Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup,
And I'll not look for wine.1

Soul of the age,

The Forest. To Celia.

The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage,
My Shakespeare, rise! I will not lodge thee by
Chaucer or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie

A little further, to make thee a room.2

Marlowe's mighty line.

To the Memory of Shakespeare.

Ibid.

Small Latin, and less Greek.

Ibid.

He was not of an age, but for all time.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid.

For a good poet's made as well as born.

Sweet swan of Avon!

-

Underneath this sable hearse
Lies the subject of all verse,
Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother.
Death, ere thou hast slain another,
Learn'd and fair and good as she,
Time shall throw a dart at thee.

Epitaph on the Countess of Pembroke.

1 Ἐμοὶ δὲ μόνοις πρύπινε τοῖς ὄμμασιν. . . . Εἰ δὲ βούλει, τοῖς χείλεσι προσφέρουσα, πλήρου φιλημάτων τὸ ἔκπωμα, καὶ οὕτως δίδου

(Drink to me with your eyes alone.

And if you will, take the cup

to your lips and fill it with kisses, and give it so to me).

PHILOSTRATUS: Letter xxiv.

2 Renowned Spenser, lie a thought more nigh
To learned Chaucer, and rare Beaumont lie
A little nearer Spenser, to make room
For Shakespeare in your threefold, fourfold tomb.

BASSE: On Shakespeare.

This epitaph is generally ascribed to Ben Jonson. It appears in the editions of his Works; but in a manuscript collection of Browne's poems preserved amongst the Lansdowne MS. No. 777, in the British Museum, it is ascribed to Browne, and awarded to him by Sir Egerton Brydges in his edition of Browne's poems.

Let those that merely talk and never think,
That live in the wild anarchy of drink.1

Underwoods. An Epistle, answering to One that asked to
be sealed of the Tribe of Ben.

Still may syllabes jar with time,
Still may reason war with rhyme,
Resting never!

Ibid. Fit of Rhyme against Rhyme.

In small proportions we just beauties see,
And in short measures life may perfect be.

Ibid.

To the immortal Memory of Sir Lucius Cary
and Sir Henry Morison. III.

What gentle ghost, besprent with April dew,
Hails me so solemnly to yonder yew?

2

Elegy on the Lady Jane Pawlet.

the

I know death hath ten thousand several doors For men to take their exit.3 Duchess of Malfi. Act iv. Sc. 2 'Tis just like a summer bird-cage in a garden, birds that are without despair to get in, and the birds that are within despair and are in a consumption for fear they shall never get out.1

The White Devil. Act i. Sc. 2.

Condemn you me for that the duke did love me?
So may you blame some fair and crystal river
For that some melancholic, distracted man
Hath drown'd himself in 't.

1 They never taste who always drink;
They always talk who never think.

Act iii. Sc. 2.

PRIOR: Upon a passage in the Scaligerana,

2 What beckoning ghost along the moonlight shade
Invites my steps, and points to youder glade?

POPE: To the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady

8 Death hath so many doors to let out life. - BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER :

The Customs of the Country, act ii. sc. 2.

4 See Davies, page 176.

Glories, like glow-worms, afar off shine bright,
But look'd too near have neither heat nor light.1
The White Devil. Act iv. Sc. 4.

Call for the robin-redbreast and the wren,
Since o'er shady groves they hover,
And with leaves and flowers do cover

The friendless bodies of unburied men.

Act v. Sc. 2.

Is not old wine wholesomest, old pippins toothsomest, old wood burns brightest, old linen wash whitest? Old soldiers, sweetheart, are surest, and old lovers are soundest.2

Westward Hoe. Act ii. Sc. 2.

Ibid.

I saw him now going the way of all flesh.

THOMAS DEKKER.

A wise man poor

Is like a sacred book that's never read,

-1641.

To himself he lives, and to all else seems dead.
This
Than of a threadbare saint in wisdom's school.

age thinks better of a gilded fool

Old Fortunatus.

And though mine arm should conquer twenty worlds,
There's a lean fellow beats all conquerors.

Ibid.

1 The mountains, too, at a distance appear airy masses and smooth, but when beheld close they are rough. - DIOGENES LAERTIUS: Pyrrho.

Love is like a landscape which doth stand
Smooth at a distance, rough at hand.

ROBERT HEGGE: On Love.

YALDEN: Against Enjoyment.

We're charm'd with distant views of happiness,
But near approaches make the prospect less.

As distant prospects please us, but when near
We find but desert rocks and fleeting air.

GARTH: The Dispensatory, canto iii. line 27.

'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view,
And robes the mountain in its azure hue.

CAMPBELL: Pleasures of Hope, part i. line 7

See Bacon, page 171.

The best of men

That e'er wore earth about him was a sufferer;
A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit,
The first true gentleman that ever breathed.1

The Honest Whore. Part i. Act i. Sc. 12.

I was ne'er so thrummed since I was a gentleman.2

This principle is old, but true as fate, -
Kings may love treason, but the traitor hate.
We are ne'er like angels till our passion dies.
Turn over a new leaf.1

Act iv. Sc. 2.

Sc. 4.

Part ii. Act i. Sc. 2.
Act ii. Sc. 1.

Moderation is the silken string running through the pearl chain of all virtues. Christian Moderation. Introduction. Death borders upon our birth, and our cradle stands in the grave.5 Epistles. Dec. iii. Ep. 2. There is many a rich stone laid up in the bowels of the earth, many a fair pearl laid up in the bosom of the sea, that never was seen, nor never shall be."

Contemplations. Book iv. The veil of Moses.

1 Of the offspring of the gentilman Jafeth come Habraham, Moyses, Aron, and the profettys; also the Kyng of the right lyne of Mary, of whom that gentilman Jhesus was borne. -JULIANA BERNERS: Heraldic Blazonry. 2 See Shakespeare, page 78.

3 Cæsar said he loved the treason, but hated the traitor.

Life of Romulus.

4 See Middleton, page 174.

5 And cradles rock us nearer to the tomb.
Our birth is nothing but our death begun.

- PLUTARCH:

YOUNG: Night Thoughts, night v. line 718.

6 Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear.

GRAY: Elegy, stanza 14.

JOHN FLETCHER. 1576-1625.

Man is his own star; and the soul that can
Render an honest and a perfect man
Commands all light, all influence, all fate.
Nothing to him falls early, or too late.
Our acts our angels are, or good or ill,1
Our fatal shadows that walk by us still.

Upon an "Honest Man's Fortune.", All things that are

Made for our general uses are at war,
Even we among ourselves.

Ibid.

Man is his own star; and that soul that can
Be honest is the only perfect man.2

Weep no more, nor sigh, nor groan,
Sorrow calls no time that 's gone;
Violets plucked, the sweetest rain
Makes not fresh nor grow again.3

Ibid.

The Queen of Corinth. Act iii. Sc. 2.

O woman, perfect woman! what distraction

Was meant to mankind when thou wast made a devil!

Let us do or die."

Monsieur Thomas.

Act iii. Sc. 1.

The Island Princess. Act ii. Sc. 4.

Love's Cure. Act ii. Sc. 1.

Hit the nail on the head.

1

Every man hath a good and a bad angel attending on him in particular BURTON: Anatomy of Melancholy, part i. sect. 2, memb. 1, subsect. 2. Burton also quotes Anthony Rusca in this connection, v.

all his life long.

xviii.

2 An honest man's the noblest work of God. - POPE: Essay on Man, epistle iv. line 248. BURNS: The Cotter's Saturday Night.

3 Weep no more, Lady! weep no more,

Thy sorrow is in vain;

For violets plucked, the sweetest showers

Will ne'er make grow again.

4 Let us do or die.

PERCY: Reliques. The Friar of Orders Gray. BURNS: Bannockburn. CAMPBELL: Gertrude of

Wyoming, part iii. stanza 37.

Scott says, "This expression is a kind of common property, being the motto, we believe, of a Scottish family."- Review of Gertrude, Scott's Miscellanies, vol. i. p. 153.