Imagini ale paginilor
PDF
ePub

How vain are all hereditary honors,
Those poor possessions from another's deeds,
Unless our own just virtues form our title,
And give a sanction to our fond assumptions.

Shirley's Parricide.

The honors of a name 'tis just to guard:
They are a trust but lent us, which we take,
And should, in reverence to the donor's fame,

With care transmit them down to other hands. Ibid.

I've scann'd the actions of his daily life

With all th' industrious malice of a foe;

And nothing meets mine eye but deeds of honor.

Hannah More's Daniel, pt. 1.

HOPE.

Hope is the fawning traitor of the mind,

Which, while it cozens with a coloured friendship,
Robs us of our last virtue, resolution.

Lee's Constantine.

A beam of comfort, like the moon thro' clouds,
Gilds the black horror, and directs my way,

Dryden's Love Triumphant.

Multiplying wishes is a curse,

Dryden's Secret Love.

That keeps the mind perpetually awake.

'Tis the cruel artifice of fate,

Thus to refine and vary on our woes,

To raise us from despair, and gives us hopes,
Only to plunge us in the gulph again,

And make us doubly wretched. Trap's Abramule.

To-day, in snow array'd, stern winter rules
The enravag'd plain-anon the teeming earth

HUNTING.

When huntsmen wind the merry horn,

And from its covert starts the fearful

prey; Who, warm'd with youth's blood in his swelling veins, Would, like a lifeless clod outstretch'd lie, Shut up from all the fair creation offers ?

Joanna Baillie's Ethwald, a. 1, s. 1.

Mark'd you that tawny hound,

With stretched nostrils snuffing to the ground,
Who still before, with animating yell,
Like the brave leader of a warlike band,
Thro' many a mazy track his comrades led
In the right tainted path?

My hoarse-sounding horn

Invites thee to the chase, the sport of kings;
Image of war without its guilt.

Ibid.

Somerville's Chase, b. I.

In vain malignant steams and winter fogs
Load the dull air, and hover round our coasts;
The huntsman, ever gay, robust, and bold,
Defies the noxious vapour, and confides

In this delightful exercise to raise

His drooping head, and cheer his heart with joy. Ibid.

Once more, ye jovial train, your courage try,

And each clean courser's speed. We scour along
In pleasing hurry and confusion toss'd;

Oblivion to be wish'd.

Ibid, b. 2.

The morning sun, that gilds with trembling rays
Windsor's high tow'rs, beholds the courtly train
Mount for the chase, nor views in all his course
A scene so gay.

Ibid, b. 3.

Know then, whatever cheerful and serene
Supports the mind, supports the body too.
Hence, the most vital movement mortals feel
Is hope the balm and life-blood of the soul;
It pleases and it lasts. Indulgent Heaven
Sent down the kind delusion, through the paths
Of rugged life to lead us patient on;

:

And make our happiest state no tedious thing.
Our greatest good, and what we least can spare,
Is hope the last of all our evils, fear.

:

Armstrong's Art of Preserving Health, b. 4.

When the heart is light

With hope, all pleases, nothing comes amiss.

HOSPITAL.

Rogers's Italy.

Immediately a place

Before his eyes appear'd, sad, noisome, dark,
A lazar-house it seem'd, wherein were laid
Numbers of all diseas'd, all maladies

Of ghastly spasm, or racking torture, qualms
Of heart-sick agony, all feverous kinds,
Convulsions, epilepsies, fierce catarrhs,
Intestine stone and ulcer, colic pangs,
Demoniac phrenzy, moping melancholy,
And moon-struck madness, pining atrophy,
Marasmus, and wide-wasting pestilence,

Dropsies, and asthmas, and joint-racking rheums.
Milton's Paradise Lost, b. 11.

HUMILITY.

He that will once give the

Wall, shall be quickly thrust into the kennel.

Chapman's May-day.

Humility is eldest born of Virtue,

And claims her birth-right at the throne of Heav'n.

Murphy's Zobeide.

Poor is the triumph o'er the timid hare !
Scar'd from the corn, and now to some lone seat
Retir'd the rushy fen; the ragged furze,
Stretch'd o'er the stony heath; the stubble chapt;
The thistly lawn; the thick-entangled broom;
Of the same friendly hue, the wither'd fern;
The fallow ground laid open to the sun,
Concoctive; and the nodding sandy bank,
Hung o'er the mazes of the mountain brook.
Vain is her best precaution.

Thomson's Seasons-Autumn.

The cheerful morn

Beams o'er the hills; go, mount th' exulting steed." Already, see, the deep-mouth'd bugles catch

The tainted mazes; and, on eager sport

Intent, with emulous impatience try

Each doubtful trace. Or, if a nobler prey
Delight you more, go chase the desperate deer;
And through its deepest solitudes awake

The vocal forest with the jovial horn.

Armstrong's Art of Preserving Health, b. 3.

HYPOCRISY.

Ev'ry man in this age has not a soul

Of chrystal, for all men to read their actions

:

Through men's hearts and faces are so far asunder That they hold no intelligence.

Beaumont and Fletcher's Philaster,

I, under fair pretence of friendly ends,
And well-plac'd words of glossy court'sy,
Baited with reason not unplausible,
Wind me into the easy hearted man,
And hug him into snares.

Milton's Comus.

Kings and priests are in a manner bound,

For reverence sake, to be close hypocrites.

Yet to be secret, makes not sin the less;
'Tis only hidden from the vulgar view;
Maintains indeed the reverence due to princes,
But not absolves the conscience from the crime.

Dryden's Amphytrion.

They

Can pray upon occasion, talk of Heaven,
Turn up their goggling eye-balls, rail at vice,
Dissemble, lie, and preach, like any priest.

A villain, when he most seems kind,

Otway's Orphan.

Is most to be suspected. Lansdown's Jew of Venice.

Thou hast prevaricated with thy friend,
By under-hand contrivances undone me;
And while my open nature trusted in thee,
Thou hast stepp'd in between me and my hopes,
And ravish'd from me all my soul held dear.

Thou hast betray'd me.

Rowe's Lady Jane Grey, a. 2, s. 1.

Were men t' appear themselves,

Set free from customs that restrain our nature,
Nor wolves, nor tygers would dispute more fiercely!
Yet all we boast above the brute is— -What?
That in our times of need we dare dissemble !

Cibber's King John.

The man who dares to dress misdeeds, And colour them with virtue's name, deserves A double punishment from gods and men.

Ch. Johnson's Medæa.

'Tis not my talent to conceal my thoughts, Or carry smiles and sunshine in my face, When discontent sits heavy at my heart.

Addison's Cato.

« ÎnapoiContinuă »