canto iv. stanza 177.
[418-2] Servi peregrini, ut primum Galliae 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._
[418-3] See Churchill, page 413.
[419-1] See Dryden, page 277.
[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._
[420-1] See Bishop Berkeley, page 312.
[420-2] See Thomson, page 356.
[421-1] It was Cowper who gave this now common name to the mignonette.
[421-2] 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._
[423-1] See Young, page 312.
[423-2] _Var._ How he esteems your merit.
[424-1] Keep the golden mean.--PUBLIUS SYRUS: _Maxim 1072._
[424-2] See Beaumont and Fletcher, page 199.
ERASMUS DARWIN. 1731-1802.
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._
BEILBY PORTEUS. 1731-1808.
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._
Teach him how to live, And, oh still harder lesson! how to die.[425-3]
_Death. Line 316._
FOOTNOTES:
[425-1] See Gray, page 385.
[425-2] See Young, page 311.
[425-3] See Tickell, page 313.
GEORGE WASHINGTON. 1732-1799.
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._
FOOTNOTES:
[425-4] Qui desiderat pacem praeparet 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._
LORD THURLOW. 1732-1806.
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._
FOOTNOTES:
[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._)
JOHN DICKINSON. 1732-1808.
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]
FOOTNOTES:
[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.
W. J. MICKLE. 1734-1788.
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._
For there 's nae luck about the house, There 's nae luck at a'; There 's little pleasure in the house When our gudeman 's awa'.
_The Mariner's Wife._[427-1]
His very foot has music in 't As he comes up the stairs.
_The Mariner's Wife._
FOOTNOTES:
[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).
JOHN LANGHORNE. 1735-1779.
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._
FOOTNOTES:
[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._
ISAAC BICKERSTAFF. 1735-1787.
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._
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._
FOOTNOTES:
[427-3] If naebody care for me, I 'll care for naebody.
BURNS: _I hae a Wife o' my Ain._
JAMES BEATTIE. 1735-1803.
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._
JOHN ADAMS. 1735-1826.
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._
PATRICK HENRY. 1736-1799.
Caesar 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._
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._
FOOTNOTES:
[428-1] I was born an American; I will live an American; I shall die an American!--WEBSTER: _Speech, July 17, 1850._
[428-2] See Burke, page 411.
EDWARD GIBBON. 1737-1794.
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._
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._
FOOTNOTES:
[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' Ingenu, chap. x._
[430-2] See Fielding, page 364.
[430-3] See Clarendon, page 255.
[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 cote des gros bataillons (I have always noticed that God is on the side of the heaviest battalions).--_De la Ferte to Anne of Austria._
[430-5] See Chapman, page 35.
[431-1] Never less alone than when alone.--ROGERS: _Human Life._
THOMAS PAINE. 1737-1809.
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._
FOOTNOTES:
[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).
JOHN WOLCOT. 1738-1819.
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._
A fellow in a market town, Most musical, cried razors up and down.
_Farewell Odes. Ode iii._
FOOTNOTES:
[431-3] See Jonson, page 178.
MRS. THRALE. 1739-1821.
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._
CHARLES MORRIS. 1739-1832.
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._
FOOTNOTES:
[432-1] 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._
A. M. TOPLADY. 1740-1778.
Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in thee.
_Salvation through Christ._
THOMAS MOSS. 1740-1808.
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._
FOOTNOTES:
[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).
MRS. BARBAULD. 1743-1825.
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._
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._
FOOTNOTES:
[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._
[434-1] See Chaucer, page 6.
THOMAS JEFFERSON. 1743-1826.
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._
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._
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._
FOOTNOTES:
[434-2] See Bolingbroke, page 304.
[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."
[436-1] See Appendix, page 859.
JOSIAH QUINCY, JR. 1744-1775.
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._
CHARLES DIBDIN. 1745-1814.
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]
FOOTNOTES:
[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.
HANNAH MORE. 1745-1833.
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._
LORD STOWELL. 1745-1836.
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._
FOOTNOTES:
[437-1] The sweet simplicity of the three per cents.--DISRAELI (Earl Beaconsfield): _Endymion._
SIR WILLIAM JONES. 1746-1794.
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._
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 Alcaeus._
Seven hours to law, to soothing slumber seven, Ten to the world allot, and all to heaven.[438-2]
FOOTNOTES:
[437-2] '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 Alcaeus 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._
[438-2] See Coke, page 24.
JOHN LOGAN. 1748-1788.
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._
JONATHAN M. SEWALL. 1748-1808.
No pent-up Utica contracts your powers, But the whole boundless continent is yours.
_Epilogue to Cato._[439-1]
FOOTNOTES:
[439-1] Written for the Bow Street Theatre, Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
JOHN EDWIN. 1749-1790.
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._
FOOTNOTES:
[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."
JOHN TRUMBULL. 1750-1831.
But optics sharp it needs, I ween, To see what is not to be seen.
_M^cFingal. 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.
_M^cFingal. 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 That we, lest they their rights should lose, Should trust our necks to gripe of noose?
_M^cFingal. Canto ii. Line 121._
No man e'er felt the halter draw, With good opinion of the law.
_M^cFingal. Canto iii. Line 489._
RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN. 1751-1816.
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._
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._
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._
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._
FOOTNOTES:
[441-1] 'T is nothing when you are used to it.--SWIFT: _Polite Conversation, iii._
[441-2] See Churchill, page 413.
[442-1] See Fielding, page 364.
[443-1] 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 depens de sa memoire (One may say that his wit shines by the help of his memory).--LE SAGE: _Gil Blas, livre iii. chap. xi._
PHILIP FRENEAU. 1752-1832.
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._
FOOTNOTES:
[443-3] This line was appropriated by Campbell in "O'Connor's Child."
[443-4] When Prussia hurried to the field, And snatched the spear, but left the shield.
SCOTT: _Marmion, Introduction to canto iii._
GEORGE CRABBE. 1754-1832.
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._
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._
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._
FOOTNOTES:
[443-5] See Young, page 311.
[444-1] See Appendix, page 858.
[444-2] '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._
[444-4] See Goldsmith, page 394.
[444-5] To sigh, yet feel no pain.--MOORE: _The Blue Stocking._
[444-6] See Appendix, page 394.
[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._
GEORGE BARRINGTON. 1755- ----.
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._
FOOTNOTES:
[445-2] See Farquhar, page 305.
HENRY LEE. 1756-1816.
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]
FOOTNOTES:
[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."
J. P. KEMBLE. 1757-1823.
Perhaps it was right to dissemble your love, But--why did you kick me down stairs?[445-4]
_The Panel. Act i. Sc. 1._
FOOTNOTES:
[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.
HORATIO NELSON. 1758-1805.
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._
FOOTNOTES:
[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."
ROBERT BURNS. 1759-1796.
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._
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._
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._
Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives elate Full on thy bloom.[448-2]
_To a Mountain Daisy._
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._
And may you better reck the rede,[448-4] Than ever did the adviser!
_Epistle to a Young Friend._
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._
If naebody care for me, I 'll care for naebody.[449-2]
_I hae a Wife o' my Ain._
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._
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._
Liberty 's in every blow! Let us do or die.[450-3]
_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._
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._
But to see her was to love her,[452-1] Love but her, and love forever.
_Ae Fond Kiss._
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._
It was a' for our rightfu' King We left fair Scotland's strand.
_A' for our Rightfu' King._[452-4]
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._
FOOTNOTES:
[446-2] Man was made when Nature was But an apprentice, but woman when she Was a skilful mistress of her art.
_Cupid's Whirligig_ (1607).
[447-1] See Fletcher, page 183.
[448-1] See Pope, page 325.
[448-2] See Young, page 309.
[448-3] See Burton, page 193.
[448-4] See Shakespeare, page 129.
[449-1] See Beaumont and Fletcher, page 198.
[449-2] See Bickerstaff, page 427.
[450-1] These lines from an old song, entitled "The Strong Walls of Derry," Burns made a basis for his own beautiful ditty.
[450-2] See Heywood, page 9.
[450-3] See Fletcher, page 183.
[450-4] Durance vile.--W. KENRICK (1766): _Falstaff's Wedding, act i. sc. 2._ BURKE: _The Present Discontents._
[451-1] See Heywood, page 10.
[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._
[452-3] See Southerne, page 282.
[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."
WILLIAM PITT. 1759-1806.
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._
FOOTNOTES:
[453-2] See Milton, page 232.
ANDREW CHERRY. 1762-1812.
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._
GEORGE COLMAN, THE YOUNGER. 1762-1836.
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._
JAMES HURDIS. 1763-1801.
Rise with the lark, and with the lark to bed.[454-1]
_The Village Curate._
FOOTNOTES:
[454-1] To rise with the lark, and go to bed with the lamb.--BRETON: _Court and Country_ (1618; reprint, p. 183).
SAMUEL ROGERS. 1763-1855.
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._
The good are better made by ill, As odours crushed are sweeter still.[455-2]
_Jacqueline. Stanza 3._
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._
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]
_Paestum._
Ward has no heart, they say, but I deny it: He has a heart, and gets his speeches by it.
_Epigram._
FOOTNOTES:
[455-1] See Burns, page 452.
None knew thee but to love thee.--HALLECK: _On the Death of Drake._
[455-2] See Bacon, page 165.
[455-3] See Gibbon, page 430.
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._
[455-4] This is literally from Seneca, _Epistola lxiii. 16._ See Matthew Henry, page 283.
[456-1] See Waller, page 221.
JOHN FERRIAR. 1764-1815.
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._
ANN RADCLIFFE. 1764-1823.
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]
FOOTNOTES:
[456-2] These lines form the motto to Mrs. Radcliffe's novel, "The Mysteries of Udolpho," and are presumably of her own composition.
ROBERT HALL. 1764-1831.
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._
FOOTNOTES:
[457-1] See Tourneur, page 34.
He calls drunkenness an expression identical with ruin.--DIOGENES LAERTIUS: _Pythagoras, vi._
THOMAS MORTON. 1764-1838.
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._
SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH. 1765-1832.
Diffused knowledge immortalizes itself.
_Vindiciae Gallicae._
The Commons, faithful to their system, remained in a wise and masterly inactivity.
_Vindiciae Gallicae._
Disciplined inaction.
_Causes of the Revolution of 1688. Chap. vii._
The frivolous work of polished idleness.
_Dissertation on Ethical Philosophy. Remarks on Thomas Brown._
LADY NAIRNE. 1766-1845.
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._
FOOTNOTES:
[458-1] Sir Alexander Boswell composed a version of this song.
ANDREW JACKSON. 1767-1845.
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._
FOOTNOTES:
[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.
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 1767-1848.
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._
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._
FOOTNOTES:
[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._
[459-1] See Sidney, page 264.
DAVID EVERETT. 1769-1813.
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._
FOOTNOTES:
[459-2] The lofty oak from a small acorn grows.--LEWIS DUNCOMBE (1711-1730): _De Minimis Maxima_ (translation).
SYDNEY SMITH. 1769-1845.
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._
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._
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._
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._
FOOTNOTES:
[459-3] See Walpole, page 389.
[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.
[460-3] See Cowper, page 419.
[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._
J. HOOKHAM FRERE. 1769-1846.
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._
FOOTNOTES:
[462-1] See Otway, page 280.
My fair one, let us swear an eternal friendship.--MOLIERE: _Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, act iv. sc. 1._
DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 1769-1852.
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._
FOOTNOTES:
[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._
JOHN TOBIN. 1770-1804.
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._
GEORGE CANNING. 1770-1827.
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._
FOOTNOTES:
[464-1] "Defend me from my friends; I can defend myself from my enemies." The French _Ana_ assign to Marechal Villars this aphorism when taking leave of Louis XIV.
WILLIAM ROBERT SPENCER. 1770-1834.
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._
FOOTNOTES:
[464-2] See Shakespeare, page 74.
JOSEPH HOPKINSON. 1770-1842.
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!_
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.[465-1] 1770-1850.
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._
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._
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._
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]
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._
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._
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._
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._
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._
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._
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._
Another morn Risen on mid-noon.[476-1]
_The Prelude. Book vi._
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; 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._
Sweetest melodies Are those that are by distance made more sweet.[477-2]
_Personal Talk. Stanza 2._
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._
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._
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._
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._
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._
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._
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._
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._
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._
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._
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._
FOOTNOTES:
[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."
[465-2] 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.
[469-1] See Milton, page 241.
[471-1] See Gray, page 382.
[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._
[475-1] See Milton, page 239.
[476-1] See Milton, page 235.
[477-1] See Shakespeare, page 57.
[477-2] See Collins, page 390.
[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._
[480-1] See page 465.
[480-2] 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._
[481-2] See Milton, page 249.
[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."
[484-1] 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._
[485-1] With this same key Shakespeare unlocked his heart.
BROWNING: _House._
SIR WALTER SCOTT. 1771-1832.
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._
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._
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._
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._
Oh for a blast of that dread horn[490-2] On Fontarabian echoes borne!
_Marmion. Canto vi. Stanza 33._
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._
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; 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._
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._
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._
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.)
FOOTNOTES:
[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._
[488-2] See Pope, page 341.
[489-1] See Freneau, page 443.
[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._
[492-1] See Massinger, page 194.
[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.
[493-2] 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).
[494-2] See Spenser, page 27.
[494-3] See Rowe, page 301.
[494-4] Le premier qui fut roi, fut un soldat heureux: Qui sert bien son pays, n'a pas besoin d'aieux
(The first who was king was a successful soldier. He who serves well his country has no need of ancestors).--VOLTAIRE: _Merope,