious traveller from Lima will visit England, and give a description of the ruins of St. Paul's, like the editions of Baalbec and Palmyra.—Horace Walpole: Letter to Mason, Nov. 24, 1774.
Where now is Britain?
. . . . .
Even as the savage sits upon the stone
That marks where stood her capitols, and hears
The bittern booming in the weeds, he shrinks
From the dismaying solitude.
Henry Kirke White: Time.
In the firm expectation that when London shall be a habitation of bitterns, when St. Paul and Westminster Abbey shall stand shapeless and nameless ruins in the midst of an unpeopled marsh, when the piers of Waterloo Bridge shall become the nuclei of islets of reeds and osiers, and cast the jagged shadows of their broken arches on the solitary stream, some Transatlantic commentator will be weighing in the scales of some new and now unimagined system of criticism the respective merits of the Bells and the Fudges and their historians.—Shelley: Dedication to Peter Bell.
[593:2] Even bear-baiting was esteemed heathenish and unchristian: the sport of it, not the inhumanity, gave offence.—Hume: History of England, vol. i. chap. lxii.
[593:3] Macaulay, in a letter, June 29, 1831, says "I sent these lines to the 'Times' about three years ago."
[594]
Meet me by moonlight alone,
And then I will tell you a tale
Must be told by the moonlight alone,
In the grove at the end of the vale!
Meet me by Moonlight.
'T were vain to tell thee all I feel,
Or say for thee I 'd die.
'T were vain to tell.
The world knows nothing of its greatest men.
Philip Van Artevelde. Part i. Act i. Sc. 5.
An unreflected light did never yet
Dazzle the vision feminine.
Philip Van Artevelde. Part i. Act i. Sc. 5.
He that lacks time to mourn, lacks time to mend.
Eternity mourns that. 'T is an ill cure
For life's worst ills, to have no time to feel them.
Where sorrow 's held intrusive and turned out,
There wisdom will not enter, nor true power,
Nor aught that dignifies humanity.
Philip Van Artevelde. Part i. Act i. Sc. 5.
We figure to ourselves
The thing we like; and then we build it up,
As chance will have it, on the rock or sand,—
For thought is tired of wandering o'er the world,
And homebound Fancy runs her bark ashore.
Philip Van Artevelde. Part i. Act i. Sc. 5.
Such souls,
Whose sudden visitations daze the world,
Vanish like lightning, but they leave behind
A voice that in the distance far away
Wakens the slumbering ages.
Philip Van Artevelde. Part i. Act i. Sc. 7.
[595]
There is a higher law than the Constitution.
Speech, March 11, 1850.
It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces.
Speech, Oct. 25, 1858.
Twelve years ago I was a boy,
A happy boy at Drury's.
School and Schoolfellows.
Some lie beneath the churchyard stone,
And some before the speaker.
School and Schoolfellows.
I remember, I remember
How my childhood fleeted by,—
The mirth of its December
And the warmth of its July.
I remember, I remember.
Woodman, spare that tree!
Touch not a single bough![595:1]
In youth it sheltered me,
And I 'll protect it now.
Woodman, spare that Tree! 1830.
A song for our banner! The watchword recall
Which gave the Republic her station:
"United we stand, divided we fall!"
It made and preserves us a nation![595:2]
[596]The union of lakes, the union of lands,
The union of States none can sever,
The union of hearts, the union of hands,
And the flag of our Union forever!
The Flag of our Union.
Near the lake where drooped the willow,
Long time ago!
Near the Lake.
Old Grimes is dead, that good old man
We never shall see more;
He used to wear a long black coat
All buttoned down before.[596:1]
Old Grimes.
John Lee is dead, that good old man,—
We ne'er shall see him more;
He used to wear an old drab coat
All buttoned down before.
To the memory of John Lee, who died May 21, 1823.
An Inscription in Matherne Churchyard.
Old Abram Brown is dead and gone,—
You 'll never see him more;
He used to wear a long brown coat
That buttoned down before.
Halliwell: Nursery Rhymes of England, p. 60.
England may as well dam up the waters of the Nile with bulrushes as to fetter the step of Freedom, more proud and firm in this youthful land than where she treads the sequestered glens of Scotland, or couches herself among the magnificent mountains of Switzerland.
Supposititious Speech of James Otis. The Rebels, Chap. iv.
[597]
He is one of those wise philanthropists who in a time of famine would vote for nothing but a supply of toothpicks.
Douglas Jerrold's Wit.
The surest way to hit a woman's heart is to take aim kneeling.
Douglas Jerrold's Wit.
The nobleman of the garden.
The Pineapple.
That fellow would vulgarize the day of judgment.
A Comic Author.
The best thing I know between France and England is the sea.
The Anglo-French Alliance.
The life of the husbandman,—a life fed by the bounty of earth and sweetened by the airs of heaven.
The Husbandman's Life.
Some people are so fond of ill-luck that they run half-way to meet it.
Meeting Troubles Half-way.
Earth is here so kind, that just tickle her with a hoe and she laughs with a harvest.
A Land of Plenty [Australia].
The ugliest of trades have their moments of pleasure. Now, if I were a grave-digger, or even a hangman, there are some people I could work for with a great deal of enjoyment.
Ugly Trades.
A blessed companion is a book,—a book that fitly chosen is a life-long friend.
Books.
There is something about a wedding-gown prettier than in any other gown in the world.
A Wedding-gown.
He was so good he would pour rose-water on a toad.
A Charitable Man.
As for the brandy, "nothing extenuate;" and the water, put nought in in malice.
Shakespeare Grog.
Talk to him of Jacob's ladder, and he would ask the number of the steps.
A Matter-of-fact Man.
[598]
Nor knowest thou what argument
Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent.
All are needed by each one;
Nothing is fair or good alone.
Each and All.
I wiped away the weeds and foam,
I fetched my sea-born treasures home;
But the poor, unsightly, noisome things
Had left their beauty on the shore,
With the sun and the sand and the wild uproar.
Each and All.
Not from a vain or shallow thought
His awful Jove young Phidias brought.
The Problem.
Out from the heart of Nature rolled
The burdens of the Bible old.
The Problem.
The hand that rounded Peter's dome,
And groined the aisles of Christian Rome,
Wrought in a sad sincerity;
Himself from God he could not free;
He builded better than he knew:
The conscious stone to beauty grew.
The Problem.
Earth proudly wears the Parthenon
As the best gem upon her zone.
The Problem.
Earth laughs in flowers to see her boastful boys
Earth-proud, proud of the earth which is not theirs;
Who steer the plough, but cannot steer their feet
Clear of the grave.
Hamatreya.
Good bye, proud world! I 'm going home;
Thou art not my friend, and I 'm not thine.[598:1]
Good Bye.
For what are they all in their high conceit,
When man in the bush with God may meet?
Good Bye.
[599]
If eyes were made for seeing,
Then Beauty is its own excuse for being.
The Rhodora.
Olympian bards who sung
Divine ideas below,
Which always find us young
And always keep us so.
Ode to Beauty.
Heartily know,
When half-gods go,
The gods arrive.
Give all to Love.
Love not the flower they pluck and know it not,
And all their botany is Latin names.
Blight.
The silent organ loudest chants
The master's requiem.
Dirge.
By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattl'd farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.[599:2]
Hymn sung at the Completion of the Battle Monument.
What potent blood hath modest May!
May-Day.
And striving to be man, the worm
Mounts through all the spires of form.
May-Day.
And every man, in love or pride,
Of his fate is never wide.
Nemesis.
None shall rule but the humble,
And none but Toil shall have.
Boston Hymn. 1863.
[600]
Oh, tenderly the haughty day
Fills his blue urn with fire.
Ode, Concord, July 4, 1857.
Go put your creed into your deed,
Nor speak with double tongue.
Ode, Concord, July 4, 1857.
So nigh is grandeur to our dust,
So near is God to man,
When Duty whispers low, Thou must,
The youth replies, I can!
Voluntaries.
Whoever fights, whoever falls,
Justice conquers evermore.
Voluntaries.
Nor sequent centuries could hit
Orbit and sum of Shakespeare's wit.
Solution.
Born for success he seemed,
With grace to win, with heart to hold,
With shining gifts that took all eyes.
In Memoriam.
Nor mourn the unalterable Days
That Genius goes and Folly stays.
In Memoriam.
Fear not, then, thou child infirm;
There 's no god dare wrong a worm.
Compensation.
He thought it happier to be dead,
To die for Beauty, than live for bread.
Beauty.
Wilt thou seal up the avenues of ill?
Pay every debt, as if God wrote the bill?
Suum Cuique.
Too busy with the crowded hour to fear to live or die.
Quatrains. Nature.
Though love repine, and reason chafe,
There came a voice without reply,—
"'T is man's perdition to be safe
When for the truth he ought to die."
Sacrifice.
[601]
For what avail the plough or sail,
Or land or life, if freedom fail?
Boston.
If the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him.[601:1]
Nature. Addresses and Lectures. The American Scholar.
There is no great and no small[601:2]
To the Soul that maketh all;
And where it cometh, all things are;
And it cometh everywhere.
Essays. First Series. Epigraph to History.
Time dissipates to shining ether the solid angularity of facts.
Essays. First Series. History.
Nature is a mutable cloud which is always and never the same.
Essays. First Series. History.
A man is a bundle of relations, a knot of roots, whose flower and fruitage is the world.
Essays. First Series. History.
The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.
Essays. First Series. Self-Reliance.
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.
Essays. First Series. Self-Reliance.
To be great is to be misunderstood.
Essays. First Series. Self-Reliance.
Discontent is the want of self-reliance: it is infirmity of will.
Essays. First Series. Self-Reliance.
Everything in Nature contains all the powers of Nature. Everything is made of one hidden stuff.
Essays. First Series. Compensation.
It is as impossible for a man to be cheated by any one but himself, as for a thing to be and not to be at the same time.
Essays. First Series. Compensation.
[602]
Proverbs, like the sacred books of each nation, are the sanctuary of the intuitions.
Essays. First Series. Compensation.
Every action is measured by the depth of the sentiment from which it proceeds.
Essays. First Series. Spiritual Laws.
All mankind love a lover.
Essays. First Series. Love.
A ruddy drop of manly blood
The surging sea outweighs;
The world uncertain comes and goes,
The lover rooted stays.
Essays. First Series. Epigraph to Friendship.
A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of Nature.
Essays. First Series. Friendship.
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
Essays. First Series. Circles.
There is nothing settled in manners, but the laws of behaviour yield to the energy of the individual.
Essays. Second Series. Manners.
And with Cæsar to take in his hand the army, the empire, and Cleopatra, and say, "All these will I relinquish if you will show me the fountain of the Nile."
New England Reformers.
He is great who is what he is from Nature, and who never reminds us of others.
Representative Men. Uses of Great Men.
Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the beginning of the world, that such as are in the institution wish to get out, and such as are out wish to get in?[602:1]
Representative Men. Montaigne.
Thought is the property of him who can entertain it, and of him who can adequately place it.
Representative Men. Shakespeare.
[603]
The hearing ear is always found close to the speaking tongue.
English Traits. Race.
I find the Englishman to be him of all men who stands firmest in his shoes.
English Traits. Manners.
A creative economy is the fuel of magnificence.
English Traits. Aristocracy.
The manly part is to do with might and main what you can do.
The Conduct of Life. Wealth.
The alleged power to charm down insanity, or ferocity in beasts, is a power behind the eye.
The Conduct of Life. Behaviour.
Fine manners need the support of fine manners in others.
The Conduct of Life. Behaviour.
Good is a good doctor, but Bad is sometimes a better.
The Conduct of Life. Considerations by the Way.
God may forgive sins, he said, but awkwardness has no forgiveness in heaven or earth.
The Conduct of Life. Society and Solitude.
Hitch your wagon to a star.
The Conduct of Life. Civilization.
I rarely read any Latin, Greek, German, Italian, sometimes not a French book, in the original, which I can procure in a good version. I like to be beholden to the great metropolitan English speech, the sea which receives tributaries from every region under heaven. I should as soon think of swimming across Charles River when I wish to go to Boston, as of reading all my books in originals when I have them rendered for me in my mother tongue.
The Conduct of Life. Books.
We do not count a man's years until he has nothing else to count.
The Conduct of Life. Old Age.
Life is not so short but that there is always time enough for courtesy.
Letters and Social Aims. Social Aims.
By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote.
Letters and Social Aims. Quotation and Originality.
[604]
Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it.[604:1]
Letters and Social Aims. Quotation and Originality.
When Shakespeare is charged with debts to his authors, Landor replies, "Yet he was more original than his originals. He breathed upon dead bodies and brought them into life."
Letters and Social Aims. Quotation and Originality.
In fact, it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent.
Letters and Social Aims. Quotation and Originality.
The passages of Shakespeare that we most prize were never quoted until within this century.
Letters and Social Aims. Quotation and Originality.
Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force; that thoughts rule the world.
Progress of Culture. Phi Beta Kappa Address, July 18, 1867.
I do not find that the age or country makes the least difference; no, nor the language the actors spoke, nor the religion which they professed, whether Arab in the desert or Frenchman in the Academy. I see that sensible men and conscientious men all over the world were of one religion.[604:2]
Lectures and Biographical Sketches. The Preacher.
[599:1] I never could believe that Providence had sent a few men into the world ready booted and spurred to ride, and millions ready saddled and bridled to be ridden.—Rumbold (when on the scaffold).
No war or battle sound
Was heard the world around.
Milton: Hymn of Christ's Nativity, line 31.
[601:1] Everything comes if a man will only wait.—Disraeli: Tancred, book iv. chap. viii.
[604:1] There is not less wit nor less invention in applying rightly a thought one finds in a book, than in being the first author of that thought. Cardinal du Perron has been heard to say that the happy application of a verse of Virgil has deserved a talent.—Bayle: vol. ii. p. 779.
Though old the thought and oft exprest,
'T is his at last who says it best.
Lowell: For an Autograph.
'T is always morning somewhere in the world.[604:3]
Orion. Book iii. Canto ii. (1843.)
[604:3] 'T is always morning somewhere.—Longfellow: Wayside Inn. Birds of Killingworth, stanza 16.
[605]
My country is the world; my countrymen are mankind.[605:1]
Prospectus of the Public Liberator, 1830.
I am in earnest. I will not equivocate; I will not excuse; I will not retreat a single inch; and I will be heard!
Salutatory of the Liberator, Jan. 1, 1831.
Our country is the world; our countrymen are mankind.
Motto of the Liberator, Vol. i. No. 1, 1831.
I will be as harsh as truth and as uncompromising as justice.
The Liberator, Vol. i. No. 1, 1831.
Our country is the world; our countrymen are all mankind.
Prospectus of the Liberator, Dec. 15, 1837.
The compact which exists between the North and the South is a covenant with death and an agreement with hell.[605:2]
Resolution adopted by the Antislavery Society, Jan. 27, 1843.
[605:1] Socrates said he was not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.—Plutarch: On Banishment.
Diogenes, when asked from what country he came, replied, "I am a citizen of the world."—Diogenes Laertius.
My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.—Thomas Paine: Rights of Man, chap. v.
[605:2] We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement.—Isaiah xxviii. 15.
Old England is our home, and Englishmen are we;
Our tongue is known in every clime, our flag in every sea.
Old England is our Home.
"Will you walk into my parlour?" said a spider to a fly;
"'T is the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy."
The Spider and the Fly.
[606]
Nearer, my God, to Thee!
Nearer to Thee!
E'en though it be a cross
That raiseth me,
Still all my song shall be,
Nearer, my God, to Thee!
Nearer to Thee!
Curse away!
And let me tell thee, Beausant, a wise proverb
The Arabs have,—"Curses are like young chickens,
And still come home to roost."
The Lady of Lyons. Act v. Sc. 2.
Beneath the rule of men entirely great,
The pen is mightier than the sword.[606:1]
Richelieu. Act ii. Sc. 2.
Take away the sword;
States can be saved without it.
Richelieu. Act ii. Sc. 2.
In the lexicon of youth, which fate reserves
For a bright manhood, there is no such word
As "fail."
Richelieu. Act ii. Sc. 2.
The brilliant chief, irregularly great,
Frank, haughty, rash,—the Rupert of debate![606:2]
The New Timon. (1846.) Part i.
Alone!—that worn-out word,
So idly spoken, and so coldly heard;
Yet all that poets sing and grief hath known
Of hopes laid waste, knells in that word Alone!
The New Timon. (1846.) Part ii.
[607]
When stars are in the quiet skies,
Then most I pine for thee;
Bend on me then thy tender eyes,
As stars look on the sea.
When Stars are in the quiet Skies.
Buy my flowers,—oh buy, I pray!
The blind girl comes from afar.
Buy my Flowers.
The man who smokes, thinks like a sage and acts like a Samaritan.
Night and Morning. Chap. vi.
[606:2] In April, 1844, Mr. Disraeli thus alluded to Lord Stanley: "The noble lord is the Rupert of debate."
Free trade is not a principle, it is an expedient.[607:1]
On Import Duties, April 25, 1843.
A conservative government is an organized hypocrisy.
Speech, March 17, 1845.
A precedent embalms a principle.
Speech, Feb. 22, 1848.
It is much easier to be critical than to be correct.
Speech, Jan. 24, 1860.
The characteristic of the present age is craving credulity.
Speech, Nov. 25, 1864.
Assassination has never changed the history of the world.
Speech, May, 1865.
I see before me the statue of a celebrated minister,[607:4] who said that confidence was a plant of slow growth. But I believe, however gradual may be the growth of confidence, that of credit requires still more time to arrive at maturity.
Speech, Nov. 9, 1867.
[608]
The secret of success is constancy to purpose.
Speech, June 24, 1870.
The author who speaks about his own books is almost as bad as a mother who talks about her own children.
Speech, Nov. 19, 1870.
Apologies only account for that which they do not alter.
Speech, July 28, 1871.
Increased means and increased leisure are the two civilizers of man.
Speech, April 3, 1872.
I repeat . . . that all power is a trust; that we are accountable for its exercise; that from the people and for the people all springs, and all must exist.[608:1]
Vivian Grey. Book vi. Chap. vii.
Man is not the creature of circumstances. Circumstances are the creatures of men.
Vivian Grey. Book vi. Chap. vii.
The disappointment of manhood succeeds to the delusion of youth: let us hope that the heritage of old age is not despair.
Vivian Grey. Book viii. Chap. iv.
The first favourite was never heard of, the second favourite was never seen after the distance post, all the ten-to-oners were in the rear, and a dark horse[608:2] which had never been thought of, and which the careless St. James had never even observed in the list, rushed past the grand stand in sweeping triumph.
The Young Duke. Book i. Chap. v.
Patience is a necessary ingredient of genius.
Contarini Fleming. Part iv. Chap. v.
Youth is a blunder; manhood a struggle; old age a regret.
Coningsby. Book iii. Chap. i.
But what minutes! Count them by sensation, and not by calendars, and each moment is a day, and the race a life.
Sybil. Book i. Chap. ii.
Only think of Cockie Graves having gone and done it!
Sybil. Book i. Chap. ii.
[609]
The Duke of Wellington brought to the post of first minister immortal fame,—a quality of success which would almost seem to include all others.
Sybil. Book i. Chap. iii.
The Egremonts had never said anything that was remembered, or done anything that could be recalled.
Sybil. Book i. Chap. iii.
If the history of England be ever written by one who has the knowledge and the courage,—and both qualities are equally requisite for the undertaking,—the world will be more astonished than when reading the Roman annals by Niebuhr.
Sybil. Book i. Chap. iii.
That earliest shock in one's life which occurs to all of us; which first makes us think.
Sybil. Book i. Chap. v.
To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge.
Sybil. Book i. Chap. v.
Principle is ever my motto, not expediency.
Sybil. Book ii. Chap. ii.
Property has its duties as well as its rights.[609:1]
Sybil. Book ii. Chap. xi.
Mr. Kremlin was distinguished for ignorance; for he had only one idea, and that was wrong.[609:2]
Sybil. Book iv. Chap. v.
Everything comes if a man will only wait.[609:3]
Tancred. Book iv. Chap. viii. (1847.)
That when a man fell into his anecdotage, it was a sign for him to retire.
Lothair. Chap. xxviii.
You know who critics are?—the men who have failed in literature and art.[609:4]
Lothair. Chap. xxxv.
His Christianity was muscular.
Endymion. Chap. xiv.
The Athanasian Creed is the most splendid ecclesiastical lyric ever poured forth by the genius of man.
Endymion. Chap. lii.
[610]
The world is a wheel, and it will all come round right.
Endymion. Chap. lxx.
"As for that," said Waldenshare, "sensible men are all of the same religion." "Pray, what is that?" inquired the Prince. "Sensible men never tell."[610:1]
Endymion. Chap. lxxxi.
The sweet simplicity of the three per cents.[610:2]
Endymion. Chap. xcvi.
[607:1] It is a condition which confronts us, not a theory.—Grover Cleveland: Annual Message, 1887. Reference to the Tariff.
[607:2] Lord Stanley.
[607:4] William Pitt, Earl of Chatham.
[608:2] A common political phrase in the United States.
[609:3] See Emerson, page 601.
All things come round to him who will but wait.—Longfellow: Tales of a Wayside Inn. The Student's Tale. (1862.)
[610:1] See Johnson, page 370.
An anecdote is related of Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper (1621-1683), who, in speaking of religion, said, "People differ in their discourse and profession about these matters, but men of sense are really but of one religion." To the inquiry of "What religion?" the Earl said, "Men of sense never tell it."—Burnet: History of my own Times, vol. i. p. 175, note (edition 1833).
And thou, vast ocean! on whose awful face
Time's iron feet can print no ruin-trace.[610:3]
The Omnipresence of the Deity. Part i.
The soul aspiring pants its source to mount,
As streams meander level with their fount.[610:4]
The Omnipresence of the Deity. Part i.
The solitary monk who shook the world
From pagan slumber, when the gospel trump
Thunder'd its challenge from his dauntless lips
In peals of truth.
Luther. Man's Need and God's Supply.
And not from Nature up to Nature's God,[610:5]
But down from Nature's God look Nature through.
Luther. A Landscape of Domestic Life.
[610:4] We take this to be, on the whole, the worst similitude in the world. In the first place, no stream meanders or can possibly meander level with the fount. In the next place, if streams did meander level with their founts, no two motions can be less like each other than that of meandering level and that of mounting upwards.—Macaulay: Review of Montgomery's Poems (Eleventh Edition). Edinburgh Review, April, 1830.
These lines were omitted in the subsequent edition of the poem.
[611]
Come o'er the moonlit sea,
The waves are brightly glowing.
The Moonlit Sea.
The morn was fair, the skies were clear,
No breath came o'er the sea.
The Rose of Allandale.
Meek and lowly, pure and holy,
Chief among the "blessed three."
Charity.
Come, wander with me, for the moonbeams are bright
On river and forest, o'er mountain and lea.
Come, wander with me.
A word in season spoken
May calm the troubled breast.
A Word in Season.
The bud is on the bough again,
The leaf is on the tree.
The Meeting of Spring and Summer.
I have heard the mavis singing
Its love-song to the morn;
I 've seen the dew-drop clinging
To the rose just newly born.
Mary of Argyle.
We have lived and loved together
Through many changing years;
We have shared each other's gladness,
And wept each other's tears.
We have lived and loved together.
I 'm sitting on the stile, Mary,
Where we sat side by side.
Lament of the Irish Emigrant.
I 'm very lonely now, Mary,
For the poor make no new friends;
But oh they love the better still
The few our Father sends!
Lament of the Irish Emigrant.
[612]
(From the edition of 1886.)
Look, then, into thine heart, and write![612:1]
Voices of the Night. Prelude.
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
"Life is but an empty dream!"
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.[612:2]
A Psalm of Life.
Life is real! life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
A Psalm of Life.
Trust no future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act, act in the living present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!
A Psalm of Life.
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.
A Psalm of Life.
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;[612:5]
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labour and to wait.
A Psalm of Life.
[613]
There is a reaper whose name is Death,[613:1]
And with his sickle keen
He reaps the bearded grain at a breath,
And the flowers that grow between.
The Reaper and the Flowers.
The star of the unconquered will.
The Light of Stars.
Oh, fear not in a world like this,
And thou shalt know erelong,—
Know how sublime a thing it is
To suffer and be strong.
The Light of Stars.
Spake full well, in language quaint and olden,
One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine,
When he called the flowers, so blue and golden,
Stars, that in earth's firmament do shine.
Flowers.
The hooded clouds, like friars,
Tell their beads in drops of rain.
Midnight Mass.
No tears
Dim the sweet look that Nature wears.
Sunrise on the Hills.
No one is so accursed by fate,
No one so utterly desolate,
But some heart, though unknown,
Responds unto his own.
Endymion.
For Time will teach thee soon the truth,
There are no birds in last year's nest![613:2]
It is not always May.
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.
The Rainy Day.
[614]
The prayer of Ajax was for light.[614:1]
The Goblet of Life.
O suffering, sad humanity!
O ye afflicted ones, who lie
Steeped to the lips in misery,
Longing, yet afraid to die,
Patient, though sorely tried!
The Goblet of Life.
Standing with reluctant feet
Where the brook and river meet,
Womanhood and childhood fleet!
Maidenhood.
O thou child of many prayers!
Life hath quicksands; life hath snares!
Maidenhood.
She floats upon the river of his thoughts.[614:2]
The Spanish Student. Act ii. Sc. 3.
A banner with the strange device.
Excelsior.
This is the place. Stand still, my steed,—
Let me review the scene,
And summon from the shadowy past
The forms that once have been.
A Gleam of Sunshine.
The day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.
The Day is done.
A feeling of sadness and longing
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only
As the mist resembles the rain.
The Day is done.
And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares that infest the day
Shall fold their tents like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.
The Day is done.
[615]
Sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!
The Building of the Ship.
Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee,—
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,
Our faith triumphant o'er our fears,
Are all with thee,—are all with thee!
The Building of the Ship.
The leaves of memory seemed to make
A mournful rustling in the dark.
The Fire of Drift-wood.
There is no flock, however watched and tended,
But one dead lamb is there;
There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended,
But has one vacant chair.
Resignation.
The air is full of farewells to the dying,
And mournings for the dead.
Resignation.
But oftentimes celestial benedictions
Assume this dark disguise.
Resignation.
What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers
May be heaven's distant lamps.
Resignation.
There is no death! What seems so is transition;
This life of mortal breath
Is but a suburb of the life elysian,
Whose portal we call Death.
Resignation.
Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution,
She lives whom we call dead.
Resignation.
In the elder days of Art,
Builders wrought with greatest care
Each minute and unseen part;
For the gods see everywhere.
The Builders.
This is the forest primeval.
Evangeline. Part i.
[616]
When she had passed, it seemed like the ceasing of exquisite music.
Evangeline. Part i. 1.
Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels.
Evangeline. Part i. 3.
And as she looked around, she saw how Death the consoler,
Laying his hand upon many a heart, had healed it forever.
Evangeline. Part ii. 5.
God had sifted three kingdoms to find the wheat for this planting.[616:1]
The Courtship of Miles Standish. iv.
Into a world unknown,—the corner-stone of a nation![616:2]
The Courtship of Miles Standish. iv.
Saint Augustine! well hast thou said,
That of our vices we can frame
A ladder, if we will but tread
Beneath our feet each deed of shame.[616:3]
The Ladder of Saint Augustine.
The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they while their companions slept
Were toiling upward in the night.
The Ladder of Saint Augustine.
The surest pledge of a deathless name
Is the silent homage of thoughts unspoken.
The Herons of Elmwood.
He has singed the beard of the king of Spain.[616:4]
The Dutch Picture.
[617]
The love of learning, the sequestered nooks,
And all the sweet serenity of books.
Morituri Salutamus.
With useless endeavour
Forever, forever,
Is Sisyphus rolling
His stone up the mountain!
The Masque of Pandora. Chorus of the Eumenides.
All things come round to him who will but wait.[617:1]
Tales of a Wayside Inn. The Student's Tale.
Time has laid his hand
Upon my heart gently, not smiting it,
But as a harper lays his open palm
Upon his harp, to deaden its vibrations.
The Golden Legend. iv.
Hospitality sitting with Gladness.
Translation from Frithiof's Saga.
Who ne'er his bread in sorrow ate,
Who ne'er the mournful midnight hours
Weeping upon his bed has sate,
He knows you not, ye Heavenly Powers.
Motto, Hyperion. Book i.[617:2]
Something the heart must have to cherish,
Must love and joy and sorrow learn;
Something with passion clasp, or perish
And in itself to ashes burn.
Hyperion. Book ii.
Alas! it is not till time, with reckless hand, has torn out half the leaves from the Book of Human Life to light the fires of passion with from day to day, that man begins to see that the leaves which remain are few in number.
Hyperion. Book iv. Chap. viii.
[618]
Hold the fleet angel fast until he bless thee.[618:1]
Kavanagh.
There is no greater sorrow
Than to be mindful of the happy time
In misery.[618:2]
Inferno. Canto v. Line 121.
[612:2] Things are not always what they seem.—Phædrus: Fables, book iv. Fable 2.
[612:4] Our lives are but our marches to the grave.-Beaumont and Fletcher: The Humorous Lieutenant, act iii. sc. 5.
[613:1] There is a Reaper whose name is death.—Arnim and Brentano: Erntelied. (From "Des Knaben Wunderhorn," ed. 1857, vol. i. p. 59.)
[613:2] Never look for birds of this year in the nests of the last.—Cervantes: Don Quixote, part ii. chap. lxxiv.
The light of Heaven restore;
Give me to see, and Ajax asks no more.
Pope: The Iliad, book xvii. line 730.
[616:2] Plymouth rock.
I held it truth, with him who sings
To one clear harp in divers tones,
That men may rise on stepping-stones
Of their dead selves to higher things.
Tennyson: In Memoriam, i.
[616:4] Sir Francis Drake entered the harbour of Cadiz, April 19, 1587, and destroyed shipping to the amount of ten thousand tons lading. To use his own expressive phrase, he had "singed the Spanish king's beard."—Knight: Pictorial History of England, vol. iii. p. 215.
Wer nie sein Brod mit Thränen ass,
Wer nicht die kummervollen Nächte
Auf seinem Bette weinend sass,
Der kennt euch nicht, ihr himmlischen Mächte.
Goethe: Wilhelm Meister, book ii. chap. xiii.
[618:1] Quoted from Cotton's "To-morrow." See Genesis xxx. 3.
In omni adversitate fortunæ, infelicissimum genus est infortunii fuisse felicem (In every adversity of fortune, to have been happy is the most unhappy kind of misfortune).—Boethius: De Consolatione Philosophiæ, liber ii.
This is truth the poet sings,
That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things.
Tennyson: Locksley Hall, line 75.
So fallen! so lost! the light withdrawn
Which once he wore;
The glory from his gray hairs gone
For evermore!
Ichabod!
Making their lives a prayer.
To A. K. On receiving a Basket of Sea-Mosses.
And step by step, since time began,
I see the steady gain of man.
The Chapel of the Hermits.
For still the new transcends the old
In signs and tokens manifold;
Slaves rise up men; the olive waves,
With roots deep set in battle graves!
The Chapel of the Hermits.
Give lettered pomp to teeth of Time,
So "Bonnie Doon" but tarry;
Blot out the epic's stately rhyme,
But spare his "Highland Mary!"
Lines on Burns.
[619]
For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: "It might have been!"
Maud Muller.
Low stir of leaves and dip of oars
And lapsing waves on quiet shores.
Snow Bound.
The hope of all who suffer,
The dread of all who wrong.
The Mantle of St. John de Matha.
I know not where His islands lift
Their fronded palms in air;
I only know I cannot drift
Beyond His love and care.
The Eternal Goodness.
The Constitution, in all its provisions, looks to an indestructible Union composed of indestructible States.
Decision in Texas v. White, 7 Wallace, 725.
No more slave States; no slave Territories.
Platform of the Free Soil National Convention, 1848.
The way to resumption is to resume.
Letter to Horace Greeley, March 17, 1866.
My country, 't is of thee,
Sweet land of liberty,
Of thee I sing:
Land where my fathers died,
Land of the pilgrims' pride,
From every mountain-side
Let freedom ring.
National Hymn.
[620]
Our fathers' God, to thee;
Author of liberty,
To thee I sing;
Long may our land be bright
With freedom's holy light;
Protect us by thy might,
Great God, our King!
National Hymn.
There Shakespeare, on whose forehead climb
The crowns o' the world; oh, eyes sublime
With tears and laughter for all time!
A Vision of Poets.
And Chaucer, with his infantine
Familiar clasp of things divine.
A Vision of Poets.
And Marlowe, Webster, Fletcher, Ben,
Whose fire-hearts sowed our furrows when
The world was worthy of such men.
A Vision of Poets.
Knowledge by suffering entereth,
And life is perfected by death.
A Vision of Poets. Conclusion.
Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west.
Toll slowly.
And I smiled to think God's greatness flowed around our incompleteness,
Round our restlessness His rest.
Rhyme of the Duchess.
Or from Browning some "Pomegranate," which if cut deep down the middle
Shows a heart within blood-tinctured, of a veined humanity.
Lady Geraldine's Courtship. xli.
But since he had
The genius to be loved, why let him have
The justice to be honoured in his grave.
Crowned and buried. xxvii.
[621]
Thou large-brain'd woman and large-hearted man.
To George Sand. A Desire.
By thunders of white silence.
Hiram Power's Greek Slave.
And that dismal cry rose slowly
And sank slowly through the air,
Full of spirit's melancholy
And eternity's despair;
And they heard the words it said,—
"Pan is dead! great Pan is dead!
Pan, Pan is dead!"[621:1]
The Dead Pan.
Death forerunneth Love to win
"Sweetest eyes were ever seen."
Catarina to Camoens. ix.
She has seen the mystery hid
Under Egypt's pyramid:
By those eyelids pale and close
Now she knows what Rhamses knows.
Little Mattie. Stanza ii.
But so fair,
She takes the breath of men away
Who gaze upon her unaware.
Bianca among the Nightingales. xii.
God answers sharp and sudden on some prayers,
And thrusts the thing we have prayed for in our face,
A gauntlet with a gift in 't.
Aurora Leigh. Book ii.
The growing drama has outgrown such toys
Of simulated stature, face, and speech:
It also peradventure may outgrow
The simulation of the painted scene,
Boards, actors, prompters, gaslight, and costume,
And take for a worthier stage the soul itself,
Its shifting fancies and celestial lights,
With all its grand orchestral silences
To keep the pauses of its rhythmic sounds.
Aurora Leigh. Book v.
[621:1] Thamus . . . uttered with a loud voice his message, "The great Pan is dead."—Plutarch: Why the Oracles cease to give Answers.
[622]
I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free.
Speech, June 16, 1858.
Let us have faith that right makes might; and in that faith let us dare to do our duty as we understand it.
Address, New York City, Feb. 21, 1859.
In giving freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free,—honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve.
Second Annual Message to Congress, Dec. 1, 1862.
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.[622:1]
Speech at Gettysburg, Nov. 19, 1863.
With malice towards none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right.[622:2]
Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865.
I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term Natural Selection.
The Origin of Species. Chap. iii.
We will now discuss in a little more detail the Struggle for Existence.[622:3]
The Origin of Species. Chap. iii.
The expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer of the Survival of the Fittest is more accurate, and is sometimes equally convenient.[622:4]
The Origin of Species. Chap. iii.
[622:3] The perpetual struggle for room and food.—Malthus: On Population. chap. iii. p. 48 (1798).
[622:4] This survival of the fittest which I have here sought to express in mechanical terms, is that which Mr. Darwin has called "natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life."—Herbert Spencer: Principles of Biology. Indirect Equilibration.
[623]
(From the edition of 1884.)
This laurel greener from the brows
Of him that utter'd nothing base.
To the Queen.
And statesmen at her council met
Who knew the seasons, when to take
Occasion by the hand, and make
The bounds of freedom wider yet.
To the Queen.
Broad based upon her people's will,
And compassed by the inviolate sea.
To the Queen.
For it was in the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.
Recollections of the Arabian Nights.
Dowered with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn,
The love of love.
The Poet.
Like glimpses of forgotten dreams.
The Two Voices. Stanza cxxvii.
Across the walnuts and the wine.
The Miller's Daughter.
O love! O fire! once he drew
With one long kiss my whole soul through
My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew.[623:1]
Fatima. Stanza 3.
Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control,—
These three alone lead life to sovereign power.
Œnone.
Because right is right, to follow right
Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence.
Œnone.
I built my soul a lordly pleasure-house,
Wherein at ease for aye to dwell.
The Palace of Art.
Her manners had not that repose
Which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere.
Lady Clara Vere de Vere. Stanza 5.
[624]
From yon blue heaven above us bent,
The grand old gardener and his wife[624:1]
Smile at the claims of long descent.
Lady Clara Vere de Vere. Stanza 7.
Howe'er it be, it seems to me,
'T is only noble to be good.[624:2]
Kind hearts are more than coronets,
And simple faith than Norman blood.
Lady Clara Vere de Vere. Stanza 7.
You must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear;
To-morrow 'll be the happiest time of all the glad New Year,—
Of all the glad New Year, mother, the maddest, merriest day;
For I 'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I 'm to be queen o' the May.
The May Queen.
Ah, why
Should life all labour be?
The Lotus-Eaters. iv.
A daughter of the gods, divinely tall,
And most divinely fair.[624:3]
A Dream of Fair Women. Stanza xxii.
God gives us love. Something to love
He lends us; but when love is grown
To ripeness, that on which it throve
Falls off, and love is left alone.
To J. S.
Sleep sweetly, tender heart, in peace!
Sleep, holy spirit, blessed soul,
While the stars burn, the moons increase,
And the great ages onward roll.
To J. S.
[625]
Sleep till the end, true soul and sweet!
Nothing comes to thee new or strange.
Sleep full of rest from head to feet;
Lie still, dry dust, secure of change.
To J. S.
More black than ash-buds in the front of March.
The Gardener's Daughter.
Of love that never found his earthly close,
What sequel? Streaming eyes and breaking hearts;
Or all the same as if he had not been?
Love and Duty.
The long mechanic pacings to and fro,
The set, gray life, and apathetic end.
Love and Duty.
Ah, when shall all men's good
Be each man's rule, and universal peace
Lie like a shaft of light across the land,
And like a lane of beams athwart the sea,
Thro' all the circle of the golden year?
The Golden Year.
I am a part of all that I have met.[625:1]
Ulysses.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use,—
As tho' to breathe were life!
Ulysses.
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles whom we knew.
Ulysses.
Here at the quiet limit of the world.
Tithonus.
In the spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove;
In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.
Locksley Hall. Line 19.
Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might;
Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in music out of sight.
Locksley Hall. Line 33.
[626]
He will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel force,
Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse.
Locksley Hall. Line 49.
This is truth the poet sings,
That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things.[626:1]
Locksley Hall. Line 75.
Like a dog, he hunts in dreams.
Locksley Hall. Line 79.
With a little hoard of maxims preaching down a daughter's heart.
Locksley Hall. Line 94.
But the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that Honour feels.
Locksley Hall. Line 105.
Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new.
Locksley Hall. Line 117.
Yet I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs,
And the thoughts of men are widen'd with the process of the suns.
Locksley Hall. Line 137.
Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.
Locksley Hall. Line 141.
I will take some savage woman, she shall rear my dusky race.
Locksley Hall. Line 168.
I, the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of time.
Locksley Hall. Line 178.
Let the great world spin forever down the ringing grooves of change.
Locksley Hall. Line 182.
Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.
Locksley Hall. Line 184.
I waited for the train at Coventry;
I hung with grooms and porters on the bridge,
To watch the three tall spires; and there I shaped
The city's ancient legend into this.
Godiva.
[627]
And on her lover's arm she leant,
And round her waist she felt it fold,
And far across the hills they went
In that new world which is the old.
The Day-Dream. The Departure, i.
And o'er the hills, and far away
Beyond their utmost purple rim,
Beyond the night, across the day,
Thro' all the world she follow'd him.
The Day-Dream. The Departure, iv.
We are ancients of the earth,
And in the morning of the times.
L'Envoi.
As she fled fast through sun and shade
The happy winds upon her play'd,
Blowing the ringlet from the braid.
Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere.
For now the poet cannot die,
Nor leave his music as of old,
But round him ere he scarce be cold
Begins the scandal and the cry.
To ——, after reading a Life and Letters.
But oh for the touch of a vanish'd hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!
Break, break, break.
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.
Break, break, break.
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.
The Brook.
Mastering the lawless science of our law,—
That codeless myriad of precedent,
That wilderness of single instances.
Aylmer's Field.
Rich in saving common-sense,
And, as the greatest only are,
In his simplicity sublime.
Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington. Stanza 4.
Oh good gray head which all men knew!
Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington. Stanza 4.
[628]
That tower of strength
Which stood four-square to all the winds that blew.
Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington. Stanza 4.
For this is England's greatest son,
He that gain'd a hundred fights,
And never lost an English gun.
Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington. Stanza 6.
Not once or twice in our rough-island story
The path of duty was the way to glory.
Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington. Stanza 8.
All in the valley of death
Rode the six hundred.
The Charge of the Light Brigade. Stanza 1.
Some one had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.
The Charge of the Light Brigade. Stanza 2.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them.
. . . .
Into the jaws of death,[628:1]
Into the mouth of hell
Rode the six hundred.
The Charge of the Light Brigade. Stanza 3.
That a lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies;
That a lie which is all a lie may be met and fought with outright;
But a lie which is part a truth is a harder matter to fight.
The Grandmother. Stanza 8.
O Love! what hours were thine and mine,
In lands of palm and southern pine;
In lands of palm, of orange-blossom,
Of olive, aloe, and maize and vine!
The Daisy. Stanza 1.
[629]
So dear a life your arms enfold,
Whose crying is a cry for gold.
The Daisy. Stanza 24.
Read my little fable:
He that runs may read.[629:1]
Most can raise the flowers now,
For all have got the seed.
The Flower.
In that fierce light which beats upon a throne.
Idylls of the King. Dedication.
It is the little rift within the lute
That by and by will make the music mute,
And ever widening slowly silence all.
Idylls of the King. Merlin and Vivien.
His honour rooted in dishonour stood,
And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true.
Idylls of the King. Launcelot and Elaine.
The old order changeth, yielding place to new;
And God fulfils himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.
The Passing of Arthur.
I am going a long way
With these thou seëst—if indeed I go
(For all my mind is clouded with a doubt)—
To the island-valley of Avilion,
Where falls not hail or rain or any snow,
Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies
Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard lawns
And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea,
Where I will heal me of my grievous wound.
The Passing of Arthur.
With prudes for proctors, dowagers for deans,
And sweet girl-graduates in their golden hair.
The Princess. Prologue. Line 141.
A rosebud set with little wilful thorns,
And sweet as English air could make her, she.
The Princess. Part i. Line 153.
[630]
Jewels five-words-long,
That on the stretch'd forefinger of all Time
Sparkle forever.
The Princess. Part ii. Line 355.
Blow, bugle, blow! set the wild echoes flying!
Blow, bugle! answer, echoes! dying, dying, dying.
The Princess. Part iii. Line 352.
O Love! they die in yon rich sky,
They faint on hill or field or river:
Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
And grow forever and forever.
Blow, bugle, blow! set the wild echoes flying!
And answer, echoes, answer! dying, dying, dying.
The Princess. Part iii. Line 360.
There sinks the nebulous star we call the sun.
The Princess. Part iv. Line 1.
Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean.
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.
The Princess. Part iv. Line 21.
Unto dying eyes
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square.
The Princess. Part iv. Line 33.
Dear as remember'd kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd
On lips that are for others; deep as love,—
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret.
Oh death in life, the days that are no more!
The Princess. Part iv. Line 36.
Sweet is every sound,
Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet;
Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro' the lawn,
The moan of doves in immemorial elms,
And murmuring of innumerable bees.
The Princess. Part vii. Line 203.
Happy he
With such a mother! faith in womankind
Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high
Comes easy to him; and tho' he trip and fall,
He shall not blind his soul with clay.
The Princess. Part vii. Line 308.
[631]
Faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null.
Maud. Part i. ii.
That jewell'd mass of millinery,
That oil'd and curl'd Assyrian Bull.
Maud. Part i. vi. Stanza 6.
Gorgonized me from head to foot,
With a stony British stare.
Maud. Part i. xiii. Stanza 2.
Come into the garden, Maud,
For the black bat, night, has flown;
Come into the garden, Maud,
I am here at the gate alone.
Maud. Part i. xxii. Stanza 1.
Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls.
Maud. Part i. xxii. Stanza 9.
Ah, Christ, that it were possible
For one short hour to see
The souls we loved, that they might tell us
What and where they be.
Maud. Part ii. iv. Stanza 3.
Let knowledge grow from more to more.
In Memoriam. Prologue. Line 25.
But for the unquiet heart and brain
A use in measured language lies;
The sad mechanic exercise
Like dull narcotics numbing pain.
In Memoriam. v. Stanza 2.
Never morning wore
To evening, but some heart did break.
In Memoriam. vi. Stanza 2.
And topples round the dreary west
A looming bastion fringed with fire.
In Memoriam. xv. Stanza 5.
[632]
The shadow cloak'd from head to foot.
In Memoriam. xxiii. Stanza 1.
Who keeps the keys of all the creeds.
In Memoriam. xxiii. Stanza 2.
And Thought leapt out to wed with Thought
Ere Thought could wed itself with Speech.
In Memoriam. xxiii. Stanza 4.
'T is better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.[632:3]
In Memoriam. xxvii. Stanza 4.
Her eyes are homes of silent prayer.
In Memoriam. xxxii. Stanza 1.
Whose faith has centre everywhere,
Nor cares to fix itself to form.
In Memoriam. xxxiii. Stanza 1.
Short swallow-flights of song, that dip
Their wings in tears, and skim away.
In Memoriam. xlviii. Stanza 4.
Hold thou the good; define it well;
For fear divine Philosophy
Should push beyond her mark, and be
Procuress to the Lords of Hell.
In Memoriam. liii. Stanza 4.
Oh yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill.
In Memoriam. liv. Stanza 1.
But what am I?
An infant crying in the night:
An infant crying for the light,
And with no language but a cry.
In Memoriam. liv. Stanza 5.
So careful of the type she seems,
So careless of the single life.
In Memoriam. lv. Stanza 2.
The great world's altar-stairs,
That slope through darkness up to God.
In Memoriam. lv. Stanza 4.
Who battled for the True, the Just.
In Memoriam. lvi. Stanza 5.
[633]
And grasps the skirts of happy chance,
And breasts the blows of circumstance.
In Memoriam. lxiv. Stanza 2.
And lives to clutch the golden keys,
To mould a mighty state's decrees,
And shape the whisper of the throne.
In Memoriam. lxiv. Stanza 3.
So many worlds, so much to do,
So little done, such things to be.
In Memoriam. lxxiii. Stanza 1.
Thy leaf has perish'd in the green,
And while we breathe beneath the sun,
The world, which credits what is done,
Is cold to all that might have been.
In Memoriam. lxxv. Stanza 4.
O last regret, regret can die!
In Memoriam. lxxviii. Stanza 5.
There lives more faith in honest doubt,
Believe me, than in half the creeds.
In Memoriam. xcvi. Stanza 3.
He seems so near, and yet so far.
In Memoriam. xcvii. Stanza 6.
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky!
In Memoriam. cv. Stanza 1.
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow!
In Memoriam. cv. Stanza 2.
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in!
In Memoriam. cv. Stanza 5.
Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace!
In Memoriam. cv. Stanza 7.
Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand!
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be!
In Memoriam. cv. Stanza 8.
And thus he bore without abuse
The grand old name of gentleman,
Defamed by every charlatan,
And soil'd with all ignoble use.
In Memoriam. cxi. Stanza 6.
[634]
Some novel power
Sprang up forever at a touch,
And hope could never hope too much
In watching thee from hour to hour.
In Memoriam. cxii. Stanza 3.
Large elements in order brought,
And tracts of calm from tempest made,
And world-wide fluctuation sway'd,
In vassal tides that follow'd thought.
In Memoriam. cxii. Stanza 4.
Wearing all that weight
Of learning lightly like a flower.
In Memoriam. Conclusion. Stanza 10.
One God, one law, one element,
And one far-off divine event
To which the whole creation moves.
In Memoriam. Conclusion. Stanza 36.
[624:1] This line stands in Moxon's edition of 1842,—
"The gardener Adam and his wife,"—
and has been restored by the author in his edition of 1873.
[628:1] Jaws of death.—Shakespeare: Twelfth Night, act iii. sc. 4. Du Bartas: Weekes and Workes, day i. part 4.
[631:1] The poet alluded to is Goethe. I know this from Lord Tennyson himself, although he could not identify the passage; and when I submitted to him a small book of mine on his marvellous poem, he wrote, "It is Goethe's creed," on this very passage.—Rev. Dr. Getty (vicar of Ecclesfield, Yorkshire).
[632:2] I sing but as the linnet sings.—Goethe: Wilhelm Meister, book ii. chap. xi.
But on and up, where Nature's heart
Beats strong amid the hills.
Tragedy of the Lac de Gaube. Stanza 2.
Great thoughts, great feelings came to them,
Like instincts, unawares.
The Men of Old.
A man's best things are nearest him,
Lie close about his feet.
The Men of Old.
I wandered by the brookside,
I wandered by the mill;
I could not hear the brook flow,
The noisy wheel was still.
The Brookside.
The beating of my own heart
Was all the sound I heard.
The Brookside.
[635]
Ay, tear her tattered ensign down!
Long has it waved on high,
And many an eye has danced to see
That banner in the sky.
Old Ironsides.
Nail to the mast her holy flag,
Set every threadbare sail,
And give her to the god of storms,
The lightning and the gale!
Old Ironsides.
Like sentinel and nun, they keep
Their vigil on the green.
The Cambridge Churchyard.
The mossy marbles rest
On the lips that he has prest
In their bloom;
And the names he loved to hear
Have been carved for many a year
On the tomb.
The Last Leaf.
I know it is a sin
For me to sit and grin
At him here;
But the old three-cornered hat,
And the breeches, and all that,
Are so queer!
The Last Leaf.
Thou say'st an undisputed thing
In such a solemn way.
To an Insect.
Their discords sting through Burns and Moore,
Like hedgehogs dressed in lace.
The Music-Grinders.
You think they are crusaders sent
From some infernal clime,
To pluck the eyes of sentiment
And dock the tail of Rhyme,
To crack the voice of Melody
And break the legs of Time.
The Music-Grinders.
[636]
And since, I never dare to write
As funny as I can.
The Height of the Ridiculous.
When the last reader reads no more.
The Last Reader.
The freeman casting with unpurchased hand
The vote that shakes the turrets of the land.
Poetry, a Metrical Essay.
'T is the heart's current lends the cup its glow,
Whate'er the fountain whence the draught may flow.
A Sentiment.
Yes, child of suffering, thou mayst well be sure
He who ordained the Sabbath loves the poor!
A Rhymed Lesson. Urania.
And when you stick on conversation's burrs,
Don't strew your pathway with those dreadful urs.
A Rhymed Lesson. Urania.
Thine eye was on the censer,
And not the hand that bore it.
Lines by a Clerk.
Where go the poet's lines?
Answer, ye evening tapers!
Ye auburn locks, ye golden curls,
Speak from your folded papers!
The Poet's Lot.
A few can touch the magic string,
And noisy Fame is proud to win them;
Alas for those that never sing,
But die with all their music in them!
The Voiceless.
O hearts that break and give no sign
Save whitening lip and fading tresses!
The Voiceless.
Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!
The Chambered Nautilus.
[637]
His home! the Western giant smiles,
And twirls the spotty globe to find it;
This little speck, the British Isles?
'T is but a freckle,—never mind it.
A Good Time going.
But Memory blushes at the sneer,
And Honor turns with frown defiant,
And Freedom, leaning on her spear,
Laughs louder than the laughing giant.
A Good Time going.
You hear that boy laughing?—you think he 's all fun;
But the angels laugh, too, at the good he has done;
The children laugh loud as they troop to his call,
And the poor man that knows him laughs loudest of all.
The Boys.
Good to the heels the well-worn slipper feels
When the tired player shuffles off the buskin;
A page of Hood may do a fellow good
After a scolding from Carlyle or Ruskin.
How not to settle it.
A thought is often original, though you have uttered it a hundred times.
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table. i.
People that make puns are like wanton boys that put coppers on the railroad tracks.
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table. i.
Everybody likes and respects self-made men. It is a great deal better to be made in that way than not to be made at all.
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table. i.
Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all.
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table. vi.
There is that glorious epicurean paradox uttered by my friend the historian,[637:1] in one of his flashing moments: "Give us the luxuries of life, and we will dispense with its necessaries." To this must certainly be added that [638]other saying of one of the wittiest of men:[638:1] "Good Americans when they die go to Paris."
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table. vi.
Boston State-house is the hub of the solar system. You could n't pry that out of a Boston man if you had the tire of all creation straightened out for a crow-bar.
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table. vi.
The axis of the earth sticks out visibly through the centre of each and every town or city.
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table. vi.
The world's great men have not commonly been great scholars, nor its great scholars great men.
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table. vi.
Knowledge and timber should n't be much used till they are seasoned.
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table. vi.
The hat is the ultimum moriens of respectability.
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table. viii.
To be seventy years young is sometimes far more cheerful and hopeful than to be forty years old.
On the Seventieth Birthday of Julia Ward Howe (May 27, 1889).
[637:1] John Lothrop Motley.
Said Scopas of Thessaly, "We rich men count our felicity and happiness to lie in these superfluities, and not in those necessary things."—Plutarch: On the Love of Wealth.
[638:1] Thomas G. Appleton.
Our Country,—whether bounded by the St. John's and the Sabine, or however otherwise bounded or described, and be the measurements more or less,—still our Country, to be cherished in all our hearts, to be defended by all our hands.
Toast at Faneuil Hall on the Fourth of July, 1845.
A star for every State, and a State for every star.
Address on Boston Common in 1862.
There are no points of the compass on the chart of true patriotism.
Letter to Boston Commercial Club in 1879.
[639]
The poor must be wisely visited and liberally cared for, so that mendicity shall not be tempted into mendacity, nor want exasperated into crime.
Yorktown Oration in 1881.
Slavery is but half abolished, emancipation is but half completed, while millions of freemen with votes in their hands are left without education. Justice to them, the welfare of the States in which they live, the safety of the whole Republic, the dignity of the elective franchise,—all alike demand that the still remaining bonds of ignorance shall be unloosed and broken, and the minds as well as the bodies of the emancipated go free.
Yorktown Oration in 1881.
Her suffering ended with the day,
Yet lived she at its close,
And breathed the long, long night away
In statue-like repose.
A Death-Bed.
But when the sun in all his state
Illumed the eastern skies,
She passed through Glory's morning-gate,
And walked in Paradise.
A Death-Bed.
There is what I call the American idea. . . . This idea demands, as the proximate organization thereof, a democracy,—that is, a government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people; of course, a government of the principles of eternal justice, the unchanging law of God. For shortness' sake I will call it the idea of Freedom.[639:1]
Speech at the N. E. Antislavery Convention, Boston, May 29, 1850.
[640]
Calm on the listening ear of night
Come Heaven's melodious strains,
Where wild Judea stretches far
Her silver-mantled plains.
Christmas Song.
It came upon the midnight clear,
That glorious song of old.
The Angels' Song.
A babe in a house is a well-spring of pleasure.
Of Education.
God, from a beautiful necessity, is Love.
Of Immortality.
Perched upon a bust of Pallas, just above my chamber door,—
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.
The Raven.
Whom unmerciful disaster
Followed fast and followed faster.
The Raven.
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
The Raven.
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted—Nevermore!
The Raven.
To the glory that was Greece
And the grandeur that was Rome.
To Helen.
[641]
Revolutions are not made; they come.
Speech, Jan. 28, 1852.
What the Puritans gave the world was not thought, but action.
Speech, Dec. 21, 1855.
One on God's side is a majority.
Speech, Nov. 1, 1859.
Every man meets his Waterloo at last.
Speech, Nov. 1, 1859.
Revolutions never go backward.
Speech, Feb. 12, 1861.
A sacred burden is this life ye bear:
Look on it, lift it, bear it solemnly,
Stand up and walk beneath it steadfastly.
Fail not for sorrow, falter not for sin,
But onward, upward, till the goal ye win.
Lines addressed to the Young Gentlemen leaving the Lenox Academy, Mass.
Better trust all, and be deceived,
And weep that trust and that deceiving,
Than doubt one heart, that if believed
Had blessed one's life with true believing.
Faith.
Ho! stand to your glasses steady!
'T is all we have left to prize.
A cup to the dead already,—
Hurrah for the next that dies![641:1]
Revelry in India.
[641:1] This quatrain appears with variations in several stanzas. "The poem," says Mr. Rossiter Johnson in "Famous Single and Fugitive Poems," "is persistently attributed to Alfred Domett; but in a letter to me, Feb. 6, 1879, he says: 'I did not write that poem, and was never in India in my life. I am as ignorant of the authorship as you can be.'"
[642]
It was the calm and silent night!
Seven hundred years and fifty-three
Had Rome been growing up to might,
And now was queen of land and sea.
No sound was heard of clashing wars,
Peace brooded o'er the hushed domain;
Apollo, Pallas, Jove, and Mars
Held undisturbed their ancient reign
In the solemn midnight,
Centuries ago.
Christmas Hymn.
Little drops of water, little grains of sand,
Make the mighty ocean and the pleasant land.
So the little minutes, humble though they be,
Make the mighty ages of eternity.
Little Things, 1845.
Little deeds of kindness, little words of love,
Help to make earth happy like the heaven above.
Little Things, 1845.
I have always believed that success would be the inevitable result if the two services, the army and the navy, had fair play, and if we sent the right man to fill the right place.[642:1]
Speech in Parliament, Jan. 15, 1855.[642:2]
[642:2] This speech is reported in Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, Third Series, vol. cxxxviii. p. 2077.
[643]
Any nose
May ravage with impunity a rose.
Sordello. Book vi.
That we devote ourselves to God, is seen
In living just as though no God there were.
Paracelsus. Part i.
Be sure that God
Ne'er dooms to waste the strength he deigns impart.
Paracelsus. Part i.
I see my way as birds their trackless way.
I shall arrive,—what time, what circuit first,
I ask not; but unless God send his hail
Or blinding fire-balls, sleet or stifling snow,
In some time, his good time, I shall arrive:
He guides me and the bird. In his good time.
Paracelsus. Part i.
Are there not, dear Michal,
Two points in the adventure of the diver,—
One, when a beggar he prepares to plunge;
One, when a prince he rises with his pearl?
Festus, I plunge.
Paracelsus. Part i.
God is the perfect poet,
Who in his person acts his own creations.
Paracelsus. Part ii.
The sad rhyme of the men who proudly clung
To their first fault, and withered in their pride.
Paracelsus. Part iv.
I give the fight up: let there be an end,
A privacy, an obscure nook for me.
I want to be forgotten even by God.
Paracelsus. Part v.
Progress is
The law of life: man is not Man as yet.
Paracelsus. Part v.
Say not "a small event!" Why "small"?
Costs it more pain that this ye call
[644]A "great event" should come to pass
From that? Untwine me from the mass
Of deeds which make up life, one deed
Power shall fall short in or exceed!
Pippa Passes. Introduction.
God 's in his heaven:
All 's right with the world.
Pippa Passes. Part i.
Some unsuspected isle in the far seas,—
Some unsuspected isle in far-off seas.
Pippa Passes. Part ii.
In the morning of the world,
When earth was nigher heaven than now.
Pippa Passes. Part iii.
All service ranks the same with God,—
With God, whose puppets, best and worst,
Are we: there is no last nor first.
Pippa Passes. Part iv.
I trust in Nature for the stable laws
Of beauty and utility. Spring shall plant
And Autumn garner to the end of time.
I trust in God,—the right shall be the right
And other than the wrong, while he endures.
I trust in my own soul, that can perceive
The outward and the inward,—Nature's good
And God's.
A Soul's Tragedy. Act i.
Ever judge of men by their professions. For though the bright moment of promising is but a moment, and cannot be prolonged, yet if sincere in its moment's extravagant goodness, why, trust it, and know the man by it, I say,—not by his performance; which is half the world's work, interfere as the world needs must with its accidents and circumstances: the profession was purely the man's own. I judge people by what they might be,—not are, nor will be.
A Soul's Tragedy. Act ii.
There 's a woman like a dewdrop, she 's so purer than the purest.
A Blot in the 'Scutcheon. Act i. Sc. iii.
[645]
When is man strong until he feels alone?
Colombe's Birthday. Act iii.
When the fight begins within himself,
A man 's worth something.
Men and Women. Bishop Blougram's Apology.
The sprinkled isles,
Lily on lily, that o'erlace the sea.
Cleon.
And I have written three books on the soul,
Proving absurd all written hitherto,
And putting us to ignorance again.
Cleon.
Sappho survives, because we sing her songs;
And Æschylus, because we read his plays!
Cleon.
Rafael made a century of sonnets.
One Word More. ii.
Other heights in other lives, God willing.
One Word More. xii.
God be thanked, the meanest of his creatures
Boasts two soul-sides,—one to face the world with,
One to show a woman when he loves her!
One Word More. xvii.
Oh their Rafael of the dear Madonnas,
Oh their Dante of the dread Inferno,
Wrote one song—and in my brain I sing it;
Drew one angel—borne, see, on my bosom!
One Word More. xix.
The lie was dead
And damned, and truth stood up instead.
Count Gismond. xiii.
Over my head his arm he flung
Against the world.
Count Gismond. xix.
Just my vengeance complete,
The man sprang to his feet,
Stood erect, caught at God's skirts, and prayed!
So, I was afraid!
Instans Tyrannus. vii.
Oh never star
Was lost here but it rose afar.
Waring. ii.
[646]
Sing, riding 's a joy! For me I ride.
The last Ride together. vii.
When the liquor 's out, why clink the cannikin?
The Flight of the Duchess. xvi.
That low man seeks a little thing to do,
Sees it and does it;
This high man, with a great thing to pursue,
Dies ere he knows it.
That low man goes on adding one to one,—
His hundred 's soon hit;
This high man, aiming at a million,
Misses an unit.
That has the world here—should he need the next,
Let the world mind him!
This throws himself on God, and unperplexed
Seeking shall find him.
A Grammarian's Funeral.
Lofty designs must close in like effects.
A Grammarian's Funeral.
I hear you reproach, "But delay was best,
For their end was a crime." Oh, a crime will do
As well, I reply, to serve for a test
As a virtue golden through and through,
Sufficient to vindicate itself
And prove its worth at a moment's view!
. . . . .
Let a man contend to the uttermost
For his life's set prize, be it what it will!
The counter our lovers staked was lost
As surely as if it were lawful coin;
And the sin I impute to each frustrate ghost
Is—the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin,
Though the end in sight was a vice, I say.
The Statue and the Bust.
Lost, lost! one moment knelled the woe of years.
Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came. xxxiii.
Just for a handful of silver he left us,
Just for a riband to stick in his coat.
The Lost Leader. i.
[647]
We shall march prospering,—not thro' his presence;
Songs may inspirit us,—not from his lyre;
Deeds will be done,—while he boasts his quiescence,
Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire.
The Lost Leader. ii.
They are perfect; how else?—they shall never change:
We are faulty; why not?—we have time in store.
Old Pictures in Florence. xvi.
What 's come to perfection perishes.
Things learned on earth we shall practise in heaven;
Works done least rapidly Art most cherishes.
Old Pictures in Florence. xvii.
Italy, my Italy!
Queen Mary's saying serves for me
(When fortune's malice
Lost her Calais):
"Open my heart, and you will see
Graved inside of it 'Italy.'"
De Gustibus. ii.
That 's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture.
Home-Thoughts from Abroad. ii.
God made all the creatures, and gave them our love and our fear,
To give sign we and they are his children, one family here.
Saul. vi.
How good is man's life, the mere living! how fit to employ
All the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy!
Saul. ix.
'T is not what man does which exalts him, but what man would do.
Saul. xvii.
O woman-country![647:1] wooed not wed,
Loved all the more by earth's male-lands,
Laid to their hearts instead.
By the Fireside. vi.
[648]
That great brow
And the spirit-small hand propping it.
By the Fireside. xxiii.
If two lives join, there is oft a scar.
They are one and one, with a shadowy third;
One near one is too far.
By the Fireside. xlvi.
Only I discern
Infinite passion, and the pain
Of finite hearts that yearn.
Two in the Campagna. xii.
Round and round, like a dance of snow
In a dazzling drift, as its guardians, go
Floating the women faded for ages,
Sculptured in stone on the poet's pages.
Women and Roses.
How he lies in his rights of a man!
Death has done all death can.
And absorbed in the new life he leads,
He recks not, he heeds
Nor his wrong nor my vengeance; both strike
On his senses alike,
And are lost in the solemn and strange
Surprise of the change.
After.
Ah, did you once see Shelley plain,
And did he stop and speak to you,
And did you speak to him again?
How strange it seems, and new!
Memorabilia. i.
He who did well in war just earns the right
To begin doing well in peace.
Luria. Act ii.
And inasmuch as feeling, the East's gift,
Is quick and transient,—comes, and lo! is gone,
While Northern thought is slow and durable.
Luria. Act v.
A people is but the attempt of many
To rise to the completer life of one;
And those who live as models for the mass
Are singly of more value than they all.
Luria. Act v.
[649]
I count life just a stuff
To try the soul's strength on.
In a Balcony.
Was there nought better than to enjoy?
No feat which, done, would make time break,
And let us pent-up creatures through
Into eternity, our due?
No forcing earth teach heaven's employ?
Dîs Aliter Visum; or, Le Byron de nos Jours.
There shall never be one lost good! What was, shall live as before;
The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound;
What was good shall be good, with for evil so much good more;
On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven, a perfect round.
Abt Vogler. ix.
Then welcome each rebuff
That turns earth's smoothness rough,
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand, but go!
Be our joys three-parts pain!
Strive, and hold cheap the strain;
Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe!
Rabbi Ben Ezra.
What I aspired to be,
And was not, comforts me.
Rabbi Ben Ezra.
Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure.
Rabbi Ben Ezra.
For life, with all it yields of joy and woe,
And hope and fear (believe the aged friend),
Is just our chance o' the prize of learning love,—
How love might be, hath been indeed, and is.
A Death in the Desert.
The body sprang
At once to the height, and stayed; but the soul,—no!
A Death in the Desert.
What? Was man made a wheel-work to wind up,
And be discharged, and straight wound up anew?
No! grown, his growth lasts; taught, he ne'er forgets:
May learn a thousand things, not twice the same.
A Death in the Desert.
[650]
For I say this is death and the sole death,—
When a man's loss comes to him from his gain,
Darkness from light, from knowledge ignorance,
And lack of love from love made manifest.
A Death in the Desert.
Progress, man's distinctive mark alone,
Not God's, and not the beasts: God is, they are;
Man partly is, and wholly hopes to be.
A Death in the Desert.
The ultimate, angels' law,
Indulging every instinct of the soul
There where law, life, joy, impulse are one thing!
A Death in the Desert.
How sad and bad and mad it was!
But then, how it was sweet!
Confessions. ix.
So may a glory from defect arise.
Deaf and Dumb.
This could but have happened once,—
And we missed it, lost it forever.
Youth and Art. xvii.
Fear death?—to feel the fog in my throat,
The mist in my face.
. . . . . . .
No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers,
The heroes of old;
Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears
Of pain, darkness, and cold.
Prospice.
It 's wiser being good than bad;
It 's safer being meek than fierce;
It 's fitter being sane than mad.
My own hope is, a sun will pierce
The thickest cloud earth ever stretched;
That after Last returns the First,
Though a wide compass round be fetched;
That what began best can't end worst,
Nor what God blessed once prove accurst.
Apparent Failure. vii.
In the great right of an excessive wrong.
The Ring and the Book. The other Half-Rome. Line 1055.
[651]
Was never evening yet
But seemed far beautifuller than its day.
The Ring and the Book. Pompilia. Line 357.
The curious crime, the fine
Felicity and flower of wickedness.
The Ring and the Book. The Pope. Line 590.
Of what I call God,
And fools call Nature.
The Ring and the Book. The Pope. Line 1073.
Why comes temptation, but for man to meet
And master and make crouch beneath his foot,
And so be pedestaled in triumph?
The Ring and the Book. The Pope. Line 1185.
White shall not neutralize the black, nor good
Compensate bad in man, absolve him so:
Life's business being just the terrible choice.
The Ring and the Book. The Pope. Line 1236.
It is the glory and good of Art
That Art remains the one way possible
Of speaking truth,—to mouths like mine, at least.
The Book and the Ring. The Pope. Line 842.
Thy[651:1] rare gold ring of verse (the poet praised)
Linking our England to his Italy.
The Ring and the Book. The Pope. Line 873.
But how carve way i' the life that lies before,
If bent on groaning ever for the past?
Balaustion's Adventure.
Better have failed in the high aim, as I,
Than vulgarly in the low aim succeed,—
As, God be thanked! I do not.
The Inn Album. iv.
Have you found your life distasteful?
My life did, and does, smack sweet.
Was your youth of pleasure wasteful?
Mine I saved and hold complete.
Do your joys with age diminish?
When mine fail me, I 'll complain.
Must in death your daylight finish?
My sun sets to rise again.
At the "Mermaid." Stanza 10.
[652]
"With this same key
Shakespeare unlocked his heart"[652:1] once more!
Did Shakespeare? If so, the less Shakespeare he!
House. x.
God's justice, tardy though it prove perchance,
Rests never on the track until it reach
Delinquency.[652:2]
Cenciaja.
A demd, damp, moist, unpleasant body!
Nicholas Nickleby. Chap. xxxiv.
My life is one demd horrid grind.
Nicholas Nickleby. Chap. lxiv.
In a Pickwickian sense.
Pickwick Papers. Chap. i.
Oh, a dainty plant is the ivy green,
That creepeth o'er ruins old!
Of right choice food are his meals, I ween,
In his cell so lone and cold.
Creeping where no life is seen,
A rare old plant is the ivy green.
Pickwick Papers. Chap. vi.
He 's tough, ma'am,—tough is J. B.; tough and devilish sly.
Dombey and Son. Chap. vii.
When found, make a note of.
Dombey and Son. Chap. xv.
The bearings of this observation lays in the application on it.
Dombey and Son. Chap. xxiii.
Barkis is willin'.
David Copperfield. Chap. v.
Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes and prism, all very good words for the lips,—especially prunes and prism.
Little Dorrit. Book ii. Chap. v.
Whatever was required to be done, the Circumlocution Office was beforehand with all the public departments in the art of perceiving how not to do it.
Little Dorrit. Book ii. Chap. x.
In came Mrs. Fezziwig, one vast substantial smile.
Christmas Carol. Stave 2.
[653]
Thought is deeper than all speech,
Feeling deeper than all thought;
Souls to souls can never teach
What unto themselves was taught.
Stanzas.
We are spirits clad in veils;
Man by man was never seen;
All our deep communing fails
To remove the shadowy screen.
Stanzas.
For right is right, since God is God,[653:1]
And right the day must win;
To doubt would be disloyalty,
To falter would be sin.
The Right must win.
Labour itself is but a sorrowful song,
The protest of the weak against the strong.
The Sorrowful World.
Cleon hath a million acres,—ne'er a one have I;
Cleon dwelleth in a palace,—in a cottage I.
Cleon and I.
But the sunshine aye shall light the sky,
As round and round we run;
And the truth shall ever come uppermost,
And justice shall be done.
Eternal Justice. Stanza 4.
Aid the dawning, tongue and pen;
Aid it, hopes of honest men!
Clear the Way.
Some love to roam o'er the dark sea's foam,
Where the shrill winds whistle free.
Some love to roam.
There 's a good time coming, boys!
A good time coming.
The Good Time coming.
[654]
Old Tubal Cain was a man of might
In the days when earth was young.
Tubal Cain.
I slept, and dreamed that life was Beauty;
I woke, and found that life was Duty.
Was thy dream then a shadowy lie?
Toil on, poor heart, unceasingly;
And thou shalt find thy dream to be
A truth and noonday light to thee.
Life a Duty.
We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial.
We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives
Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.
Life 's but a means unto an end; that end
Beginning, mean, and end to all things,—God.
Festus. Scene, A Country Town.
Poets are all who love, who feel great truths,
And tell them; and the truth of truths is love.
Scene, Another and a Better World.
America! half-brother of the world!
With something good and bad of every land.
Scene, The Surface.
I love it, I love it, and who shall dare
To chide me for loving that old arm-chair?
The Old Arm-Chair.
How cruelly sweet are the echoes that start
When memory plays an old tune on the heart!
Old Dobbin.
[655]
At present there is no distinction among the upper ten thousand of the city.[655:1]
Necessity for a Promenade Drive.
For it stirs the blood in an old man's heart,
And makes his pulses fly,
To catch the thrill of a happy voice
And the light of a pleasant eye.
Saturday Afternoon.
It is the month of June,
The month of leaves and roses,
When pleasant sights salute the eyes,
And pleasant scents the noses.
The Month of June.
Let us weep in our darkness, but weep not for him!
Not for him who, departing, leaves millions in tears!
Not for him who has died full of honor and years!
Not for him who ascended Fame's ladder so high
From the round at the top he has stepped to the sky.
The Death of Harrison.
I laugh, for hope hath happy place with me;
If my bark sinks, 't is to another sea.
A Poet's Hope.
I sing New England, as she lights her fire
In every Prairie's midst; and where the bright
Enchanting stars shine pure through Southern night,
She still is there, the guardian on the tower,
To open for the world a purer hour.
New England.
Most joyful let the Poet be;
It is through him that all men see.
The Poet of the Old and New Times.
[656]
Earth's noblest thing,—a woman perfected.
Irené.
Be noble! and the nobleness that lies
In other men, sleeping but never dead,
Will rise in majesty to meet thine own.
Sonnet iv.
Great truths are portions of the soul of man;
Great souls are portions of eternity.
Sonnet vi.
To win the secret of a weed's plain heart.
Sonnet xxv.
Two meanings have our lightest fantasies,—
One of the flesh, and of the spirit one.
Sonnet xxxiv. (Ed. 1844.)
All thoughts that mould the age begin
Deep down within the primitive soul.
An Incident in a Railroad Car.
It may be glorious to write
Thoughts that shall glad the two or three
High souls, like those far stars that come in sight
Once in a century.
An Incident in a Railroad Car.
No man is born into the world whose work
Is not born with him. There is always work,
And tools to work withal, for those who will;
And blessed are the horny hands of toil.
A Glance behind the Curtain.
They are slaves who fear to speak
For the fallen and the weak.
. . . .
They are slaves who dare not be
In the right with two or three.
Stanzas on Freedom.
Endurance is the crowning quality,
And patience all the passion of great hearts.
Columbus.
One day with life and heart
Is more than time enough to find a world.
Columbus.
[657]
Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, God's new Messiah offering each the bloom or blight,
Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right;
And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light.
The Present Crisis.
Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne.
The Present Crisis.
Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her wretched crust,
Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 't is prosperous to be just;
Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside,
Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified.
The Present Crisis.
Before man made us citizens, great Nature made us men.
On the Capture of Fugitive Slaves near Washington.
Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way,
Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold.
To the Dandelion.
This child is not mine as the first was;
I cannot sing it to rest;
I cannot lift it up fatherly,
And bless it upon my breast.
Yet it lies in my little one's cradle,
And sits in my little one's chair,
And the light of the heaven she 's gone to
Transfigures its golden hair.
The Changeling.
The thing we long for, that we are
For one transcendent moment.
Longing.
[658]
She doeth little kindnesses
Which most leave undone, or despise.
My Love. iv.
Not only around our infancy
Doth heaven with all its splendors lie;
Daily, with souls that cringe and plot,
We Sinais climb and know it not.
The Vision of Sir Launfal. Prelude to Part First.
'T is heaven alone that is given away;
'T is only God may be had for the asking.
The Vision of Sir Launfal. Prelude to Part First.
And what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays.
The Vision of Sir Launfal. Prelude to Part First.
Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it;
We are happy now because God wills it.
The Vision of Sir Launfal. Prelude to Part First.
Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how.
The Vision of Sir Launfal. Prelude to Part First.
Who gives himself with his alms feeds three,—
Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me.
The Vision of Sir Launfal. Part Second. viii.
There comes Emerson first, whose rich words, every one,
Are like gold nails in temples to hang trophies on.
A Fable for Critics.
Nature fits all her children with something to do.
A Fable for Critics.
Ez fer war, I call it murder,—
There you hev it plain an' flat;
I don't want to go no furder
Than my Testyment fer that.
. . . . .
An' you 've gut to git up airly
Ef you want to take in God.
The Biglow Papers. First Series. No. i.
Laborin' man an' laborin' woman
Hev one glory an' one shame;
Ev'y thin' thet 's done inhuman
Injers all on 'em the same.
The Biglow Papers. First Series. No. i.
[659]
This goin' ware glory waits ye haint one agreeable feetur.[659:1]
The Biglow Papers. First Series. No. ii.
Gineral C. is a dreffle smart man;
He 's ben on all sides thet give places or pelf;
But consistency still wuz a part of his plan,—
He 's ben true to one party, an' thet is himself.
The Biglow Papers. First Series. No. ii.
We kind o' thought Christ went agin war an' pillage.
The Biglow Papers. First Series. No. iii.
But John P.
Robinson, he
Sez they did n't know everythin' down in Judee.
The Biglow Papers. First Series. No. iii.
I don't believe in princerple,
But oh I du in interest.
The Biglow Papers. First Series. No. vi.
Of my merit
On thet pint you yourself may jedge;
All is, I never drink no sperit,
Nor I haint never signed no pledge.
The Biglow Papers. First Series. No. vii.
Ez to my princerples, I glory
In hevin' nothin' o' the sort.
The Biglow Papers. First Series. No. vii.
Zekle crep' up quite unbeknown
An' peeked in thru' the winder,
An' there sot Huldy all alone,
'Ith no one nigh to hender.
The Biglow Papers. Second Series. The Courtin'.
The very room, coz she was in,
Seemed warm from floor to ceilin'.
The Biglow Papers. Second Series. The Courtin'.
'T was kin' o' kingdom-come to look
On sech a blessed cretur.
The Biglow Papers. Second Series. The Courtin'.
His heart kep' goin' pity-pat,
But hern went pity-Zekle.
The Biglow Papers. Second Series. The Courtin'.
All kin' o' smily round the lips,
An' teary round the lashes.
The Biglow Papers. Second Series. The Courtin'.
[660]
Like streams that keep a summer mind
Snow-hid in Jenooary.
The Biglow Papers. Second Series. The Courtin'.
Our Pilgrim stock wuz pithed with hardihood.
The Biglow Papers. Second Series. No. vi.
Soft-heartedness, in times like these,
Shows sof'ness in the upper story.
The Biglow Papers. Second Series. No. vii.
Earth's biggest country 's gut her soul,
An' risen up earth's greatest nation.
The Biglow Papers. Second Series. No. vii.
Under the yaller pines I house,
When sunshine makes 'em all sweet-scented,
An' hear among their furry boughs
The baskin' west-wind purr contented.
The Biglow Papers. Second Series. No. x.
Wut 's words to them whose faith an' truth
On war's red techstone rang true metal;
Who ventered life an' love an' youth
For the gret prize o' death in battle?
The Biglow Papers. Second Series. No. x.
From lower to the higher next,
Not to the top, is Nature's text;
And embryo Good, to reach full stature,
Absorbs the Evil in its nature.
Festina Lente. Moral.
Though old the thought and oft exprest,
'T is his at last who says it best.[660:1]
For an Autograph.
Nature, they say, doth dote,
And cannot make a man
Save on some worn-out plan,
Repeating us by rote.
Ode at the Harvard Commemoration, July 21, 1865.
Here was a type of the true elder race,
And one of Plutarch's men talked with us face to face.
Ode at the Harvard Commemoration, July 21, 1865.
[661]
Safe in the hallowed quiets of the past.
The Cathedral.
The one thing finished in this hasty world.
The Cathedral.
These pearls of thought in Persian gulfs were bred,
Each softly lucent as a rounded moon;
The diver Omar plucked them from their bed,
Fitzgerald strung them on an English thread.
In a copy of Omar Khayyám.
The clear, sweet singer with the crown of snow
Not whiter than the thoughts that housed below.
To George William Curtis.
But life is sweet, though all that makes it sweet
Lessen like sound of friends' departing feet;
And Death is beautiful as feet of friend
Coming with welcome at our journey's end.
For me Fate gave, whate'er she else denied,
A nature sloping to the southern side;
I thank her for it, though when clouds arise
Such natures double-darken gloomy skies.
To George William Curtis.
In life's small things be resolute and great
To keep thy muscle trained: know'st thou when Fate
Thy measure takes, or when she 'll say to thee,
"I find thee worthy; do this deed for me"?
Epigram.
In vain we call old notions fudge,
And bend our conscience to our dealing;
The Ten Commandments will not budge,
And stealing will continue stealing.
Motto of the American Copyright League (written Nov. 20, 1885).
Solitude is as needful to the imagination as society is wholesome for the character.
Among my Books. First Series. Dryden.
A wise scepticism is the first attribute of a good critic.
Among my Books. First Series. Shakespeare Once More.
One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning.
Among my Books. First Series. Shakespeare Once More.
[662]
Aspiration sees only one side of every question; possession many.
Among my Books. First Series. New England Two Centuries ago.
Truly there is a tide in the affairs of men; but there is no gulf-stream setting forever in one direction.
Among my Books. First Series. New England Two Centuries ago.
There is no better ballast for keeping the mind steady on its keel, and saving it from all risk of crankiness, than business.
Among my Books. First Series. New England Two Centuries ago.
Puritanism, believing itself quick with the seed of religious liberty, laid, without knowing it, the egg of democracy.
Among my Books. First Series. New England Two Centuries ago.
It was in making education not only common to all, but in some sense compulsory on all, that the destiny of the free republics of America was practically settled.
Among my Books. First Series. New England Two Centuries ago.
Talent is that which is in a man's power; genius is that in whose power a man is.
Among my Books. First Series. Rousseau and the Sentimentalists.
There is no work of genius which has not been the delight of mankind, no word of genius to which the human heart and soul have not sooner or later responded.
Among my Books. First Series. Rousseau and the Sentimentalists.
Every man feels instinctively that all the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action.
Among my Books. First Series. Rousseau and the Sentimentalists.
Sentiment is intellectualized emotion,—emotion precipitated, as it were, in pretty crystals by the fancy.
Among my Books. First Series. Rousseau and the Sentimentalists.
No man can produce great things who is not thoroughly sincere in dealing with himself.
Among my Books. First Series. Rousseau and the Sentimentalists.
In all literary history there is no such figure as Dante, no such homogeneousness of life and works, such loyalty to ideas, such sublime irrecognition of the unessential.
Among my Books. Second Series. Dante.
Whoever can endure unmixed delight, whoever can tolerate music and painting and poetry all in one, who[663]ever wishes to be rid of thought and to let the busy anvils of the brain be silent for a time, let him read in the "Faery Queen."
Among my Books. Second Series. Spenser.
The only faith that wears well and holds its color in all weathers, is that which is woven of conviction and set with the sharp mordant of experience.
My Study Windows. Abraham Lincoln, 1864.
It is by presence of mind in untried emergencies that the native metal of a man is tested.
My Study Windows. Abraham Lincoln, 1864.
What a sense of security in an old book which Time has criticised for us!
Library of Old Authors.
There is no good in arguing with the inevitable. The only argument available with an east wind is to put on your overcoat.
Democracy and Addresses.
Let us be of good cheer, however, remembering that the misfortunes hardest to bear are those which never come.
Democracy and Addresses.
The soil out of which such men as he are made is good to be born on, good to live on, good to die for and to be buried in.
Garfield.
A great man is made up of qualities that meet or make great occasions.
Garfield.
It ["The Ancient Mariner"] is marvellous in its mastery over that delightfully fortuitous inconsequence that is the adamantine logic of dreamland.
Coleridge.
He gives us the very quintessence of perception,—the clearly crystalized precipitation of all that is most precious in the ferment of impression after the impertinent and obtrusive particulars have evaporated from the memory.
Coleridge.
If I were asked what book is better than a cheap book, I should answer that there is one book better than a cheap book,—and that is a book honestly come by.
Before the U. S. Senate Committee on Patents, Jan. 29, 1886.
[664]
O Mary, go and call the cattle home,
And call the cattle home,
And call the cattle home,
Across the sands o' Dee!
The Sands of Dee.
Men must work, and women must weep.
The Three Fishers.
Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever;
Do noble things, not dream them, all day long:
And so make life, death, and that vast forever
One grand sweet song.
A Farewell.
The world goes up and the world goes down,
And the sunshine follows the rain;
And yesterday's sneer and yesterday's frown
Can never come over again.
Dolcino to Margaret.
No other terms than unconditional and immediate surrender. I propose to move immediately upon your works.
To Gen. S. B. Buckner, Fort Donelson, Feb. 16, 1862.
I propose to fight it out on this line, if it takes all summer.
Despatch to Washington. Before Spottsylvania Court House, May 11, 1864.
Let us have peace.
Accepting a Nomination for the Presidency, May 29, 1868.
I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effectual as their strict construction.
From the Inaugural Address, March 4, 1869.
Let no guilty man escape, if it can be avoided. No personal considerations should stand in the way of performing a duty.
Indorsement of a Letter relating to the Whiskey Ring, July 29, 1875.
[665]
Others abide our question. Thou art free.
We ask and ask. Thou smilest and art still,
Out-topping knowledge.
Shakespeare.
Strew on her roses, roses,
And never a spray of yew!
In quiet she reposes;
Ah, would that I did too!
Requiescat.
To hear the world applaud the hollow ghost
Which blamed the living man.
Growing Old.
Time may restore us in his course
Goethe's sage mind and Byron's force;
But where will Europe's latter hour
Again find Wordsworth's healing power?
Memorial Verses.
Wandering between two worlds,—one dead,
The other powerless to be born.
Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse.
The kings of modern thought are dumb.
Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse.
Philistine must have originally meant, in the mind of those who invented the nickname, a strong, dogged, unenlightened opponent of the children of the light.
Essays in Criticism. Heinrich Heine.
There is no better motto which it [culture] can have than these words of Bishop Wilson, "To make reason and the will of God prevail."
Culture and Anarchy. P. 8.
He serves his party best who serves the country best.[665:1]
Inaugural Address, March 5, 1877.
[666]
On a lone barren isle, where the wild roaring billows
Assail the stern rock, and the loud tempests rave,
The hero lies still, while the dew-drooping willows,
Like fond weeping mourners, lean over his grave.
The lightnings may flash and the loud thunders rattle;
He heeds not, he hears not, he 's free from all pain;
He sleeps his last sleep, he has fought his last battle;
No sound can awake him to glory again![666:1]
The Grave of Bonaparte.
Yet spirit immortal, the tomb cannot bind thee,
But like thine own eagle that soars to the sun
Thou springest from bondage and leavest behind thee
A name which before thee no mortal hath won.
Tho' nations may combat, and war's thunders rattle,
No more on thy steed wilt thou sweep o'er the plain:
Thou sleep'st thy last sleep, thou hast fought thy last battle,
No sound can awake thee to glory again.
The Grave of Bonaparte.
[666:1] This song was composed and set to music, about 1842, by Leonard Heath, of Nashua, who died a few years ago.—Bela Chapin: The Poets of New Hampshire, 1883, p. 760.
Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,
And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold.
Bedouin Song.
They sang of love, and not of fame;
Forgot was Britain's glory;
Each heart recall'd a different name,
But all sang Annie Lawrie.
The Song of the Camp.
The bravest are the tenderest,—
The loving are the daring.
The Song of the Camp.
[667]
Two hands upon the breast,
And labour 's done;[667:1]
Two pale feet crossed in rest,
The race is won.
Now and Afterwards.
[667:1] Two hands upon the breast, and labour is past.—Russian Proverb.
Like a pale martyr in his shirt of fire.
A Life Drama. Sc. ii.
In winter, when the dismal rain
Comes down in slanting lines,
And Wind, that grand old harper, smote
His thunder-harp of pines.
A Life Drama. Sc. ii.
A poem round and perfect as a star.
A Life Drama. Sc. ii.
A song to the oak, the brave old oak,
Who hath ruled in the greenwood long!
The Brave Old Oak.
Then here 's to the oak, the brave old oak,
Who stands in his pride alone!
And still flourish he a hale green tree
When a hundred years are gone!
The Brave Old Oak.
[668]
Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your flight!
Make me a child again, just for to-night!
Rock me to sleep.
Backward, flow backward, O tide of the years!
I am so weary of toil and of tears,—
Toil without recompense, tears all in vain!
Take them, and give me my childhood again!
Rock me to sleep.
We have exchanged the Washingtonian dignity for the Jeffersonian simplicity, which was in truth only another name for the Jacksonian vulgarity.
Address at the Washington Centennial Service in St. Paul's Chapel, New York, April 30, 1889.
If there be no nobility of descent, all the more indispensable is it that there should be nobility of ascent,—a character in them that bear rule so fine and high and pure that as men come within the circle of its influence they involuntarily pay homage to that which is the one pre-eminent distinction, the royalty of virtue.
Address at the Washington Centennial Service in St. Paul's Chapel, New York, April 30, 1889.
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day;
Love and tears for the Blue,
Tears and love for the Gray.[668:1]
The Blue and the Gray.
[668:1] This poem first appeared in the "Atlantic Monthly."
[669]
After an existence of nearly twenty years of almost innocuous desuetude these laws are brought forth.
Message, March 1, 1886.
It is a condition which confronts us—not a theory.[669:1]
Annual Message, 1887.
I have considered the pension list of the republic a roll of honor.
Veto of Dependent Pension Bill, July 5, 1888.
Party honesty is party expediency.
Interview in New York Commercial Advertiser, Sept. 19, 1889.
Which I wish to remark,—
And my language is plain,—
That for ways that are dark
And for tricks that are vain,
The heathen Chinee is peculiar.
Plain Language from Truthful James.
Ah Sin was his name.
Plain Language from Truthful James.
With the smile that was childlike and bland.
Plain Language from Truthful James.
The night has a thousand eyes,
And the day but one;
Yet the light of the bright world dies
With the dying sun.
The mind has a thousand eyes,
And the heart but one;
Yet the light of a whole life dies
When love is done.
Light.
[670]
It may well wait a century for a reader, as God has waited six thousand years for an observer.
John Kepler (1571-1630). Martyrs of Science (Brewster). P. 197.
[671]
[672]
Love divine, all love excelling,
Joy of heaven to earth come down.
Divine Love.
[673]
In this awfully stupendous manner, at which Reason stands aghast, and Faith herself is half confounded, was the grace of God to man at length manifested.
There is such a choice of difficulties that I am myself at a loss how to determine.
Millions for defence, but not one cent for tribute.
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney (1746-1825),—when Ambassador to the French Republic, 1796.
[674]
[675]
They [the blacks] had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.
Roger B. Taney (1777-1864): The Dred Scott Case (Howard, Rep. 19, p. 407).
To make a mountain of a mole-hill.
Henry Ellis (1777-1869): Original Letters. Second Series, p. 312.
Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong.
Stephen Decatur (1779-1820): Toast given at Norfolk, April, 1816.
Let there be no inscription upon my tomb; let no man write my epitaph: no man can write my epitaph.
Robert Emmet (1780-1803): Speech on his Trial and Conviction for High Treason, September, 1803.
[676]
They see nothing wrong in the rule that to the victors belong the spoils of the enemy.
William L. Marcy (1786-1857): Speech in the United States Senate, January, 1832.
Say to the seceded States, "Wayward sisters, depart in peace."
Winfield Scott (1786-1861): Letter to W. H. Seward, March 3, 1861.
[677]
Grand, gloomy, and peculiar, he sat upon the throne a sceptred hermit, wrapped in the solitude of his own originality.
[678]
If any one attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot him on the spot.
John A. Dix (1798-1879): An Official Despatch, Jan. 29, 1861.
The very mudsills of society. . . . We call them slaves. . . . But I will not characterize that class at the North with that term; but you have it. It is there, it is everywhere; it is eternal.
James H. Hammond (1807-1864): Speech in the U. S. Senate, March, 1858.
It would be superfluous in me to point out to your Lordship that this is war.
Charles Francis Adams (1807-1886): Despatch to Earl Russell, Sept. 5, 1863.
We are swinging round the circle.
Andrew Johnson (1808-1875): On the Presidential Reconstruction Tour, August, 1866.
[679]
All we ask is to be let alone.
Jefferson Davis (1808-1889): First Message to the Confederate Congress, March, 1861.
We are Republicans, and don't propose to leave our party and identify ourselves with the party whose antecedents have been Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion.
Samuel D. Burchard (1812- ——),—one of the deputation visiting Mr. Blaine, Oct. 29, 1884.
[680]
Well, General, we have not had many dead cavalrymen lying about lately.
Joseph Hooker (1813-1879): A remark to General Averill, November, 1862.
[681]
The Survival of the Fittest.
Herbert Spencer (1820- ——): Principles of Biology, Vol. i. Chap. xii. (American edition, 1867.)
Hold the fort! I am coming!
William T. Sherman (1820-1891),—signalled to General Corse in Allatoona from the top of Kenesaw, Oct. 5, 1864.
Listen! John A. Logan is the Head Centre, the Hub, the King Pin, the Main Spring, Mogul, and Mugwump of the final plot by which partisanship was installed in the Commission.
Isaac H. Bromley (1833- ——): Editorial in the "New York Tribune," Feb. 16, 1877.
[682]
A mugwump is a person educated beyond his intellect.
Horace Porter (1837- ——), —a bon-mot in the Cleveland-Blaine campaign of 1884.
I never could believe that Providence had sent a few men into the world, ready booted and spurred to ride, and millions ready saddled and bridled to be ridden.
Richard Rumbold, on the scaffold, 1685. History of England (Macaulay), Chap. v.
Babylon in all its desolation is a sight not so awful as that of the human mind in ruins.[682:1]
[683]
Hope tells a flattering tale,[683:1]
Delusive, vain, and hollow.
Ah! let not hope prevail,
Lest disappointment follow.
Nose, nose, nose, nose!
And who gave thee that jolly red nose?
Sinament and Ginger, Nutmegs and Cloves,
And that gave me my jolly red nose.
Ravenscroft: Deuteromela, Song No. 7.[683:2] (1609.)
The mother said to her daughter, "Daughter, bid thy daughter tell her daughter that her daughter's daughter hath a daughter."
George Hakewill: Apologie. Book iii. Chap. v. Sect. 9.[683:3]
[684]
Thirty days hath September,
April, June, and November,
February has twenty-eight alone,
All the rest have thirty-one;
Excepting leap year,—that 's the time
When February's days are twenty-nine.
The Return from Parnassus. (London, 1606.)
Thirty days hath September,
April, June, and November;
All the rest have thirty-one,
Excepting February alone,
Which hath but twenty-eight, in fine,
Till leap year gives it twenty-nine.
Common in the New England States.
[685]
Fourth, eleventh, ninth, and sixth,
Thirty days to each affix;
Every other thirty-one
Except the second month alone.
Common in Chester County, Penn., among the Friends.
"Be of good comfort, Master Ridley," Latimer cried at the crackling of the flames. "Play the man! We shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out."[685:1]
There is a garden in her face,
Where roses and white lilies show;
A heavenly paradise is that place,
Wherein all pleasant fruits do grow.
There cherries hang that none may buy,
Till cherry ripe themselves do cry.
An Howres Recreation in Musike. (1606. Set to music by Richard Alison. Oliphant's "La Messa Madrigalesca," p. 229.)
Those cherries fairly do enclose
Of orient pearl a double row;
Which when her lovely laughter shows,
They look like rosebuds filled with snow.
An Howres Recreation in Musike. (1606. Set to music by Richard Alison. Oliphant's "La Messa Madrigalesca," p. 229.)
A vest as admired Voltiger had on,
Which from this Island's foes his grandsire won,
Whose artful colour pass'd the Tyrian dye,
Obliged to triumph in this legacy.[685:2]
The British Princes, p. 96. (1669.)
When Adam dolve, and Eve span,
Who was then the gentleman?
Lines used by John Ball in Wat Tyler's Rebellion.[685:3]
[686]
Now bething the, gentilman,
How Adam dalf, and Eve span.[686:1]
MS. of the Fifteenth Century (British Museum).
Use three Physicians,—
Still-first Dr. Quiet;
Next Dr. Mery-man,
And Dr. Dyet.[686:2]
Regimen Sanitatis Salernitanum (edition of 1607).
The King of France went up the hill
With twenty thousand men;
The King of France came down the hill,
And ne'er went up again.
Pigges Corantoe, or Newes from the North.[686:3]
In Adam's fall
We sinned all.
My Book and Heart
Must never part.
Young Obadias,
David, Josias,—
All were pious.
Peter denyed
His Lord, and cryed.
[687]
Young Timothy
Learnt sin to fly.
Xerxes did die,
And so must I.
Zaccheus he
Did climb the tree
Our Lord to see.
Our days begin with trouble here,
Our life is but a span,
And cruel death is always near,
So frail a thing is man.
Now I lay me down to take my sleep,[687:1]
I pray the Lord my soul to keep;
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.
His wife, with nine small children and one at the breast, following him to the stake.
Martyrdom of John Rogers. Burned at Smithfield, Feb. 14, 1554.[687:2]
[688]
Mater ait natæ, dic natæ, natam
Ut moneat natæ, plangere filiolam.
The mother to her daughter spake:
"Daughter," said she, "arise!
Thy daughter to her daughter take,
Whose daughter's daughter cries."
A Distich, according to Zwingler, on a Lady of the Dalburg Family who saw her descendants to the sixth generation.
A woman's work, grave sirs, is never done.
Poem spoken by Mr. Eusden at a Cambridge Commencement.[688:1]
The gloomy companions of a disturbed imagination, the melancholy madness of poetry without the inspiration.[688:4]
Letters of Junius. Letter vii. To Sir W. Draper.
I do not give you to posterity as a pattern to imitate, but as an example to deter.
Letters of Junius. Letter xii. To the Duke of Grafton.
The Americans equally detest the pageantry of a king and the supercilious hypocrisy of a bishop.[688:5]
Letters of Junius. Letter xxxv.
The heart to conceive, the understanding to direct, or the hand to execute.[688:6]
Letters of Junius. Letter xxxvii. City Address, and the King's Answer.
[689]
Private credit is wealth; public honour is security. The feather that adorns the royal bird supports its flight; strip him of his plumage, and you fix him to the earth.
Letters of Junius. Letter xlii. Affair of the Falkland Islands.
'T is well to be merry and wise,
'T is well to be honest and true;
'T is well to be off with the old love
Before you are on with the new.
Lines used by Maturin as the motto to "Bertram," produced at Drury Lane, 1816.
Still so gently o'er me stealing,
Mem'ry will bring back the feeling,
Spite of all my grief revealing,
That I love thee,—that I dearly love thee still.
Opera of La Sonnambula.
Happy am I; from care I 'm free!
Why ar' n't they all contented like me?
Opera of La Bayadère.
It is so soon that I am done for,
I wonder what I was begun for.
Epitaph on a child who died at the age of three weeks (Cheltenham Churchyard).
An Austrian army, awfully array'd,
Boldly by battery besiege Belgrade;
Cossack commanders cannonading come,
Deal devastation's dire destructive doom;
Ev'ry endeavour engineers essay,
For fame, for freedom, fight, fierce furious fray.
Gen'rals 'gainst gen'rals grapple,—gracious God!
How honors Heav'n heroic hardihood!
Infuriate, indiscriminate in ill,
Just Jesus, instant innocence instill!
Kinsmen kill kinsmen, kindred kindred kill.
Labour low levels longest, loftiest lines;
Men march 'midst mounds, motes, mountains, murd'rous mines.
[690]Now noisy, noxious numbers notice nought,
Of outward obstacles o'ercoming ought;
Poor patriots perish, persecution's pest!
Quite quiet Quakers "Quarter, quarter" quest;
Reason returns, religion, right, redounds,
Suwarrow stop such sanguinary sounds!
Truce to thee, Turkey, terror to thy train!
Unwise, unjust, unmerciful Ukraine!
Vanish vile vengeance, vanish victory vain!
Why wish we warfare? wherefore welcome won
Xerxes, Xantippus, Xavier, Xenophon?
Yield, ye young Yaghier yeomen, yield your yell!
Zimmerman's, Zoroaster's, Zeno's zeal
Again attract; arts against arms appeal.
All, all ambitious aims, avaunt, away!
Et cætera, et cætera, et cæter[=a].
Alliteration, or the Siege of Belgrade: a Rondeau.[690:1]
But were it to my fancy given
To rate her charms, I 'd call them heaven;
For though a mortal made of clay,
Angels must love Ann Hathaway;
She hath a way so to control,
To rapture the imprisoned soul,
And sweetest heaven on earth display,
That to be heaven Ann hath a way;
She hath a way,
Ann Hathaway,—
To be heaven's self Ann hath a way.
Attributed to Shakespeare.[690:2]
[682:1] Babylon in ruins is not so melancholy a spectacle (as a distracted person). Addison: Spectator, No. 421.
Hope told a flattering tale,
That Joy would soon return;
Ah! naught my sighs avail,
For Love is doomed to mourn.
Anonymous (air by Giovanni Paisiello, 1741-1816): Universal Songster, vol. i. p. 320.
[683:2] Beaumont and Fletcher: The Knight of the Burning Pestle, act i. sc. 3.
[683:3] Hakewill translated this from the "Theatrum Vitæ Humanæ," vol. iii.
[684:1] Altered by Johnson (1783),—
Between the stirrup and the ground,
I mercy ask'd; I mercy found.
[685:1] I shall light a candle of understanding in thine heart, which shall not be put out.—2 Esdras xiv. 25.
[685:2] The oft-quoted lines,—
A painted vest Prince Voltiger had on,
Which from a naked Pict his grandsire won,
have been ascribed to Blackmore, but suppressed in the later editions of his poems.
[685:3] Hume: History of England, vol. i. chap. xvii. note 8.
[686:1] The same proverb existed in German:—
So Adam reutte, und Eva span,
Wer war da ein eddelman?
Agricola: Proverbs. No. 254.
[686:3] A quarto tract printed in London in 1642, p. 3. This is called "Old Tarlton's Song."
[686:4] As early as 1691, Benjamin Harris, of Boston, advertised as in press the second impression of the New England Primer. The oldest copy known to be extant is 1737.
[687:1] It is said that in the earliest edition of the New England Primer this prayer is given as above, which is copied from the reprint of 1777. In the edition of 1784 it is altered to "Now I lay me down to sleep." In the edition of 1814 the second line of the prayer reads, "I pray thee, Lord, my soul to keep."
[687:2] The true date of his death is Feb. 4, 1555.
[687:3] Robert Stephen Hawker incorporated these lines into "The Song of the Western Men," written by him in 1825. It was praised by Sir Walter Scott and Macaulay under the impression that it was the ancient song. It has been a popular proverb throughout Cornwall ever since the imprisonment by James II. of the seven bishops,—one of them Sir Jonathan Trelawny.
[688:1] It was printed for the second time, in London, 1714.
[688:2] In the Preface to Mr. Nichols's work on Autographs, among other albums noticed by him as being in the British Museum is that of David Krieg, with James Bobart's autograph (Dec. 8, 1697) and the verses,—
Virtus sui gloria.
"Think that day lost whose descending sun
Views from thy hand no noble action done."
Bobart died about 1726. He was a son of the celebrated botanist of that name. The verses are given as an early instance of their use.
[688:3] This is found in Staniford's "Art of Reading," third edition, p. 27 (Boston, 1803).
[690:1] These lines having been incorrectly printed in a London publication, we have been favoured by the author with an authentic copy of them.—Wheeler's Magazine, vol. i. p. 244. (Winchester, England, 1828.)
[690:2] This poem entire may be found in Rossiter Johnson's "Famous Single and Fugitive Poems."
[691]
We ought to do our neighbour all the good we can. If you do good, good will be done to you; but if you do evil, the same will be measured back to you again.[691:2]
Dabschelim and Pilpay. Chap. i.
It has been the providence of Nature to give this creature [the cat] nine lives instead of one.[691:3]
The Greedy and Ambitious Cat. Fable iii.
There is no gathering the rose without being pricked by the thorns.[691:4]
The Two Travellers. Chap. ii. Fable vi.
Wise men say that there are three sorts of persons who are wholly deprived of judgment,—they who are ambitious of preferments in the courts of princes; they who make use of poison to show their skill in curing it; and they who intrust women with their secrets.
The Two Travellers. Chap. ii. Fable vi.
Men are used as they use others.
The King who became Just. Fable ix.
What is bred in the bone will never come out of the flesh.[691:5]
The Two Fishermen. Fable xiv.
Guilty consciences always make people cowards.[691:6]
The Prince and his Minister. Chap. iii. Fable iii.
[692]
Whoever . . . prefers the service of princes before his duty to his Creator, will be sure, early or late, to repent in vain.
The Prince and his Minister. Chap. iii. Fable iii.
There are some who bear a grudge even to those that do them good.
A Religious Doctor. Fable vi.
There was once, in a remote part of the East, a man who was altogether void of knowledge and experience, yet presumed to call himself a physician.
The Ignorant Physician. Fable viii.
He that plants thorns must never expect to gather roses.[692:1]
The Ignorant Physician. Fable viii.
Honest men esteem and value nothing so much in this world as a real friend. Such a one is as it were another self, to whom we impart our most secret thoughts, who partakes of our joy, and comforts us in our affliction; add to this, that his company is an everlasting pleasure to us.
Choice of Friends. Chap. iv.
That possession was the strongest tenure of the law.[692:2]
The Cat and the two Birds. Chap. v. Fable iv.
[691:1] Pilpay is supposed to have been a Brahmin gymnosophist, and to have lived several centuries before Christ. The earliest form in which his Fables appear is in the Pancha-tantra and Hitopadesa of the Sanskrit. The first translation was into the Pehlvi language, and thence into the Arabic, about the seventh century. The first English translation appeared in 1570.
[691:2] And with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.—Matthew vii. 2.
(Translation by J. Banks, M. A., with a few alterations.[692:3])
We know to tell many fictions like to truths, and we know, when we will, to speak what is true.
The Theogony. Line 27.
On the tongue of such an one they shed a honeyed dew,[692:4] and from his lips drop gentle words.
The Theogony. Line 82.
Night, having Sleep, the brother of Death.[692:5]
The Theogony. Line 754.
[693]
From whose eyelids also as they gazed dropped love.[693:1]
The Theogony. Line 910.
Both potter is jealous of potter and craftsman of craftsman; and poor man has a grudge against poor man, and poet against poet.[693:2]
Works and Days. Line 25.
Fools! they know not how much half exceeds the whole.[693:3]
Works and Days. Line 40.
For full indeed is earth of woes, and full the sea; and in the day as well as night diseases unbidden haunt mankind, silently bearing ills to men, for all-wise Zeus hath taken from them their voice. So utterly impossible is it to escape the will of Zeus.
Works and Days. Line 101.
They died, as if o'ercome by sleep.
Works and Days. Line 116.
Oft hath even a whole city reaped the evil fruit of a bad man.[693:4]
Works and Days. Line 240.
For himself doth a man work evil in working evils for another.
Works and Days. Line 265.
Badness, look you, you may choose easily in a heap: level is the path, and right near it dwells. But before Virtue the immortal gods have put the sweat of man's brow; and long and steep is the way to it, and rugged at the first.
Works and Days. Line 287.
This man, I say, is most perfect who shall have understood everything for himself, after having devised what may be best afterward and unto the end.
Works and Days. Line 293.
Let it please thee to keep in order a moderate-sized farm, that so thy garners may be full of fruits in their season.
Works and Days. Line 304.
[694]
Invite the man that loves thee to a feast, but let alone thine enemy.
Work and Days. Line 342.
A bad neighbour is as great a misfortune as a good one is a great blessing.
Works and Days. Line 346.
Gain not base gains; base gains are the same as losses.
Works and Days. Line 353.
If thou shouldst lay up even a little upon a little, and shouldst do this often, soon would even this become great.
Works and Days. Line 360.
At the beginning of the cask and at the end take thy fill, but be saving in the middle; for at the bottom saving comes too late. Let the price fixed with a friend be sufficient, and even dealing with a brother call in witnesses, but laughingly.
Works and Days. Line 366.
Diligence increaseth the fruit of toil. A dilatory man wrestles with losses.
Works and Days. Line 412.
The morn, look you, furthers a man on his road, and furthers him too in his work.
Works and Days. Line 579.
Observe moderation. In all, the fitting season is best.
Works and Days. Line 694.
Neither make thy friend equal to a brother; but if thou shalt have made him so, be not the first to do him wrong.
Works and Days. Line 707.
[692:3] Bohn's Classical Library.
[693:3] Pittacus said that half was more than the whole.—Diogenes Laertius: Pittacus, ii.
[693:4] One man's wickedness may easily become all men's curse.—Publius Syrus: Maxim 463.
Wine is wont to show the mind of man.
Maxims. Line 500.
No one goes to Hades with all his immense wealth.[694:1]
Maxims. Line 725.
[694:1] For when he dieth he shall carry nothing away, his glory shall not descend after him.—Psalm xlix. 17.
[695]
[These selections from the most famous gnomic sayings of the great tragic writers of Greece—Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides—are chiefly from the fragments and not from their complete plays. The numbers of the fragments refer to the edition of Nauck. They are selected and translated by M. H. Morgan, Ph. D., of Harvard University.]
I would far rather be ignorant than wise in the foreboding of evil.[695:1]
Suppliants, 453.
"Honour thy father and thy mother" stands written among the three laws of most revered righteousness.[695:2]
Suppliants, 707.
Words are the physicians of a mind diseased.[695:3]
Prometheus, 378.
Time as he grows old teaches many lessons.
Prometheus, 981.
God's mouth knows not to utter falsehood, but he will perform each word.[695:4]
Prometheus, 1032.
Learning is ever in the freshness of its youth, even for the old.[695:5]
Agamemnon, 584.
Few men have the natural strength to honour a friend's success without envy. . . . I well know that mirror of friendship, shadow of a shade.
Agamemnon, 832.
Exiles feed on hope.
Agamemnon, 1668.
Success is man's god.
Choephoræ, 59.
[696]
So in the Libyan fable it is told
That once an eagle, stricken with a dart,
Said, when he saw the fashion of the shaft,
"With our own feathers, not by others' hands,
Are we now smitten."[696:1]
Frag. 135 (trans. by Plumptre).
Of all the gods, Death only craves not gifts:
Nor sacrifice, nor yet drink-offering poured
Avails; no altars hath he, nor is soothed
By hymns of praise. From him alone of all
The powers of heaven Persuasion holds aloof.
Frag. 146 (trans. by Plumptre).
O Death the Healer, scorn thou not, I pray,
To come to me: of cureless ills thou art
The one physician. Pain lays not its touch
Upon a corpse.
Frag. 250 (trans. by Plumptre).
A prosperous fool is a grievous burden.
Frag. 383.
Bronze is the mirror of the form; wine, of the heart.
Frag. 384.
It is not the oath that makes us believe the man, but the man the oath.
Frag. 385.
[695:2] The three great laws ascribed to Triptolemus are referred to,—namely, to honour parents; to worship the gods with the fruits of the earth; to hurt no living creature. The first two laws are also ascribed to the centaur Cheiron.
Apt words have power to suage
The tumours of a troubl'd mind.
Milton: Samson Agonistes.
[695:4] God is not a man that he should lie; . . . hath he said, and shall he not do it?—Numbers xxiii. 19.
Think not that thy word and thine alone must be right.
Antigone, 706.
Death is not the worst evil, but rather when we wish to die and cannot.
Electra, 1007.
There is an ancient saying, famous among men, that thou shouldst not judge fully of a man's life before he dieth, whether it should be called blest or wretched.[696:2]
Trachiniæ, 1.
In a just cause the weak o'ercome the strong.[696:3]
Œdipus Coloneus, 880.
[697]
A lie never lives to be old.
Acrisius. Frag. 59.
Nobody loves life like an old man.
Acrisius. Frag. 63.
A short saying oft contains much wisdom.[697:1]
Aletes. Frag. 99.
Do nothing secretly; for Time sees and hears all things, and discloses all.
Hipponous. Frag. 280.
It is better not to live at all than to live disgraced.
Peleus. Frag. 445.
War loves to seek its victims in the young.
Scyrii. Frag. 507.
If it were possible to heal sorrow by weeping and to raise the dead with tears, gold were less prized than grief.
Scyrii. Frag. 510.
Children are the anchors that hold a mother to life.
Phædra. Frag. 619.
The truth is always the strongest argument.
Phædra. Frag. 737.
The dice of Zeus fall ever luckily.
Phædra. Frag. 809.
Fortune is not on the side of the faint-hearted.
Phædra. Frag. 842.
No oath too binding for a lover.
Phædra. Frag. 848.
Thoughts are mightier than strength of hand.
Phædra. Frag. 854.
A wise player ought to accept his throws and score them, not bewail his luck.
Phædra. Frag. 862.
If I am Sophocles, I am not mad; and if I am mad, I am not Sophocles.
Vit. Anon. p. 64 (Plumptre's Trans.).
[696:2] The saying "Call no man happy before he dies" was ascribed to Solon. Herodotus, i. 32.
Old men's prayers for death are lying prayers, in which they abuse old age and long extent of life. But when death draws near, not one is willing to die, and age no longer is a burden to them.
Alcestis. 669.
[698]
The gifts of a bad man bring no good with them.
Medea. 618.
Moderation, the noblest gift of Heaven.
Medea. 636.
I know, indeed, the evil of that I purpose; but my inclination gets the better of my judgment.[698:1]
Medea. 1078.
There is in the worst of fortune the best of chances for a happy change.[698:2]
Iphigenia in Tauris. 721.
Slowly but surely withal moveth the might of the gods.[698:3]
Bacchæ. 882.
Thou didst bring me forth for all the Greeks in common, not for thyself alone.
Iphigenia in Aulis. 1386.
Slight not what 's near through aiming at what 's far.[698:4]
Rhesus. 482.
The company of just and righteous men is better than wealth and a rich estate.
Ægeus. Frag. 7.
A bad beginning makes a bad ending.
Æolus. Frag. 32.
Time will explain it all. He is a talker, and needs no questioning before he speaks.
Æolus. Frag. 38.
Waste not fresh tears over old griefs.
Alexander. Frag. 44.
The nobly born must nobly meet his fate.[698:5]
Alcmene. Frag. 100.
Woman is woman's natural ally.
Alope. Frag. 109.
Man's best possession is a sympathetic wife.
Antigone. Frag. 164.
Ignorance of one's misfortunes is clear gain.[698:6]
Antiope. Frag. 204.
[699]
Try first thyself, and after call in God;
For to the worker God himself lends aid.[699:1]
Hippolytus. Frag. 435.
Second thoughts are ever wiser.[699:2]
Hippolytus. Frag. 436.
Toil, says the proverb, is the sire of fame.
Licymnius. Frag. 477.
Cowards do not count in battle; they are there, but not in it.
Meleager. Frag. 523.
A woman should be good for everything at home, but abroad good for nothing.
Meleager. Frag. 525.
Silver and gold are not the only coin; virtue too passes current all over the world.
Œdipus. Frag. 546.
When good men die their goodness does not perish,
But lives though they are gone. As for the bad,
All that was theirs dies and is buried with them.
Temenidæ. Frag. 734.
Every man is like the company he is wont to keep.
Phœnix. Frag. 809.
Who knows but life be that which men call death,[699:3] And death what men call life?
Phrixus. Frag. 830.
Whoso neglects learning in his youth, loses the past and is dead for the future.
Phrixus. Frag. 927.
The gods visit the sins of the fathers upon the children.
Phrixus. Frag. 970.
[698:2] The darkest hour is that before the dawn.—Hazlitt: English Proverbs.
[698:5] Noblesse oblige.—Bohn: Foreign Proverbs.
We are all clever enough at envying a famous man while he is yet alive, and at praising him when he is dead.
Frag. 1.
[700]
Life is short and the art long.[700:1]
Aphorism i.
Extreme remedies are very appropriate for extreme diseases.[700:2]
Aphorism i.
Let thy speech be better than silence, or be silent.
Frag. 6.
(Translated by Henry Thomas Riley, B. A., with a few variations. The references are to the text of Ritschl's second edition.[700:3])
What is yours is mine, and all mine is yours.[700:4]
Trinummus. Act ii. Sc. 2, 48. (329.)
Not by years but by disposition is wisdom acquired.
Trinummus. Act ii. Sc. 2, 88. (367.)
These things are not for the best, nor as I think they ought to be; but still they are better than that which is downright bad.
Trinummus. Act ii. Sc. 2, 111. (392.)
He whom the gods favour dies in youth.[700:5]
Bacchides. Act iv. Sc. 7, 18. (816.)
[701]
You are seeking a knot in a bulrush.[701:1]
Menæchmi. Act ii. Sc. 1, 22. (247.)
In the one hand he is carrying a stone, while he shows the bread in the other.[701:2]
Aulularia. Act ii. Sc. 2, 18. (195.)
I had a regular battle with the dunghill-cock.
Aulularia. Act iii. Sc. 4, 13. (472.)
It was not for nothing that the raven was just now croaking on my left hand.[701:3]
Aulularia. Act iv. Sc. 3, 1. (624.)
There are occasions when it is undoubtedly better to incur loss than to make gain.
Captivi. Act ii. Sc. 2, 77. (327.)
Patience is the best remedy for every trouble.[701:4]
Rudens. Act ii. Sc. 5, 71.
If you are wise, be wise; keep what goods the gods provide you.
Rudens. Act iv. Sc. 7, 3. (1229.)
Consider the little mouse, how sagacious an animal it is which never entrusts its life to one hole only.[701:5]
Truculentus. Act iv. Sc. 4, 15. (868.)
Nothing is there more friendly to a man than a friend in need.[701:6]
Epidicus. Act iii. Sc. 3, 44. (425.)
Things which you do not hope happen more frequently than things which you do hope.[701:7]
Mostellaria. Act i. Sc. 3, 40. (197.)
To blow and swallow at the same moment is not easy.
Mostellaria. Act iii. Sc. 2, 104. (791.)
Each man reaps on his own farm.
Mostellaria. Act iii. Sc. 2, 112. (799.)
[700:3] Bohn's Classical Library.
[701:1] A proverbial expression implying a desire to create doubts and difficulties where there really were none. It occurs in Terence, the "Andria," act v. sc. 4, 38; also in Ennius, "Saturæ," 46.
[701:2] What man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?—Matthew vii. 9.
[701:4] Patience is a remedy for every sorrow.—Publius Syrus: Maxim 170.
[701:6] A friend in need is a friend indeed.—Hazlitt: English Proverbs.
[701:7] The unexpected always happens.—A common proverb.
[702]
(From the translation of Henry Thomas Riley, B. A., with occasional corrections. The references are to the text of Umpfenbach.[702:1])
Do not they bring it to pass by knowing that they know nothing at all?
Andria. The Prologue. 17.
Of surpassing beauty and in the bloom of youth.
Andria. Act i. Sc. 1, 45. (72.)
Hence these tears.
Andria. Act i. Sc. 1, 99. (126.)
That is a true proverb which is wont to be commonly quoted, that "all had rather it were well for themselves than for another."
Andria. Act ii. Sc. 5, 15. (426.)
The quarrels of lovers are the renewal of love.[702:2]
Andria. Act iii. Sc. 3, 23. (555.)
Look you, I am the most concerned in my own interests.[702:3]
Andria. Act iv. Sc. 1, 12. (636.)
In fine, nothing is said now that has not been said before.
Eunuchus. The Prologue. 41.
It is up with you; all is over; you are ruined.
Eunuchus. Act i. Sc. 1, 9. (54.)
If I could believe that this was said sincerely, I could put up with anything.
Eunuchus. Act i. Sc. 2, 96. (176.)
Immortal gods! how much does one man excel another! What a difference there is between a wise person and a fool!
Eunuchus. Act ii. Sc. 2, 1. (232.)
I have everything, yet have nothing; and although I possess nothing, still of nothing am I in want.[702:4]
Eunuchus. Act ii. Sc. 2, 12. (243.)
[703]
There are vicissitudes in all things.
Eunuchus. Act ii. Sc. 2, 45. (276.)
The very flower of youth.
Eunuchus. Act ii. Sc. 3, 28. (319.)
I did not care one straw.
Eunuchus. Act iii. Sc. 1, 21. (411.)
Jupiter, now assuredly is the time when I could readily consent to be slain,[703:1] lest life should sully this ecstasy with some disaster.
Eunuchus. Act iii. Sc. 5, 2. (550.)
This and a great deal more like it I have had to put up with.
Eunuchus. Act iv. Sc. 6, 8. (746.)
Take care and say this with presence of mind.[703:2]
Eunuchus. Act iv. Sc. 6, 31. (769.)
It behooves a prudent person to make trial of everything before arms.
Eunuchus. Act iv. Sc. 7, 19. (789.)
I know the disposition of women: when you will, they won't; when you won't, they set their hearts upon you of their own inclination.
Eunuchus. Act iv. Sc. 7, 42. (812.)
I took to my heels as fast as I could.
Eunuchus. Act v. Sc. 2, 5. (844.)
Many a time, . . . from a bad beginning great friendships have sprung up.
Eunuchus. Act v. Sc. 2, 34. (873.)
I only wish I may see your head stroked down with a slipper.[703:3]
Eunuchus. Act v. Sc. 7, 4. (1028.)
I am a man, and nothing that concerns a man do I deem a matter of indifference to me.[703:4]
Heautontimoroumenos. Act i. Sc. 1, 25. (77.)
This is a wise maxim, "to take warning from others of what may be to your own advantage."
Heautontimoroumenos. Act i. Sc. 2, 36. (210.)
[704]
That saying which I hear commonly repeated,—that time assuages sorrow.
Heautontimoroumenos. Act iii. Sc. 1, 12. (421.)
Really, you have seen the old age of an eagle,[704:1] as the saying is.
Heautontimoroumenos. Act iii. Sc. 2, 9. (520.)
Many a time a man cannot be such as he would be, if circumstances do not admit of it.
Heautontimoroumenos. Act iv. Sc. 1, 53. (666.)
Nothing is so difficult but that it may be found out by seeking.
Heautontimoroumenos. Act iv. Sc. 2, 8. (675.)
What now if the sky were to fall?[704:2]
Heautontimoroumenos. Act iv. Sc. 3, 41. (719.)
Rigorous law is often rigorous injustice.[704:3]
Heautontimoroumenos. Act iv. Sc. 5, 48. (796.)
There is nothing so easy but that it becomes difficult when you do it with reluctance.
Heautontimoroumenos. Act iv. Sc. 6, 1. (805.)
How many things, both just and unjust, are sanctioned by custom!
Heautontimoroumenos. Act iv. Sc. 7, 11. (839.)
Fortune helps the brave.[704:4]
Phormio. Act i. Sc. 4, 25. (203.)
It is the duty of all persons, when affairs are the most prosperous,[704:5] then in especial to reflect within themselves in what way they are to endure adversity.
Phormio. Act ii. Sc. 1, 11. (241.)
As many men, so many minds; every one his own way.
Phormio. Act ii. Sc. 4, 14. (454.)
[705]
As the saying is, I have got a wolf by the ears.[705:1]
Phormio. Act iii. Sc. 2, 21. (506.)
I bid him look into the lives of men as though into a mirror, and from others to take an example for himself.
Adelphoe. Act iii. Sc. 3, 61. (415.)
According as the man is, so must you humour him.
Adelphoe. Act iii. Sc. 3, 77. (431.)
It is a maxim of old that among themselves all things are common to friends.[705:2]
Adelphoe. Act v. Sc. 3, 18. (803.)
What comes from this quarter, set it down as so much gain.
Adelphoe. Act v. Sc. 3, 30. (816.)
It is the common vice of all, in old age, to be too intent upon our interests.[705:3]
Adelphoe. Act v. Sc. 8, 30. (953.)
[702:1] Bonn's Classical Library.
[702:3] Equivalent to our sayings, "Charity begins at home;" "Take care of Number One."
[703:2] Literally, "with a present mind,"—equivalent to Cæsar's præsentia animi (De Bello Gallico, v. 43, 4).
[703:3] According to Lucian, there was a story that Omphale used to beat Hercules with her slipper or sandal.
[703:4] Cicero quotes this passage in De Officiis, i. 30.
[704:1] This was a proverbial expression, signifying a hale and vigorous old age.
Some ambassadors from the Celtæ, being asked by Alexander what in the world they dreaded most, answered, that they feared lest the sky should fall upon them.—Arrianus: lib. i. 4.
[704:3] Extreme law, extreme injustice, is now become a stale proverb in discourse.—Cicero: De Officiis, i. 33.
Une extrême justice est souvent une injure (Extreme justice is often injustice).—Racine: Frères Ennemies, act iv. sc. 3.
Mais l'extrême justice est une extrême injure.—Voltaire: Œdipus, act iii. sc. 3.
[704:4] Pliny the Younger says (book vi. letter xvi.) that Pliny the Elder said this during the eruption of Vesuvius: "Fortune favours the brave."
[704:5] Cicero: Tusculan Questions, book iii. 30.
[705:1] A proverbial expression, which, according to Suetonius, was frequently in the mouth of Tiberius Cæsar.
[705:2] All things are in common among friends.—Diogenes Laertius: Diogenes, vi.
[705:3] Cicero quotes this passage (Tusculan Questions, book iii.), and the maxim was a favourite one with the Stoic philosophers.
For as lack of adornment is said to become some women, so this subtle oration, though without embellishment, gives delight.[705:4]
De Oratore. 78.
Thus in the beginning the world was so made that certain signs come before certain events.[705:5]
De Divinatione. i. 118.
He is never less at leisure than when at leisure.[705:6]
De Officiis. iii. 1.
While the sick man has life there is hope.[705:7]
Epistolarum ad Atticum. ix. 10, 4.
[706]
Continual dropping wears away a stone.[706:1]
De Rerum Natura. i. 313.
What is food to one man may be fierce poison to others.[706:2]
De Rerum Natura. iv. 637.
In the midst of the fountain of wit there arises something bitter, which stings in the very flowers.[706:3]
De Rerum Natura. iv. 1133.
Brave men were living before Agamemnon.[706:4]
Odes. iv. 9, 25.
In peace, as a wise man, he should make suitable preparation for war.[706:5]
Satires, ii. 2. (111.)
You may see me, fat and shining, with well-cared-for hide, . . . a hog from Epicurus's herd.[706:6]
Satires, ii. 4, 15.
What the discordant harmony of circumstances would and could effect.[706:7]
Epistles, i. 12, 19.
If you wish me to weep, you yourself must feel grief.[706:8]
Ars Poetica. 102.
The mountains will be in labour; an absurd mouse will be born.[706:9]
Ars Poetica. 139.
Even the worthy Homer sometimes nods.[706:10]
Ars Poetica. 359.
[706:9] A mountain was in labour, sending forth dreadful groans, and there was in the region the highest expectation. After all, it brought forth a mouse.—Phædrus: Fables, iv. 22, 1.
The old proverb was now made good: "The mountain had brought forth a mouse."—Plutarch: Life of Agesilaus II.
[707]
They come to see; they come that they themselves may be seen.[707:1]
The Art of Love. i. 99.
Nothing is stronger than custom.
The Art of Love. ii. 345.
Then the omnipotent Father with his thunder made Olympus tremble, and from Ossa hurled Pelion.[707:2]
Metamorphoses. i.
It is the mind that makes the man, and our vigour is in our immortal soul.[707:3]
Metamorphoses. xiii.
The mind, conscious of rectitude, laughed to scorn the falsehood of report.[707:4]
Fasti. iv. 311.
I would have you call to mind the strength of the ancient giants, that undertook to lay the high mountain Pelion on the top of Ossa, and set among those the shady Olympus.—Rabelais: Works, book iv. chap. xxxviii.
[707:4] And the mind conscious of virtue may bring to thee suitable rewards.—Virgil: Æneid, i. 604.
Love thyself, and many will hate thee.
Frag. 146.
Practice in time becomes second nature.[707:5]
Frag. 227.
When God is planning ruin for a man, He first deprives him of his reason.[707:6]
Frag. 379.
When I am dead let fire destroy the world;
It matters not to me, for I am safe.
Frag. 430.
Toil does not come to help the idle.
Frag. 440.
[707:5] Custom is almost a second nature.—Plutarch: Rules for the Preservation of Health, 18.
[708]
(Translation by Darius Lyman. The numbers are those of the translator.)
As men, we are all equal in the presence of death.
Maxim 1.
To do two things at once is to do neither.
Maxim 7.
We are interested in others when they are interested in us.[708:2]
Maxim 16.
Every one excels in something in which another fails.
Maxim 17.
The anger of lovers renews the strength of love.[708:3]
Maxim 24.
A god could hardly love and be wise.[708:4]
Maxim 25.
The loss which is unknown is no loss at all.[708:5]
Maxim 38.
He sleeps well who knows not that he sleeps ill.
Maxim 77.
A good reputation is more valuable than money.[708:6]
Maxim 108.
It is well to moor your bark with two anchors.
Maxim 119.
Learn to see in another's calamity the ills which you should avoid.[708:7]
Maxim 120.
An agreeable companion on a journey is as good as a carriage.
Maxim 143.
Society in shipwreck is a comfort to all.[708:8]
Maxim 144.
Many receive advice, few profit by it.
Maxim 149.
[709]
Patience is a remedy for every sorrow.[709:1]
Maxim 170.
While we stop to think, we often miss our opportunity.
Maxim 185.
Whatever you can lose, you should reckon of no account.
Maxim 191.
Even a single hair casts its shadow.
Maxim 228.
It is sometimes expedient to forget who we are.
Maxim 233.
We may with advantage at times forget what we know.
Maxim 234.
You should hammer your iron when it is glowing hot.[709:2]
Maxim 262.
What is left when honour is lost?
Maxim 265.
A fair exterior is a silent recommendation.
Maxim 267.
Fortune is not satisfied with inflicting one calamity.
Maxim 274.
When Fortune is on our side, popular favour bears her company.
Maxim 275.
When Fortune flatters, she does it to betray.
Maxim 277.
Fortune is like glass,—the brighter the glitter, the more easily broken.
Maxim 280.
It is more easy to get a favour from fortune than to keep it.
Maxim 282.
His own character is the arbiter of every one's fortune.[709:3]
Maxim 283.
There are some remedies worse than the disease.[709:4]
Maxim 301.
Powerful indeed is the empire of habit.[709:5]
Maxim 305.
Amid a multitude of projects, no plan is devised.[709:6]
Maxim 319.
[710]
It is easy for men to talk one thing and think another.
Maxim 322.
When two do the same thing, it is not the same thing after all.
Maxim 338.
A cock has great influence on his own dunghill.[710:1]
Maxim 357.
Any one can hold the helm when the sea is calm.[710:2]
Maxim 358.
No tears are shed when an enemy dies.
Maxim 376.
The bow too tensely strung is easily broken.
Maxim 388.
Treat your friend as if he might become an enemy.
Maxim 401.
No pleasure endures unseasoned by variety.[710:3]
Maxim 406.
The judge is condemned when the criminal is acquitted.[710:4]
Maxim 407.
Practice is the best of all instructors.[710:5]
Maxim 439.
He who is bent on doing evil can never want occasion.
Maxim 459.
One man's wickedness may easily become all men's curse.
Maxim 463.
Never find your delight in another's misfortune.
Maxim 467.
It is a bad plan that admits of no modification.
Maxim 469.
It is better to have a little than nothing.
Maxim 484.
It is an unhappy lot which finds no enemies.
Maxim 499.
[711]
The fear of death is more to be dreaded than death itself.[711:1]
Maxim 511.
A rolling stone gathers no moss.[711:2]
Maxim 524.
Never promise more than you can perform.
Maxim 528.
A wise man never refuses anything to necessity.[711:3]
Maxim 540.
No one should be judge in his own cause.[711:4]
Maxim 545.
Necessity knows no law except to conquer.[711:5]
Maxim 553.
Nothing can be done at once hastily and prudently.[711:6]
Maxim 557.
We desire nothing so much as what we ought not to have.
Maxim 559.
It is only the ignorant who despise education.
Maxim 571.
Do not turn back when you are just at the goal.[711:7]
Maxim 580.
It is not every question that deserves an answer.
Maxim 581.
No man is happy who does not think himself so.[711:8]
Maxim 584.
Never thrust your own sickle into another's corn.[711:9]
Maxim 593.
You cannot put the same shoe on every foot.
Maxim 596.
[712]
He bids fair to grow wise who has discovered that he is not so.
Maxim 598.
A guilty conscience never feels secure.[712:1]
Maxim 617.
Every day should be passed as if it were to be our last.[712:2]
Maxim 633.
Familiarity breeds contempt.[712:3]
Maxim 640.
Money alone sets all the world in motion.
Maxim 656.
He who has plenty of pepper will pepper his cabbage.
Maxim 673.
You should go to a pear-tree for pears, not to an elm.[712:4]
Maxim 674.
It is a very hard undertaking to seek to please everybody.
Maxim 675.
We should provide in peace what we need in war.[712:5]
Maxim 709.
Look for a tough wedge for a tough log.
Maxim 723.
How happy the life unembarrassed by the cares of business!
Maxim 725.
They who plough the sea do not carry the winds in their hands.[712:6]
Maxim 759.
He gets through too late who goes too fast.
Maxim 767.
In every enterprise consider where you would come out.[712:7]
Maxim 777.
[713]
It takes a long time to bring excellence to maturity.
Maxim 780.
The highest condition takes rise in the lowest.
Maxim 781.
It matters not what you are thought to be, but what you are.
Maxim 785.
No one knows what he can do till he tries.
Maxim 786.
The next day is never so good as the day before.
Maxim 815.
He is truly wise who gains wisdom from another's mishap.
Maxim 825.
Good health and good sense are two of life's greatest blessings.
Maxim 827.
It matters not how long you live, but how well.
Maxim 829.
It is vain to look for a defence against lightning.[713:1]
Maxim 835.
No good man ever grew rich all at once.[713:2]
Maxim 837.
Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it.[713:3]
Maxim 847.
It is better to learn late than never.[713:4]
Maxim 864.
Better be ignorant of a matter than half know it.[713:5]
Maxim 865.
Better use medicines at the outset than at the last moment.
Maxim 866.
Prosperity makes friends, adversity tries them.
Maxim 872.
Whom Fortune wishes to destroy she first makes mad.[713:6]
Maxim 911.
Let a fool hold his tongue and he will pass for a sage.
Maxim 914.
He knows not when to be silent who knows not when to speak.
Maxim 930.
[714]
You need not hang up the ivy-branch over the wine that will sell.[714:1]
Maxim 968.
It is a consolation to the wretched to have companions in misery.[714:2]
Maxim 995.
Unless degree is preserved, the first place is safe for no one.[714:3]
Maxim 1042.
Confession of our faults is the next thing to innocency.
Maxim 1060.
I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.[714:4]
Maxim 1070.
Keep the golden mean[714:5] between saying too much and too little.
Maxim 1072.
Speech is a mirror of the soul: as a man speaks, so is he.
Maxim 1073.
[708:1] Commonly called Publius, but spelled Publilius by Pliny (Natural History, 35, sect. 199).
[708:2] We always like those who admire us.—Rochefoucauld: Maxim 294.
[708:4] It is impossible to love and be wise.—Bacon: Of Love (quoted).
[708:6] A good name is better than riches.—Cervantes: Don Quixote, part ii. book ii. chap. xxxiii.
[708:7] The best plan is, as the common proverb has it, to profit by the folly of others.—Pliny: Natural History, book xviii. sect. 31.
[708:8] See Maxim 995.
Marius said, "I see the cure is not worth the pain."—Plutarch: Life of Caius Marius.
[709:5] Habit is second nature.—Montaigne: Essays, book iii. chap. x.
[709:6] He that hath many irons in the fire, some of them will cool.—Hazlitt: English Proverbs.
The sea being smooth,
How many shallow bauble boats dare sail
Upon her patient breast.
Shakespeare: Troilus and Cressida, act i. sc. 3.
[710:4] Judex damnatur cum nocens absolvitur,—the motto adopted for the "Edinburgh Review."
[710:5] Practice makes perfect.—Proverb.
[711:3] Yet do I hold that mortal foolish who strives against the stress of necessity.—Euripides: Hercules Furens, line 281.
[711:4] It is not permitted to the most equitable of men to be a judge in his own cause.—Pascal: Thoughts, chap. iv. 1.
[711:7] When men are arrived at the goal, they should not turn back.—Plutarch: Of the Training of Children.
[711:8] No man can enjoy happiness without thinking that he enjoys it.—Johnson: The Rambler, p. 150.
[711:9] Did thrust as now in others' corn his sickle.—Du Bartas: Divine Weekes and Workes, part ii. Second Weeke.
Not presuming to put my sickle in another man's corn.—Nicholas Yonge: Musica Transalpini. Epistle Dedicatory. 1588.
[712:2] Thou wilt find rest from vain fancies if thou doest every act in life as though it were thy last.—Marcus Aurelius: Meditations, ii. 5.
[712:4] You may as well expect pears from an elm.—Cervantes: Don Quixote, part ii. book ii. chap. xl.
[712:6] The pilot cannot mitigate the billows or calm the winds.—Plutarch: Of the Tranquillity of the Mind.
[712:7] In every affair consider what precedes and what follows, and then undertake it.—Epictetus: That everything is to be undertaken with circumspection, chap. xv.
[713:1] Syrus was not a contemporary of Franklin.
[713:2] No just man ever became rich all at once.—Menander: Fragment.
[714:2] See Maxim 144.
[714:4] Simonides said "that he never repented that he held his tongue, but often that he had spoken."—Plutarch: Rules for the Preservation of Health.
Not lost, but gone before.[714:6]
Epistolæ. 63, 16.
Whom they have injured they also hate.[714:7]
De Ira. ii. 33.
Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men.[714:8]
De Providentia. 5, 9.
There is no great genius without a tincture of madness.[714:9]
De Tranquillitate Animi. 17.
Do you seek Alcides' equal? None is, except himself.[714:10]
Hercules Furens. i. 1, 84.
[715]
Successful and fortunate crime is called virtue.[715:1]
Hercules Furens. 255.
A good man possesses a kingdom.[715:2]
Thyestes. 380.
I do not distinguish by the eye, but by the mind, which is the proper judge of the man.[715:3]
On a Happy Life. 2. (L' Estrange's Abstract, Chap. i.)
(Translation by H. T. Riley, B. A.[715:4])
Submit to the present evil, lest a greater one befall you.
Book i. Fable 2, 31.
He who covets what belongs to another deservedly loses his own.
Book i. Fable 4, 1.
That it is unwise to be heedless ourselves while we are giving advice to others, I will show in a few lines.
Book i. Fable 9, 1.
Whoever has even once become notorious by base fraud, even if he speaks the truth, gains no belief.
Book i. Fable 10, 1.
By this story [The Fox and the Raven] it is shown how much ingenuity avails, and how wisdom is always an overmatch for strength.
Book i. Fable 13, 13.
No one returns with good-will to the place which has done him a mischief.
Book i. Fable 18, 1.
It has been related that dogs drink at the river Nile running along, that they may not be seized by the crocodiles.[715:5]
Book i. Fable 25, 3.
[716]
Every one is bound to bear patiently the results of his own example.
Book i. Fable 26, 12.
Come of it what may, as Sinon said.
Book iii. The Prologue, 27.
Things are not always what they seem.[716:1]
Book iv. Fable 2, 5.
Jupiter has loaded us with a couple of wallets: the one, filled with our own vices, he has placed at our backs; the other, heavy with those of others, he has hung before.[716:2]
Book iv. Fable 10, 1.
A mountain was in labour, sending forth dreadful groans, and there was in the region the highest expectation. After all, it brought forth a mouse.[716:3]
Book iv. Fable 23, 1.
A fly bit the bare pate of a bald man, who in endeavouring to crush it gave himself a hard slap. Then said the fly jeeringly, "You wanted to revenge the sting of a tiny insect with death; what will you do to yourself, who have added insult to injury?"
Book v. Fable 3, 1.
"I knew that before you were born." Let him who would instruct a wiser man consider this as said to himself.
Book v. Fable 9, 4.
[715:4] Bohn's Classical Library.
[715:5] Pliny in his "Natural History," book viii. sect. 148, and Ælian in his "Various Histories" relate the same fact as to the dogs drinking from the Nile. "To treat a thing as the dogs do the Nile" was a common proverb with the ancients, signifying to do it superficially.
[716:2] Also alluded to by Horace, Satires, ii. 3, 299; Catullus, 22, 21; and Persius, 4, 24.
(Translation by J. Bostock, M. D., and H. T. Riley, B. A., with slight alterations.[716:4])
In comparing various authors with one another, I have discovered that some of the gravest and latest writers have transcribed, word for word, from former works, without making acknowledgment.
Natural History. Book i. Dedication, Sect. 22.
[717]
The world, and whatever that be which we call the heavens, by the vault of which all things are enclosed, we must conceive to be a deity, to be eternal, without bounds, neither created nor subject at any time to destruction. To inquire what is beyond it is no concern of man; nor can the human mind form any conjecture concerning it.
Natural History. Book ii. Sect. 1.
It is ridiculous to suppose that the great head of things, whatever it be, pays any regard to human affairs.
Natural History. Book ii. Sect. 20.
Everything is soothed by oil, and this is the reason why divers send out small quantities of it from their mouths, because it smooths every part which is rough.[717:1]
Natural History. Book ii. Sect. 234.
It is far from easy to determine whether she [Nature] has proved to him a kind parent or a merciless stepmother.[717:2]
Natural History. Book vii. Sect. 1.
Man alone at the very moment of his birth, cast naked upon the naked earth, does she abandon to cries and lamentations.[717:3]
Natural History. Book vii. Sect. 2.
[718]
To laugh, if but for an instant only, has never been granted to man before the fortieth day from his birth, and then it is looked upon as a miracle of precocity.[718:1]
Natural History, Book vii. Sect. 2.
Man is the only one that knows nothing, that can learn nothing without being taught. He can neither speak nor walk nor eat, and in short he can do nothing at the prompting of nature only, but weep.[718:2]
Natural History, Book vii. Sect. 4.
With man, most of his misfortunes are occasioned by man.[718:3]
Natural History, Book vii. Sect. 5.
Indeed, what is there that does not appear marvellous when it comes to our knowledge for the first time?[718:4] How many things, too, are looked upon as quite impossible until they have been actually effected?
Natural History, Book vii. Sect. 6.
The human features and countenance, although composed of but some ten parts or little more, are so fashioned that among so many thousands of men there are no two in existence who cannot be distinguished from one another.[718:5]
Natural History, Book vii. Sect. 8.
All men possess in their bodies a poison which acts upon serpents; and the human saliva, it is said, makes them take to flight, as though they had been touched with boiling water. The same substance, it is said, destroys them the moment it enters their throat.[718:6]
Natural History, Book vii. Sect. 15.
[719]
It has been observed that the height of a man from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot is equal to the distance between the tips of the middle fingers of the two hands when extended in a straight line.
Natural History. Book vii. Sect. 77.
When a building is about to fall down, all the mice desert it.[719:1]
Natural History. Book viii. Sect. 103.
Bears when first born are shapeless masses of white flesh a little larger than mice, their claws alone being prominent. The mother then licks them gradually into proper shape.[719:2]
Natural History. Book viii. Sect. 126.
It is asserted that the dogs keep running when they drink at the Nile, for fear of becoming a prey to the voracity of the crocodile.[719:3]
Natural History. Book viii. Sect. 148.
It has become quite a common proverb that in wine there is truth.[719:4]
Natural History. Book xiv. Sect. 141.
Cincinnatus was ploughing his four jugera of land upon the Vaticanian Hill,—the same that are still known as the Quintian Meadows,—when the messenger brought him the dictatorship, finding him, the tradition says, stripped to the work.
Natural History. Book xviii. Sect. 20.
The agricultural population, says Cato, produces the bravest men, the most valiant soldiers, and a class of citizens the least given of all to evil designs. . . . A bad bargain is always a ground for repentance.
Natural History. Book xviii. Sect. 26.
[720]
The best plan is, as the common proverb has it, to profit by the folly of others.[720:1]
Natural History. Book xviii. Sect. 31.
Always act in such a way as to secure the love of your neighbour.[720:2]
Natural History. Book xviii. Sect. 44.
It is a maxim universally agreed upon in agriculture, that nothing must be done too late; and again, that everything must be done at its proper season; while there is a third precept which reminds us that opportunities lost can never be regained.
Natural History. Book xviii. Sect. 44.
The bird of passage known to us as the cuckoo.
Natural History. Book xviii. Sect. 249.
Let not things, because they are common, enjoy for that the less share of our consideration.
Natural History. Book xix. Sect. 59.
Why is it that we entertain the belief that for every purpose odd numbers are the most effectual?[720:3]
Natural History. Book xxviii. Sect. 23.
It was a custom with Apelles, to which he most tenaciously adhered, never to let any day pass, however busy he might be, without exercising himself by tracing some outline or other,—a practice which has now passed into a proverb.[720:4] It was also a practice with him, when he had completed a work, to exhibit it to the view of the passers-by in his studio, while he himself, concealed behind the picture, would listen to the criticisms. . . . Under these circumstances, they say that he was censured by a shoemaker for having represented the shoes with one latchet too few. The next day, the shoemaker, quite proud at seeing the former error corrected, thanks [721]to his advice, began to criticise the leg; upon which Apelles, full of indignation, popped his head out and reminded him that a shoemaker should give no opinion beyond the shoes,[721:1]—a piece of advice which has equally passed into a proverbial saying.
Natural History. Book xxxv. Sect. 84.
[716:4] Bohn's Classical Library.
[717:1] Why does pouring oil on the sea make it clear and calm? Is it for that the winds, slipping the smooth oil, have no force, nor cause any waves?—Plutarch: Natural Questions, ix.
The venerable Bede relates that Bishop Adain (a. d. 651) gave to a company about to take a journey by sea "some holy oil, saying, 'I know that when you go abroad you will meet with a storm and contrary wind; but do you remember to cast this oil I give you into the sea, and the wind shall cease immediately.'"—Ecclesiastical History, book iii. chap. xiv.
In Sparks's edition of Franklin's Works, vol. vi. p. 354, there are letters between Franklin, Brownrigg, and Parish on the stilling of waves by means of oil.
To man the earth seems altogether
No more a mother, but a step-dame rather.
Du Bartas: Divine Weekes and Workes, first week, third day.
[717:3] He is born naked, and falls a whining at the first.—Burton: Anatomy of Melancholy, part i. sect. 2, mem. 3, subsect. 10.
And when I was born I drew in the common air, and fell upon the earth, which is of like nature; and the first voice which I uttered was crying, as all others do.—The Wisdom of Solomon, vii. 3.
It was the custom among the ancients to place the new-born child upon the ground immediately after its birth.
[718:1] This term of forty days is mentioned by Aristotle in his Natural History, as also by some modern physiologists.
[718:4] Omne ignotum pro magnifico (Everything that is unknown is taken to be grand).—Tacitus: Agricola, 30.
[718:6] Madame d'Abrantes relates that when Bonaparte was in Cairo he sent for a serpent-detecter (Psylli) to remove two serpents that had been seen in his house. He having enticed one of them from his hiding-place, caught it in one hand, just below the jaw-bone, in such a manner as to oblige the mouth to open, when spitting into it, the effect was like magic: the reptile appeared struck with instant death.—Memoirs, vol. i. chap. lix.
[719:1] This is alluded to by Cicero in his letters to Atticus, and is mentioned by Ælian (Animated Nature, book vi. chap. 41). It is like our proverb, "Rats leave a sinking ship."
Not unlike the bear which bringeth forth
In the end of thirty dayes a shapeless birth;
But after licking, it in shape she drawes,
And by degrees she fashions out the pawes,
The head, and neck, and finally doth bring
To a perfect beast that first deformed thing.
Du Bartas: Divine Weekes and Workes, first week, first day.
[720:2] A maxim of Cato.
[720:3] See Shakespeare, page 46. Also Lover, page 583.
Numero deus impare gaudet (The god delights in odd numbers).—Virgil: Eclogæ, 8, 75.
[720:4] Nulla dies abeat, quin linea ducta supersit.—Erasmus.
The form generally quoted, "Nulla dies sine linea" (No day without a line), is not attested.
[721:1] Ne supra crepidam sutor judicaret (Let not a shoemaker judge above his shoe).
We give to necessity the praise of virtue.[721:2]
Institutiones Oratoriæ, i. 8, 14.
A liar should have a good memory.[721:3]
Institutiones Oratoriæ, iv. 2, 91.
Vain hopes are often like the dreams of those who wake.[721:4]
Institutiones Oratoriæ, vi. 2, 30.
Those who wish to appear wise among fools, among the wise seem foolish.[721:5]
Institutiones Oratoriæ, x. 7, 21.
No man ever became extremely wicked all at once.[721:6]
Satire ii. 83.
Grammarian, orator, geometrician; painter, gymnastic teacher, physician; fortune-teller, rope-dancer, conjuror,—he knew everything.[721:7]
Satire iii. 76.
Nobility is the one only virtue.[721:8]
Satire viii. 20.
[722]
I do not love thee, Sabidius, nor can I say why; this only I can say, I do not love thee.[722:1]
Epigram i. 32.
The good man prolongs his life; to be able to enjoy one's past life is to live twice.[722:2]
Epigram x. 23, 7.
The bee enclosed and through the amber shown
Seems buried in the juice which was his own.[722:3]
Book iv. 32.
Neither fear, nor wish for, your last day.[722:4]
Book x. 47, 13.
(From Dryden's translation of Plutarch's Lives, corrected and revised by A. H. Clough.)
As geographers, Sosius, crowd into the edges of their maps parts of the world which they do not know about, adding notes in the margin to the effect that beyond this lies nothing but sandy deserts full of wild beasts, and unapproachable bogs.[722:5]
Life of Theseus.
From Themistocles began the saying, "He is a second Hercules."
Life of Theseus.
The most perfect soul, says Heraclitus, is a dry light, which flies out of the body as lightning breaks from a cloud.
Life of Romulus.
Anacharsis coming to Athens, knocked at Solon's door, and told him that he, being a stranger, was come to be his guest, and contract a friendship with him; and Solon replying, "It is better to make friends at home," Anacharsis replied, "Then you that are at home make friendship with me."
Life of Solon.
[723]
Themistocles said that he certainly could not make use of any stringed instrument; could only, were a small and obscure city put into his hands, make it great and glorious.
Life of Themistocles.
Eurybiades lifting up his staff as if he were going to strike, Themistocles said, "Strike, if you will; but hear."[723:1]
Life of Themistocles.
Themistocles said to Antiphales, "Time, young man, has taught us both a lesson."
Life of Themistocles.
Laughing at his own son, who got his mother, and by his mother's means his father also, to indulge him, he told him that he had the most power of any one in Greece: "For the Athenians command the rest of Greece, I command the Athenians, your mother commands me, and you command your mother."[723:2]
Life of Themistocles.
"You speak truth," said Themistocles; "I should never have been famous if I had been of Seriphus;[723:3] nor you, had you been of Athens."
Life of Themistocles.
Themistocles said that a man's discourse was like to a rich Persian carpet, the beautiful figures and patterns of which can be shown only by spreading and extending it out; when it is contracted and folded up, they are obscured and lost.[723:4]
Life of Themistocles.
[724]
When he was in great prosperity, and courted by many, seeing himself splendidly served at his table, he turned to his children and said: "Children, we had been undone, if we had not been undone."
Life of Themistocles.
Moral good is a practical stimulus; it is no sooner seen than it inspires an impulse to practise.
Life of Pericles.
For ease and speed in doing a thing do not give the work lasting solidity or exactness of beauty.[724:1]
Life of Pericles.
So very difficult a matter is it to trace and find out the truth of anything by history.
Life of Pericles.
Be ruled by time, the wisest counsellor of all.
Life of Pericles.
To conduct great matters and never commit a fault is above the force of human nature.
Life of Fabius.
Menenius Agrippa concluded at length with the celebrated fable: "It once happened that all the other members of a man mutinied against the stomach, which they accused as the only idle, uncontributing part in the whole body, while the rest were put to hardships and the expense of much labour to supply and minister to its appetites."
Life of Coriolanus.
Knowledge of divine things for the most part, as Heraclitus says, is lost to us by incredulity.
Life of Coriolanus.
A Roman divorced from his wife, being highly blamed by his friends, who demanded, "Was she not chaste? Was she not fair? Was she not fruitful?" holding out his shoe, asked them whether it was not new and well made. "Yet," added he, "none of you can tell where it pinches me."
Life of Æmilius Paulus.
The saying of old Antigonus, who when he was to fight at Andros, and one told him, "The enemy's ships [725]are more than ours," replied, "For how many then wilt thou reckon me?"[725:1]
Life of Pelopidas.
Archimedes had stated, that given the force, any given weight might be moved; and even boasted that if there were another earth, by going into it he could remove this.
Life of Marcellus.
It is a difficult task, O citizens, to make speeches to the belly, which has no ears.[725:2]
Life of Marcus Cato.
Cato used to assert that wise men profited more by fools than fools by wise men; for that wise men avoided the faults of fools, but that fools would not imitate the good examples of wise men.
Life of Marcus Cato.
He said that in his whole life he most repented of three things: one was that he had trusted a secret to a woman; another, that he went by water when he might have gone by land; the third, that he had remained one whole day without doing any business of moment.
Life of Marcus Cato.
Marius said, "I see the cure is not worth the pain."[725:3]
Life of Caius Marius.
Extraordinary rains pretty generally fall after great battles.[725:4]
Life of Caius Marius.
Lysander said that the law spoke too softly to be heard in such a noise of war.
Life of Caius Marius.
As it is in the proverb, played Cretan against Cretan.[725:5]
Life of Lysander.
Did you not know, then, that to-day Lucullus sups with Lucullus?
Life of Lucullus.
[726]
It is no great wonder if in long process of time, while fortune takes her course hither and thither, numerous coincidences should spontaneously occur. If the number and variety of subjects to be wrought upon be infinite, it is all the more easy for fortune, with such an abundance of material, to effect this similarity of results.[726:1]
Life of Sertorius.
Perseverance is more prevailing than violence; and many things which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield themselves up when taken little by little.
Life of Sertorius.
Agesilaus being invited once to hear a man who admirably imitated the nightingale, he declined, saying he had heard the nightingale itself.[726:2]
Life of Agesilaus II.
It is circumstance and proper measure that give an action its character, and make it either good or bad.
Life of Agesilaus II.
The old proverb was now made good, "the mountain had brought forth a mouse."[726:3]
Life of Agesilaus II.
Pompey bade Sylla recollect that more worshipped the rising than the setting sun.[726:4]
Life of Pompey.
[727]
When some were saying that if Cæsar should march against the city they could not see what forces there were to resist him, Pompey replied with a smile, bidding them be in no concern, "for whenever I stamp my foot in any part of Italy there will rise up forces enough in an instant, both horse and foot."
Life of Pompey.
The most glorious exploits do not always furnish us with the clearest discoveries of virtue or vice in men.
Life of Alexander.
Whenever Alexander heard Philip had taken any town of importance, or won any signal victory, instead of rejoicing at it altogether, he would tell his companions that his father would anticipate everything, and leave him and them no opportunities of performing great and illustrious actions.[727:1]
Life of Alexander.
Alexander said, "I assure you I had rather excel others in the knowledge of what is excellent, than in the extent of my power and dominion."
Life of Alexander.
When Alexander asked Diogenes whether he wanted anything, "Yes," said he, "I would have you stand from between me and the sun."
Life of Alexander.
When asked why he parted with his wife, Cæsar replied, "I wished my wife to be not so much as suspected."[727:2]
Life of Cæsar.
For my part, I had rather be the first man among these fellows than the second man in Rome.[727:3]
Life of Cæsar.
Using the proverb frequently in their mouths who enter upon dangerous and bold attempts, "The die is cast," he took the river.[727:4]
Life of Cæsar.
[728]
"And this," said Cæsar, "you know, young man, is more disagreeable for me to say than to do."[728:1]
Life of Cæsar.
Go on, my friend, and fear nothing; you carry Cæsar and his fortunes in your boat.[728:2]
Life of Cæsar.
Cæsar said to the soothsayer, "The ides of March are come;" who answered him calmly, "Yes, they are come, but they are not past."[728:3]
Life of Cæsar.
Even a nod from a person who is esteemed is of more force than a thousand arguments or studied sentences from others.
Life of Phocion.
Demosthenes told Phocion, "The Athenians will kill you some day when they once are in a rage." "And you," said he, "if they are once in their senses."[728:4]
Life of Phocion.
Pythias once, scoffing at Demosthenes, said that his arguments smelt of the lamp.
Life of Demosthenes.
Demosthenes overcame and rendered more distinct his inarticulate and stammering pronunciation by speaking with pebbles in his mouth.
Life of Demosthenes.
In his house he had a large looking-glass, before which he would stand and go through his exercises.
Life of Demosthenes.
Cicero called Aristotle a river of flowing gold, and said of Plato's Dialogues, that if Jupiter were to speak, it would be in language like theirs.
Life of Cicero.
(From Plutarch's Morals. Translated by several hands; corrected and revised by W. W. Goodwin, Ph.D., Harvard University.)
For water continually dropping will wear hard rocks hollow.[728:5]
Of the Training of Children.
[729]
It is a true proverb, that if you live with a lame man you will learn to halt.
Of the Training of Children.
The very spring and root of honesty and virtue lie in the felicity of lighting on good education.
Of the Training of Children.
It is indeed a desirable thing to be well descended, but the glory belongs to our ancestors.
Of the Training of Children.
According to the proverb, the best things are the most difficult.
Of the Training of Children.
To sing the same tune, as the saying is, is in everything cloying and offensive; but men are generally pleased with variety.
Of the Training of Children.
Children are to be won to follow liberal studies by exhortations and rational motives, and on no account to be forced thereto by whipping.
Of the Training of Children.
Nothing made the horse so fat as the king's eye.
Of the Training of Children.
Democritus said, words are but the shadows of actions.
Of the Training of Children.
'T is a wise saying, Drive on your own track.
Of the Training of Children.
It is a point of wisdom to be silent when occasion requires, and better than to speak, though never so well.
Of the Training of Children.
Eat not thy heart; which forbids to afflict our souls, and waste them with vexatious cares.[729:1]
Of the Training of Children.
Abstain from beans; that is, keep out of public offices, for anciently the choice of the officers of state was made by beans.
Of the Training of Children.
When men are arrived at the goal, they should not turn back.[729:2]
Of the Training of Children.
The whole life of man is but a point of time; let us enjoy it, therefore, while it lasts, and not spend it to no purpose.
Of the Training of Children.
An old doting fool, with one foot already in the grave.[729:3]
Of the Training of Children.
[730]
Xenophanes said, "I confess myself the greatest coward in the world, for I dare not do an ill thing."
Of Bashfulness.
One made the observation of the people of Asia that they were all slaves to one man, merely because they could not pronounce that syllable No.
Of Bashfulness.
Euripides was wont to say, "Silence is an answer to a wise man."
Of Bashfulness.
Zeno first started that doctrine that knavery is the best defence against a knave.[730:1]
Of Bashfulness.
Alexander wept when he heard from Anaxarchus that there was an infinite number of worlds; and his friends asking him if any accident had befallen him, he returns this answer: "Do you not think it a matter worthy of lamentation that when there is such a vast multitude of them, we have not yet conquered one?"
On the Tranquillity of the Mind.
Like the man who threw a stone at a bitch, but hit his step-mother, on which he exclaimed, "Not so bad!"
On the Tranquillity of the Mind.
Pittacus said, "Every one of you hath his particular plague, and my wife is mine; and he is very happy who hath this only."
On the Tranquillity of the Mind.
He was a man, which, as Plato saith, is a very inconstant creature.[730:2]
On the Tranquillity of the Mind.
The pilot cannot mitigate the billows or calm the winds.[730:3]
On the Tranquillity of the Mind.
I, for my own part, had much rather people should say of me that there neither is nor ever was such a man as Plutarch, than that they should say, "Plutarch is an unsteady, fickle, froward, vindictive, and touchy fellow."
Of Superstition.
[731]
Scilurus on his death-bed, being about to leave fourscore sons surviving, offered a bundle of darts to each of them, and bade them break them. When all refused, drawing out one by one, he easily broke them,—thus teaching them that if they held together, they would continue strong; but if they fell out and were divided, they would become weak.
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders.[731:1] Scilurus.
Dionysius the Elder, being asked whether he was at leisure, he replied, "God forbid that it should ever befall me!"
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders. Dionysius.
A prating barber asked Archelaus how he would be trimmed. He answered, "In silence."
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders. Archelaus.
When Philip had news brought him of divers and eminent successes in one day, "O Fortune!" said he, "for all these so great kindnesses do me some small mischief."
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders. Philip.
There were two brothers called Both and Either; perceiving Either was a good, understanding, busy fellow, and Both a silly fellow and good for little, Philip said, "Either is both, and Both is neither."
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders. Philip.
Philip being arbitrator betwixt two wicked persons, he commanded one to fly out of Macedonia and the other to pursue him.
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders. Philip.
Being about to pitch his camp in a likely place, and hearing there was no hay to be had for the cattle, "What a life," said he, "is ours, since we must live according to the convenience of asses!"
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders. Philip.
"These Macedonians," said he, "are a rude and clownish people, that call a spade a spade."[731:2]
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders. Philip.
[732]
He made one of Antipater's recommendation a judge; and perceiving afterwards that his hair and beard were coloured, he removed him, saying, "I could not think one that was faithless in his hair could be trusty in his deeds."
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders. Philip.
Being nimble and light-footed, his father encouraged him to run in the Olympic race. "Yes," said he, "if there were any kings there to run with me."
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders. Alexander.
When Darius offered him ten thousand talents, and to divide Asia equally with him, "I would accept it," said Parmenio, "were I Alexander." "And so truly would I," said Alexander, "if I were Parmenio." But he answered Darius that the earth could not bear two suns, nor Asia two kings.
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders. Alexander.
When he was wounded with an arrow in the ankle, and many ran to him that were wont to call him a god, he said smiling, "That is blood, as you see, and not, as Homer saith, 'such humour as distils from blessed gods.'"
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders. Alexander.
Aristodemus, a friend of Antigonus, supposed to be a cook's son, advised him to moderate his gifts and expenses. "Thy words," said he, "Aristodemus, smell of the apron."
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders. Antigonus I.
Thrasyllus the Cynic begged a drachm of Antigonus. "That," said he, "is too little for a king to give." "Why, then," said the other, "give me a talent." "And that," said he, "is too much for a Cynic (or, for a dog) to receive."
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders. Antigonus I.
Antagoras the poet was boiling a conger, and Antigonus, coming behind him as he was stirring his skillet, said, "Do you think, Antagoras, that Homer boiled congers when he wrote the deeds of Agamemnon?" Antagoras replied, "Do you think, O king, that Agamemnon, when he did such exploits, was a peeping in his army to see who boiled congers?"
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders. Antigonus I.
[733]
Pyrrhus said, "If I should overcome the Romans in another fight, I were undone."
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders. Pyrrhus.
Themistocles being asked whether he would rather be Achilles or Homer, said, "Which would you rather be,—a conqueror in the Olympic games, or the crier that proclaims who are conquerors?"
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders. Themistocles.
He preferred an honest man that wooed his daughter, before a rich man. "I would rather," said Themistocles, "have a man that wants money than money that wants a man."
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders. Themistocles.
Alcibiades had a very handsome dog, that cost him seven thousand drachmas; and he cut off his tail, "that," said he, "the Athenians may have this story to tell of me, and may concern themselves no further with me."
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders. Alcibiades.
Being summoned by the Athenians out of Sicily to plead for his life, Alcibiades absconded, saying that that criminal was a fool who studied a defence when he might fly for it.
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders. Alcibiades.
Lamachus chid a captain for a fault; and when he had said he would do so no more, "Sir," said he, "in war there is no room for a second miscarriage." Said one to Iphicrates, "What are ye afraid of?" "Of all speeches," said he, "none is so dishonourable for a general as 'I should not have thought of it.'"
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders. Iphicrates.
To Harmodius, descended from the ancient Harmodius, when he reviled Iphicrates [a shoemaker's son] for his mean birth, "My nobility," said he, "begins in me, but yours ends in you."[733:1]
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders. Iphicrates.
Once when Phocion had delivered an opinion which pleased the people, . . . he turned to his friend and said, "Have I not unawares spoken some mischievous thing or other?"
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders. Phocion.
[734]
Phocion compared the speeches of Leosthenes to cypress-trees. "They are tall," said he, "and comely, but bear no fruit."
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders. Phocion.
Lycurgus the Lacedæmonian brought long hair into fashion among his countrymen, saying that it rendered those that were handsome more beautiful, and those that were deformed more terrible. To one that advised him to set up a democracy in Sparta, "Pray," said Lycurgus, "do you first set up a democracy in your own house."
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders. Lycurgus.
King Agis said, "The Lacedæmonians are not wont to ask how many, but where the enemy are."
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders. Agis.
Lysander said, "Where the lion's skin will not reach, it must be pieced with the fox's."[734:1]
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders. Lysander.
To one that promised to give him hardy cocks that would die fighting, "Prithee," said Cleomenes, "give me cocks that will kill fighting."
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders. Cleomenes.
When Eudæmonidas heard a philosopher arguing that only a wise man can be a good general, "This is a wonderful speech," said he; "but he that saith it never heard the sound of trumpets."
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders. Eudæmonidas.
A soldier told Pelopidas, "We are fallen among the enemies." Said he, "How are we fallen among them more than they among us?"
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders. Pelopidas.
Cato the elder wondered how that city was preserved wherein a fish was sold for more than an ox.
Roman Apophthegms. Cato the Elder.
Cato instigated the magistrates to punish all offenders, saying that they that did not prevent crimes when they might, encouraged them.[734:2] Of young men, he liked them that blushed better than those who looked pale.
Roman Apophthegms. Cato the Elder.
[735]
Cato requested old men not to add the disgrace of wickedness to old age, which was accompanied with many other evils.
Roman Apophthegms. Cato the Elder.
He said they that were serious in ridiculous matters would be ridiculous in serious affairs.
Roman Apophthegms. Cato the Elder.
Cicero said loud-bawling orators were driven by their weakness to noise, as lame men to take horse.
Roman Apophthegms. Cicero.
After the battle in Pharsalia, when Pompey was fled, one Nonius said they had seven eagles left still, and advised to try what they would do. "Your advice," said Cicero, "were good if we were to fight jackdaws."
Roman Apophthegms. Cicero.
After he routed Pharnaces Ponticus at the first assault, he wrote thus to his friends: "I came, I saw, I conquered."[735:1]
Roman Apophthegms. Cæsar.
As Cæsar was at supper the discourse was of death,—which sort was the best. "That," said he, "which is unexpected."
Roman Apophthegms. Cæsar.
As Athenodorus was taking his leave of Cæsar, "Remember," said he, "Cæsar, whenever you are angry, to say or do nothing before you have repeated the four-and-twenty letters to yourself."
Roman Apophthegms. Cæsar Augustus.
"Young men," said Cæsar, "hear an old man to whom old men hearkened when he was young."
Roman Apophthegms. Cæsar Augustus.
Remember what Simonides said,—that he never repented that he had held his tongue, but often that he had spoken.[735:2]
Rules for the Preservation of Health. 7.
Custom is almost a second nature.[735:3]
Rules for the Preservation of Health. 18.
Epaminondas is reported wittily to have said of a good man that died about the time of the battle of Leuctra, "How came he to have so much leisure as to die, when there was so much stirring?"
Rules for the Preservation of Health. 25.
[736]
Have in readiness this saying of Solon, "But we will not give up our virtue in exchange for their wealth."
How to profit by our Enemies.
Socrates thought that if all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap, whence every one must take an equal portion, most persons would be contented to take their own and depart.
Consolation to Apollonius.
Diogenes the Cynic, when a little before his death he fell into a slumber, and his physician rousing him out of it asked him whether anything ailed him, wisely answered, "Nothing, sir; only one brother anticipates another,—Sleep before Death."
Consolation to Apollonius.
About Pontus there are some creatures of such an extempore being that the whole term of their life is confined within the space of a day; for they are brought forth in the morning, are in the prime of their existence at noon, grow old at night, and then die.
Consolation to Apollonius.
The measure of a man's life is the well spending of it, and not the length.
Consolation to Apollonius.
For many, as Cranton tells us, and those very wise men, not now but long ago, have deplored the condition of human nature, esteeming life a punishment, and to be born a man the highest pitch of calamity; this, Aristotle tells us, Silenus declared when he was brought captive to Midas.
Consolation to Apollonius.
There are two sentences inscribed upon the Delphic oracle, hugely accommodated to the usages of man's life: "Know thyself,"[736:1] and "Nothing too much;" and upon these all other precepts depend.
Consolation to Apollonius.
To one commending an orator for his skill in amplifying petty matters, Agesilaus said, "I do not think that [737]shoemaker a good workman that makes a great shoe for a little foot."
Laconic Apophthegms. Of Agesilaus the Great.
"I will show," said Agesilaus, "that it is not the places that grace men, but men the places."
Laconic Apophthegms. Of Agesilaus the Great.
When one asked him what boys should learn, "That," said he, "which they shall use when men."
Laconic Apophthegms. Of Agesilaus the Great.
Agesilaus was very fond of his children; and it is reported that once toying with them he got astride upon a reed as upon a horse, and rode about the room; and being seen by one of his friends, he desired him not to speak of it till he had children of his own.
Laconic Apophthegms. Of Agesilaus the Great.
When Demaratus was asked whether he held his tongue because he was a fool or for want of words, he replied, "A fool cannot hold his tongue."
Laconic Apophthegms. Of Demaratus.
Lysander, when Dionysius sent him two gowns, and bade him choose which he would carry to his daughter, said, "She can choose best," and so took both away with him.
Laconic Apophthegms. Of Lysander.
A physician, after he had felt the pulse of Pausanias, and considered his constitution, saying, "He ails nothing," "It is because, sir," he replied, "I use none of your physic."
Laconic Apophthegms. Of Pausanias the Son of Phistoanax.
And when the physician said, "Sir, you are an old man," "That happens," replied Pausanias, "because you never were my doctor."
Laconic Apophthegms. Of Pausanias the Son of Phistoanax.
When one told Plistarchus that a notorious railer spoke well of him, "I 'll lay my life," said he, "somebody hath told him I am dead, for he can speak well of no man living."
Laconic Apophthegms. Of Plistarchus.
Anacharsis said a man's felicity consists not in the outward and visible favours and blessings of Fortune, but in the inward and unseen perfections and riches of the mind.
The Banquet of the Seven Wise Men. 11.
[738]
Said Periander, "Hesiod might as well have kept his breath to cool his pottage."[738:1]
The Banquet of the Seven Wise Men. 14.
Socrates said, "Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live."[738:2]
How a Young Man ought to hear Poems. 4.
And Archimedes, as he was washing, thought of a manner of computing the proportion of gold in King Hiero's crown by seeing the water flowing over the bathing-stool. He leaped up as one possessed or inspired, crying, "I have found it! Eureka!"
Pleasure not attainable according to Epicurus. 11.
Said Scopas of Thessaly, "We rich men count our felicity and happiness to lie in these superfluities, and not in those necessary things."[738:3]
Of the Love of Wealth.
That proverbial saying, "Ill news goes quick and far."
Of Inquisitiveness.
A traveller at Sparta, standing long upon one leg, said to a Lacedæmonian, "I do not believe you can do as much." "True," said he, "but every goose can."
Remarkable Speeches.
Spintharus, speaking in commendation of Epaminondas, says he scarce ever met with any man who knew more and spoke less.
Of Hearing. 6.
It is a thing of no great difficulty to raise objections against another man's oration,—nay, it is a very easy matter; but to produce a better in its place is a work extremely troublesome.
Of Hearing. 6.
Antiphanes said merrily, that in a certain city the cold was so intense that words were congealed as soon [739]as spoken, but that after some time they thawed and became audible; so that the words spoken in winter were articulated next summer.[739:1]
Of Man's Progress in Virtue.
As those persons who despair of ever being rich make little account of small expenses, thinking that little added to a little will never make any great sum.
Of Man's Progress in Virtue.
What is bigger than an elephant? But this also is become man's plaything, and a spectacle at public solemnities; and it learns to skip, dance, and kneel.
Of Fortune.
No man ever wetted clay and then left it, as if there would be bricks by chance and fortune.
Of Fortune.
Alexander was wont to say, "Were I not Alexander, I would be Diogenes."
Of the Fortune or Virtue of Alexander the Great.
When the candles are out all women are fair.[739:2]
Conjugal Precepts.
Like watermen, who look astern while they row the boat ahead.[739:3]
Whether 't was rightfully said, Live Concealed.
Socrates said he was not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.[739:4]
Of Banishment.
Anaximander says that men were first produced in fishes, and when they were grown up and able to help themselves were thrown up, and so lived upon the land.
Symposiacs. Book. viii. Question viii.
Athenodorus says hydrophobia, or water-dread, was first discovered in the time of Asclepiades.
Symposiacs. Book. viii. Question ix.
[740]
Let us not wonder if something happens which never was before, or if something doth not appear among us with which the ancients were acquainted.
Symposiacs. Book viii. Question ix.
Why does pouring oil on the sea make it clear and calm? Is it for that the winds, slipping the smooth oil, have no force, nor cause any waves?[740:1]
The great god Pan is dead.[740:2]
Why the Oracles cease to give Answers.
I am whatever was, or is, or will be; and my veil no mortal ever took up.[740:3]
Of Isis and Osiris.
When Hermodotus in his poems described Antigonus as the son of Helios, "My valet-de-chambre," said he, "is not aware of this."[740:4]
Of Isis and Osiris.
There is no debt with so much prejudice put off as that of justice.
Of those whom God is slow to punish.
It is a difficult thing for a man to resist the natural necessity of mortal passions.
Of those whom God is slow to punish.
He is a fool who lets slip a bird in the hand for a bird in the bush.[740:5]
Of Garrulity.
[741]
We are more sensible of what is done against custom than against Nature.
Of Eating of Flesh. Tract 1.
When Demosthenes was asked what was the first part of oratory, he answered, "Action;" and which was the second, he replied, "Action;" and which was the third, he still answered, "Action."
Lives of the Ten Orators.
Xenophon says that there is no sound more pleasing than one's own praises.
Whether an Aged Man ought to meddle in State Affairs.
Lampis, the sea commander, being asked how he got his wealth, answered, "My greatest estate I gained easily enough, but the smaller slowly and with much labour."
Whether an Aged Man ought to meddle in State Affairs.
The general himself ought to be such a one as can at the same time see both forward and backward.
Whether an Aged Man ought to meddle in State Affairs.
Statesmen are not only liable to give an account of what they say or do in public, but there is a busy inquiry made into their very meals, beds, marriages, and every other sportive or serious action.
Political Precepts.
Leo Byzantius said, "What would you do, if you saw my wife, who scarce reaches up to my knees? . . . Yet," went he on, "as little as we are, when we fall out with each other, the city of Byzantium is not big enough to hold us."
Political Precepts.
Cato said, "I had rather men should ask why my statue is not set up, than why it is."
Political Precepts.
It was the saying of Bion, that though the boys throw stones at frogs in sport, yet the frogs do not die in sport but in earnest.[741:1]
Which are the most crafty, Water or Land Animals? 7.
[742]
Both Empedocles and Heraclitus held it for a truth that man could not be altogether cleared from injustice in dealing with beasts as he now does.
Which are the most crafty, Water or Land Animals? 7.
For to err in opinion, though it be not the part of wise men, is at least human.[742:1]
Against Colotes.
Simonides calls painting silent poetry, and poetry speaking painting.
Whether the Athenians were more Warlike or Learned. 3.
As Meander says, "For our mind is God;" and as Heraclitus, "Man's genius is a deity."
Platonic Questions. i.
Pythagoras, when he was asked what time was, answered that it was the soul of this world.
Platonic Questions. viii. 4.
[723:1] "Strike," said he, "but hear me."—Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders. (Themistocles.)
[723:2] Diophantus, the young son of Themistocles, made his boast often and in many companies, that whatsoever pleased him pleased also all Athens; for whatever he liked, his mother liked; and whatever his mother liked, Themistocles liked; and whatever Themistocles liked, all the Athenians liked.—Of the Training of Children.
When the son of Themistocles was a little saucy toward his mother, he said that this boy had more power than all the Grecians; for the Athenians governed Greece, he the Athenians, his wife him, and his son his wife.—Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders. (Themistocles.)
[723:3] An obscure island.
[723:4] Themistocles said speech was like to tapestry; and like it, when it was spread it showed its figures, but when it was folded up, hid and spoiled them.—Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders. (Themistocles.)
[725:1] The pilot telling Antigonus the enemy outnumbered him in ships, he said, "But how many ships do you reckon my presence to be worth?" Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders. (Antigonus II.)
[725:2] The belly has no ears, nor is it to be filled with fair words.—Rabelais: book iv. chap. lxvii.
[725:4] This has been observed in modern times, and attributed to the effect of gunpowder.
[725:5] Or cheat against cheat. The Cretans were famous as liars.
[726:1] 'T is one and the same Nature that rolls on her course, and whoever has sufficiently considered the present state of things might certainly conclude as to both the future and the past.—Montaigne: Essays, book ii. chap. xii. Apology for Raimond Sebond.
I shall be content if those shall pronounce my History useful who desire to give a view of events as they did really happen, and as they are very likely, in accordance with human nature, to repeat themselves at some future time,—if not exactly the same, yet very similar.—Thucydides: Historia, i. 2, 2.
What is this day supported by precedents will hereafter become a precedent.—Ibid., Annals, xi. 24.
[726:2] Agesilaus being exhorted to hear one that imitated the voice of a nightingale, "I have often," said he, "heard nightingales themselves."—Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders. (Agesilaus.)
[726:4] See Garrick, page 387.
He [Tiberius] upbraided Macro in no obscure and indirect terms "with forsaking the setting sun and turning to the rising."—Tacitus: Annals, book iv. c. 47, 20.
[727:1] While Alexander was a boy, Philip had great success in his affairs, at which he did not rejoice, but told the children that were brought up with him, "My father will leave me nothing to do."—Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders. (Alexander.)
[727:2] Cæsar's wife ought to be free from suspicion.—Roman Apophthegms. (Cæsar.)
[727:3] I had rather be the first in this town than second in Rome.—Ibid.
[727:4] He passed the river Rubicon, saying, "Let every die be thrown."—Ibid.
[728:1] Cæsar said to Metellus, "This, young man, is harder for me to say than do."—Roman Apophthegms. (Cæsar.)
[728:2] Trust Fortune, and know that you carry Cæsar.—Ibid.
[728:4] Demosthenes the orator told Phocion, "If the Athenians should be mad, they would kill you." "Like enough," said he,—"me if they were mad, but you if they were wise."—Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders. (Phocion.)
[730:1] Set a thief to catch a thief.—Bohn: A Hand-book of Proverbs.
[730:2] Man in sooth is a marvellous, vain, fickle, and unstable subject.—Montaigne: Works, book i. chap. i. That Men by various Ways arrive at the same End.
[731:1] Rejected by some critics as not a genuine work of Plutarch.—Emerson.
[731:2] Τὰ σῦκα σῦκα, τὴν σκάφην δὲ σκάφην ὀνομάζων.—Aristophanes, as quoted in Lucian, Quom. Hist. sit conscrib. 41.
Brought up like a rude Macedon, and taught to call a spade a spade.—Gosson: Ephemerides of Phialo (1579).
[733:1] I am my own ancestor.—Junot, Duc d'Abrantes (when asked as to his ancestry).
[734:1] Lysander said, "When the lion's skin cannot prevail, a little of the fox's must be used."—Laconic Apophthegms. (Lysander.)
[734:2] Pardon one offence, and you encourage the commission of many.—Publius Syrus: Maxim 750.
[735:1] Veni, vidi, vici.
Plutarch ascribes this saying to Plato. It is also ascribed to Pythagoras, Chilo, Thales, Cleobulus, Bias, and Socrates; also to Phemonë, a mythical Greek poetess of the ante-Homeric period. Juvenal (Satire xi. 27) says that this precept descended from heaven.
[738:1] Spare your breath to cool your porridge.—Rabelais: Works, book v. chap. xxviii.
[738:2] See Fielding, page 363.
He used to say that other men lived to eat, but that he ate to live.—Diogenes Laertius: Socrates, xiv.
[739:1] In the "Adventures of Baron Munchausen" (Rudolphe Erich Raspe), stories gathered from various sources, is found the story of sound being frozen for a time in a post-horn, which when thawed gave a variety of tunes. A somewhat similar account is found in Rabelais, book iv. chaps. lv. lvi., referring to Antiphanes.
[740:2] See Mrs. Browning, page 621.
Plutarch relates (Isis and Osiris) that a ship well laden with passengers drove with the tide near the Isles of Paxi, when a loud voice was heard by most of the passengers calling unto one Thanus. The voice then said aloud to him, "When you are arrived at Palodes, take care to make it known that the great god Pan is dead."
[740:3] I am the things that are, and those that are to be, and those that have been. No one ever lifted my skirts; the fruit which I bore was the sun.—Proclus: On Plato's Timæus, p. 30 D. (Inscription in the temple of Neith at Sais, in Egypt.)
[740:4] No man is a hero to his valet-de-chambre.—Marshal Catinat (1637-1712).
Few men have been admired by their domestics.—Montaigne: Essays, book iii. chap. 2.
This phrase, "No man is a hero to his valet," is commonly attributed to Madame de Sévigné, but on the authority of Madame Aissé (Letters, edited by Jules Ravenal, 1853) it really belongs to Madame Cornuel.
Though this may be play to you,
'T is death to us.
Roger L' Estrange: Fables from Several Authors. Fable 398.
(The translation used here is that of Thomas Wentworth Higginson, based on that of Elizabeth Carter (1866).)
To a reasonable creature, that alone is insupportable which is unreasonable; but everything reasonable may be supported.
Discourses. Chap. ii.
Yet God hath not only granted these faculties, by which we may bear every event without being depressed or broken by it, but like a good prince and a true father, hath placed their exercise above restraint, compulsion, or hindrance, and wholly without our own control.
Discourses. Chap. vi.
In a word, neither death, nor exile, nor pain, nor anything of this kind is the real cause of our doing or not doing any action, but our inward opinions and principles.
Discourses. Chap. xi.
[743]
Reason is not measured by size or height, but by principle.
Discourses. Chap. xii.
O slavish man! will you not bear with your own brother, who has God for his Father, as being a son from the same stock, and of the same high descent? But if you chance to be placed in some superior station, will you presently set yourself up for a tyrant?
Discourses. Chap. xiii.
When you have shut your doors, and darkened your room, remember never to say that you are alone, for you are not alone; but God is within, and your genius is within,—and what need have they of light to see what you are doing?
Discourses. Chap. xiv.
No great thing is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.
Discourses. Chap. xv.
Any one thing in the creation is sufficient to demonstrate a Providence to an humble and grateful mind.
Discourses. Chap. xvi.
Were I a nightingale, I would act the part of a nightingale; were I a swan, the part of a swan.
Discourses. Chap. xvi.
Since it is Reason which shapes and regulates all other things, it ought not itself to be left in disorder.
Discourses. Chap. xvii.
If what the philosophers say be true,—that all men's actions proceed from one source; that as they assent from a persuasion that a thing is so, and dissent from a persuasion that it is not, and suspend their judgment from a persuasion that it is uncertain,—so likewise they seek a thing from a persuasion that it is for their advantage.
Discourses. Chap. xviii.
Practise yourself, for heaven's sake, in little things; and thence proceed to greater.
Discourses. Chap. xviii.
[744]
Every art and every faculty contemplates certain things as its principal objects.
Discourses. Chap. xx.
Why, then, do you walk as if you had swallowed a ramrod?
Discourses. Chap. xxi.
When one maintains his proper attitude in life, he does not long after externals. What would you have, O man?
Discourses. Chap. xxi.
Difficulties are things that show what men are.
Discourses. Chap. xxiv.
If we are not stupid or insincere when we say that the good or ill of man lies within his own will, and that all beside is nothing to us, why are we still troubled?
Discourses. Chap. xxv.
In theory there is nothing to hinder our following what we are taught; but in life there are many things to draw us aside.
Discourses. Chap. xxvi.
Appearances to the mind are of four kinds. Things either are what they appear to be; or they neither are, nor appear to be; or they are, and do not appear to be; or they are not, and yet appear to be. Rightly to aim in all these cases is the wise man's task.
Discourses. Chap. xxvii.
The appearance of things to the mind is the standard of every action to man.
That we ought not to be angry with Mankind. Chap. xxviii.
The essence of good and evil is a certain disposition of the will.
Of Courage. Chap. xxix.
It is not reasonings that are wanted now; for there are books stuffed full of stoical reasonings.
Of Courage. Chap. xxix.
For what constitutes a child?—Ignorance. What constitutes a child?—Want of instruction; for they are our equals so far as their degree of knowledge permits.
That Courage is not inconsistent with Caution. Book ii. Chap. i.
[745]
Appear to know only this,—never to fail nor fall.
That Courage is not inconsistent with Caution. Book ii. Chap. i.
The materials of action are variable, but the use we make of them should be constant.
How Nobleness of Mind may be consistent with Prudence. Chap. v.
Shall I show you the muscular training of a philosopher? "What muscles are those?"—A will undisappointed; evils avoided; powers daily exercised; careful resolutions; unerring decisions.
Wherein consists the Essence of Good. Chap. viii.
Dare to look up to God and say, "Make use of me for the future as Thou wilt. I am of the same mind; I am one with Thee. I refuse nothing which seems good to Thee. Lead me whither Thou wilt. Clothe me in whatever dress Thou wilt."
That we do not study to make Use of the established Principles concerning Good and Evil. Chap. xvi.
What is the first business of one who studies philosophy? To part with self-conceit. For it is impossible for any one to begin to learn what he thinks that he already knows.
How to apply general Principles to particular Cases. Chap. xvii.
Every habit and faculty is preserved and increased by correspondent actions,—as the habit of walking, by walking; of running, by running.
How the Semblances of Things are to be combated. Chap. xviii.
Whatever you would make habitual, practise it; and if you would not make a thing habitual, do not practise it, but habituate yourself to something else.
How the Semblances of Things are to be combated. Chap. xviii.
Reckon the days in which you have not been angry. I used to be angry every day; now every other day; then every third and fourth day; and if you miss it so long as thirty days, offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving to God.
How the Semblances of Things are to be combated. Chap. xviii.
[746]
Be not hurried away by excitement, but say, "Semblance, wait for me a little. Let me see what you are and what you represent. Let me try you."
How the Semblances of Things are to be combated. Chap. xviii.
Things true and evident must of necessity be recognized by those who would contradict them.
Concerning the Epicureans. Chap. xx.
There are some things which men confess with ease, and others with difficulty.
Of Inconsistency. Chap. xxi.
Who is there whom bright and agreeable children do not attract to play and creep and prattle with them?
Concerning a Person whom he treated with Disregard. Chap. xxiv.
Two rules we should always have ready,—that there is nothing good or evil save in the will; and that we are not to lead events, but to follow them.
In what Manner we ought to bear Sickness. Book iii. Chap. x.
In every affair consider what precedes and what follows, and then undertake it.[746:1]
That Everything is to be undertaken with Circumspection. Chap. xv.
There is a fine circumstance connected with the character of a Cynic,—that he must be beaten like an ass, and yet when beaten must love those who beat him, as the father, as the brother of all.
Of the Cynic Philosophy. Chap. xxii.
First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.
Concerning such as read and dispute ostentatiously. Chap. xxiii.
Let not another's disobedience to Nature become an ill to you; for you were not born to be depressed and unhappy with others, but to be happy with them. And if any is unhappy, remember that he is so for himself; for God made all men to enjoy felicity and peace.
That we ought not to be affected by Things not in our own Power. Chap. xxiv.
Everything has two handles,—one by which it may be borne; another by which it cannot.
Enchiridion. xliii.
[747]
(The Oxford Translation. Bohn's Classical Library.)
The images of twenty of the most illustrious families—the Manlii, the Quinctii, and other names of equal splendour—were carried before it [the bier of Junia]. Those of Brutus and Cassius were not displayed; but for that very reason they shone with pre-eminent lustre.[747:1]
Annales. iii. 76. 11.
He had talents equal to business, and aspired no higher.[747:2]
Annales. vi. 39, 17.
He [Tiberius] upbraided Macro, in no obscure and indirect terms, "with forsaking the setting sun and turning to the rising."[747:3]
Annales. vi. 52 (46).
He possessed a peculiar talent of producing effect in whatever he said or did.[747:4]
Historiæ. ii. 80.
Some might consider him as too fond of fame; for the desire of glory clings even to the best men longer than any other passion.[747:5]
Historiæ. iv. 6.
The gods looked with favour on superior courage.[747:6]
Historiæ. iv. 17.
They make solitude, which they call peace.[747:7]
Agricola. 30.
Think of your ancestors and your posterity.[747:8]
Agricola. 32.
It belongs to human nature to hate those you have injured.[747:9]
Agricola. 42.
[747:1] Lord John Russell, alluding to an expression used by him ("Conspicuous by his absence") in his address to the electors of the city of London, said, "It is not an original expression of mine, but is taken from one of the greatest historians of antiquity."
[748]
(Translation by William Melmoth. Bohn's Classical Library.)
Modestus said of Regulus that he was "the biggest rascal that walks upon two legs."
Letters.[748:1] Book i. Letter v. 14.
There is nothing to write about, you say. Well, then, write and let me know just this,—that there is nothing to write about; or tell me in the good old style if you are well. That 's right. I am quite well.[748:2]
Letters. Book i. Letter xi. 1.
Never do a thing concerning the rectitude of which you are in doubt.
Letters. Book i. Letter xviii. 5.
The living voice is that which sways the soul.
Letters. Book ii. Letter iii. 9.
An object in possession seldom retains the same charm that it had in pursuit.[748:3]
Letters. Book ii. Letter xv. 1.
He [Pliny the Elder] used to say that "no book was so bad but some good might be got out of it."[748:4]
Letters. Book iii. Letter v. 10.
This expression of ours, "Father of a family."
Letters. Book v. Letter xix. 2.
That indolent but agreeable condition of doing nothing.[748:5]
Letters. Book viii. Letter ix. 3.
Objects which are usually the motives of our travels by land and by sea are often overlooked and neglected if they lie under our eye. . . . We put off from time to time going and seeing what we know we have an opportunity of seeing when we please.
Letters. Book viii. Letter xx. 1.
His only fault is that he has no fault.[748:6]
Letters. Book ix. Letter xxvi. 1.
[748:1] Book vi. Letter xvi. contains the description of the eruption of Vesuvius, a. d. 79, as witnessed by Pliny the Elder.
[748:2] This comes to inform you that I am in a perfect state of health, hoping you are in the same. Ay, that 's the old beginning.—Colman: The Heir at Law, act iii. sc. 2.
[748:4] "There is no book so bad," said the bachelor, "but something good may be found in it."—Cervantes: Don Quixote, part ii. chap. iii.
[748:5] Il dolce far niente (The sweet do nothing).—A well known Italian proverb.
[749]
(Translated by M. H. Morgan, Ph. D., of Harvard University.)
This Being of mine, whatever it really is, consists of a little flesh, a little breath, and the part which governs.
Meditations. ii. 2.
The ways of the gods are full of providence.
Meditations. ii. 3.
Thou wilt find rest from vain fancies if thou doest every act in life as though it were thy last.[749:1]
Meditations. ii. 5.
Thou seest how few be the things, the which if a man has at his command his life flows gently on and is divine.
Meditations. ii. 5.
Find time still to be learning somewhat good, and give up being desultory.
Meditations. ii. 7.
No state sorrier than that of the man who keeps up a continual round, and pries into "the secrets of the nether world," as saith the poet, and is curious in conjecture of what is in his neighbour's heart.
Meditations. ii. 13.
Though thou be destined to live three thousand years and as many myriads besides, yet remember that no man loseth other life than that which he liveth, nor liveth other than that which he loseth.
Meditations. ii. 14.
For a man can lose neither the past nor the future; for how can one take from him that which is not his? So remember these two points: first, that each thing is of like form from everlasting and comes round again in its cycle, and that it signifies not whether a man shall look upon the same things for a hundred years or two hundred, or for an infinity of time; second, that the longest lived and the shortest lived man, when they come to die, lose one and the same thing.
Meditations. ii. 14.
[750]
As for life, it is a battle and a sojourning in a strange land; but the fame that comes after is oblivion.
Meditations. ii. 17.
Waste not the remnant of thy life in those imaginations touching other folk, whereby thou contributest not to the common weal.
Meditations. iii. 4.
The lot assigned to every man is suited to him, and suits him to itself.[750:1]
Meditations. iii. 4.
Be not unwilling in what thou doest, neither selfish nor unadvised nor obstinate; let not over-refinement deck out thy thought; be not wordy nor a busybody.
Meditations. iii. 5.
A man should be upright, not be kept upright.
Meditations. iii. 5.
Never esteem anything as of advantage to thee that shall make thee break thy word or lose thy self-respect.
Meditations. iii. 7.
Respect the faculty that forms thy judgments.
Meditations. iii. 9.
Remember that man's life lies all within this present, as 't were but a hair's-breadth of time; as for the rest, the past is gone, the future yet unseen. Short, therefore, is man's life, and narrow is the corner of the earth wherein he dwells.
Meditations. iii. 10.
Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life.
Meditations. iii. 11.
As surgeons keep their instruments and knives always at hand for cases requiring immediate treatment, so shouldst thou have thy thoughts ready to understand things divine and human, remembering in thy every act, even the smallest, how close is the bond that unites the two.
Meditations. iii. 13.
The ruling power within, when it is in its natural state, is so related to outer circumstances that it easily [751]changes to accord with what can be done and what is given it to do.
Meditations. iv. 1.
Let no act be done at haphazard, nor otherwise than according to the finished rules that govern its kind.
Meditations. iv. 2.
By a tranquil mind I mean nothing else than a mind well ordered.
Meditations. iv. 3.
Think on this doctrine,—that reasoning beings were created for one another's sake; that to be patient is a branch of justice, and that men sin without intending it.
Meditations. iv. 3.
The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.
Meditations. iv. 3.
Nothing can come out of nothing, any more than a thing can go back to nothing.
Meditations. iv. 4.
Death, like generation, is a secret of Nature.
Meditations. iv. 5.
That which makes the man no worse than he was makes his life no worse: it has no power to harm, without or within.
Meditations. iv. 8.
Whatever happens at all happens as it should; thou wilt find this true, if thou shouldst watch narrowly.
Meditations. iv. 10.
Many the lumps of frankincense on the same altar; one falls there early and another late, but it makes no difference.
Meditations. iv. 15.
Be not as one that hath ten thousand years to live; death is nigh at hand: while thou livest, while thou hast time, be good.
Meditations. iv. 17.
How much time he gains who does not look to see what his neighbour says or does or thinks, but only at what he does himself, to make it just and holy.
Meditations. iv. 18.
Whatever is in any way beautiful hath its source of beauty in itself, and is complete in itself; praise forms no part of it. So it is none the worse nor the better for being praised.
Meditations. iv. 20.
[752]
Doth perfect beauty stand in need of praise at all? Nay; no more than law, no more than truth, no more than loving kindness, nor than modesty.
Meditations. iv. 20.
All that is harmony for thee, O Universe, is in harmony with me as well. Nothing that comes at the right time for thee is too early or too late for me. Everything is fruit to me that thy seasons bring, O Nature. All things come of thee, have their being in thee, and return to thee.
Meditations. iv. 23.
"Let thine occupations be few," saith the sage,[752:1] "if thou wouldst lead a tranquil life."
Meditations. iv. 24.
Love the little trade which thou hast learned, and be content therewith.
Meditations. iv. 31.
Remember this,—that there is a proper dignity and proportion to be observed in the performance of every act of life.
Meditations. iv. 32.
All is ephemeral,—fame and the famous as well.
Meditations. iv. 35.
Observe always that everything is the result of a change, and get used to thinking that there is nothing Nature loves so well as to change existing forms and to make new ones like them.
Meditations. iv. 36.
Search men's governing principles, and consider the wise, what they shun and what they cleave to.
Meditations. iv. 38.
Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away.
Meditations. iv. 43.
All that happens is as usual and familiar as the rose in spring and the crop in summer.
Meditations. iv. 44.
That which comes after ever conforms to that which has gone before.
Meditations. iv. 45.
[753]
Mark how fleeting and paltry is the estate of man,—yesterday in embryo, to-morrow a mummy or ashes. So for the hair's-breadth of time assigned to thee live rationally, and part with life cheerfully, as drops the ripe olive, extolling the season that bore it and the tree that matured it.
Meditations. iv. 48.
Deem not life a thing of consequence. For look at the yawning void of the future, and at that other limitless space, the past.
Meditations. iv. 50.
Always take the short cut; and that is the rational one. Therefore say and do everything according to soundest reason.
Meditations. iv. 51.
In the morning, when thou art sluggish at rousing thee, let this thought be present; "I am rising to a man's work."
Meditations. v. 1.
A man makes no noise over a good deed, but passes on to another as a vine to bear grapes again in season.
Meditations. v. 6.
Flinch not, neither give up nor despair, if the achieving of every act in accordance with right principle is not always continuous with thee.
Meditations. v. 9.
Nothing happens to anybody which he is not fitted by nature to bear.
Meditations. v. 18.
Prize that which is best in the universe; and this is that which useth everything and ordereth everything.
Meditations. v. 21.
Live with the gods.
Meditations. v. 27.
Look beneath the surface; let not the several quality of a thing nor its worth escape thee.
Meditations. vi. 3.
The controlling Intelligence understands its own nature, and what it does, and whereon it works.
Meditations. vi. 5.
Do not think that what is hard for thee to master is impossible for man; but if a thing is possible and proper to man, deem it attainable by thee.
Meditations. vi. 19.
[754]
If any man can convince me and bring home to me that I do not think or act aright, gladly will I change; for I search after truth, by which man never yet was harmed. But he is harmed who abideth on still in his deception and ignorance.
Meditations. vi. 21.
Death,—a stopping of impressions through the senses, and of the pulling of the cords of motion, and of the ways of thought, and of service to the flesh.
Meditations. vi. 28.
Suit thyself to the estate in which thy lot is cast.
Meditations. vi. 39.
What is not good for the swarm is not good for the bee.
Meditations. vi. 54.
How many, once lauded in song, are given over to the forgotten; and how many who sung their praises are clean gone long ago!
Meditations. vii. 6.
One Universe made up of all that is; and one God in it all, and one principle of Being, and one Law, the Reason, shared by all thinking creatures, and one Truth.
Meditations. vii. 9.
To a rational being it is the same thing to act according to nature and according to reason.
Meditations. vii. 11.
Let not thy mind run on what thou lackest as much as on what thou hast already.
Meditations. vii. 27.
Just as the sand-dunes, heaped one upon another, hide each the first, so in life the former deeds are quickly hidden by those that follow after.
Meditations. vii. 34.
The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing, in so far as it stands ready against the accidental and the unforeseen, and is not apt to fall.
Meditations. vii. 61.
Remember this,—that very little is needed to make a happy life.
Meditations. vii. 67.
Remember that to change thy mind and to follow him that sets thee right, is to be none the less the free agent that thou wast before.
Meditations. viii. 16.
[755]
Look to the essence of a thing, whether it be a point of doctrine, of practice, or of interpretation.
Meditations. viii. 22.
A man's happiness,—to do the things proper to man.
Meditations. viii. 26.
Be not careless in deeds, nor confused in words, nor rambling in thought.
Meditations. viii. 51.
He that knows not what the world is, knows not where he is himself. He that knows not for what he was made, knows not what he is nor what the world is.
Meditations. viii. 52.
The nature of the universe is the nature of things that are. Now, things that are have kinship with things that are from the beginning. Further, this nature is styled Truth; and it is the first cause of all that is true.
Meditations. ix. 1.
He would be the finer gentleman that should leave the world without having tasted of lying or pretence of any sort, or of wantonness or conceit.
Meditations. ix. 2.
Think not disdainfully of death, but look on it with favour; for even death is one of the things that Nature wills.
Meditations. ix. 3.
A wrong-doer is often a man that has left something undone, not always he that has done something.
Meditations. ix. 5.
Blot out vain pomp; check impulse; quench appetite; keep reason under its own control.
Meditations. ix. 7.
Things that have a common quality ever quickly seek their kind.
Meditations. ix. 9.
All things are the same,—familiar in enterprise, momentary in endurance, coarse in substance. All things now are as they were in the day of those whom we have buried.
Meditations. ix. 14.
The happiness and unhappiness of the rational, social animal depends not on what he feels but on what he does; just as his virtue and vice consist not in feeling but in doing.
Meditations. ix. 16.
[756]
Everything is in a state of metamorphosis. Thou thyself art in everlasting change and in corruption to correspond; so is the whole universe.
Meditations. ix. 19.
Forward, as occasion offers. Never look round to see whether any shall note it. . . . Be satisfied with success in even the smallest matter, and think that even such a result is no trifle.
Meditations. ix. 29.
He that dies in extreme old age will be reduced to the same state with him that is cut down untimely.
Meditations. ix. 33.
Whatever may befall thee, it was preordained for thee from everlasting.
Meditations. x. 5.
"The earth loveth the shower," and "the holy ether knoweth what love is."[756:1] The Universe, too, loves to create whatsoever is destined to be made.
Meditations. x. 21.
Remember that what pulls the strings is the force hidden within; there lies the power to persuade, there the life,—there, if one must speak out, the real man.
Meditations. x. 38.
No form of Nature is inferior to Art; for the arts merely imitate natural forms.
Meditations. xi. 10.
If it is not seemly, do it not; if it is not true, speak it not.
Meditations. xii. 17.
[749:1] See Publius Syrus, page 712.
A similar saying falls from his lips at another time: "Let every act and speech and purpose be framed as though this moment thou mightest take thy leave of life."
[750:1] The translator is in doubt about this passage. Commentators differ in regard to it, and the text may be corrupt.
[752:1] Democritus apud Senecam: De Ira, iii. 6; De Animi Tranquillitate, 13.
[756:1] Fragmenta Euripidis, apud Aristotelem, N. A. viii. 1, 6.
See how these Christians love one another.
Apologeticus. c. 39.
Blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.
Apologeticus. c. 50.
It is certain because it is impossible.[756:2]
De Carne Christi. c. 5.
He who flees will fight again.[756:3]
De Fuga in Persecutione. c. 10.
[756:2] Certum est, quia impossibile est. This is usually misquoted, "Credo quia impossibile" (I believe it because it is impossible).
[756:3] See Butler, pages 215, 216.
[757]
(From "The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers." Translated by C. D. Yonge, B. A., with occasional corrections. Bohn's Classical Library.)
Alcæus mentions Aristodemus in these lines:—
'T is money makes the man; and he who 's none
Is counted neither good nor honourable.
Thales. vii.
Thales said there was no difference between life and death. "Why, then," said some one to him, "do not you die?" "Because," said he, "it does make no difference."
Thales. ix.
When Thales was asked what was difficult, he said, "To know one's self." And what was easy, "To advise another."
Thales. ix.
He said that men ought to remember those friends who were absent as well as those who were present.
Thales. ix.
The apophthegm "Know thyself" is his.[757:1]
Thales. xiii.
Writers differ with respect to the apophthegms of the Seven Sages, attributing the same one to various authors.
Thales. xiv.
Solon used to say that speech was the image of actions; . . . that laws were like cobwebs,—for that if any trifling or powerless thing fell into them, they held it fast; while if it were something weightier, it broke through them and was off.
Solon. x.
Solon gave the following advice: "Consider your honour, as a gentleman, of more weight than an oath. Never tell a lie. Pay attention to matters of importance."
Solon. xii.
As some say, Solon was the author of the apophthegm, "Nothing in excess."[757:2]
Solon. xvi.
[758]
Chilo advised, "not to speak evil of the dead."[758:1]
Chilo. ii.
Pittacus said that half was more than the whole.[758:2]
Pittacus. ii.
Heraclitus says that Pittacus, when he had got Alcæus into his power, released him, saying, "Forgiveness is better than revenge."[758:3]
Pittacus. iii.
One of his sayings was, "Even the gods cannot strive against necessity."[758:4]
Pittacus. iv.
Another was, "Watch your opportunity."
Pittacus. vii.
Bias used to say that men ought to calculate life both as if they were fated to live a long and a short time, and that they ought to love one another as if at a future time they would come to hate one another; for that most men were bad.
Bias. v.
Ignorance plays the chief part among men, and the multitude of words;[758:5] but opportunity will prevail.
Cleobulus. iv.
The saying, "Practice is everything," is Periander's.[758:6]
Periander. vi.
Anarcharsis, on learning that the sides of a ship were four fingers thick, said that "the passengers were just that distance from death."[758:7]
Anarcharsis. v.
He used to say that it was better to have one friend of great value than many friends who were good for nothing.
Anarcharsis. v.
[759]
It was a common saying of Myson that men ought not to investigate things from words, but words from things; for that things are not made for the sake of words, but words for things.
Myson. iii.
Epimenides was sent by his father into the field to look for a sheep, turned out of the road at mid-day and lay down in a certain cave and fell asleep, and slept there fifty-seven years; and after that, when awake, he went on looking for the sheep, thinking that he had been taking a short nap.[759:1]
Epimenides. ii.
There are many marvellous stories told of Pherecydes. For it is said that he was walking along the seashore at Samos, and that seeing a ship sailing by with a fair wind, he said that it would soon sink; and presently it sank before his eyes. At another time he was drinking some water which had been drawn up out of a well, and he foretold that within three days there would be an earthquake; and there was one.
Pherecydes. ii.
Anaximander used to assert that the primary cause of all things was the Infinite,—not defining exactly whether he meant air or water or anything else.
Anaximander. ii.
Anaxagoras said to a man who was grieving because he was dying in a foreign land, "The descent to Hades is the same from every place."
Anaxagoras. vi.
Aristophanes turns Socrates into ridicule in his comedies, as making the worse appear the better reason.[759:2]
Socrates. v.
Often when he was looking on at auctions he would say, "How many things there are which I do not need!"
Socrates. x.
Socrates said, "Those who want fewest things are nearest to the gods."
Socrates. xi.
[760]
He said that there was one only good, namely, knowledge; and one only evil, namely, ignorance.
Socrates. xiv.
He declared that he knew nothing, except the fact of his ignorance.
Socrates. xvi.
Being asked whether it was better to marry or not, he replied, "Whichever you do, you will repent it."
Socrates. xvi.
He used to say that other men lived to eat, but that he ate to live.[760:1]
Socrates. xvi.
Aristippus being asked what were the most necessary things for well-born boys to learn, said, "Those things which they will put in practice when they become men."
Aristippus. iv.
Aristippus said that a wise man's country was the world.[760:2]
Aristippus. xiii.
Like sending owls to Athens, as the proverb goes.
Plato. xxxii.
Plato affirmed that the soul was immortal and clothed in many bodies successively.
Plato. xl.
Time is the image of eternity.
Plato. xli.
That virtue was sufficient of herself for happiness.[760:3]
Plato. xlii.
That the gods superintend all the affairs of men, and that there are such beings as dæmons.
Plato. xlii.
There is a written and an unwritten law. The one by which we regulate our constitutions in our cities is the written law; that which arises from custom is the unwritten law.
Plato. li.
Plato was continually saying to Xenocrates, "Sacrifice to the Graces."[760:4]
Xenocrates. iii.
[761]
Arcesilaus had a peculiar habit while conversing of using the expression, "My opinion is," and "So and so will not agree to this."
Arcesilaus. xii.
Bion used to say that the way to the shades below was easy; he could go there with his eyes shut.
Bion. iii.
Once when Bion was at sea in the company of some wicked men, he fell into the hands of pirates; and when the rest said, "We are undone if we are known,"—"But I," said he, "am undone if we are not known."
Bion. iii.
Of a rich man who was niggardly he said, "That man does not own his estate, but his estate owns him."
Bion. iii.
Bion insisted on the principle that "The property of friends is common."[761:1]
Bion. ix.
Very late in life, when he was studying geometry, some one said to Lacydes, "Is it then a time for you to be learning now?" "If it is not," he replied, "when will it be?"
Lacydes. v.
Aristotle was once asked what those who tell lies gain by it. Said he, "That when they speak truth they are not believed."
Aristotle. xi.
The question was put to him, what hope is; and his answer was, "The dream of a waking man."[761:2]
Aristotle. xi.
He used to say that personal beauty was a better introduction than any letter;[761:3] but others say that it was Diogenes who gave this description of it, while Aristotle called beauty "the gift of God;" that Socrates called it "a short-lived tyranny;" Theophrastus, "a silent deceit;" Theocritus, "an ivory mischief;" Carneades, "a sovereignty which stood in need of no guards."
Aristotle. xi.
[762]
On one occasion Aristotle was asked how much educated men were superior to those uneducated: "As much," said he, "as the living are to the dead."[762:1]
Aristotle. xi.
It was a saying of his that education was an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity.
Aristotle. xi.
He was once asked what a friend is, and his answer was, "One soul abiding in two bodies."[762:2]
Aristotle. xi.
Asked what he gained from philosophy, he answered, "To do without being commanded what others do from fear of the laws."
Aristotle. xi.
The question was once put to him, how we ought to behave to our friends; and the answer he gave was, "As we should wish our friends to behave to us."
Aristotle. xi.
He used to define justice as "a virtue of the soul distributing that which each person deserved."
Aristotle. xi.
Another of his sayings was, that education was the best viaticum of old age.
Aristotle. xi.
The chief good he has defined to be the exercise of virtue in a perfect life.
Aristotle. xiii.
He used to teach that God is incorporeal, as Plato also asserted, and that his providence extends over all the heavenly bodies.
Aristotle. xiii.
It was a favourite expression of Theophrastus that time was the most valuable thing that a man could spend.[762:3]
Theophrastus. x.
Antisthenes used to say that envious people were devoured by their own disposition, just as iron is by rust.
Antisthenes. iv.
[763]
When he was praised by some wicked men, he said, "I am sadly afraid that I must have done some wicked thing."[763:1]
Antisthenes. iv.
When asked what learning was the most necessary, he said, "Not to unlearn what you have learned."
Antisthenes. iv.
Diogenes would frequently praise those who were about to marry, and yet did not marry.
Diogenes. iv.
"Bury me on my face," said Diogenes; and when he was asked why, he replied, "Because in a little while everything will be turned upside down."
Diogenes. vi.
One of the sayings of Diogenes was that most men were within a finger's breadth of being mad; for if a man walked with his middle finger pointing out, folks would think him mad, but not so if it were his forefinger.
Diogenes. vi.
All things are in common among friends.[763:2]
Diogenes. vi.
"Be of good cheer," said Diogenes; "I see land."
Diogenes. vi.
Plato having defined man to be a two-legged animal without feathers, Diogenes plucked a cock and brought it into the Academy, and said, "This is Plato's man." On which account this addition was made to the definition,—"With broad flat nails."
Diogenes. vi.
A man once asked Diogenes what was the proper time for supper, and he made answer, "If you are a rich man, whenever you please; and if you are a poor man, whenever you can."[763:3]
Diogenes. vi.
Diogenes lighted a candle in the daytime, and went round saying, "I am looking for a man."[763:4]
Diogenes. vi.
[764]
When asked what he would take to let a man give him a blow on the head, he said, "A helmet."
Diogenes. vi.
Once he saw a youth blushing, and addressed him, "Courage, my boy! that is the complexion of virtue."[764:1]
Diogenes. vi.
When asked what wine he liked to drink, he replied, "That which belongs to another."
Diogenes. vi.
Asked from what country he came, he replied, "I am a citizen of the world."[764:2]
Diogenes. vi.
When a man reproached him for going into unclean places, he said, "The sun too penetrates into privies, but is not polluted by them."[764:3]
Diogenes. vi.
Diogenes said once to a person who was showing him a dial, "It is a very useful thing to save a man from being too late for supper."
Menedemus. iii.
When Zeno was asked what a friend was, he replied, "Another I."[764:4]
Zeno. xix.
They say that the first inclination which an animal has is to protect itself.
Zeno. lii.
One ought to seek out virtue for its own sake, without being influenced by fear or hope, or by any external influence. Moreover, that in that does happiness consist.[764:5]
Zeno. liii.
The Stoics also teach that God is unity, and that he is called Mind and Fate and Jupiter, and by many other names besides.
Zeno. lxviii.
They also say that God is an animal immortal, rational, perfect, and intellectual in his happiness, unsusceptible of any kind of evil, having a foreknowledge of [765]the universe and of all that is in the universe; however, that he has not the figure of a man; and that he is the creator of the universe, and as it were the Father of all things in common, and that a portion of him pervades everything.
Zeno. lxxii.
But Chrysippus, Posidonius, Zeno, and Boëthus say, that all things are produced by fate. And fate is a connected cause of existing things, or the reason according to which the world is regulated.
Zeno. lxxiv.
Apollodorus says, "If any one were to take away from the books of Chrysippus all the passages which he quotes from other authors, his paper would be left empty."
Chrysippus. iii.
One of the sophisms of Chrysippus was, "If you have not lost a thing, you have it."
Chrysippus. xi.
Pythagoras used to say that he had received as a gift from Mercury the perpetual transmigration of his soul, so that it was constantly transmigrating and passing into all sorts of plants or animals.
Pythagoras. iv.
He calls drunkenness an expression identical with ruin.[765:1]
Pythagoras. vi.
Among what he called his precepts were such as these: Do not stir the fire with a sword. Do not sit down on a bushel. Do not devour thy heart.[765:2]
Pythagoras. xvii.
In the time of Pythagoras that proverbial phrase "Ipse dixit"[765:3] was introduced into ordinary life.
Pythagoras. xxv.
Xenophanes was the first person who asserted . . . that the soul is a spirit.
Xenophanes. iii.
It takes a wise man to discover a wise man.
Xenophanes. iii.
Protagoras asserted that there were two sides to every question, exactly opposite to each other.
Protagoras. iii.
[766]
Nothing can be produced out of nothing.[766:1]
Diogenes of Apollonia. ii.
Xenophanes speaks thus:—
And no man knows distinctly anything,
And no man ever will.
Pyrrho. viii.
Democritus says, "But we know nothing really; for truth lies deep down."
Pyrrho. viii.
Euripides says,—
Who knows but that this life is really death,
And whether death is not what men call life?
Pyrrho. viii.
The mountains, too, at a distance appear airy masses and smooth, but seen near at hand, they are rough.[766:2]
Pyrrho. ix.
If appearances are deceitful, then they do not deserve any confidence when they assert what appears to them to be true.
Pyrrho. xi.
The chief good is the suspension of the judgment, which tranquillity of mind follows like its shadow.
Pyrrho. xi.
Epicurus laid down the doctrine that pleasure was the chief good.
Epicurus. vi.
He alludes to the appearance of a face in the orb of the moon.
Epicurus. xxv.
Fortune is unstable, while our will is free.
Epicurus. xxvii.
[757:2] Μηδὲν ἄγαν, nequid nimis.
[758:1] De mortuis nil nisi bonum (Of the dead be nothing said but what is good.)—Of unknown authorship.
[758:3] Quoted by Epictetus (Fragment lxii.), "Forgiveness is better than punishment; for the one is the proof of a gentle, the other of a savage nature."
[758:5] In the multitude of words there wanteth not sin.—Proverbs x. 19.
[758:7] "How thick do you judge the planks of our ship to be?" "Some two good inches and upward," returned the pilot. "It seems, then, we are within two fingers' breadth of damnation."—Rabelais: book iv. chap. xxiii.
[759:1] The story of Rip Van Winkle.
[762:1] Quoted with great warmth by Dr. Johnson (Boswell).—Langton: Collectanea.
[763:3] The rich when he is hungry, the poor when he has anything to eat.—Rabelais: book iv. chap. lxiv.
[763:4] The same is told of Æsop.
[765:3] Αὐτὸς ἔφα (The master said so).
(Translation by C. D. Yonge, B. A.)
It was a saying of Demetrius Phalereus, that "Men having often abandoned what was visible for the sake of what was uncertain, have not got what they expected, and have lost what they had,—being unfortunate by an enigmatical sort of calamity."[766:3]
The Deipnosophists. vi. 23.
[767]
Every investigation which is guided by principles of Nature fixes its ultimate aim entirely on gratifying the stomach.[767:1]
The Deipnosophists. vii. 11.
Dorion, ridiculing the description of a tempest in the "Nautilus" of Timotheus, said that he had seen a more formidable storm in a boiling saucepan.[767:2]
The Deipnosophists. viii. 19.
On one occasion some one put a very little wine into a wine-cooler, and said that it was sixteen years old. "It is very small for its age," said Gnathæna.
The Deipnosophists. xiii. 47.
Goodness does not consist in greatness, but greatness in goodness.[767:3]
The Deipnosophists. xiv. 46.
When I am here, I do not fast on Saturday; when at Rome, I do fast on Saturday.[767:4]
Epistle 36. To Casulanus.
The spiritual virtue of a sacrament is like light,—although it passes among the impure, it is not polluted.[767:5]
Works. Vol. iii. In Johannis Evangelum, c. tr. 5, Sect. 15.
Believe me, a thousand friends suffice thee not;
In a single enemy thou hast more than enough.[767:7]
[767:6] Ali Ben Abi Taleb, son-in-law of Mahomet, and fourth caliph, who was for his courage called "The Lion of God," was murdered a. d. 660. He was the author of a "Hundred Sayings."
[767:7] Translated by Ralph Waldo Emerson, and wrongly called by him a translation from Omar Khayyám.
Found in Dr. Hermann Tolowiez's "Polyglotte der Orientalischen Poesie."
Translated by James Russell Lowell thus:—
He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare,
And he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere.
[768]
(Translated by Edward Fitzgerald.)
I sometimes think that never blows so red
The Rose as where some buried Cæsar bled;
That every Hyacinth the Garden wears
Dropt in her Lap from some once lovely Head.
Rubáiyát. Stanza xix.
A Moment's Halt—a momentary taste
Of Being from the Well amid the Waste—
And, Lo! the phantom Caravan has reach'd
The Nothing it set out from. Oh, make haste!
Rubáiyát. Stanza xlviii.
Heav'n but the Vision of fulfill'd Desire,
And Hell the Shadow of a Soul on fire.
Rubáiyát. Stanza lxvii.
The Moving Finger writes; and having writ,
Moves on; nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.
Rubáiyát. Stanza lxxi.
And this I know: whether the one True Light
Kindle to Love, or Wrath-consume me quite,
One Flash of It within the Tavern caught
Better than in the Temple lost outright.
Rubáiyát. Stanza lxxvii.
And when like her, O Sáki, you shall pass
Among the Guests Star-scatter'd on the Grass,
And in your blissful errand reach the spot
Where I made One—turn down an empty Glass.
Rubáiyát. Stanza ci.
Had I been present at the creation, I would have given some useful hints for the better ordering of the universe.[768:1]
[768:1] Carlyle says, in his "History of Frederick the Great," book ii. chap. vii. that this saying of Alphonso about Ptolemy's astronomy, "that it seemed a crank machine; that it was pity the Creator had not taken advice," is still remembered by mankind,—this and no other of his many sayings.
[769]
(Cary's Translation.)
All hope abandon, ye who enter here.
Hell. Canto iii. Line 9.
The wretched souls of those who lived
Without or praise or blame.
Hell. Canto iii. Line 34.
No greater grief than to remember days
Of joy when misery is at hand.[769:1]
Hell. Canto v. Line 121.
Where are the snows of last year?[769:2]
Des Dames du Temps jadis. i.
I know everything except myself.
Autre Ballade. i.
Good talkers are only found in Paris.
Des Femmes de Paris. ii.
[769:2] But where is last year's snow? This was the greatest care that Villon, the Parisian poet, took.—Rabelais: book ii. chap. xiv.
(Translation by Mrs. Henry Roscoe.)
As when, O lady mine!
With chiselled touch
The stone unhewn and cold
Becomes a living mould.
The more the marble wastes,
The more the statue grows.
Sonnet.
[770]
A mighty fortress is our God,
A bulwark never failing;
Our helper He amid the flood
Of mortal ills prevailing.
Psalm. Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott (trans. by Frederic H. Hedge).
Tell your master that if there were as many devils at Worms as tiles on its roofs, I would enter.[770:1]
Here I stand; I can do no otherwise. God help me. Amen!
Speech at the Diet of Worms.
For where God built a church, there the Devil would also build a chapel.[770:2]
Table-Talk. lxvii.
A faithful and good servant is a real godsend; but truly 't is a rare bird in the land.
Table-Talk. clvi.
[770:1] On the 16th of April, 1521, Luther entered the imperial city [of Worms]. . . . On his approach . . . the Elector's chancellor entreated him, in the name of his master, not to enter a town where his death was decided. The answer which Luther returned was simply this.—Bunsen: Life of Luther.
I will go, though as many devils aim at me as there are tiles on the roofs of the houses.—Ranke: History of the Reformation, vol. i. p. 533 (Mrs. Austin's translation).
I am just going to leap into the dark.[770:3]
Motteux's Life.
Let down the curtain: the farce is done.
Motteux's Life.
He left a paper sealed up, wherein were found three articles as his last will: "I owe much; I have nothing; I give the rest to the poor."
Motteux's Life.
One inch of joy surmounts of grief a span,
Because to laugh is proper to the man.
To the Reader.
[771]
To return to our wethers.[771:1]
Works. Book i. Chap. i. n. 2.
I drink no more than a sponge.
Works. Book i. Chap. v.
Appetite comes with eating, says Angeston.[771:2]
Works. Book i. Chap. v.
Thought the moon was made of green cheese.
Works. Book i. Chap. xi.
He always looked a given horse in the mouth.[771:3]
Works. Book i. Chap. xi.
By robbing Peter he paid Paul,[771:4] . . . and hoped to catch larks if ever the heavens should fall.[771:5]
Works. Book i. Chap. xi.
He laid him squat as a flounder.
Works. Book i. Chap. xxvii.
Send them home as merry as crickets.
Works. Book i. Chap. xxix.
Corn is the sinews of war.[771:6]
Works. Book i. Chap. xlvi.
How shall I be able to rule over others, that have not full power and command of myself?
Works. Book i. Chap. lii.
Subject to a kind of disease, which at that time they called lack of money.
Works. Book ii. Chap. xvi.
He did not care a button for it.
Works. Book ii. Chap. xvi.
How well I feathered my nest.
Works. Book ii. Chap. xvii.
So much is a man worth as he esteems himself.
Works. Book ii. Chap. xxix.
A good crier of green sauce.
Works. Book ii. Chap. xxxi.
Then I began to think that it is very true which is commonly said, that the one half of the world knoweth not how the other half liveth.
Works. Book ii. Chap. xxxii.
This flea which I have in mine ear.
Works. Book iii. Chap. xxxi.
You have there hit the nail on the head.[771:7]
Works. Book iii. Chap. xxxiv.
Above the pitch, out of tune, and off the hinges.
Works. Book iv. Chap. xix.
[772]
I 'll go his halves.
Works. Book iv. Chap. xxiii.
The Devil was sick,—the Devil a monk would be;
The Devil was well,—the devil a monk was he.
Works. Book iv. Chap. xxiv.
Do not believe what I tell you here any more than if it were some tale of a tub.
Works. Book iv. Chap. xxxviii.
I would have you call to mind the strength of the ancient giants, that undertook to lay the high mountain Pelion on the top of Ossa, and set among those the shady Olympus.[772:1]
Works. Book iv. Chap. xxxviii.
Which was performed to a T.[772:2]
Works. Book iv. Chap. xli.
He that has patience may compass anything.
Works. Book iv. Chap. xlviii.
We will take the good will for the deed.[772:3]
Works. Book iv. Chap. xlix.
You are Christians of the best edition, all picked and culled.
Works. Book iv. Chap. l.
Would you damn your precious soul?
Works. Book iv. Chap. liv.
Let us fly and save our bacon.
Works. Book iv. Chap. lv.
Needs must when the Devil drives.[772:4]
Works. Book iv. Chap. lvii.
Scampering as if the Devil drove them.
Works. Book iv. Chap. lxii.
He freshly and cheerfully asked him how a man should kill time.
Works. Book iv. Chap. lxii.
The belly has no ears, nor is it to be filled with fair words.[772:5]
Works. Book iv. Chap. lxii.
Whose cockloft is unfurnished.[772:6]
Works. The Author's Prologue to the Fifth Book.
Speak the truth and shame the Devil.[772:7]
Works. The Author's Prologue to the Fifth Book.
Plain as a nose in a man's face.[772:8]
Works. The Author's Prologue to the Fifth Book.
[773]
Like hearts of oak.[773:1]
Works. Prologue to the Fifth Book.
You shall never want rope enough.
Works. Prologue to the Fifth Book.
Looking as like . . . as one pea does like another.[773:2]
Works. Book v. Chapter ii.
Nothing is so dear and precious as time.[773:3]
Works. Book v. Chapter v.
And thereby hangs a tale.[773:4]
Works. Book v. Chapter iv.
It is meat, drink,[773:5] and cloth to us.
Works. Book v. Chapter vii.
And so on to the end of the chapter.
Works. Book v. Chapter x.
What is got over the Devil's back is spent under the belly.[773:6]
Works. Book v. Chapter xi.
We have here other fish to fry.[773:7]
Works. Book v. Chapter xii.
What cannot be cured must be endured.[773:8]
Works. Book v. Chapter xv.
Thought I to myself, we shall never come off scot-free.
Works. Book v. Chapter xv.
It is enough to fright you out of your seven senses.[773:9]
Works. Book v. Chapter xv.
Necessity has no law.[773:10]
Works. Book v. Chapter xv.
Panurge had no sooner heard this, but he was upon the high-rope.
Works. Book v. Chapter xviii.
We saw a knot of others, about a baker's dozen.
Works. Book v. Chapter xxii.
Others made a virtue of necessity.[773:11]
Works. Book v. Chapter xxii.
Spare your breath to cool your porridge.[773:12]
Works. Book v. Chapter xxviii.
I believe he would make three bites of a cherry.
Works. Book v. Chapter xxviii.
[770:3] Je m'en vay chercher un grand peut-estre.
[771:1] "Revenons à nos moutons,"—a proverb taken from the French farce of "Pierre Patelin," edition of 1762, p. 90.
[771:2] My appetite comes to me while eating.—Montaigne: Book iii. chap. ix. Of Vanity.
[773:6] Isocrates was in the right to insinuate that what is got over the Devil's back is spent under his belly.—Le Sage: Gil Blas, book viii. chap. ix.
[773:7] I have other fish to fry.—Cervantes: Don Quixote, part ii. chap. xxxv.
[774]
(Works.[774:1] Cotton's translation, revised by Hazlitt and Wight.)
Man in sooth is a marvellous, vain, fickle, and unstable subject.[774:2]
Book i. Chap. i. That Men by various Ways arrive at the same End.
All passions that suffer themselves to be relished and digested are but moderate.[774:3]
Book i. Chap. ii. Of Sorrow.
It is not without good reason said, that he who has not a good memory should never take upon him the trade of lying.[774:4]
Book i. Chap. ix. Of Liars.
He who should teach men to die would at the same time teach them to live.[774:5]
Book i. Chap. xviii. That Men are not to judge of our Happiness till after Death.
The laws of conscience, which we pretend to be derived from nature, proceed from custom.
Book i. Chap. xxii. Of Custom.
Accustom him to everything, that he may not be a Sir Paris, a carpet-knight,[774:6] but a sinewy, hardy, and vigorous young man.
Book i. Chap. xxv. Of the Education of Children.
We were halves throughout, and to that degree that methinks by outliving him I defraud him of his part.
Book i. Chap. xxvii. Of Friendship.
There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.[774:7]
Book i. Chap. xxx. Of Cannibals.
[775]
Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know.
Book i. Chap. xxxi. Of Divine Ordinances.
A wise man never loses anything, if he has himself.
Book i. Chap. xxxviii. Of Solitude.
Even opinion is of force enough to make itself to be espoused at the expense of life.
Book i. Chap. xl. Of Good and Evil.
Plato says, "'T is to no purpose for a sober man to knock at the door of the Muses;" and Aristotle says "that no excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of folly."[775:1]
Book ii. Chap. ii. Of Drunkenness.
For a desperate disease a desperate cure.[775:2]
Book ii. Chap. iii. The Custom of the Isle of Cea.
And not to serve for a table-talk.[775:3]
Book ii. Chap. iii. The Custom of the Isle of Cea.
To which we may add this other Aristotelian consideration, that he who confers a benefit on any one loves him better than he is beloved by him again.[775:4]
Book ii. Chap. viii. Of the Affection of Fathers.
The middle sort of historians (of which the most part are) spoil all; they will chew our meat for us.
Book ii. Chap. x. Of Books.
The only good histories are those that have been written by the persons themselves who commanded in the affairs whereof they write.
Book ii. Chap. x. Of Books.
She [virtue] requires a rough and stormy passage; she will have either outward difficulties to wrestle with,[775:5] . . . or internal difficulties.
Book ii. Chap. xi. Of Cruelty.
There is, nevertheless, a certain respect and a general duty of humanity that ties us, not only to beasts that have life and sense, but even to trees and plants.
Book ii. Chap. xi. Of Cruelty.
[776]
Some impose upon the world that they believe that which they do not; others, more in number, make themselves believe that they believe, not being able to penetrate into what it is to believe.
Book ii. Chap. xii. Apology for Raimond Sebond.
When I play with my cat, who knows whether I do not make her more sport than she makes me?
Book ii. Chap. xii. Apology for Raimond Sebond.
'T is one and the same Nature that rolls on her course, and whoever has sufficiently considered the present state of things might certainly conclude as to both the future and the past.[776:1]
Book ii. Chap. xii. Apology for Raimond Sebond.
The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mould. . . . The same reason that makes us wrangle with a neighbour causes a war betwixt princes.
Book ii. Chap. xii. Apology for Raimond Sebond.
Man is certainly stark mad; he cannot make a worm, and yet he will be making gods by dozens.
Book ii. Chap. xii. Apology for Raimond Sebond.
Why may not a goose say thus: "All the parts of the universe I have an interest in: the earth serves me to walk upon, the sun to light me; the stars have their influence upon me; I have such an advantage by the winds and such by the waters; there is nothing that yon heavenly roof looks upon so favourably as me. I am the darling of Nature! Is it not man that keeps and serves me?"[776:2]
Book ii. Chap. xii. Apology for Raimond Sebond.
Arts and sciences are not cast in a mould, but are formed and perfected by degrees, by often handling and polishing, as bears leisurely lick their cubs into form.[776:3]
Book ii. Chap. xii. Apology for Raimond Sebond.
He that I am reading seems always to have the most force.
Book ii. Chap. xii. Apology for Raimond Sebond.
[777]
Apollo said that every one's true worship was that which he found in use in the place where he chanced to be.[777:1]
Book ii. Chap. xii. Apology for Raimond Sebond.
How many worthy men have we seen survive their own reputation![777:2]
Book ii. Chap. xvi. Of Glory.
The mariner of old said to Neptune in a great tempest, "O God! thou mayest save me if thou wilt, and if thou wilt thou mayest destroy me; but whether or no, I will steer my rudder true."[777:3]
Book ii. Chap. xvi. Of Glory.
One may be humble out of pride.
Book ii. Chap. xvii. Of Presumption.
I find that the best virtue I have has in it some tincture of vice.
Book ii. Chap. xx. That we taste nothing pure.
Saying is one thing, doing another.
Book ii. Chap. xxxi. Of Anger.
Is it not a noble farce, wherein kings, republics, and emperors have for so many ages played their parts, and to which the whole vast universe serves for a theatre?[777:4]
Book ii. Chap. xxxvi. Of the most Excellent Men.
Nature forms us for ourselves, not for others; to be, not to seem.
Book ii. Chap. xxxvii. Of the Resemblance of Children to their Brothers.
There never was in the world two opinions alike, no more than two hairs or two grains; the most universal quality is diversity.[777:5]
Book ii. Chap. xxxvii. Of the Resemblance of Children to their Fathers.
The public weal requires that men should betray and lie and massacre.
Book iii. Chap. i. Of Profit and Honesty.
Like rowers, who advance backward.[777:6]
Book iii. Chap. i. Of Profit and Honesty.
I speak truth, not so much as I would, but as much as I dare; and I dare a little the more as I grow older.
Book iii. Chap ii. Of Repentance.
[778]
Few men have been admired by their own domestics.[778:1]
Book iii. Chap. ii. Of Repentance.
It happens as with cages: the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair of getting out.[778:2]
Book iii. Chap. v. Upon some Verses of Virgil.
And to bring in a new word by the head and shoulders, they leave out the old one.
Book iii. Chap. v. Upon some Verses of Virgil.
All the world knows me in my book, and my book in me.
Book iii. Chap. v. Upon some Verses of Virgil.
'T is so much to be a king, that he only is so by being so. The strange lustre that surrounds him conceals and shrouds him from us; our sight is there broken and dissipated, being stopped and filled by the prevailing light.[778:3]
Book iii. Chap. vii. Of the Inconveniences of Greatness.
We are born to inquire after truth; it belongs to a greater power to possess it. It is not, as Democritus said, hid in the bottom of the deeps, but rather elevated to an infinite height in the divine knowledge.[778:4]
Book iii. Chap. viii. Of the Art of Conversation.
I moreover affirm that our wisdom itself, and wisest consultations, for the most part commit themselves to the conduct of chance.[778:5]
Book iii. Chap. viii. Of the Art of Conversation.
What if he has borrowed the matter and spoiled the form, as it oft falls out?[778:6]
Book iii. Chap. viii. Of the Art of Conversation.
The oldest and best known evil was ever more supportable than one that was new and untried.[778:7]
Book iii. Chap. ix. Of Vanity.
[779]
Not because Socrates said so, . . . I look upon all men as my compatriots.
Book iii. Chap. ix. Of Vanity.
My appetite comes to me while eating.[779:1]
Book iii. Chap. ix. Of Vanity.
There is no man so good, who, were he to submit all his thoughts and actions to the laws, would not deserve hanging ten times in his life.
Book iii. Chap. ix. Of Vanity.
Saturninus said, "Comrades, you have lost a good captain to make him an ill general."
Book iii. Chap. ix. Of Vanity.
A little folly is desirable in him that will not be guilty of stupidity.[779:2]
Book iii. Chap. ix. Of Vanity.
Habit is a second nature.[779:3]
Book iii. Chap. x.
We seek and offer ourselves to be gulled.
Book iii. Chap. xi. Of Cripples.
I have never seen a greater monster or miracle in the world than myself.
Book iii. Chap. xi. Of Cripples.
Men are most apt to believe what they least understand.
Book iii. Chap. xi. Of Cripples.
I have here only made a nosegay of culled flowers, and have brought nothing of my own but the thread that ties them together.
Book iii. Chap. xii. Of Physiognomy.
Amongst so many borrowed things, I am glad if I can steal one, disguising and altering it for some new service.[779:4]
Book iii. Chap. xii. Of Physiognomy.
I am further of opinion that it would be better for us to have [no laws] at all than to have them in so prodigious numbers as we have.
Book iii. Chap. xiii. Of Experience.
There is more ado to interpret interpretations than to interpret the things, and more books upon books than upon all other subjects; we do nothing but comment upon one another.
Book iii. Chap. xiii. Of Experience.
[780]
For truth itself has not the privilege to be spoken at all times and in all sorts.
Book iii. Chap. xiii. Of Experience.
The diversity of physical arguments and opinions embraces all sorts of methods.
Book iii. Chap. xiii. Of Experience.
Let us a little permit Nature to take her own way; she better understands her own affairs than we.
Book iii. Chap. xiii. Of Experience.
I have ever loved to repose myself, whether sitting or lying, with my heels as high or higher than my head.
Book iii. Chap. xiii. Of Experience.
I, who have so much and so universally adored this ἄριστον μέτρον, "excellent mediocrity,"[780:1] of ancient times, and who have concluded the most moderate measure the most perfect, shall I pretend to an unreasonable and prodigious old age?
Book iii. Chap. xiii. Of Experience.
[774:1] This book of Montaigne the world has indorsed by translating it into all tongues, and printing seventy-five editions of it in Europe.—Emerson: Representative Men. Montaigne.
Curae leves loquuntur ingentes stupent (Light griefs are loquacious, but the great are dumb).—Seneca: Hippolytus, ii. 3, 607.
Mendacem memorem esse oportere (To be a liar, memory is necessary).—Quintilian: iv. 2, 91.
[775:4] Aristotle: Ethics, ix. 7.
[777:1] Xenophon: Mem. Socratis, i. 3, 1.
[777:3] Seneca: Epistle 85.
[778:4] Lactantius: Divin. Instit. iii. 28.
[778:5] Although men flatter themselves with their great actions, they are not so often the result of great design as of chance.—Rochefoucauld: Maxim 57.
[778:7] Livy, xxiii. 3.
(From his "Divine Weekes and Workes," translated by J. Sylvester.)
The world 's a stage[780:2] where God's omnipotence,
His justice, knowledge, love, and providence
Do act the parts.
First Week, First Day.
And reads, though running,[780:3] all these needful motions.
First Week, First Day.
Mercy and justice, marching cheek by joule.
First Week, First Day.
Not unlike the bear which bringeth forth
In the end of thirty dayes a shapeless birth;
But after licking, it in shape she drawes,
And by degrees she fashions out the pawes,
The head, and neck, and finally doth bring
To a perfect beast that first deformed thing.[780:4]
First Week, First Day.
[781]
What is well done is done soon enough.
First Week, First Day.
And swans seem whiter if swart crowes be by.
First Week, First Day.
Night's black mantle covers all alike.[781:1]
First Week, First Day.
Hot and cold, and moist and dry.[781:2]
First Week, Second Day.
Much like the French (or like ourselves, their apes),
Who with strange habit do disguise their shapes;
Who loving novels, full of affectation,
Receive the manners of each other nation.[781:3]
First Week, Second Day.
With tooth and nail.
First Week, Second Day.
From the foure corners of the worlde doe haste.[781:4]
First Week, Second Day.
Oft seen in forehead of the frowning skies.[781:5]
First Week, Second Day.
From north to south, from east to west.[781:6]
First Week, Second Day.
Not that the earth doth yield
In hill or dale, in forest or in field,
A rarer plant.[781:8]
First Week, Third Day.
'T is what you will,—or will be what you would.
First Week, Third Day.
Or savage beasts upon a thousand hils.[781:9]
First Week, Third Day.
[782]
To man the earth seems altogether
No more a mother, but a step-dame rather.[782:1]
First Week, Third Day.
For where 's the state beneath the firmament
That doth excel the bees for government?[782:2]
First Week, Fifth Day, Part i.
A good turn at need,
At first or last, shall be assur'd of meed.
First Week, Sixth Day.
There is no theam more plentifull to scan
Than is the glorious goodly frame of man.[782:3]
First Week, Sixth Day.
These lovely lamps, these windows of the soul.[782:4]
First Week, Sixth Day.
Or almost like a spider, who, confin'd
In her web's centre, shakt with every winde,
Moves in an instant if the buzzing flie
Stir but a string of her lawn canapie.[782:5]
First Week, Sixth Day.
Even as a surgeon, minding off to cut
Some cureless limb,—before in ure he put
His violent engins on the vicious member,
Bringeth his patient in a senseless slumber,
And grief-less then (guided by use and art),
To save the whole, sawes off th' infested part.
First Week, Sixth Day.
Two souls in one, two hearts into one heart.[782:6]
First Week, Sixth Day.
[783]
Yielding more wholesome food than all the messes
That now taste-curious wanton plenty dresses.[783:1]
Second Week, First Day, Part i.
Turning our seed-wheat-kennel tares,
To burn-grain thistle, and to vaporie darnel,
Cockle, wild oats, rough burs, corn-cumbring
Tares.[783:2]
Second Week, First Day, Part iii.
In every hedge and ditch both day and night
We fear our death, of every leafe affright.[783:3]
Second Week, First Day, Part iii.
Apoplexie and lethargie,
As forlorn hope, assault the enemy.
Second Week, First Day, Part iii.
Living from hand to mouth.
Second Week, First Day, Part iv.
In the jaws of death.[783:5]
Second Week, First Day, Part iv.
Did thrust as now in others' corn his sickle.[783:6]
Second Week, Second Day, Part ii.
Will change the pebbles of our puddly thought
To orient pearls.[783:7]
Second Week, Third Day, Part i.
Soft carpet-knights, all scenting musk and amber.[783:8]
Second Week, Third Day, Part i.
The will for deed I doe accept.[783:9]
Second Week, Third Day, Part ii.
[784]
Sweet grave aspect.[784:2]
Second Week, Fourth Day, Book i.
Who breaks his faith, no faith is held with him.
Second Week, Fourth Day, Book ii.
Who well lives, long lives; for this age of ours
Should not be numbered by years, daies, and hours.[784:3]
Second Week, Fourth Day, Book ii.
My lovely living boy,
My hope, my hap, my love, my life, my joy.[784:4]
Second Week, Fourth Day, Book ii.
Out of the book of Natur's learned brest.[784:5]
Second Week, Fourth Day, Book ii.
Flesh of thy flesh, nor yet bone of thy bone.
Second Week, Fourth Day, Book ii.
Through thick and thin, both over hill and plain.[784:6]
Second Week, Fourth Day, Book iv.
Weakened and wasted to skin and bone.[784:7]
Second Week, Fourth Day, Book iv.
I take the world to be but as a stage,
Where net-maskt men do play their personage.[784:8]
Dialogue, between Heraclitus and Democritus.
Made no more bones.
The Maiden Blush.
[781:1] Come, civil night, . . . with thy black mantle.—Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet, act iii. sc. 2.
Report of fashions in proud Italy,
Whose manners still our apish nation
Limps after in base imitation.
Shakespeare: Richard II. act ii. sc. 1.
[781:6] From north to south, from east to west.—Shakespeare: Winter's Tale, act i. sc. 2.
[781:7] Heat considered as a Mode of Motion (title of a treatise, 1863).—John Tyndall.
[781:9] The cattle upon a thousand hills.—Psalm i. 10.
So work the honey-bees,
Creatures that by a rule in Nature teach
The act of order to a peopled kingdom.
Shakespeare: Henry V. act i. sc. 3.
[782:4] Ere I let fall the windows of mine eyes.—Shakespeare: Richard III. act v. sc. 3.
Crown'd with rank fumiter and furrow-weeds,
With burdocks, hemlock, nettles, cuckoo-flowers,
Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow
In our sustaining corn.
Shakespeare: Lear, act iv. sc. 4.
[783:4] Lion, bear, or wolf, or bull.—Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night's Dream, act ii. sc. 1.
My fair son!
My life, my joy, my food, my all the world.
Shakespeare: King John, act iii. sc. 4.
[784:5] The book of Nature is that which the physician must read; and to do so he must walk over the leaves.—Paracelsus, 1490-1541. (From the Encyclopædia Britannica, ninth edition, vol. xviii. p. 234.)
Don Quixote. (Lockhart's Translation.)
I was so free with him as not to mince the matter.
Don Quixote. The Author's Preface.
They can expect nothing but their labour for their pains.[784:9]
Don Quixote. The Author's Preface.
[785]
As ill-luck would have it.[785:1]
Don Quixote. Part i. Book i. Chap. ii.
The brave man carves out his fortune, and every man is the son of his own works.[785:2]
Don Quixote. Part i. Book i. Chap. iv.
Which I have earned with the sweat of my brows.
Don Quixote. Part i. Book i. Chap. iv.
Can we ever have too much of a good thing?[785:3]
Don Quixote. Part i. Book i. Chap. vi.
The charging of his enemy was but the work of a moment.
Don Quixote. Part i. Book i. Chap. viii.
And had a face like a blessing.[785:4]
Don Quixote. Part i. Book ii. Chap. iv.
It is a true saying that a man must eat a peck of salt with his friend before he knows him.
Don Quixote. Part i. Book iii. Chap. i.
Fortune leaves always some door open to come at a remedy.
Don Quixote. Part i. Book iii. Chap. i.
Fair and softly goes far.
Don Quixote. Part i. Book iii. Chap. ii.
Plain as the nose on a man's face.[785:5]
Don Quixote. Part i. Book iii. Chap. iv.
Let me leap out of the frying-pan into the fire;[785:6] or, out of God's blessing into the warm sun.[785:7]
Don Quixote. Part i. Book iii. Chap. iv.
You are taking the wrong sow by the ear.[785:8]
Don Quixote. Part i. Book iii. Chap. iv.
Bell, book, and candle.
Don Quixote. Part i. Book iii. Chap. iv.
Let the worst come to the worst.[785:9]
Don Quixote. Part i. Book iii. Chap. v.
You are come off now with a whole skin.
Don Quixote. Part i. Book iii. Chap. v.
Fear is sharp-sighted, and can see things under ground, and much more in the skies.
Don Quixote. Part i. Book iii. Chap. vi.
Ill-luck, you know, seldom comes alone.[785:10]
Don Quixote. Part i. Book iii. Chap. vi.
[786]
Why do you lead me a wild-goose chase?
Don Quixote. Part i. Book iii. Chap. vi.
I find my familiarity with thee has bred contempt.[786:1]
Don Quixote. Part i. Book iii. Chap. vi.
The more thou stir it, the worse it will be.
Don Quixote. Part i. Book iii. Chap. vi.
Now had Aurora displayed her mantle over the blushing skies, and dark night withdrawn her sable veil.
Don Quixote. Part i. Book iii. Chap. vi.
I tell thee, that is Mambrino's helmet.
Don Quixote. Part i. Book iii. Chap. vii.
Give me but that, and let the world rub; there I 'll stick.
Don Quixote. Part i. Book iii. Chap. vii.
Sure as a gun.[786:2]
Don Quixote. Part i. Book iii. Chap. vii.
Sing away sorrow, cast away care.
Don Quixote. Part i. Book iii. Chap. viii.
Thank you for nothing.
Don Quixote. Part i. Book iii. Chap. viii.
After meat comes mustard; or, like money to a starving man at sea, when there are no victuals to be bought with it.
Don Quixote. Part i. Book iii. Chap. viii.
Of good natural parts and of a liberal education.
Don Quixote. Part i. Book iii. Chap. viii.
Would puzzle a convocation of casuists to resolve their degrees of consanguinity.
Don Quixote. Part i. Book iii. Chap. viii.
Let every man mind his own business.
Don Quixote. Part i. Book iii. Chap. viii.
Murder will out.[786:3]
Don Quixote. Part i. Book iii. Chap. viii.
Thou art a cat, and a rat, and a coward.
Don Quixote. Part i. Book iii. Chap. viii.
It is the part of a wise man to keep himself to-day for to-morrow, and not to venture all his eggs in one basket.
Don Quixote. Part i. Book iii. Chap. ix.
I know what 's what, and have always taken care of the main chance.[786:4]
Don Quixote. Part i. Book iii. Chap. ix.
The ease of my burdens, the staff of my life.
Don Quixote. Part i. Book iii. Chap. ix.
[787]
I am almost frighted out of my seven senses.[787:1]
Don Quixote. Part i. Book iii. Chap. ix.
Within a stone's throw of it.
Don Quixote. Part i. Book iii. Chap. ix.
Let us make hay while the sun shines.[787:2]
Don Quixote. Part i. Book iii. Chap. xi.
I never thrust my nose into other men's porridge. It is no bread and butter of mine; every man for himself, and God for us all.[787:3]
Don Quixote. Part i. Book iii. Chap. xi.
Little said is soonest mended.[787:4]
Don Quixote. Part i. Book iii. Chap. xi.
A close mouth catches no flies.
Don Quixote. Part i. Book iii. Chap. xi.
She may guess what I should perform in the wet, if I do so much in the dry.
Don Quixote. Part i. Book iii. Chap. xi.
You are a devil at everything, and there is no kind of thing in the 'versal world but what you can turn your hand to.
Don Quixote. Part i. Book iii. Chap. xi.
It will grieve me so to the heart, that I shall cry my eyes out.
Don Quixote. Part i. Book iii. Chap. xi.
Delay always breeds danger.[787:5]
Don Quixote. Part i. Book iv. Chap. ii.
They must needs go whom the Devil drives.[787:6]
Don Quixote. Part i. Book iv. Chap. iv.
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.[787:7]
Don Quixote. Part i. Book iv. Chap. iv.
More knave than fool.[787:8]
Don Quixote. Part i. Book iv. Chap. iv.
I can tell where my own shoe pinches me; and you must not think, sir, to catch old birds with chaff.
Don Quixote. Part i. Book iv. Chap. v.
I never saw a more dreadful battle in my born days.
Don Quixote. Part i. Book iv. Chap. viii.
Here is the devil-and-all to pay.
Don Quixote. Part i. Book iv. Chap. x.
I begin to smell a rat.[787:9]
Don Quixote. Part i. Book iv. Chap. x.
[788]
I will take my corporal oath on it.
Don Quixote. Part i. Book iv. Chap. x.
It is past all controversy that what costs dearest is, and ought to be, most valued.
Don Quixote. Part i. Book iv. Chap. xi.
I would have nobody to control me; I would be absolute: and who but I? Now, he that is absolute can do what he likes; he that can do what he likes can take his pleasure; he that can take his pleasure can be content; and he that can be content has no more to desire. So the matter's over; and come what will come, I am satisfied.[788:1]
Don Quixote. Part i. Book iv. Chap. xxiii.
When the head aches, all the members partake of the pain.[788:2]
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. ii.
He has done like Orbaneja, the painter of Ubeda, who, being asked what he painted, answered, "As it may hit;" and when he had scrawled out a misshapen cock, was forced to write underneath, in Gothic letters, "This is a cock."[788:3]
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. iii.
There are men that will make you books, and turn them loose into the world, with as much dispatch as they would do a dish of fritters.
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. iii.
"There is no book so bad," said the bachelor, "but something good may be found in it."[788:4]
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. iii.
Every man is as Heaven made him, and sometimes a great deal worse.
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. iv.
[789]
Spare your breath to cool your porridge.[789:1]
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. v.
A little in one's own pocket is better than much in another man's purse.
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. vii.
Remember the old saying, "Faint heart never won fair lady."[789:2]
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. x.
There is a remedy for all things but death, which will be sure to lay us out flat some time or other.
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. x.
Are we to mark this day with a white or a black stone?
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. x.
Let every man look before he leaps.[789:3]
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. xiv.
The pen is the tongue of the mind.
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. xvi.
There were but two families in the world, Have-much and Have-little.
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. xx.
He has an oar in every man's boat, and a finger in every pie.
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. xxii.
Patience, and shuffle the cards.
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. xxiii.
Comparisons are odious.[789:4]
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. xxiii.
Tell me thy company, and I will tell thee what thou art.
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. xxiii.
The proof of the pudding is the eating.
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. xxiv.
He is as like one, as one egg is like another.[789:5]
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. xxvii.
You can see farther into a millstone than he.[789:6]
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. xxviii.
[790]
Sancho Panza by name, is my own self, if I was not changed in my cradle.
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. xxx.
"Sit there, clod-pate!" cried he; "for let me sit wherever I will, that will still be the upper end, and the place of worship to thee."[790:1]
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. xxxi.
Building castles in the air,[790:2] and making yourself a laughing-stock.
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. xxxi.
It is good to live and learn.
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. xxxii.
He is as mad as a March hare.[790:3]
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. xxxiii.
I must follow him through thick and thin.[790:4]
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. xxxiii.
There is no love lost between us.[790:5]
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. xxxiii.
In the night all cats are gray.[790:6]
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. xxxiii.
All is not gold that glisters.[790:7]
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. xxxiii.
I can look sharp as well as another, and let me alone to keep the cobwebs out of my eyes.
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. xxxiii.
Honesty is the best policy.
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. xxxiii.
Time ripens all things. No man is born wise.
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. xxxiii.
A good name is better than riches.[790:8]
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. xxxiii.
I drink when I have occasion, and sometimes when I have no occasion.
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. xxxiii.
An honest man's word is as good as his bond.
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. xxxiii.
Heaven's help is better than early rising.
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. xxxiv.
I have other fish to fry.[790:9]
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. xxxv.
[791]
There is a time for some things, and a time for all things; a time for great things, and a time for small things.[791:1]
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. xxxv.
But all in good time.
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. xxxvi.
Matters will go swimmingly.
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. xxxvi.
Many go out for wool, and come home shorn themselves.
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. xxxvii.
They had best not stir the rice, though it sticks to the pot.
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. xxxvii.
Good wits jump;[791:2] a word to the wise is enough.
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. xxxvii.
You may as well expect pears from an elm.[791:3]
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. xl.
Make it thy business to know thyself, which is the most difficult lesson in the world.[791:4]
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. xlii.
You cannot eat your cake and have your cake;[791:5] and store 's no sore.[791:6]
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. xliii.
Diligence is the mother of good fortune.
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. xliii.
What a man has, so much he is sure of.
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. xliii.
When a man says, "Get out of my house! what would you have with my wife?" there is no answer to be made.
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. xliii.
The pot calls the kettle black.
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. xliii.
This peck of troubles.
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. liii.
When thou art at Rome, do as they do at Rome.[791:7]
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. liv.
Many count their chickens before they are hatched; and where they expect bacon, meet with broken bones.
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. lv.
[792]
My thoughts ran a wool-gathering; and I did like the countryman who looked for his ass while he was mounted on his back.
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. lvii.
Liberty . . . is one of the most valuable blessings that Heaven has bestowed upon mankind.
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. lviii.
As they use to say, spick and span new.[792:1]
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. lviii.
I think it a very happy accident.[792:2]
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. lviii.
I shall be as secret as the grave.
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. lxii.
Now, blessings light on him that first invented this same sleep! It covers a man all over, thoughts and all, like a cloak; it is meat for the hungry, drink for the thirsty, heat for the cold, and cold for the hot. It is the current coin that purchases all the pleasures of the world cheap, and the balance that sets the king and the shepherd, the fool and the wise man, even.[792:3]
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. lxviii.
Rome was not built in a day.[792:4]
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. lxxi.
The ass will carry his load, but not a double load; ride not a free horse to death.
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. lxxi.
Never look for birds of this year in the nests of the last.[792:5]
Don Quixote. Part ii. Chap. lxxiv.
Don't put too fine a point to your wit for fear it should get blunted.
The Little Gypsy (La Gitanilla).
My heart is wax moulded as she pleases, but enduring as marble to retain.[792:6]
The Little Gypsy (La Gitanilla).
[785:4] He had a face like a benediction.—Jarvis's translation.
[788:1] I would do what I pleased; and doing what I pleased, I should have my will; and having my will, I should be contented; and when one is contented, there is no more to be desired; and when there is no more to be desired, there is an end of it.—Jarvis's translation.
For let our finger ache, and it endues
Our other healthful members even to that sense
Of pain.—Othello, act iii. sc. 4.
[788:3] The painter Orbaneja of Ubeda, if he chanced to draw a cock, he wrote under it, "This is a cock," lest the people should take it for a fox.—Jarvis's translation.
[789:2] Spenser: Britain's Ida, canto v. stanza 1. Ellerton: George a-Greene (a Ballad). Whetstone: Rocke of Regard. Burns: To Dr. Blacklock. Colman: Love Laughs at Locksmiths, act i.
[790:1] Sit thee down, chaff-threshing churl! for let me sit where I will, that is the upper end to thee.—Jarvis's translation.
This is generally placed in the mouth of Macgregor: "Where Macgregor sits, there is the head of the table." Emerson quotes it, in his "American Scholar," as the saying of Macdonald, and Theodore Parker as the saying of the Highlander.
[791:1] To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose.—Ecclesiastes iii. 1.
[792:3] Blessing on him who invented sleep,—the mantle that covers all human thoughts, the food that appeases hunger, the drink that quenches thirst, the fire that warms cold, the cold that moderates heat, and, lastly, the general coin that purchases all things, the balance and weight that equals the shepherd with the king, and the simple with the wise.—Jarvis's translation.
[793]
I, too, was born in Arcadia.[793:1]
[793:1] Goethe adopted this motto for his "Travels in Italy."
If on my theme I rightly think,
There are five reasons why men drink,—
Good wine, a friend, because I 'm dry,
Or lest I should be by and by,
Or any other reason why.[793:2]
Causæ Bibendi.
[793:2] These lines are a translation of a Latin epigram (erroneously ascribed to Henry Aldrich in the "Biographia Britannica," second edition, vol. i. p. 131), which Menage and De la Monnoye attribute to Père Sirmond:
Si bene commemini, causæ sunt quinque bibendi:
Hospitis adventus; præsens sitis atque futura;
Et vini bonitas, et quælibet altera causa.
Menagiana, vol. i. p. 172.
Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small;[793:3]
Though with patience He stands waiting, with exactness grinds He all.
Retribution. (Sinngedichte.)
Man-like is it to fall into sin,
Fiend-like is it to dwell therein;
Christ-like is it for sin to grieve,
God-like is it all sin to leave.
Sin. (Sinngedichte.)
[793:3] See Herbert, page 206.
Ὀψὲ θεοῦ μύλοι ἀλέουσι τὸ λεπτὸν ἄλευρον.—Oracula Sibylliana, liber viii. line 14.
Ὀψὲ θεῶν ἀλέουσι μύλοι, ἀλέουσι δὲ λεπτά.—Leutsch and Schneidewin: Corpus Parœmiographorum Græcorum, vol. i. p. 444.
Sextus Empiricus is the first writer who has presented the whole of the adage cited by Plutarch in his treatise "Concerning such whom God is slow to punish."
[794]
In bed we laugh, in bed we cry;
And, born in bed, in bed we die.
The near approach a bed may show
Of human bliss to human woe.[794:1]
[794:1] Translated by Samuel Johnson.
(Reflections, or Sentences and Moral Maxims.)
Our virtues are most frequently but vices disguised.[794:2]
We have all sufficient strength to endure the misfortunes of others.
Maxim 19.
Philosophy triumphs easily over past evils and future evils; but present evils triumph over it.[794:3]
Maxim 22.
We need greater virtues to sustain good than evil fortune.
Maxim 25.
Neither the sun nor death can be looked at with a steady eye.
Maxim 26.
Interest speaks all sorts of tongues, and plays all sorts of parts, even that of disinterestedness.
Maxim 39.
We are never so happy or so unhappy as we suppose.
Maxim 49.
There are few people who would not be ashamed of being loved when they love no longer.
Maxim 71.
[795]
True love is like ghosts, which everybody talks about and few have seen.
Maxim 76.
The love of justice is simply, in the majority of men, the fear of suffering injustice.
Maxim 78.
Silence is the best resolve for him who distrusts himself.
Maxim 79.
Friendship is only a reciprocal conciliation of interests, and an exchange of good offices; it is a species of commerce out of which self-love always expects to gain something.
Maxim 83.
A man who is ungrateful is often less to blame than his benefactor.
Maxim 96.
The understanding is always the dupe of the heart.
Maxim 102.
Nothing is given so profusely as advice.
Maxim 110.
The true way to be deceived is to think oneself more knowing than others.
Maxim 127.
Usually we praise only to be praised.
Maxim 146.
Our repentance is not so much regret for the ill we have done as fear of the ill that may happen to us in consequence.
Maxim 180.
Most people judge men only by success or by fortune.
Maxim 212.
Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue.
Maxim 218.
Too great haste to repay an obligation is a kind of ingratitude.
Maxim 226.
There is great ability in knowing how to conceal one's ability.
Maxim 245.
The pleasure of love is in loving. We are happier in the passion we feel than in that we inspire.[795:1]
Maxim 259.
[796]
We always like those who admire us; we do not always like those whom we admire.
Maxim 294.
The gratitude of most men is but a secret desire of receiving greater benefits.[796:1]
Maxim 298.
Lovers are never tired of each other, though they always speak of themselves.
Maxim 312.
We pardon in the degree that we love.
Maxim 330.
We hardly find any persons of good sense save those who agree with us.[796:2]
Maxim 347.
The greatest fault of a penetrating wit is to go beyond the mark.
Maxim 377.
We may give advice, but we cannot inspire the conduct.
Maxim 378.
The veracity which increases with old age is not far from folly.
Maxim 416.
In their first passion women love their lovers, in all the others they love love.[796:3]
Maxim 471.
Quarrels would not last long if the fault was only on one side.
Maxim 496.
In the adversity of our best friends we often find something that is not exactly displeasing.[796:4]
[794:2] This epigraph, which is the key to the system of La Rochefoucauld, is found in another form as No. 179 of the Maxims of the first edition, 1665; it is omitted from the second and third, and reappears for the first time in the fourth edition at the head of the Reflections.—Aime Martin.
[796:2] "That was excellently observed," say I when I read a passage in another where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, then I pronounce him to be mistaken.—Swift: Thoughts on Various Subjects.
[796:4] This reflection, No. 99 in the edition of 1665, the author suppressed in the third edition.
In all distresses of our friends
We first consult our private ends;
While Nature, kindly bent to ease us,
Points out some circumstance to please us.
Dean Swift: A Paraphrase of Rochefoucauld's Maxim.
[797]
The opinion of the strongest is always the best.
The Wolf and the Lamb. Book i. Fable 10.
By the work one knows the workman.
The Hornets and the Bees. Fable 21.
It is a double pleasure to deceive the deceiver.
The Cock and the Fox. Book ii. Fable 15.
It is impossible to please all the world and one's father.
Book iii. Fable 1.
In everything one must consider the end.[797:1]
The Fox and the Gnat. Fable 5.
"They are too green," he said, "and only good for fools."[797:2]
The Fox and the Grapes. Fable 11.
Help thyself, and God will help thee.[797:3]
Book vi. Fable 18.
The fly of the coach.
Book vii. Fable 9.
The sign brings customers.
The Fortune-Tellers. Fable 15.
Let ignorance talk as it will, learning has its value.
The Use of Knowledge. Book viii. Fable 19.
No path of flowers leads to glory.
Book x. Fable 14.
[797:1] Remember the end, and thou shalt never do amiss.—Ecclesiasticus iii. 36.
[797:2] Sour grapes.
The world, dear Agnes, is a strange affair.
L'École des Femmes. Act ii. Sc. 6.
There are fagots and fagots.
Le Médecin malgré lui. Act i. Sc. 6.
We have changed all that.
Le Médecin malgré lui. Act ii. Sc. 6.
Although I am a pious man, I am not the less a man.
Le Tartuffe. Act iii. Sc. 3.
[798]
The real Amphitryon is the Amphitryon who gives dinners.[798:1]
Amphitryon. Act iii. Sc. 5.
Ah that I— You would have it so, you would have it so; George Dandin, you would have it so! This suits you very nicely, and you are served right; you have precisely what you deserve.
George Dandin. Act i. Sc. 19.
Tell me to whom you are addressing yourself when you say that.
I am addressing myself—I am addressing myself to my cap.
L'Avare. Act i. Sc. 3.
The beautiful eyes of my cash-box.
L'Avare. Act v. Sc. 3.
You are speaking before a man to whom all Naples is known.
L'Avare. Act v. Sc. 5.
My fair one, let us swear an eternal friendship.[798:2]
Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme. Act iv. Sc. 1.
I will maintain it before the whole world.
Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme. Act iv. Sc. 5.
What the devil did he want in that galley?[798:3]
Les Fourberies de Scapin. Act ii. Sc. 11.
Grammar, which knows how to control even kings.[798:4]
Les Femmes savantes. Act ii. Sc. 6.
Ah, there are no longer any children!
Le Malade Imaginaire. Act ii. Sc. 11.
[798:3] Borrowed from Cyrano de Bergerac's "Pédant joué," act ii. sc. 4.
[798:4] Sigismund I. at the Council of Constance, 1414, said to a prelate who had objected to his Majesty's grammar, "Ego sum rex Romanus, et supra grammaticam" (I am the Roman emperor, and am above grammar).
(Translated by O. W. Wight.)
Man is but a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking reed.
Thoughts. Chap. ii. 10.
It is not permitted to the most equitable of men to be a judge in his own cause.
Thoughts. Chap. iv. 1.
[799]
Montaigne[799:1] is wrong in declaring that custom ought to be followed simply because it is custom, and not because it is reasonable or just.
Thoughts. Chap. iv. 6.
Thus we never live, but we hope to live; and always disposing ourselves to be happy, it is inevitable that we never become so.[799:2]
Thoughts. Chap. v. 2.
If the nose of Cleopatra had been shorter, the whole face of the earth would have been changed.
Thoughts. Chap. viii. 29.
The last thing that we find in making a book is to know what we must put first.
Thoughts. Chap. ix. 30.
Rivers are highways that move on, and bear us whither we wish to go.
Thoughts. Chap. ix. 38.
What a chimera, then, is man! what a novelty, what a monster, what a chaos, what a subject of contradiction, what a prodigy! A judge of all things, feeble worm of the earth, depositary of the truth, cloaca of uncertainty and error, the glory and the shame of the universe![799:3]
Thoughts. Chap. x. 1.
We know the truth, not only by the reason, but also by the heart.
Thoughts. Chap. x. 1.
For as old age is that period of life most remote from infancy, who does not see that old age in this universal man ought not to be sought in the times nearest his birth, but in those most remote from it?[799:4]
Preface to the Treatise on Vacuum.
[799:1] Book i. chap. xxii.
Happy who in his verse can gently steer
From grave to light, from pleasant to severe.[799:5]
The Art of Poetry. Canto i. Line 75.
[800]
Every age has its pleasures, its style of wit, and its own ways.
The Art of Poetry. Canto iii. Line 374.
He [Molière] pleases all the world, but cannot please himself.
Satire 2.
"There, take," says Justice, "take ye each a shell;
We thrive at Westminster on fools like you.
'T was a fat oyster! live in peace,—adieu."[800:1]
Epître ii.
It may be said that his wit shines at the expense of his memory.[800:2]
Gil Blas. Book iii. Chap. xi.
I wish you all sorts of prosperity with a little more taste.
Gil Blas. Book vii. Chap. iv.
Isocrates was in the right to insinuate, in his elegant Greek expression, that what is got over the Devil's back is spent under his belly.[800:3]
Gil Blas. Book viii. Chap. ix.
Facts are stubborn things.[800:4]
Gil Blas. Book x. Chap. i.
Plain as a pike-staff.[800:5]
Gil Blas. Book xii. Chap. viii.
If there were no God, it would be necessary to invent him.[800:6]
Epître à l'Auteur du Livre des Trois Imposteurs. cxi.
The king [Frederic] has sent me some of his dirty linen to wash; I will wash yours another time.[800:7]
Reply to General Manstein.
Men use thought only as authority for their injustice, and employ speech only to conceal their thoughts.[800:8]
Dialogue xiv. Le Chapon et la Poularde (1763).
[801]
History is little else than a picture of human crimes and misfortunes.[801:1]
L'Ingénu. Chap. x. (1767.)
The first who was king was a fortunate soldier:
Who serves his country well has no need of ancestors.[801:2]
Merope. Act i. Sc. 3.
In the best of possible worlds the château of monseigneur the baron was the most beautiful of châteaux, and madame the best of possible baronesses.
Candide. Chap. i.
In this country [England] it is well to kill from time to time an admiral to encourage the others.
Candide. Chap. xxiii.
The superfluous, a very necessary thing.
Le Mondain. Line 21.
Crush the infamous thing.
Letter to d'Alembert, June 23, 1760.
There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times.
Letter to Cardinal de Bernis, April 23, 1761.
The proper mean.[801:3]
Letter to Count d'Argental, Nov. 28, 1765.
It is said that God is always on the side of the heaviest battalions.[801:4]
Letter to M. le Riche, Feb. 6, 1770.
Love truth, but pardon error.
Discours sur l'Homme. Discours 3.
[800:7] Voltaire writes to his niece Dennis, July 24, 1752, "Voilà le roi qui m'envoie son linge à blanchir."
He [Voltaire] has invented history.[801:5]
It is only the first step which costs.[801:6]
In reply to the Cardinal de Polignac.
[801:5] Fournier: L'Esprit dans l'Histoire, p. 191.
[801:6] Voltaire writes to Madame du Deffand, January, 1764, that one of her bon-mots is quoted in the notes of "La Pucelle," canto 1: "Il n'y a que le premier pas qui coûte."
[802]
Days of absence, sad and dreary,
Clothed in sorrow's dark array,—
Days of absence, I am weary:
She I love is far away.
Days of Absence.
We read of a certain Roman emperor who built a magnificent palace. In digging the foundation, the workmen discovered a golden sarcophagus ornamented with three circlets, on which were inscribed, "I have expended; I have given; I have kept; I have possessed; I do possess; I have lost; I am punished. What I formerly expended, I have; what I gave away, I have."[802:2]
Tale xvi.
See how the world rewards its votaries.[802:3]
Tale xxxvi.
If the end be well, all is well.[802:4]
Tale lxvii.
Whatever you do, do wisely, and think of the consequences.
Tale ciii.
[802:1] The "Gesta Romanorum" is a collection of one hundred and eighty-one stories, first printed about 1473. The first English version appeared in 1824, translated by the Rev. C. Swan. (Bohn's Standard Library.)
[802:2] Richard Gough, in the "Sepulchral Monuments of Great Britain," gives this epitaph of Robert Byrkes, which is to be found in Doncaster Church, "new cut" upon his tomb in Roman capitals:—
Howe: Howe: who is heare:
I, Robin of Doncaster, and Margaret my feare.
That I spent, that I had;
That I gave, that I have;
That I left, that I lost.
A. D. 1579.
The following is the epitaph of Edward Courtenay, Earl of Devonshire, according to Cleaveland's "Genealogical History of the Family of Courtenay," p. 142:—
What we gave, we have;
What we spent, we had;
What we left, we lost.
[802:3] Ecce quomodo mundus suis servitoribus reddit mercedem (See how the world its veterans rewards).—Pope: Moral Essays, epistle 1, line 243.
[802:4] Si finis bonus est, totum bonum erit.—Probably the origin of the proverb, "All 's well that ends well."
[803]
Great thoughts come from the heart.[803:1]
Maxim cxxvii.
O Richard! O my king!
The universe forsakes thee!
Sung at the Dinner given to the French Soldiers in the Opera Salon at Versailles, Oct. 1, 1789.
The congress of Vienna does not walk, but it dances.[803:2]
[803:2] On of the Prince de Ligne's speeches that will last forever.—Edinburgh Review, July 1890, p. 244.
Who never ate his bread in sorrow,
Who never spent the darksome hours
Weeping, and watching for the morrow,—
He knows ye not, ye gloomy Powers.
Wilhelm Meister. Book ii. Chap. xiii.
Know'st thou the land where the lemon-trees bloom,
Where the gold orange glows in the deep thicket's gloom,
Where a wind ever soft from the blue heaven blows,
And the groves of laurel and myrtle and rose?[803:3]
Wilhelm Meister. Book iii. Chap. i.
Art is long, life short;[803:4] judgment difficult, opportunity transient.
Wilhelm Meister. Book vii. Chap. ix.
The sagacious reader who is capable of reading between these lines what does not stand written in them, but is nevertheless implied, will be able to form some conception.
Autobiography. Book xviii. Truth and Beauty.
[804]
O Liberty! Liberty! how many crimes are committed in thy name![804:1]
[804:1] Macaulay: Essay on Mirabeau.
The tree of liberty only grows when watered by the blood of tyrants.
Speech in the Convention Nationale, 1792.
It is only the dead who do not return.
Speech, 1794.
Against stupidity the very gods
Themselves contend in vain.
The Maid of Orleans. Act iii. Sc. 6.
The richest monarch in the Christian world;
The sun in my own dominions never sets.[804:2]
Don Carlos. Act i. Sc. 6.
Ye sons of France, awake to glory!
Hark! hark! what myriads bid you rise!
Your children, wives, and grandsires hoary,
Behold their tears and hear their cries!
The Marseilles Hymn.
To arms! to arms! ye brave!
The avenging sword unsheathe!
March on! march on! all hearts resolved
On victory or death!
The Marseilles Hymn.
[805]
There is another and a better world.[805:1]
The Stranger. Act i. Sc. 1.
[805:1] Translated by N. Schink, London, 1799.
Into the silent land!
Ah, who shall lead us thither?
The Silent Land.
Who in life's battle firm doth stand
Shall bear hope's tender blossoms
Into the silent land!
The Silent Land.
"It is more than a crime; it is a political fault,"[805:2]—words which I record, because they have been repeated and attributed to others.
Memoirs of Fouché.
Death is an eternal sleep.
Inscription placed by his orders on the Gates of the Cemeteries in 1794.
[805:2] Commonly quoted, "It is worse than a crime,—it is a blunder," and attributed to Talleyrand.
Life let us cherish, while yet the taper glows,
And the fresh flow'ret pluck ere it close;
Why are we fond of toil and care?
Why choose the rankling thorn to wear?
Life let us cherish.
[806]
I am not the rose, but I have lived near the rose.[806:1]
[806:1] This saying, "Je ne suis pas la rose, mais j'ai vécu avec elle," is assigned to Constant by A. Hayward in his Introduction to the "Autobiography and Letters" of Mrs. Piozzi.
I know nothing about it; I am my own ancestor.[806:2]
(When asked as to his ancestry.)
Take, O boatman, thrice thy fee,—
Take, I give it willingly;
For, invisible to thee,
Spirits twain have crossed with me.
The Passage. Edinburgh Review, October, 1832.
[806:4] Translated by Maria Lovell.
[807]
Absolutism tempered by assassination.[807:1]
A Cadmean victory.[807:2]
After us the deluge.[807:3]
All is lost save honour.[807:4]
Appeal from Philip drunk to Philip sober.[807:5]
Architecture is frozen music.[807:6]
[808]
Beginning of the end.[808:1]
Boldness, again boldness, and ever boldness.[808:2]
Dead on the field of honour.[808:3]
Defend me from my friends; I can defend myself from my enemies.[808:4]
Extremes meet.[808:5]
Hell is full of good intentions.[808:6]
History repeats itself.[808:7]
I am here: I shall remain here.[808:8]
I am the state.[808:9]
It is magnificent, but it is not war.[808:10]
[809]
Leave no stone unturned.[809:1]
Let it be. Let it pass.[809:2]
Medicine for the soul.[809:3]
Nothing is changed in France; there is only one Frenchman more.[809:4]
Order reigns in Warsaw.[809:5]
Ossa on Pelion.[809:6]
[810]
Scylla and Charybdis.[810:1]
Sinews of war.[810:2]
Talk of nothing but business, and despatch that business quickly.[810:3]
The empire is peace.[810:4]
The guard dies, but never surrenders.[810:5]
The king reigns, but does not govern.[810:6]
[811]
The style is the man himself.[811:1]
"There is no other royal path which leads to geometry," said Euclid to Ptolemy I.[811:2]
There is nothing new except what is forgotten.[811:3]
They have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.[811:4]
We are dancing on a volcano.[811:5]
Who does not love wine, women, and song
Remains a fool his whole life long.[811:6]
God is on the side of the strongest battalions.[811:7]
Terrible he rode alone,
With his Yemen sword for aid;
Ornament it carried none
But the notches on the blade.
The Death Feud. An Arab War-song.[811:8]
[807:1] Count Münster, Hanoverian envoy at St. Petersburg, discovered that Russian civilization is "merely artificial," and first published to Europe the short description of the Russian Constitution,—that it is "absolutism tempered by assassination."
[807:2] A Greek proverb. A Cadmean victory was one in which the victors suffered as much as their enemies.
Συμμισγόντων δὲ τῇ ναυμαχίῃ, Καδμείη τις νίκη τοῖσι Φωκαιεῦσι ἐγένετο.—Herodotus: i. 166.
Where two discourse, if the one's anger rise,
The man who lets the contest fall is wise.
Euripides: Fragment 656. Protesilaus.
[807:3] On the authority of Madame de Hausset ("Mémoires," p. 19), this phrase is ascribed to Madame de Pompadour. Larouse ("Fleurs Historiques") attributes it to Louis XV.
[807:4] It was from the imperial camp near Pavia that Francis I., before leaving for Pizzighettone, wrote to his mother the memorable letter which, thanks to tradition, has become altered to the form of this sublime laconism: "Madame, tout est perdu fors l'honneur."
The true expression is, "Madame, pour vous faire savoir comme se porte le reste de mon infortune, de toutes choses ne m'est demeuré que l'honneur et la vie qui est sauvé."—Martin: Histoire de France, tome viii.
The correction of this expression was first made by Sismondi, vol. xvi. pp. 241, 242. The letter itself is printed entire in Dulaure's "Histoire de Paris": "Pour vous avertir comment se porte le ressort de mon infortune, de toutes choses ne m'est demeuré que l'honneur et la vie,—qui est sauvé."
[807:5] Inserit se tantis viris mulier alienigeni sanguinis: quæ a Philippo rege temulento immerenter damnata, Provocarem ad Philippum, inquit, sed sobrium.—Valerius Maximus: Lib. vi. c. 2.
[807:6] Since it [architecture] is music in space, as it were a frozen music. . . . If architecture in general is frozen music.—Schelling: Philosophie der Kunst, pp. 576, 593.
La vue d'un tel monument est comme une musique continuelle et fixée.—Madame de Staël: Corinne, livre iv. chap. 3.
[808:1] Fournier asserts, on the written authority of Talleyrand's brother, that the only breviary used by the ex-bishop was "L'Improvisateur Français," a compilation of anecdotes and bon-mots, in twenty-one duo-decimo volumes. Whenever a good thing was wandering about in search of a parent, he adopted it; amongst others, "C'est le commencement de la fin."
See Shakespeare, page 59.
[808:2] De l'audace, encore de l'audace, et toujours de l'audace-Danton: Speech in the Legislative Assembly, 1792.
See Spenser, page 28.
[808:3] This was the answer given in the roll-call of La Tour d'Auvergne's regiment after his death.
[808:5] Les extrêmes se touchent.—Mercier: Tableaux de Paris (1782), vol. iv. title of chap. 348.
[808:8] The reply of Marshal MacMahon, in the trenches before the Malakoff, in the siege of Sebastopol, September, 1855, to the commander-in-chief, who had sent him word to beware of an explosion which might follow the retreat of the Russians.
[808:9] Dulaure (History of Paris, 1863, p. 387) asserts that Louis XIV. interrupted a judge who used the expression, "The king and the state," by saying, "I am the state."
[808:10] Said by General Pierre Bosquet of the charge of the Light Brigade at the battle of Balaklava.
[809:1] Euripides: Heracleidæ, 1002.
This may be traced to a response of the Delphic oracle given to Polycrates, as the best means of finding a treasure buried by Xerxes' general, Mardonius, on the field of Platæa. The oracle replied, Πάντα λίθον κίνει, "Turn every stone."—Leutsch and Schneidewin: Corpus Paræmiographorum Græcorum, vol. i. p. 146.
[809:2] This phrase, "Laissez faire, laissez passer!" is attributed to Gournay, Minister of Commerce at Paris, 1751; also to Quesnay, the writer on political economy. It is quoted by Adam Smith in the "Wealth of Nations."
[809:3] Inscription over the door of the Library at Thebes.—Diodorus Siculus: i. 49, 3.
[809:4] According to the "Contemporary Review," February, 1854, this phrase formed the opening of an address composed in the name of Comte d'Artois by Count Beugnot, and published in the "Moniteur," April 12, 1814.
[809:5] General Sebastiani announced the fall of Warsaw in the Chamber of Deputies, Sept. 16, 1831: "Des lettres que je reçois de Pologne m'annoncent que la tranquillité règne à Varsovie."—Dumas: Mémoires, Second Series, vol. iv. chap. iii.
They were setting on
Ossa upon Olympus, and upon
Steep Ossa leavy Pelius.
Chapman: Homer's Odyssey, book xi. 426.
Heav'd on Olympus tott'ring Ossa stood;
On Ossa Pelion nods with all his wood.
Pope: Odyssey, book xi. 387.
Ossa on Olympus heave, on Ossa roll
Pelion with all his woods; so scale the starry pole.
Sotheby: Odyssey, book xi. 315.
To the Olympian summit they essay'd
To heave up Ossa, and to Ossa's crown
Branch-waving Pelion.
Cowper: Odyssey, book xi. 379.
They on Olympus Ossa fain would roll;
On Ossa Pelion's leaf-quivering hill.
Worsley: Odyssey, book xi. 414.
To fling
Ossa upon Olympus, and to pile
Pelion with all its growth of leafy woods
On Ossa.
Bryant: Odyssey, book xi. 390.
Ossa they pressed down with Pelion's weight,
And on them both impos'd Olympus' hill.
Fitz-Geffrey: The Life and Death of Sir Francis Drake, stanza 99 (1596).
Ter sunt conati imponere Pelio Ossam.—Virgil: Georgics, i. 281.
[810:2] See Rabelais, page 771.
Æschines (Adv. Ctesiphon, c. 53) ascribes to Demosthenes the expression ὑποτέτμηται τὰ νεῦρα τῶν πραγμάτων, "The sinews of affairs are cut." Diogenes Laertius, in his Life of Bion (lib. iv. c. 7, sect. 3), represents that philosopher as saying, τὸν πλοῦτον εἶναι νεῦρα πραγμάτων,—"Riches were the sinews of business," or, as the phrase may mean, "of the state." Referring perhaps to this maxim of Bion, Plutarch says in his Life of Cleomenes (c. 27), "He who first called money the sinews of the state seems to have said this with special reference to war." Accordingly we find money called expressly τὰ νεῦρα τοῦ πολέμου, "the sinews of war," in Libanius, Orat. xlvi. (vol. ii. p. 477, ed. Reiske), and by the scholiast on Pindar, Olymp. i. 4 (compare Photius, Lex. s. v. Μεγάνορος πλούτον). So Cicero, Philipp. v. 2, "nervos belli, infinitam pecuniam."
[810:3] A placard of Aldus on the door of his printing-office.—Dibdin: Introduction, vol. i. p. 436.
[810:4] This saying occurs in Louis Napoleon's speech to the Chamber of Commerce in Bordeaux, Oct. 9, 1852.
[810:5] Words engraved upon the monument erected to Cambronne at Nantes.
This phrase, attributed to Cambronne, who was made prisoner at Waterloo, was vehemently denied by him. It was invented by Rougemont, a prolific author of mots, two days after the battle, in the "Indépendant."—Fournier: L' Esprit dans l' Histoire.
[810:6] A motto adopted by Thiers for the "Nationale," July 1, 1803. In the beginning of the seventeenth century Jan Zamoyski in the Polish parliament said, "The king reigns, but does not govern."
[811:2] Proclus: Commentary on Euclid's Elements, book ii. chap. iv.
[811:3] Attributed to Mademoiselle Bertin, milliner to Marie Antoinette.
"There is nothing new except that which has become antiquated,"—motto of the "Revue Rétrospective."
[811:4] This saying is attributed to Talleyrand. In a letter of the Chevalier de Panat to Mallet du Pan, January, 1796, it occurs almost literally,—"No one is right; no one could forget anything, nor learn anything."
[811:5] Words uttered by Comte de Salvandy (1796-1856) at a fete given by the Duke of Orleans to the King of Naples, 1830.
[811:6] Attributed to Luther, but more probably a saying of J. H. Voss (1751-1826), according to Redlich, "Die poetischen Beiträge zum Waudsbecker Bothen," Hamburg, 1871, p. 67.—King: Classical and Foreign Quotations (1887).
Napoleon said, "Providence is always on the side of the last reserve."
[811:8] Anonymous translation from "Tait's Magazine," July, 1850. The poem is of an age earlier than that of Mahomet.
[812]
And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
Genesis i. 3.
It is not good that the man should be alone.
Genesis ii. 18.
Bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.
Genesis ii. 23.
They sewed fig-leaves together and made themselves aprons.
Genesis iii. 7.
In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.
Genesis iii. 19.
For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
Genesis iii. 19.
The mother of all living.
Genesis iii. 20.
Am I my brother's keeper?
Genesis iv. 9.
My punishment is greater than I can bear.
Genesis iv. 13.
There were giants in the earth in those days.
Genesis vi. 4.
And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.
Genesis vii. 12.
The dove found no rest for the sole of her foot.
Genesis viii. 9.
Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed.
Genesis ix. 6.
Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between thee and me.
Genesis xiii. 8.
In a good old age.
Genesis xv. 15.
His hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him.
Genesis xvi. 12.
[813]
Old and well stricken in age.
Genesis xviii. 11.
His wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
Genesis xix. 26.
The voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau.
Genesis xxvii. 22.
They stript Joseph out of his coat, his coat of many colours.
Genesis xxxvii. 23.
Bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave.
Genesis xlii. 38.
Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel.
Genesis xlix. 4.
I have been a stranger in a strange land.
Exodus ii. 22.
A land flowing with milk and honey.
Exodus iii. 8; Jeremiah xxxii. 22.
Darkness which may be felt.
Exodus x. 21.
The Lord went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire.
Exodus xiii. 21.
When we sat by the fleshpots.
Exodus xvi. 3.
Love thy neighbour as thyself.
Leviticus xix. 18.
The Lord opened the mouth of the ass, and she said unto Balaam, What have I done unto thee, that thou hast smitten me these three times?
Numbers xxii. 28.
Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his!
Numbers xxiii. 10.
How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel!
Numbers xxiv. 5.
Man doth not live by bread only.
Deuteronomy viii. 3.
The wife of thy bosom.
Deuteronomy xiii. 6.
Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.
Deuteronomy xix. 21.
[814]
Blessed shall be thy basket and thy store.
Deuteronomy xxviii. 5.
The secret things belong unto the Lord.
Deuteronomy xxix. 29.
He kept him as the apple of his eye.
Deuteronomy xxxii. 10.
Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked.
Deuteronomy xxxii. 15.
As thy days, so shall thy strength be.
Deuteronomy xxxiii. 25.
His eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated.
Deuteronomy xxxiv. 7.
I am going the way of all the earth.
Joshua xxiii. 14.
I arose a mother in Israel.
Judges v. 7.
The stars in their courses fought against Sisera.
Judges v. 20.
She brought forth butter in a lordly dish.
Judges v. 25.
At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down: at her feet he bowed, he fell: where he bowed, there he fell down dead.
Judges v. 27.
Is not the gleaning of the grapes of Ephraim better than the vintage of Abi-ezer?
Judges viii. 2.
He smote them hip and thigh.
Judges xv. 8.
The Philistines be upon thee, Samson.
Judges xvi. 9.
From Dan even to Beer-sheba.
Judges xx. 1.
The people arose as one man.
Judges xx. 8.
Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.
Ruth i. 16.
Quit yourselves like men.
1 Samuel iv. 9.
Is Saul also among the prophets?
1 Samuel x. 11.
A man after his own heart.
1 Samuel xiii. 14.
David therefore departed thence and escaped to the cave Adullam.
1 Samuel xxii. 1.
Tell it not in Gath; publish it not in the streets of Askelon.
2 Samuel i. 20.
[815]
Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided.
2 Samuel i. 23.
How are the mighty fallen!
2 Samuel i. 25.
Thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.
2 Samuel i. 26.
Abner . . . smote him under the fifth rib.
2 Samuel ii. 23.
Tarry at Jericho until your beards be grown.
2 Samuel x. 5.
Thou art the man.
2 Samuel xii. 7.
As water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again.
2 Samuel xiv. 14.
They were wont to speak in old time, saying, They shall surely ask counsel at Abel: and so they ended the matter.
2 Samuel xx. 18.
The sweet psalmist of Israel.
2 Samuel xxiii. 1.
So that there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron heard in the house, while it was in building.[815:1]
1 Kings vi. 7.
A proverb and a byword.
1 Kings ix. 7.
I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee.
1 Kings xvii. 9.
An handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse.
1 Kings xvii. 12.
And the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail.
1 Kings xvii. 16.
How long halt ye between two opinions?
1 Kings xviii. 21.
There ariseth a little cloud out of the sea, like a man's hand.
1 Kings xviii. 44.
A still, small voice.
1 Kings xix. 12.
[816]
Let not him that girdeth on his harness boast himself as he that putteth it off.
1 Kings xx. 11.
Death in the pot.
2 Kings iv. 40.
Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great thing?
2 Kings viii. 13.
Like the driving of Jehu, the son of Nimshi: for he driveth furiously.
2 Kings ix. 20.
One that feared God and eschewed evil.
Job i. 1.
Satan came also.
Job i. 6.
The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.
Job i. 21.
All that a man hath will he give for his life.
Job ii. 4.
There the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary be at rest.
Job iii. 17.
Night, when deep sleep falleth on men.
Job iv. 13; xxxiii. 15.
Man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.
Job v. 7.
He taketh the wise in their own craftiness.
Job v. 13.
Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age, like as a shock of corn cometh in in his season.
Job v. 26.
How forcible are right words!
Job vi. 25.
My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle.
Job vii. 6.
He shall return no more to his house, neither shall his place know him any more.[816:1]
Job vii. 10; cf. xvi. 22.
I would not live alway.
Job vii. 16.
The land of darkness and the shadow of death.
Job x. 21.
Clearer than the noonday.
Job xi. 17.
Wisdom shall die with you.
Job xii. 2.
[817]
Speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee.
Job xii. 8.
Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble.
Job xvi. 1.
Miserable comforters are ye all.
Job xvi. 2.
The king of terrors.
Job xviii. 14.
I am escaped with the skin of my teeth.
Job xix. 20.
Oh that my words were now written! oh that they were printed in a book!
Job xix. 23.
Seeing the root of the matter is found in me.
Job xix. 28.
Though wickedness be sweet in his mouth, though he hide it under his tongue.
Job xx. 12.
The land of the living.
Job xxviii. 13.
The price of wisdom is above rubies.
Job xxviii. 18.
When the ear heard me, then it blessed me; and when the eye saw me, it gave witness to me.
Job xxix. 11.
I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy.
Job xxix. 13.
I was eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the lame.
Job xxix. 15.
The house appointed for all living.
Job xxx. 23.
My desire is . . . that mine adversary had written a book.
Job xxxi. 35.
Great men are not always wise.
Job xxxii. 9.
He multiplieth words without knowledge.
Job xxxv. 16.
Fair weather cometh out of the north.
Job xxxvii. 22.
Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?
Job xxxviii. 2.
The morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.
Job xxxviii. 7.
Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further; and here shall thy proud waves be stayed.
Job xxxviii. 11.
[818]
Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion?
Job xxxviii. 31.
Canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons?
Job xxxviii. 32.
He smelleth the battle afar off.
Job xxxix. 25.
Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook?
Job xli. 1.
Hard as a piece of the nether millstone.
Job xli. 24.
He maketh the deep to boil like a pot.
Job xli. 31.
I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye seeth thee.
Job xlii. 5.
His leaf also shall not wither.
Psalm i. 3.
Lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us.
Psalm iv. 6.
Out of the mouth of babes[818:1] and sucklings.
Psalm viii. 2.
Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels.[818:2]
Psalm viii. 5.
The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.
Psalm xiv. 1; liii. 1.
He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not.
Psalm xv. 4.
The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places;[818:3] yea, I have a goodly heritage.
Psalm xvi. 6.
Keep me as the apple of the eye,[818:4] hide me under the shadow of thy wings.
Psalm xvii. 8.
The sorrows of death compassed me.
Psalm xviii. 4.
He rode upon a cherub, and did fly: yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind.[818:5]
Psalm xviii. 10.
[819]
The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handiwork.
Psalm xix. 1.
Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge.[819:1]
Psalm xix. 2.
And there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.
Psalm xix. 6.
Sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.
Psalm xix. 10.
I may tell all my bones.
Psalm xxii. 17.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.[819:2]
Psalm xxiii. 2.
Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.[819:3]
Psalm xxiii. 4.
My cup runneth over.[819:4]
Psalm xxiii. 5.
From the strife of tongues.
Psalm xxxi. 20.
He fashioneth their hearts alike.[819:5]
Psalm xxxiii. 15.
Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips from speaking guile.
Psalm xxxiv. 13.
I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen[819:6] the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.
Psalm xxxvii. 25.
Spreading[819:7] himself like a green bay-tree.
Psalm xxxvii. 35.
Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright.
Psalm xxxvii. 37.
While I was musing the fire burned.[819:8]
Psalm xxxix. 3.
[820]
Lord, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is; that I may know how frail I am.[820:1]
Psalm xxxix. 4.
Every man at his best state is altogether vanity.[820:2]
Psalm xxxix. 5.
He heapeth up riches, and knoweth not[820:3] who shall gather them.
Psalm xxxix. 6.
Blessed is he that considereth the poor.
Psalm xli. 1.
As the hart panteth after the water-brooks.[820:4]
Psalm xlii. 1.
Deep calleth unto deep.[820:5]
Psalm xlii. 7.
My tongue is the pen of a ready writer.
Psalm xlv. 1.
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.[820:6]
Psalm xlvi. 1.
Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount Zion,[820:7] . . . the city of the great King.
Psalm xlviii. 2.
Man being in honour abideth not; he is like the beasts that perish.[820:8]
Psalm xlix. 12, 20.
The cattle upon a thousand hills.
Psalm l. 10.
Oh that I had wings like a dove!
Psalm lv. 6.
We took sweet counsel together.
Psalm lv. 14.
But it was thou, a man mine equal, my guide, and mine acquaintance.[820:9]
Psalm lv. 15.
[821]
The words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart.[821:1]
Psalm lv. 21.
My heart is fixed.
Psalm lvii. 7.
They are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear; which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely.[821:2]
Psalm lviii. 4, 5.
Vain is the help of man.
Psalm lx. 11; cviii. 12.
Surely men of low degree are vanity, and men of high degree are a lie: to be laid in the balance they are altogether lighter than vanity.[821:3]
Psalm lxii. 9.
He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass.[821:4]
Psalm lxxii. 6.
His enemies shall lick the dust.
Psalm lxxii. 9.
As a dream when one awaketh.
Psalm lxxiii. 20.
Promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from[821:5] the south.
Psalm lxxv. 6.
He putteth down one and setteth up another.
Psalm lxxv. 7.
They go from strength to strength.
Psalm lxxxiv. 7.
A day[821:6] in thy courts is better than a thousand. I had rather be a door-keeper in the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.[821:7]
Psalm lxxxiv. 10.
Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
Psalm lxxxv. 10.
[822]
A thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past,[822:1] and as a watch in the night.
Psalm xc. 4.
We spend our years as a tale that is told.[822:2]
Psalm xc. 9.
The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.[822:3]
Psalm xc. 10.
So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.
Psalm xc. 12.
Establish thou the work of our hands upon us: yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.[822:4]
Psalm xc. 17.
I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.[822:5]
Psalm xci. 2.
Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for . . . the destruction that wasteth at noonday.[822:6]
Psalm xci. 6.
The righteous shall flourish like the palm-tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon.[822:7]
Psalm xcii. 12.
The noise of many waters.
Psalm xciii. 4.
The Lord reigneth; let the earth rejoice.[822:8]
Psalm xcvii. 1.
[823]
As for man his days are as grass; as a flower of the field so he flourisheth.[823:1]
Psalm ciii. 15.
The wind passeth over it, and it is gone;[823:2] and the place thereof shall know it no more.
Psalm ciii. 16.
Wine that maketh glad the heart of man.
Psalm civ. 15.
Man goeth forth unto his work[823:3] and to his labour until the evening.
Psalm civ. 23.
They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters.[823:4]
Psalm cvii. 23.
At their wits' end.
Psalm cvii. 27.
Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of thy youth.[823:5]
Psalm cx. 3.
I said in my haste, All men are liars.
Psalm cxvi. 11.
Precious[823:6] in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.
Psalm cxvi. 15.
The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner.[823:7]
Psalm cxviii. 22.
I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditations.[823:8]
Psalm cxix. 99.
A lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.[823:9]
Psalm cxix. 105.
[824]
The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.[824:1]
Psalm cxxi. 6.
Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity[824:2] within thy palaces.
Psalm cxxii. 7.
He giveth his beloved sleep.
Psalm cxxvii. 2.
Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them.
Psalm cxxvii. 5.
Thy children like olive plants[824:3] round about thy table.
Psalm cxxviii. 3.
I will not give sleep to mine eyes, or slumber to mine eyelids.[824:4]
Psalm cxxxii. 4; Proverbs vi. 4.
Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren[824:5] to dwell together in unity.
Psalm cxxxiii. 1.
We hanged our harps upon the willows.[824:6]
Psalm cxxxvii. 2.
If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.
Psalm cxxxvii. 5.
If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell[824:7] in the uttermost parts of the sea.
Psalm cxxxix. 9.
I am fearfully and wonderfully made.[824:8]
Psalm cxxxix. 14.
Put not your trust in princes.
Psalm cxlvi. 3.
My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not.
Proverbs i. 10.
Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the street.
Proverbs i. 20.
[825]
Length of days is in her right hand; and in her left hand riches and honour.
Proverbs iii. 16.
Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.
Proverbs iii. 17.
Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom; and with all thy getting get understanding.
Proverbs iv. 7.
The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.
Proverbs iv. 18.
Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise.
Proverbs vi. 6.
Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep.
Proverbs vi. 10; xxiv. 33.
So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth, and thy want as an armed man.
Proverbs vi. 11.
Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?
Proverbs vi. 27.
As an ox goeth to the slaughter.
Proverbs vii. 22; Jeremiah xi. 19.
Wisdom is better than rubies.
Proverbs viii. 11.
Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.
Proverbs ix. 17.
He knoweth not that the dead are there; and that her guests are in the depths of hell.
Proverbs ix. 18.
A wise son maketh a glad father.
Proverbs x. 1.
The memory of the just is blessed.
Proverbs x. 7.
The destruction of the poor is their poverty.
Proverbs x. 15.
In the multitude of counsellors there is safety.
Proverbs xi. 14; xxiv. 6.
He that is surety for a stranger shall smart for it.
Proverbs xi. 15.
[826]
As a jewel of gold in a swine's snout, so is a fair woman which is without discretion.
Proverbs xi. 22.
The liberal soul shall be made fat.
Proverbs xi. 25.
A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast; but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.
Proverbs xii. 10.
Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.
Proverbs xiii. 12.
The way of transgressors is hard.
Proverbs xiii. 15.
He that spareth his rod hateth his son.
Proverbs xiii. 24.
Fools make a mock at sin.
Proverbs xiv. 9.
The heart knoweth his own bitterness; and a stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy.
Proverbs xiv. 10.
The prudent man looketh well to his going.
Proverbs xiv. 15.
The talk of the lips tendeth only to penury.
Proverbs xiv. 23.
The righteous hath hope in his death.
Proverbs xiv. 32.
Righteousness exalteth a nation.
Proverbs xiv. 34.
A soft answer turneth away wrath.
Proverbs xv. 1.
A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance.
Proverbs xv. 13.
He that is of a merry heart hath a continual feast.
Proverbs xv. 15.
Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.
Proverbs xv. 17.
A word spoken in due season, how good is it!
Proverbs xv. 23.
A man's heart deviseth his way; but the Lord directeth his steps.
Proverbs xvi. 9.
Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.
Proverbs xvi. 18.
The hoary head is a crown of glory.
Proverbs xvi. 31.
[827]
He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.
Proverbs xvi. 32.
The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord.
Proverbs xvi. 33.
A gift is as a precious stone in the eyes of him that hath it.
Proverbs xvii. 8.
He that repeateth a matter separateth very friends.
Proverbs xvii. 9.
A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.
Proverbs xvii. 22.
The eyes of a fool are in the ends of the earth.
Proverbs xvii. 24.
He that hath knowledge spareth his words.
Proverbs xvii. 27.
Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise.
Proverbs xvii. 28.
A wounded spirit who can bear?
Proverbs xviii. 14.
Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing.
Proverbs xviii. 22.
A man that hath friends must show himself friendly; and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.
Proverbs xviii. 24.
He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the Lord.
Proverbs xix. 17.
Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging.
Proverbs xx. 1.
Every fool will be meddling.
Proverbs xx. 3.
The hearing ear and the seeing eye.
Proverbs xx. 12.
It is naught, it is naught, saith the buyer; but when he is gone his way, then he boasteth.
Proverbs xx. 14.
It is better to dwell in a corner of the housetop than with a brawling woman in a wide house.
Proverbs xxi. 9.
A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches.
Proverbs xxii. 1.
Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old he will not depart from it.
Proverbs xxii. 6.
[828]
The borrower is servant to the lender.
Proverbs xxii. 7.
Remove not the ancient landmark.
Proverbs xxii. 28; xxiii. 10.
Seest thou a man diligent in his business? He shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean men.
Proverbs xxii. 29.
Put a knife to thy throat, if thou be a man given to appetite.
Proverbs xxiii. 2.
Riches certainly make themselves wings.
Proverbs xxiii. 5.
As he thinketh in his heart, so is he.
Proverbs xxiii. 7.
Drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags.
Proverbs xxiii. 21.
Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup; . . . at the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.
Proverbs xxiii. 31, 32.
A wise man is strong; yea, a man of knowledge increaseth strength.
Proverbs xxiv. 5.
If thou faint in the day of adversity thy strength is small.
Proverbs xxiv. 10.
A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.
Proverbs xxv. 11.
Heap coals of fire upon his head.
Proverbs xxv. 22.
As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country.
Proverbs xxv. 25.
As the bird by wandering, as the swallow by flying, so the curse causeless shall not come.
Proverbs xxvi. 2.
Answer a fool according to his folly.
Proverbs xxvi. 5.
Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? There is more hope of a fool than of him.
Proverbs xxvi. 12.
There is a lion in the way; a lion is in the streets.
Proverbs xxvi. 13.
Wiser in his own conceit than seven men that can render a reason.
Proverbs xxvi. 16.
[829]
Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein.
Proverbs xxvi. 27.
Boast not thyself of to-morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.
Proverbs xxvii. 1.
Open rebuke is better than secret love.
Proverbs xxvii. 5.
Faithful are the wounds of a friend.
Proverbs xxvii. 6.
A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike.
Proverbs xxvii. 15.
Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.
Proverbs xxvii. 17.
Though thou shouldest bray a fool in a mortar among wheat with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from him.
Proverbs xxvii. 22.
The wicked flee when no man pursueth; but the righteous are bold as a lion.
Proverbs xxviii. 1.
He that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent.
Proverbs xxviii. 20.
Where there is no vision, the people perish.
Proverbs xxix. 18.
Give me neither poverty nor riches.
Proverbs xxx. 8.
The horseleech hath two daughters, crying, Give, give.
Proverbs xxx. 15.
In her tongue is the law of kindness.
Proverbs xxxi. 26.
She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.
Proverbs xxxi. 27.
Her children arise up and call her blessed.
Proverbs xxxi. 28.
Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all.
Proverbs xxxi. 29.
Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain.
Proverbs xxxi. 30.
Vanity of vanities, . . . all is vanity.
Ecclesiastes i. 2; xii. 8.
[830]
One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh.
Ecclesiastes i. 4.
The eye is not satisfied with seeing.
Ecclesiastes i. 8.
There is no new thing under the sun.
Ecclesiastes i. 9.
Is there anything whereof it may be said, See, this is new? It hath been already of old time, which was before us.[830:1]
Ecclesiastes i. 10.
All is vanity and vexation of spirit.
Ecclesiastes i. 14.
He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.
Ecclesiastes i. 18.
One event happeneth to them all.
Ecclesiastes ii. 14.
To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.
Ecclesiastes iii. 1.
A threefold cord is not quickly broken.
Ecclesiastes iv. 12.
Let thy words be few.
Ecclesiastes v. 2.
Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay.
Ecclesiastes v. 5.
The sleep of a labouring man is sweet.
Ecclesiastes v. 12.
A good name is better than precious ointment.
Ecclesiastes vii. 1.
It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting.
Ecclesiastes vii. 2.
As the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of a fool.
Ecclesiastes vii. 6.
In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider.
Ecclesiastes vii. 14.
Be not righteous overmuch.
Ecclesiastes vii. 16.
One man among a thousand have I found; but a woman among all those have I not found.
Ecclesiastes vii. 28.
[831]
God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.
Ecclesiastes vii. 29.
There is no discharge in that war.
Ecclesiastes viii. 8.
To eat, and to drink, and to be merry.
Ecclesiastes viii. 15; Luke xii. 19.
A living dog is better than a dead lion.
Ecclesiastes ix. 4.
Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.
Ecclesiastes ix. 10.
The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.
Ecclesiastes ix. 11.
A bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter.
Ecclesiastes ix. 20.
Cast thy bread upon the waters; for thou shalt find it after many days.
Ecclesiastes xi. 1.
In the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be.
Ecclesiastes xi. 3.
He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap.
Ecclesiastes xi. 4.
In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand.
Ecclesiastes xi. 6.
Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun.
Ecclesiastes xi. 7.
Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth.
Ecclesiastes xi. 9.
Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth.
Ecclesiastes xii. 1.
The grinders cease because they are few.
Ecclesiastes xii. 3.
The grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail; because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets.
Ecclesiastes xii. 5.
Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern.
Ecclesiastes xii. 6.
[832]
Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was; and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.
Ecclesiastes xii. 7.
The words of the wise are as goads, and as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies.
Ecclesiastes xii. 11.
Of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.
Ecclesiastes xii. 12.
Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man.
Ecclesiastes xii. 13.
For, lo! the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.
The Song of Solomon ii. 11, 12.
The little foxes, that spoil the vines.
The Song of Solomon ii. 15.
Terrible as an army with banners.
The Song of Solomon vi. 4, 10.
Like the best wine, . . . that goeth down sweetly, causing the lips of those that are asleep to speak.
The Song of Solomon vii. 9.
Love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave.
The Song of Solomon viii. 6.
Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.
The Song of Solomon viii. 7.
The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib.
Isaiah i. 3.
The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.
Isaiah i. 5.
As a lodge in a garden of cucumbers.
Isaiah i. 8.
They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
Isaiah ii. 4; Micah iv. 3.
In that day a man shall cast his idols . . . to the moles and to the bats.
Isaiah ii. 20.
[833]
Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils.
Isaiah ii. 22.
The stay and the staff, the whole stay of bread, and the whole stay of water.
Isaiah iii. 1.
Grind the faces of the poor.
Isaiah iii. 15.
Walk with stretched-forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go.
Isaiah iii. 16.
In that day seven women shall take hold of one man.
Isaiah iv. 1.
Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil.
Isaiah v. 20.
I am a man of unclean lips.
Isaiah vi. 5.
The Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost parts of the rivers of Egypt.
Isaiah vii. 18.
Wizards that peep and that mutter.
Isaiah viii. 19.
To the law and to the testimony.
Isaiah viii. 20.
The ancient and honorable.
Isaiah ix. 15.
The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.
Isaiah xi. 2.
The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid.
Isaiah xi. 6.
Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming.
Isaiah xiv. 9.
How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!
Isaiah xiv. 12.
The burden of the desert of the sea.
Isaiah xxi. 1.
Babylon is fallen, is fallen.
Isaiah xxi. 9.
Watchman, what of the night?
Isaiah xxi. 11.
Let us eat and drink; for to-morrow we shall die.
Isaiah xxii. 13.
[834]
Fasten him as a nail in a sure place.
Isaiah xxii. 23.
Whose merchants are princes.
Isaiah xxiii. 8.
A feast of fat things.
Isaiah xxv. 6.
For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little.
Isaiah xxviii. 10.
We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement.
Isaiah xxviii. 15.
Their strength is to sit still.
Isaiah xxx. 7.
Now go, write it before them in a table, and note it in a book.
Isaiah xxx. 8.
The desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose.
Isaiah xxxv. 1.
Thou trustest in the staff of this broken reed.
Isaiah xxxvi. 6.
Set thine house in order.
Isaiah xxxviii. 1.
All flesh is grass.
Isaiah xl. 6.
The nations are as a drop of a bucket.
Isaiah xl. 15.
A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench.
Isaiah xlii. 3.
There is no peace, saith the Lord, unto the wicked.
Isaiah xlviii. 22.
He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter.
Isaiah liii. 7.
Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts.
Isaiah lv. 7.
A little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation.
Isaiah lx. 22.
Give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.
Isaiah lxi. 3.
I have trodden the wine-press alone.
Isaiah lxiii. 3.
[835]
We all do fade as a leaf.
Isaiah lxiv. 6.
Peace, peace; when there is no peace.
Jeremiah vi. 14; viii. 11.
Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein.[835:1]
Jeremiah vi. 16.
Amend your ways and your doings.
Jeremiah vii. 3; xxvi. 13.
Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there?
Jeremiah viii. 22.
Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging-place of wayfaring men!
Jeremiah ix. 2.
Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?
Jeremiah xiii. 23.
A man of strife and a man of contention.
Jeremiah xv. 10.
Written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond.
Jeremiah xvii. 1.
He shall be buried with the burial of an ass.
Jeremiah xxii. 19.
As if a wheel had been in the midst of a wheel.
Ezekiel x. 10.
The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge.
Ezekiel xviii. 2; (Jeremiah xxxi. 29.)
Stood at the parting of the way.
Ezekiel xxi. 21.
Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.
Daniel v. 27.
According to the law of the Medes and Persians.
Daniel vi. 12.
Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.
Daniel xii. 4.
They have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.
Hosea viii. 7.
I have multiplied visions, and used similitudes.
Hosea viii. 10.
[836]
Your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions.
Joel ii. 28.
Multitudes in the valley of decision.
Joel iii. 14.
They shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig-tree.
Micah iv. 4.
Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it.
Habakkuk ii. 2.
Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live forever?
Zechariah i. 5.
For who hath despised the day of small things?
Zechariah iv. 10.
Prisoners of hope.
Zechariah ix. 12.
I was wounded in the house of my friends.
Zechariah xiii. 6.
But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings.
Malachi iv. 2.
Great is truth, and mighty above all things.[836:1]
1 Esdras iv. 41.
Unto you is paradise opened.
2 Esdras viii. 52.
I shall light a candle of understanding in thine heart, which shall not be put out.
2 Esdras xiv. 25.
So they [Azarias and Tobias] went forth both, and the young man's dog went with them.
Tobit v. 16.
So they went their way, and the dog went after them.
Tobit xi. 4.
Our time is a very shadow that passeth away.
Wisdom of Solomon ii. 5.
Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds before they be withered.
Wisdom of Solomon ii. 8.
Wisdom is the gray hair unto men, and an unspotted life is old age.
Wisdom of Solomon iv. 8.
[837]
When I was born I drew in the common air, and fell upon the earth, which is of like nature, and the first voice which I uttered was crying, as all others do.[837:1]
Wisdom of Solomon vii. 3.
Observe the opportunity.
Ecclesiasticus iv. 20.
Be not ignorant of anything in a great matter or a small.
Ecclesiasticus v. 15.
Whatsoever thou takest in hand, remember the end, and thou shalt never do amiss.
Ecclesiasticus vii. 36.
Miss not the discourse of the elders.
Ecclesiasticus viii. 9.
Forsake not an old friend, for the new is not comparable unto him. A new friend is as new wine: when it is old thou shalt drink it with pleasure.
Ecclesiasticus ix. 10.
He that toucheth pitch shall be defiled therewith.
Ecclesiasticus xiii. 1.
He will laugh thee to scorn.
Ecclesiasticus xiii. 7.
Gladness of heart is the life of man, and the joyfulness of a man prolongeth his days.
Ecclesiasticus xxx. 22.
Consider that I laboured not for myself only, but for all them that seek learning.
Ecclesiasticus xxxiii. 17.
For of the most High cometh healing.
Ecclesiasticus xxxviii. 2.
Whose talk is of bullocks.
Ecclesiasticus xxxviii. 25.
These were honoured in their generations, and were the glory of the times.
Ecclesiasticus xliv. 7.
There be of them that have left a name behind them.
Ecclesiasticus xliv. 8.
Nicanor lay dead in his harness.
2 Maccabees xv. 28.
If I have done well, and as is fitting, . . . it is that which I desired; but if slenderly and meanly, it is that which I could attain unto.
2 Maccabees xv. 38.
[816:1] The place thereof shall know it no more.—Psalm ciii. 16.
Usually quoted, "The place that has known him shall know him no more."
[818:1] Of very babes.—Book of Common Prayer.
[818:2] Thou madest him lower than.—Book of Common Prayer.
[818:3] The lot is fallen unto me in a fair ground.—Book of Common Prayer.
[818:4] Apple of an eye.—Book of Common Prayer.
[818:5] He rode upon the cherubim, and did fly; he came flying upon the wings of the wind.—Book of Common Prayer.
[819:1] One day telleth another; and one night certifieth another.—Book of Common Prayer.
[819:2] He shall feed me in a green pasture, and lead me forth beside the waters of comfort.—Book of Common Prayer.
[819:3] Thy rod and thy staff comfort me.—Book of Common Prayer.
[819:4] My cup shall be full.—Book of Common Prayer.
[819:5] He fashioneth all the hearts of them.—Book of Common Prayer.
[819:6] And yet saw I never . . . begging their bread.—Book of Common Prayer.
[819:7] Flourishing.—Book of Common Prayer.
[819:8] While I was thus musing the fire kindled.—Book of Common Prayer.
[820:1] Lord, let me know my end, and the number of my days, that I may be certified how long I have to live.—Book of Common Prayer.
[820:2] Every man living is altogether vanity.—Book of Common Prayer.
[820:3] And cannot tell.—Book of Common Prayer.
[820:4] As the hart desireth the water-brooks.—Book of Common Prayer.
[820:5] One deep calleth another.—Book of Common Prayer.
[820:6] God is our hope and strength.—Book of Common Prayer.
[820:7] The hill of Sion is a fair place, and the joy of the whole earth.—Book of Common Prayer.
[820:8] Nevertheless, man will not abide in honour, seeing he may be compared unto the beasts that perish.—Book of Common Prayer.
[820:9] But it was even thou, my companion, my guide, and mine own familiar friend.—Book of Common Prayer.
[821:1] The words of his mouth were softer than butter, having war in his heart.—Book of Common Prayer.
[821:2] Like the deaf adder, that stoppeth her ears; which refuseth to hear the voice of the charmer, charm he never so wisely.—Book of Common Prayer.
[821:3] As for the children of men, they are but vanity: the children of men are deceitful upon the weights; they are altogether lighter than vanity itself.—Book of Common Prayer.
[821:4] He shall come down like the rain into a fleece of wool.—Book of Common Prayer.
[821:5] Nor yet.—Book of Common Prayer.
[821:6] One day in thy courts.—Book of Common Prayer.
[821:7] Ungodliness.—Book of Common Prayer.
[822:1] Seeing that is past.—Book of Common Prayer.
[822:2] We bring our years to an end, as it were a tale that is told.—Book of Common Prayer.
[822:3] The days of our age are threescore years and ten; and though men be so strong that they come to fourscore years, yet is their strength then but labour and sorrow; so soon passeth it away, and we are gone.—Book of Common Prayer.
[822:4] Prosper thou the work of our hands upon us; oh prosper thou our handiwork.—Book of Common Prayer.
[822:5] I will say unto the Lord, Thou art my hope and my stronghold; my God, in him will I trust.—Book of Common Prayer.
[822:6] For the pestilence that walketh in darkness, nor for the sickness that destroyeth in the noonday.—Book of Common Prayer.
[822:7] Like a palm-tree, and shall spread abroad like a cedar in Libanus.—Book of Common Prayer.
[822:8] The Lord is king; the earth may be glad thereof.—Book of Common Prayer.
[823:1] The days of man are but as grass; for he flourisheth as a flower of the field.—Book of Common Prayer.
[823:2] For as soon as the wind goeth over it, it is gone.—Book of Common Prayer.
[823:3] To his work.—Book of Common Prayer.
[823:4] And occupy their business.—Book of Common Prayer.
[823:5] In the day of thy power shall the people offer thee free-will-offerings with an holy worship: the dew of thy birth is of the womb of the morning.—Book of Common Prayer.
[823:6] Right dear.—Book of Common Prayer.
[823:7] The same stone which the builders refused is become the head stone in the corner.—Book of Common Prayer.
[823:8] I have more understanding than my teachers: for thy testimonies are my study.—Book of Common Prayer.
[823:9] A lantern unto my feet, and a light unto my paths.—Book of Common Prayer.
[824:1] The sun shall not burn thee by day, neither the moon by night.—Book of Common Prayer.
[824:2] Plenteousness.—Book of Common Prayer.
[824:3] Like the olive branches.—Book of Common Prayer.
[824:4] I will not suffer mine eyes to sleep, nor mine eyes to slumber.—Book of Common Prayer.
[824:5] How good and joyful a thing it is, brethren.—Book of Common Prayer.
[824:6] As for our harps, we hanged them up upon the trees.—Book of Common Prayer.
[824:7] And remain.—Book of Common Prayer.
[824:8] Though I be made secretly, and fashioned beneath in the earth.—Book of Common Prayer.
[835:1] Stare super vias antiquas.—The Vulgate.
[836:1] Magna est veritas et prævalet—The Vulgate.
Usually quoted "Magna est veritas et prævalebit."
[838]
Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.
Matthew ii. 18; Jeremiah xxxi. 15.
Man shall not live by bread alone.
Matthew iv. 4; Deuteronomy viii. 3.
Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted?
Matthew v. 13.
Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.
Matthew v. 14.
Ye have heard that it have been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.
Matthew v. 43.
Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them.
Matthew vi. 1.
When thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth.
Matthew vi. 3.
They think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.
Matthew vi. 7.
Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.
Matthew vi. 20.
Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
Matthew vi. 21.
The light of the body is the eye.
Matthew vi. 22.
Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.
Matthew vi. 24.
Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink.
Matthew vi. 25.
Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin.
Matthew vi. 28.
Take therefore no thought for the morrow; for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
Matthew vi. 34.
Neither cast ye your pearls before swine.
Matthew vii. 6.
[839]
Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.
Matthew vii. 7.
Every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth.
Matthew vii. 8.
Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?
Matthew vii. 9.
Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.
Matthew vii. 12.
Wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction.
Matthew vii. 13.
Strait is the gate and narrow is the way.
Matthew vii. 14.
By their fruits ye shall know them.
Matthew vii. 20.
It was founded upon a rock.
Matthew vii. 25.
The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head.
Matthew viii. 20.
The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few.
Matthew ix. 37.
Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.
Matthew x. 16.
The very hairs of your head are all numbered.
Matthew x. 30.
Wisdom is justified of her children.
Matthew xi. 19; Luke vii. 35.
The tree is known by his fruit.
Matthew xii. 33.
Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.
Matthew xii. 34.
Pearl of great price.
Matthew xiii. 46.
A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country and in his own house.
Matthew xiii. 57.
[840]
Be of good cheer: it is I; be not afraid.
Matthew xiv. 27.
If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.
Matthew xv. 14.
The dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table.
Matthew xv. 27.
When it is evening, ye say it will be fair weather: for the sky is red.
Matthew xvi. 2.
The signs of the times.
Matthew xvi. 3.
Get thee behind me, Satan.
Matthew xvi. 23.
What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
Matthew xvi. 26.
It is good for us to be here.
Matthew xvii. 4.
What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.
Matthew xix. 6.
Love thy neighbour as thyself.
Matthew xix. 19.
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.
Matthew xix. 24.
Borne the burden and heat of the day.
Matthew xx. 12.
Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?
Matthew xx. 15.
For many are called, but few are chosen.
Matthew xxii. 14.
They made light of it.
Matthew xxii. 5.
Render therefore unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's.
Matthew xxii. 21.
Woe unto you, . . . for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin.
Matthew xxiii. 23.
Blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.
Matthew xxiii. 24.
[841]
Whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones.
Matthew xxiii. 27.
As a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings.
Matthew xxiii. 37.
Wars and rumours of wars.
Matthew xxiv. 6.
The end is not yet.
Matthew xxiv. 6.
Wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together.
Matthew xxiv. 28.
Abomination of desolation.
Matthew xxiv. 15; Mark xiii. 14.
Unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance; but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.
Matthew xxv. 29.
The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.
Matthew xxvi. 41.
The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.
Mark ii. 27.
If a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.
Mark iii. 25.
He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.
Mark iv. 9.
My name is Legion.
Mark v. 9.
My little daughter lieth at the point of death.
Mark v. 23.
Clothed, and in his right mind.
Mark v. 15; Luke viii. 35.
Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.
Mark ix. 44.
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
Luke ii. 14.
The axe is laid unto the root of the trees.
Luke iii. 9.
Physician, heal thyself.
Luke iv. 23.
Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you!
Luke vi. 26.
[842]
Nothing is secret which shall not be made manifest.
Luke viii. 17.
Peace be to this house.
Luke x. 5.
The labourer is worthy of his hire.
Luke x. 7; 1 Timothy v. 18.
Go, and do thou likewise.
Luke x. 37.
But one thing is needful; and Mary hath chosen that good part which shall not be taken away from her.
Luke x. 42.
He that is not with me is against me.
Luke xi. 23.
Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.
Luke xii. 19.
Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning.
Luke xii. 35.
Which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it.
Luke xiv. 28.
The children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.
Luke xvi. 8.
It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea.
Luke xvii. 2.
Remember Lot's wife.
Luke xvii. 32.
Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee.
Luke xix. 22.
If they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?
Luke xxiii. 31.
He was a good man, and a just.
Luke xxiii. 50.
Did not our heart burn within us while he talked with us?
Luke xxiv. 32.
The true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.
John i. 9.
Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?
John i. 46.
The wind bloweth where it listeth.
John iii. 8.
[843]
He was a burning and a shining light.
John v. 35.
Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.
John vi. 12.
Judge not according to the appearance.
John vii. 24.
The truth shall make you free.
John viii. 32.
There is no truth in him.
John viii. 44.
The night cometh when no man can work.
John ix. 4.
The poor always ye have with you.
John xii. 8.
Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you.
John xii. 35.
Let not your heart be troubled.
John xiv. 1.
In my Father's house are many mansions.
John xiv. 2.
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
John xv. 13.
Thy money perish with thee.
Acts viii. 20.
It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.
Acts ix. 5.
Now there was at Joppa a certain disciple named Tabitha, which by interpretation is called Dorcas: this woman was full of good works and almsdeeds which she did.
Acts ix. 36.
Lewd fellows of the baser sort.
Acts xvii. 5.
Great is Diana of the Ephesians.
Acts xix. 28.
The law is open.
Acts xix. 38.
It is more blessed to give than to receive.
Acts xx. 35.
Brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel.
Acts xxii. 3.
When I have a convenient season, I will call for thee.
Acts xxiv. 25.
I appeal unto Cæsar.
Acts xxx. 11.
Words of truth and soberness.
Acts xxvi. 25.
[844]
For this thing was not done in a corner.
Acts xxvi. 26.
Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.
Acts xxvi. 28.
There is no respect of persons with God.
Romans ii. 11.
Fear of God before their eyes.
Romans ii. 18.
God forbid.
Romans ii. 31.
Who against hope believed in hope.
Romans iv. 18.
Speak after the manner of men.
Romans vi. 19.
The wages of sin is death.
Romans vi. 23.
For the good that I would I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do.
Romans viii. 19.
All things work together for good to them that love God.
Romans viii. 28.
Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?
Romans ix. 21.
A zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.
Romans x. 2.
Given to hospitality.
Romans xii. 13.
Be not wise in your own conceits.
Romans xii. 16.
Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men.
Romans xii. 17.
If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.
Romans xii. 18.
If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.
Romans xii. 20.
Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.
Romans xii. 21.
The powers that be are ordained of God.
Romans xiii. 1.
Render therefore to all their dues.
Romans xiii. 7.
Owe no man anything, but to love one another.
Romans xiii. 8.
[845]
Love is the fulfilling of the law.
Romans xiii. 10.
Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.
Romans xiv. 5.
God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty.
1 Corinthians i. 27.
I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.
1 Corinthians iii. 6.
Every man's work shall be made manifest.
1 Corinthians iii. 13.
Not to think of men above that which is written.[845:1]
1 Corinthians iv. 6.
Absent in body, but present in spirit.
1 Corinthians v. 3.
The fashion of this world passeth away.
1 Corinthians vii. 31.
I am made all things to all men.
1 Corinthians ix. 22.
Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.
1 Corinthians x. 12.
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
1 Corinthians xiii. 1.
Though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.
1 Corinthians xiii. 2.
Charity suffereth long and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up.
1 Corinthians xiii. 4.
We know in part, and we prophesy in part.
1 Corinthians xiii. 9.
When I was a child, I spake as a child. . . . When I became a man, I put away childish things.
1 Corinthians xiii. 11.
Now we see through a glass, darkly.
1 Corinthians xiii. 12.
And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
1 Corinthians xiii. 13.
If the trumpet give an uncertain sound.
1 Corinthians xiv. 8.
[846]
Let all things be done decently and in order.
1 Corinthians xiv. 40.
Evil communications corrupt good manners.[846:1]
1 Corinthians xv. 33.
The first man is of the earth, earthy.
1 Corinthians xv. 47.
In the twinkling of an eye.
1 Corinthians xv. 52.
O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
1 Corinthians xv. 55.
Not of the letter, but of the spirit; for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.
2 Corinthians iii. 6.
We have such hope, we use great plainness of speech.
2 Corinthians iii. 12.
We walk by faith, not by sight.
2 Corinthians v. 7.
Now is the accepted time.
2 Corinthians vi. 2.
By evil report and good report.
2 Corinthians vi. 8.
As having nothing, and yet possessing all things.
2 Corinthians vi. 10.
Though I be rude in speech.
2 Corinthians xi. 6.
Forty stripes save one.
2 Corinthians xi. 24.
A thorn in the flesh.
2 Corinthians xii. 7.
Strength is made perfect in weakness.
2 Corinthians xii. 9.
The right hands of fellowship.
Galatians ii. 9.
Weak and beggarly elements.
Galatians iv. 9.
It is good to be zealously affected always in a good thing.
Galatians iv. 18.
Ye are fallen from grace.
Galatians v. 4.
A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.
Galatians v. 9.
Every man shall bear his own burden.
Galatians vi. 5.
[847]
Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
Galatians vi. 7.
Middle wall of partition.
Ephesians ii. 14.
Carried about with every wind of doctrine.
Ephesians iv. 14.
Speak every man truth with his neighbour.
Ephesians iv. 25.
Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath.
Ephesians iv. 26.
To live is Christ, and to die is gain.
Philippians i. 21.
Whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame.
Philippians iii. 19.
The peace of God, which passeth all understanding.
Philippians iv. 7.
Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report: if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.
Philippians iv. 8.
I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.
Philippians iv. 11.
Touch not; taste not; handle not.
Colossians ii. 21.
Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth.
Colossians iii. 2.
Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt.
Colossians iv. 6.
Labour of love.
1 Thessalonians i. 3.
Study to be quiet.
1 Thessalonians iv. 11.
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.
1 Thessalonians v. 21.
The law is good, if a man use it lawfully.
1 Timothy i. 8.
Not greedy of filthy lucre.
1 Timothy iii. 3.
He hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.
1 Timothy v. 8.
[848]
Busybodies, speaking things which they ought not.
1 Timothy v. 13.
Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake.
1 Timothy v. 23.
The love of money is the root of all evil.
1 Timothy vi. 10.
Fight the good fight.
1 Timothy vi. 12.
Rich in good works.
1 Timothy vi. 18.
Science falsely so called.
1 Timothy vi. 20.
A workman that needeth not to be ashamed.
2 Timothy ii. 15.
I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.
2 Timothy iv. 7.
Unto the pure all things are pure.
Titus i. 15.
Such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat.
Hebrews v. 12.
Every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe.
Hebrews v. 13.
Strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age.
Hebrews v. 14.
If God be for us, who can be against us.
Hebrews viii. 31.
Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Hebrews xi. 1.
Of whom the world was not worthy.
Hebrews xi. 38.
A cloud of witnesses.
Hebrews xii. 1.
Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth.
Hebrews xii. 6.
The spirits of just men made perfect.
Hebrews xii. 23.
Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.
Hebrews xiii. 2.
Yesterday, and to-day, and forever.
Hebrews xiii. 8.
Blessed is the man that endureth temptation; for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life.
James i. 12.
[849]
Be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.
James i. 19.
How great a matter a little fire kindleth!
James iii. 5.
The tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil.[849:1]
James iii. 8.
Resist the Devil, and he will flee from you.
James iv. 7.
Hope to the end.
1 Peter i. 13.
Fear God. Honour the king.
1 Peter ii. 17.
Ornament of a meek and quiet spirit.
1 Peter iii. 4.
Giving honour unto the wife as unto the weaker vessel.
1 Peter iii. 7.
Be ye all of one mind.
1 Peter iii. 8.
Charity shall cover the multitude of sins.
1 Peter iv. 8.
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary, the Devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.
1 Peter v. 8.
And the day star arise in your hearts.
2 Peter i. 19.
The dog is turned to his own vomit again.
2 Peter ii. 22.
Bowels of compassion.
1 John iii. 17.
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear.
1 John iv. 18.
Be thou faithful unto death.
Revelation ii. 10.
He shall rule them with a rod of iron.
Revelation ii. 27.
All nations and kindreds and tongues.
Revelation vii. 9.
I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.
Revelation xxii. 13.
[845:1] Usually quoted, "To be wise above that which is written."
[846:1] Φθείρουσιν ἤθη χρήσθ' ὁμιλίαι κακαί.—Menander (341 b. c.). (Dübner's edition of his "Fragments," appended to Aristophanes in Didot's Bibliotheca Græca, p. 102, line 101.)
[849:1] Usually quoted, "The tongue is an unruly member."
[850]
We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; and we have done those things which we ought not to have done.
Morning Prayer.
The noble army of martyrs.
Morning Prayer.
Afflicted, or distressed, in mind, body, or estate.
Prayer for all Conditions of Men.
Have mercy upon us miserable sinners.
The Litany.
From envy, hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness.
The Litany.
The world, the flesh, and the devil.
The Litany.
The kindly fruits of the earth.
The Litany.
Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest.
Collect for the Second Sunday in Advent.
Renounce the Devil and all his works.
Baptism of Infants.
Grant that the old Adam in these persons may be so buried, that the new man may be raised up in them.
Baptism of those of Riper Years.
The pomps and vanity of this wicked world.
Catechism.
To keep my hands from picking and stealing.
Catechism.
To do my duty in that state of life unto which it shall please God to call me.
Catechism.
An outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.
Catechism.
Let him now speak, or else hereafter for ever hold his peace.
Solemnization of Matrimony.
To have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part.
Solemnization of Matrimony.
[851]
To love, cherish, and to obey.
Solemnization of Matrimony.
With this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow.[851:1]
Solemnization of Matrimony.
In the midst of life we are in death.[851:2]
The Burial Service.
Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, in sure and certain hope of the resurrection.
The Burial Service.
Whose service is perfect freedom.
Collect for Peace.
Show thy servant the light of thy countenance.
The Psalter. Psalm xxxi. 18.
But it was even thou, my companion, my guide, and mine own familiar friend.
The Psalter. Psalm lv. 14.
Men to be of one mind in an house.
The Psalter. Psalm lxviii. 6.
The iron entered into his soul.
The Psalter. Psalm cv. 18.
The dew of thy birth is of the womb of the morning.
The Psalter. Psalm cx. 3.
[851:1] With this ring I thee wed, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow.—Book of Common Prayer, according to the use of the Protestant Episcopal Church in America.
[851:2] This is derived from a Latin antiphon, said to have been composed by Notker, a monk of St. Gall, in 911, while watching some workmen building a bridge at Martinsbrücke, in peril of their lives. It forms the ground-work of Luther's antiphon "De Morte."
Untimely grave.
Psalm vii.
And though he promise to his loss,
He makes his promise good.
Psalm xv. 5.
The sweet remembrance of the just
Shall flourish when he sleeps in dust.
Psalm cxii. 6.
[851:3] Nahum Tate, 1652-1715; Nicholas Brady, 1659-1726.
[852]
All the brothers were valiant, and all the sisters virtuous.
From the inscription on the tomb of the Duchess of Newcastle in Westminster Abbey.
Am I not a man and a brother?
From a medallion by Wedgwood (1787), representing a negro in chains, with one knee on the ground, and both hands lifted up to heaven. This was adopted as a characteristic seal by the Antislavery Society of London.
Anything for a quiet life.
Title of a play by Middleton.
Art and part.
A Scotch law-phrase,—an accessory before and after the fact. A man is said to be art and part of a crime when he contrives the manner of the deed, and concurs with and encourages those who commit the crime, although he does not put his own hand to the actual execution of it.—Scott: Tales of a Grandfather, chap. xxii. (Execution of Morton.)
Art preservative of all arts.
From the inscription upon the façade of the house at Harlem formerly occupied by Laurent Koster (or Coster), who is charged, among others, with the invention of printing. Mention is first made of this inscription about 1628:—
Memoriæ Sacrum
Typogaraphia
Ars artium omnium
Conservatrix.
Hic primum inventa
Circa Annum mccccxl.
As gingerly.
Chapman: May Day. Shakespeare: Two Gentlemen of Verona.
Be sure you are right, then go ahead.
[853] Before you could say Jack Robinson.
This current phrase is said to be derived from a humorous song by Hudson, a tobacconist in Shoe Lane, London. He was a professional song-writer and vocalist, who used to be engaged to sing at supper-rooms and theatrical houses.
Begging the question.
This is a common logical fallacy, petitio principii; and the first explanation of the phrase is to be found in Aristotle's "Topica," viii. 13, where the five ways of begging the question are set forth. The earliest English work in which the expression is found is "The Arte of Logike plainlie set forth in our English Tongue, &c." (1584.)
Better to wear out than to rust out.
When a friend told Bishop Cumberland (1632-1718) he would wear himself out by his incessant application, "It is better," replied the Bishop, "to wear out than to rust out."—Horne: Sermon on the Duty of Contending for the Truth.
Boswell: Tour to the Hebrides, p. 18, note.
Beware of a man of one book.
When St. Thomas Aquinas was asked in what manner a man might best become learned, he answered, "By reading one book." The homo unius libri is indeed proverbially formidable to all conversational figurantes.—Southey: The Doctor, p. 164.
Bitter end.
This phrase is nearly without meaning as it is used. The true phrase, "better end," is used properly to designate a crisis, or the moment of an extremity. When in a gale a vessel has paid out all her cable, her cable has run out to the "better end,"—the end which is secured within the vessel and little used. Robinson Crusoe in describing the terrible storm in Yarmouth Roads says, "We rode with two anchors ahead, and the cables veered out to the better end."
Cockles of the heart.
Latham says the most probable explanation of this phrase lies (1) in the likeness of a heart to a cockleshell,—the base of the former being compared to the hinge of the latter; (2) in the zoölogical name for the cockle and its congeners being Cardium, from καρδια (heart).
[854] Castles in the air.
This is a proverbial phrase found throughout English literature, the first instance noted being in Sir Philip Sidney's "Defence of Poesy."
Consistency, thou art a jewel.
This is one of those popular sayings—like "Be good, and you will be happy," or "Virtue is its own reward"—that, like Topsy, "never was born, only jist growed." From the earliest times it has been the popular tendency to call this or that cardinal virtue, or bright and shining excellence, a jewel, by way of emphasis. For example, Iago says,—
"Good name, in man or woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls."
Shakespeare elsewhere calls experience a "jewel." Miranda says her modesty is the "jewel" in her dower; and in "All 's Well that ends Well," Diana terms her chastity the "jewel" of her house.—R. A. Wight.
O discretion, thou art a jewel!—The Skylark, a Collection of well-chosen English Songs. (London, 1772.)
The origin of this expression is unknown. Some wag of the day allayed public curiosity in regard to its source with the information that it is from the ballad of Robin Roughhead in Murtagh's "Collection of Ballads (1754)." It is needless to say that Murtagh is a verbal phantom, and the ballad of Robin Roughhead first appeared in an American newspaper in 1867.
Cotton is King; or, Slavery in the Light of Political Economy.
This is the title of a book by David Christy (1855).
The expression "Cotton is king" was used by James Henry Hammond in the United States Senate, March, 1858.
Dead as Chelsea.
To get Chelsea: to obtain the benefit of that hospital. "Dead as Chelsea, by God!" an exclamation uttered by a grenadier at Fontenoy, on having his leg carried away by a cannon-ball.—Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1758 (quoted by Brady, "Varieties of Literature," 1826).
Die in the last ditch.
To William of Orange may be ascribed this saying. When Buckingham urged the inevitable destruction which hung over the United Provinces, and asked him whether he did not see that the commonwealth was ruined, "There is one certain means," replied the Prince, "by which I can be sure never to see my country's ruin,—I will die in the last ditch."—Hume: History of England. (1622.)
[855] Drive a coach and six through an Act of Parliament.
Macaulay ("History of England," chap. xii.) gives a saying "often in the mouth of Stephen Rice [afterward Chief Baron of the Exchequer], 'I will drive a coach and six through the Act of Settlement.'"
During good behaviour.
That after the said limitation shall take effect, . . . judge's commissions be made quando se bene gesserit.—Statutes 12 and 13 William III. c. 2, sect. 3.
Eclipse first, the rest nowhere.
Emerald Isle.
Dr. William Drennan (1754-1820) says this expression was first used in a party song called "Erin, to her own Tune," written in 1795. The song appears to have been anonymous.
Era of good feeling.
The title of an article in the "Boston Centinel," July 12, 1817.
Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.
It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.—John Philpot Curran: Speech upon the Right of Election, 1790. (Speeches. Dublin, 1808.)
There is one safeguard known generally to the wise, which is an advantage and security to all, but especially to democracies as against despots. What is it? Distrust.—Demosthenes: Philippic 2, sect. 24.
Fiat justitia ruat cœlum.
William Watson: Decacordon of Ten Quodlibeticall Questions (1602). Prynne: Fresh Discovery of Prodigious New Wandering-Blazing Stars (second edition, London, 1646). Ward: Simple Cobbler of Aggawam in America (1647).
Fiat Justitia et ruat Mundus.—Egerton Papers (1552, p. 25). Camden Society (1840). Aikin: Court and Times of James I., vol. ii. p. 500 (1625).
January 31, 1642, the Duke of Richmond in a speech before the House of Lords used these words: Regnet Justitia et ruat Cœlum. (Old Parliamentary History, vol. x. p. 28.)
[856] Free soil, free men, free speech, Frémont.
The Republican Party rallying cry in 1856.
Gentle craft.
According to Brady ("Clavis Calendaria"), this designation arose from the fact that in an old romance a prince of the name of Crispin is made to exercise, in honour of his namesake, Saint Crispin, the trade of shoemaking. There is a tradition that King Edward IV., in one of his disguises, once drank with a party of shoemakers, and pledged them. The story is alluded to in the old play of "George a-Greene" (1599):—
Marry, because you have drank with the King,
And the King hath so graciously pledged you,
You shall no more be called shoemakers;
But you and yours, to the world's end,
Shall be called the trade of the gentle craft.
Gentlemen of the French guard, fire first.
Lord C. Hay at the battle of Fontenoy, 1745. To which the Comte d'Auteroches replied, "Sir, we never fire first; please to fire yourselves."—Fournier: L'Esprit dans l'histoire.
Good as a play.
An exclamation of Charles II. when in Parliament attending the discussion of Lord Ross's Divorce Bill.
The king remained in the House of Peers while his speech was taken into consideration,—a common practice with him; for the debates amused his sated mind, and were sometimes, he used to say, as good as a comedy.—Macaulay: Review of the Life and Writings of Sir William Temple.
Nullos his mallem ludos spectasse.—Horace: Satires, ii. 8, 79.
Greatest happiness of the greatest number.
That action is best which procures the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers.—Hutcheson: Inquiry concerning Moral Good and Evil, sect. 3. (1720.)
Priestley was the first (unless it was Beccaria) who taught my lips to pronounce this sacred truth,—that the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation.—Bentham: Works, vol. x. p. 142.
The expression is used by Beccaria in the introduction to his "Essay on Crimes and Punishments." (1764.)
Hanging of his cat on Monday
For killing of a mouse on Sunday.
Drunken Barnaby's Four Journeys (edition of 1805, p. 5).
[857] Hobson's choice.
Tobias Hobson (died 1630) was the first man in England that let out hackney horses. When a man came for a horse he was led into the stable, where there was a great choice, but he obliged him to take the horse which stood next to the stable-door; so that every customer was alike well served according to his chance,—from whence it became a proverb when what ought to be your election was forced upon you, to say, "Hobson's choice."—Spectator, No. 509.
Intolerable in Almighty God to a black beetle.
Lord Coleridge remarked that Maule told him what he said in the "black beetle" matter: "Creswell, who had been his pupil, was on the other side in a case where he was counsel, and was very lofty in his manner. Maule appealed to the court: 'My lords, we are vertebrate animals, we are mammalia! My learned friend's manner would be intolerable in Almighty God to a black beetle.'" (Repeated to a member of the legal profession in the United States.)
It is a far cry to Lochow.
Lochow and the adjacent districts formed the original seat of the Campbells. The expression of "a far cry to Lochow" was proverbial. (Note to Scott's "Rob Roy," chap. xxix.)
Lucid interval.
Bacon: Henry VII. Sidney: On Government, vol. i. chap. ii. sect. 24. Fuller: A Pisgah Sight of Palestine, book iv. chap. ii. South: Sermon, vol. viii. p. 403. Dryden: MacFlecknoe. Mathew Henry: Commentaries, Psalm lxxxviii. Johnson: Life of Lyttelton. Burke: On the French Revolution.
Nisi suadeat intervallis.
Mince the matter.
Cervantes: Don Quixote, Author's Preface. Shakespeare: Othello, act ii. sc. 3. William King: Ulysses and Teresias.
Months without an R.
It is unseasonable and unwholesome in all months that have not an R in their name to eat an oyster.—Butler: Dyet's Dry Dinner. (1599.)
[858] Nation of shopkeepers.
From an oration purporting to have been delivered by Samuel Adams at the State House in Philadelphia, Aug. 1, 1776. (Philadelphia, printed; London, reprinted for E. Johnson, No. 4 Ludgate Hill, 1776.) W. V. Wells, in his Life of Adams, says: "No such American edition has ever been seen, but at least four copies are known of the London issue. A German translation of this oration was printed in 1778, perhaps at Berne; the place of publication is not given."
To found a great empire for the sole purpose of raising up a people of customers may at first sight appear a project fit only for a nation of shopkeepers.—Adam Smith: Wealth of Nations, vol. ii. book iv. chap. vii. part 3. (1775.)
And what is true of a shopkeeper is true of a shopkeeping nation.—Tucker (Dean of Gloucester): Tract. (1766.)
Let Pitt then boast of his victory to his nation of shopkeepers.—Bertrand Barère. (June 11, 1794.)
New departure.
This new page opened in the book of our public expenditures, and this new departure taken, which leads into the bottomless gulf of civil pensions and family gratuities.—T. H. Benton: Speech in the U. S. Senate against a grant to President Harrison's widow, April, 1841.
Nothing succeeds like success.
(Rien ne réussit comme le succès.—Dumas: Ange Pitou, vol. i. p. 72. 1854.) A French proverb.
Orthodoxy is my doxy; Heterodoxy is another man's doxy.
"I have heard frequent use," said the late Lord Sandwich, in a debate on the Test Laws, "of the words 'orthodoxy' and 'heterodoxy;' but I confess myself at a loss to know precisely what they mean." "Orthodoxy, my Lord," said Bishop Warburton, in a whisper,—"orthodoxy is my doxy; heterodoxy is another man's doxy."—Priestley: Memoirs, vol. i. p. 572.
Paradise of fools; Fool's paradise.
The earliest instance of this expression is found in William Bullein's "Dialogue," p. 28 (1573). It is used by Shakespeare, Middleton, Milton, Pope, Fielding, Crabbe, and others.
Paying through the nose.
Grimm says that Odin had a poll-tax which was called in Sweden a nose-tax; it was a penny per nose, or poll.—Deutsche Rechts Alterthümer.
[859] Public trusts.
It is not fit the public trusts should be lodged in the hands of any till they are first proved, and found fit for the business they are to be intrusted with.—Mathew Henry: Commentaries, Timothy iii.
To execute laws is a royal office; to execute orders is not to be a king. However, a political executive magistracy, though merely such, is a great trust.—Burke: On the French Revolution.
When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself as public property.—Thomas Jefferson ("Winter in Washington, 1807"), in a conversation with Baron Humboldt. See Rayner's "Life of Jefferson," p. 356 (Boston, 1834).
The very essence of a free government consists in considering offices as public trusts, bestowed for the good of the country, and not for the benefit of an individual or a party.—John C. Calhoun: Speech, July 13, 1835.
The phrase, "public office is a public trust," has of late become common property.—Charles Sumner (May 31, 1872).
The appointing power of the pope is treated as a public trust.—W. W. Crapo (1881).
The public offices are a public trust.—Dorman B. Eaton (1881).
Public office is a public trust.—Abram S. Hewitt (1883).
He who regards office as a public trust.—Daniel S. Lamont (1884).
Rather your room as your company.
Marriage of Wit and Wisdom (circa 1570).
Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.
From an inscription on the cannon near which the ashes of President John Bradshaw were lodged, on the top of a high hill near Martha Bay in Jamaica.—Stiles: History of the Three Judges of King Charles I.
This supposititious epitaph was found among the papers of Mr. Jefferson, and in his handwriting. It was supposed to be one of Dr. Franklin's spirit-stirring inspirations.—Randall: Life of Jefferson, vol. iii. p. 585.
Rest and be thankful.
An inscription on a stone seat on the top of one of the Highlands in Scotland. It is also the title of one of Wordsworth's poems.
Rowland for an Oliver.
These were two of the most famous in the list of Charlemagne's twelve peers; and their exploits are rendered so ridiculously and equally extravagant by the old romancers, that from thence arose that saying amongst our plain and sensible ancestors of giving one a "Rowland for his Oliver," to signify the matching one incredible lie with another.—Thomas Warburton.
[860] Sardonic smile.
The island of Sardinia, consisting chiefly of marshes and mountains, has from the earliest period to the present been cursed with a noxious air, an ill-cultivated soil, and a scanty population. The convulsions produced by its poisonous plants gave rise to the expression of sardonic smile, which is as old as Homer (Odyssey, xx. 302).—Mahon: History of England, vol. i. p. 287.
The explanation given by Mahon of the meaning of "sardonic smile" is to be sure the traditional one, and was believed in by the late classical writers. But in the Homeric passage referred to, the word is "sardanion" (σαρδάνιον), not "sardonion." There is no evidence that Sardinia was known to the composers of what we call Homer. It looks as though the word was to be connected with the verb σαίρω, "show the teeth;" "grin like a dog;" hence that the "sardonic smile" was a "grim laugh."—M. H. Morgan.
Sister Anne, do you see any one coming?
The anxious question of one of the wives of Bluebeard.
Stone-wall Jackson.
This saying took its rise from the battle of Bull Run, July 21, 1861. Said General Bernard E. Bee, "See, there is Jackson, standing like a stone-wall."
The King is dead! Long live the King!
The death of Louis XIV. was announced by the captain of the bodyguard from a window of the state apartment. Raising his truncheon above his head, he broke it in the centre, and throwing the pieces among the crowd, exclaimed in a loud voice, "Le Roi est mort!" Then seizing another staff, he flourished it in the air as he shouted, "Vive le Roi!"—Pardoe: Life of Louis XIV., vol. iii. p. 457.
The woods are full of them!
Alexander Wilson, in the Preface to his "American Ornithology" (1808), quotes these words, and relates the story of a boy who had been gathering flowers. On bringing them to his mother, he said: "Look, my dear ma! What beautiful flowers I have found growing in our place! Why, all the woods are full of them!"
Thin red line.
The Russians dashed on towards that thin red-line streak tipped with a line of steel.—Russell: The British Expedition to the Crimea (revised edition), p. 187.
Soon the men of the column began to see that though the scarlet line was slender, it was very rigid and exact.—Kinglake: Invasion of the Crimea, vol. iii. p. 455.
The spruce beauty of the slender red line.—Ibid. (sixth edition), vol. iii. p. 248.
[861] What you are pleased to call your mind.
A solicitor, after hearing Lord Westbury's opinion, ventured to say that he had turned the matter over in his mind, and thought that something might be said on the other side; to which he replied, "Then, sir, you will turn it over once more in what you are pleased to call your mind."—Nash: Life of Lord Westbury, vol. ii. 292.
When in doubt, win the trick.
Wisdom of many and the wit of one.
A definition of a proverb which Lord John Russell gave one morning at breakfast at Mardock's,—"One man's wit, and all men's wisdom."—Memoirs of Mackintosh, vol. ii. p. 473.
Wooden walls of England.
The credite of the Realme, by defending the same with our Wodden Walles, as Themistocles called the Ship of Athens.—Preface to the English translation of Linschoten (London).
But me no buts.
Fielding: Rape upon Rape, act ii. sc. 2. Aaron Hill: Snake in the Grass, sc. 1.
Cause me no causes.
Massinger: A New Way to Pay Old Debts, act i. sc. 3.
Clerk me no clerks.
Scott: Ivanhoe, chap. xx.
Diamond me no diamonds! prize me no prizes!
Tennyson: Idylls of the King. Elaine.
End me no ends.
Massinger: A New Way to Pay Old Debts, act v. sc. 1.
Fool me no fools.
Bulwer: Last Days of Pompeii, book iii. chap. vi.
Front me no fronts.
Ford: The Lady's Trial, act ii. sc. 1.
[862] Grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle.
Shakespeare: Richard II., act ii. sc. 3.
Madam me no madam.
Dryden: The Wild Gallant, act ii. sc. 2.
Map me no maps.
Fielding: Rape upon Rape, act i. sc. 5.
Midas me no Midas.
Dryden: The Wild Gallant, act ii. sc. 1.
O me no O's.
Ben Jonson: The Case is Altered, act v. sc. 1.
Parish me no parishes.
Peele: The Old Wives' Tale.
Petition me no petitions.
Fielding: Tom Thumb, act i. sc. 2.
Play me no plays.
Foote: The Knight, act ii.
Plot me no plots.
Beaumont and Fletcher: The Knight of the Burning Pestle, act ii. sc. 5.
Thank me no thanks, nor proud me no prouds.
Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet, act iii. sc. 5.
Virgin me no virgins.
Massinger: A New Way to Pay Old Debts, act iii. sc. 2.
Vow me no vows.
Beaumont and Fletcher: Wit without Money, act iv. sc. 4.
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