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SHAKSPEARE.

132

CONSCIENCE - DUTY.

2. A peace above all other dignities,

A still and quiet conscience.

3. My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, And every tongue brings in a several tale,

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4. Oh! I have past a miserable night!
So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights,
That as I am a Christian faithful man,
I would not spend another such a night,
Though 't were to buy a world of happy days!

SHAKSPEARE.

SHAKSPEARE

5. Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind; The thief doth fear each bush an officer.

SHAKSPEARE.

6. Thrice is he arm'd that hath his quarrel just; And he but naked, though lock'd up in steel, Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.

7.

8.

Leave her to heaven,

And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge,
To prick and sting her.

Now conscience wakes despair,
That slumber'd; wakes the bitter memory

SHAKSPEARE.

SHAKSPEARE.

Of what he was, what is, and what must be

Worse, if worse deeds, worse sufferings must ensue.

MILTON'S Paradise Lost.

9. He that has light within his own clear breast,
May sit i' the centre, and enjoy bright day;
But he that hides a dark soul, and foul thoughts,
Benighted walks under the mid-day sun;
Himself is his own dungeon.

MILTON'S Comus.

10. Why should not conscience have vacation, As well as other courts o' the nation? Have equal power to adjourn,

11.

Appoint appearance, and return?

'Tis ever thus

BUTLER'S Hudibras.

With noble minds; if chance they slide to folly,
Remorse stings deeper, and relentless conscience
Pours more of gall into the bitter cup

Of their severe repentance.

12. Here, here it lies; a lump of lead by day; And in my short, distracted, nightly slumbers, The hag that rides my dreams.

13. One self-approving hour whole years outweighs
Of stupid starers, and of loud huzzas,
And more true joy Marcellus exiled feels,
Than Cæsar with the Senate at his heels.

MASON.

DRYDEN.

POPE'S Essay on Man.

14. He's arm'd without, that's innocent within.

POPE.

15. Knowledge or wealth to few are given, But mark how just the ways of heaven :

True joy to all is free.

Nor wealth nor knowledge grant the boon,
"T is thine, O Conscience! thine alone-
It all belongs to thee.

MICKLE.

16. Oh conscience! conscience! man's most faithful friend,

Him canst thou comfort, ease, relieve, defend;
But if he will thy friendly checks forego,
Thou art, Oh, woe for me! his deadliest foe!

CRABBE.

134

CONSCIENCE-DUTY.

17. Conscience, what art thou? thou tremendous power!
Who dost inhabit us without our leave,
And art within ourselves, another self,
A master self, that loves to domineer,
And treat the monarch frankly as the slave?

YOUNG'S Brothers.

18. Who does the best his circumstance allows, Does well, acts nobly-angels could no more.

YOUNG'S Night Thoughts.

19. The sly informer minutes ev'ry fault, And her dread diary with horror fills.

20.

YOUNG'S Night Thoughts.

There is no future pang,

BYRON'S Manfred.

Can deal that justice on the self-condemn'd,
He deals on his own soul.

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23. A quiet conscience makes one so serene!

Christians have burnt each other, quite persuaded
That all the apostles would have done as they did.

BYRON'S Don Juan.

24. But, at sixteen, the conscience rarely gnaws
So much, as when we call our old debts in
At sixty years, and draw the account of evil,
And find a deuced balance with the devil.

BYRON'S Don Juan.

25. So much the better:-I may stand alone,
But would not change my free-will for a throne.

BYRON'S Don Juan.

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28. Yet still there whispers the small voice within,
Heard thro' gain's silence, and o'er glory's din;
Whatever creed be taught, or land be trod,
Man's conscience is the oracle of God.

BYRON'S Island.

29. That savage spirit, which would lull by wrath
Its desperate escape from duty's path;
For ne'er can man his conscience all assuage,
Unless he drain the wine of passion-rage.

30. Not all the glory, all the praise,

That decks the prosperous hero's days,
The shout of men, the laurel crown,
The pealing echoes of renown,
May conscience's dreadful sentence drown.

31. Possessions vanish, and opinions change,
And passion holds a fluctuating seat,
But, subject neither to eclipse nor wane,
Duty remains.

BYRON'S Island.

MRS. HOLFORD.

32. Trust me, no tortures which the poets feign
Can match the fierce, the unutterable pain
He feels, who, night and day devoid of rest,
Carries his own accuser in his breast.

WORDSWORTH.

GIFFORD'S Juvenal.

33. How awful is that hour when conscience stings
The hoary wretch, who on his death-bed hears,
Deep in his soul, the thundering voice that wrings,
In one dark, damning moment, crimes of years!
J. G. PERCIVAL.

136

CONSENT-REFUSAL.

34. This kills his pleasure all the day,
This thought destroys his nightly rest;
Go where he will, 't is in his way,

To him a loathsome, hated pest.

J. T. WATSON.

1.

CONSENT-REFUSAL.

I cannot love him:

Yet I suppose him virtuous, know him noble,
Of great estate, of fresh and stainless youth,
In voices well divulg'd, learned, and valiant,
And, in dimensions and the shape of nature,
A gracious person: but yet I cannot love him.

Do I not in plainest truth

SHAKSPEARE.

2.

Tell you-I do not, nor I cannot love you?

SHAKSPEARE.

3. He might have took his answer long ago.

SHAKSPEARE.

4. Repulse upon repulse met ever

Yet gives not o'er, tho' desperate of success.

MILTON.

5. If you oblige me suddenly to choose,

My choice is made—and I must you refuse.

DRYDEN.

6. Take my esteem, if you on that can live; But, frankly, sir, 't is all I have to give.

DRYDEN.

7.

Love is not in our power,

Nay, what seems stranger, is not in our choice;
We only love where fate ordains we should,
And, blindly fond, oft slight superior merit.

FROWDE.

8. 'Twas whisper'd balm-'t was sunshine spoken!

MOORE.

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