Calmness is great advantage: He that lets Another chafe, may warm him at his fire, Mark all his wand'rings, and enjoy his frets, As cunning fencers suffer heat to tire.
Like doctors thus, when much dispute has past,
We find our tenets just the same at last.
Pope's Moral Essays.
Who shall decide when doctors disagree,
Truth dwells not in the clouds: The bow that's And soundest casuists doubt, like you or me.
Doth often aim at, never hit the sphere.
If truth be with thy friend, be with them both: Share in the conquest, and confess a troth.
But all 's not true that supposition saith,
Nor have the mightiest arguments most faith.
Drayton.
For arguments, like children, should be like
The subject that begets them.
Thomas Decker's Satiromastix.
He'd undertake to prove, by force
Of argument, a man's no horse.
He'd prove a buzzard is no fowl,
And that a lord may be an owl,
A calf an alderman, a goose a justice,
And rooks committee-men and trustees.
I'll ride in golden armour like the sun,
And in my helm a triple plume shall spring,
Spangled with diamonds dancing in the air,
To note me emperor of the threefold world.
Marlo's 1st part of Tamberlane the Great.
Assurance now having armed all their hearts,
With proof 'gainst fear, not danger; they prepare
To arm themselves completely at all parts,
Offensive and defensive; one might swear,
They did such motions to their armour give,
That iron breathed, and that steel did live.
Aleyn's King Henry VII.
In nature it is fear that makes us arm;
And fear by guilt is bred;
The guiltless nothing dread,
Similes are like songs in love:
They much describe;- they nothing prove.
Prior's Alma.
In a guing too, the parson owned his skill,
For even tho' vanquish'd, he could argue still.
Goldsmith's Deserted Village.
But everlasting dictates crowd his tongue,
Perversely grave, or positively wrong.
As with their weight shall make the mountains
Even as when windy exhalations,
Fighting for passage, tilt within the earth.
From camp to camp, through the foul womb of
The hum of either army stilly sounds;
That the fix'd sentinels almost receive
The secret whispers of each other's watch.
Fire answers fire; and through their paly flames,
Dr. Johnson's Vanity of Human Wishes. Each battle sees the other's umber'd face.
Steed threatens steed, in high and boastful neighs,
Piercing the night's dull ear; and from the tents,
The armourers, accomplishing the knights,
With busy hammers closing rivets up,
Give dreadful note of preparation.
And like a jolly troop of huntsmen, come
Our lusty English, all with purpled hands,
Dy'd in the dying slaughter of their foes.
Remember whom you are to cope withal;
Shaks. Henry V. A sort of vagabonds, rascals, and run-aways.
A scum of Bretagnes, and base lackey peasants,
Whom their o'ercloy'd country vomits forth
To desperate ventures, and assur'd destruction.
Shaks. Richard III.
We are but warriors for the working day:
Our gayness, and our gilt, are all besmirch'd
With rainy marching in the painful field.
There's not a piece of feather in our host,
(Good argument I hope we will not fly,)
And time has worn us into slovenry:
But by the mass, our hearts are in the trim.
Shaks. Henry V.
Why do you stay so long, my lords of France?
Yon island carrions, desperate of their bones,
Ill favour'dly become the morning field:
Their ragged curtains poorly are let loose,
And our air shakes them passing scornfully.
Shaks. Henry V.
Big Mars seems bankrupt in their beggar'd host,
And faintly through a rusty beaver peeps.
The horsemen sit like fixed candlesticks,
With torch-staves in their hand; and their poor
jades
Lob down their heads, drooping the hides and hips;
The gum down-roping from their pale dead eyes;
And in their pale dull mouths the gimmal bit
Lies foul with chaw'd grass, still and motionless;
And their executors, the knavish crows,
Fly o'er them all impatient for their hour.
Thus far into the bowels of the land
Have we march'd on without impediment.
Shaks. Richard III.
His marches are expedient to this town,
His forces strong, his soldiers confident.
Shaks. King John
Within a ken our army lies;
Upon mine honour, all too confident
To give admittance to a thought of fear.
Our battle is more full of names than yours,
Our men more perfect in the use of arms,
Our armour all as strong, our cause the best;
Then reason wills, our hearts should be as good.
Shaks. Henry IV.
All in a moment through the gloom were seen
Ten thousand banners rise into the air
With orient colours waving: With them rose
A forest huge of spears, and thronging helms
Appear'd, and serried shields in thick array
Of depth immeasurable.
Milton's Paradise Lost
Ten thousand ensigns high advanced,
Standards and gonfalons 'twixt van and rear
Stream in the air, and for distinction serve
Of hierarchies, of orders aud degrees;
Or in their glittering tissues bear emblazed
Holy memorials, acts of zeal and love
Shaks. Henry V.
Their armours, that march'd hence so silver-bright,
Hither return all gilt with Frenchmen's blood;
There stuck no plume in any English crest,
That is removed by a staff of France;
Our colours do return in those same hands
That did display them when we first march d Recorded eminent.
A braver choice of dauntless spirits,
Than now the English bottoms have waft o'er,
Did never float upon the swelling tide,
To do offence and scath in Christendom.
The interruption of their churlish drums
Cuts off more circumstance: they are at hand.
Shaks. King John.
All the unsettled humours of the land,
Rash, inconsiderate, fiery voluntaries,
With ladies' faces, and fierce dragons' spleens,
Have sold their fortunes at their native homes,
Bearing their birthrights proudly on their backs,
To make a hazard of new fortunes here.
And though reduc'd to that extreme,
They have been forc'd to sing Te Deum;
Yet with religious blasphemy,
By flattering heaven with a lie,
And for their beating giving thanks,
Th' have rais'd recruits, and fill'd their ranks
Butler's Hudibras
Yet hark! what discords now, of every kind,
Shouts, laughs, and screams are revelling in the
wind!
The neigh of cavalry; the tinkling throngs
Of laden camels, and their drivers' songs;
Ringing of arms, and flapping in the breeze
Shaks. King John. Of streamers from ten thousand canopies;
ART-ARTIFICE - ASTONISHMENT.
War-music, bursting out from time to time,
With gong and tymbalon's tremendous chime;
Or, in the pause, when harsher sounds are mute,
The mellow breathings of some horn or flute
That far off, broken by the eagle note
Of th' Abyssinian trumpet, swell and float!
Moore's Lalla Rookh.
The army, like a lion from his den,
Tir'd at first sight, with what the muse imparts,
In fearless youth we tempt the heights of arts,
While from the bounded level of our mind
Short views we take, nor see the length behind;
But, more advanced, behold with strange surprise,
New distant scenes of endless science rise.
Pope.
March'd forth with nerve and sinews bent to slay, Of the Jear star-light of thy haunting eyes!
A human hydra issuing from its fen
To breathe destruction on its winding way,
Whose heads were heroes, which, cut off in vain,
Immediately in others grew again.
They left the ploughshare in the mould,
The flocks and herds without a fold;
The sickle in the unshorn grain,
The corn half garner'd on the plain,
And muster'd in their simple dress,
For wrongs to seek a stern redress;
To right those wrongs, come weal, come woc,
To perish or o'ercome the foc.
They call'd me vain, some mad—I heeded not,
If not to win, to feel more worthy thec.
But still toil'd on, hoped on, for it was surest,
Bulwer's Lady of Lyons.
Immortal art! where'er the rounded sky
Bends o'er the cradle where thy children lie,
Their home is earth, their herald every tongue.
O. W. Holmes.
-Art is wondrous long;
Yet to the wise her paths are ever fair,
And patience smiles, tho' genius may despair.
In framing artists, art hath thus decreed,
To make some good, but others to exceed.
Shaks. Pericles.
What thing a right line is, the learned know;
But how avails that him, who in the right,
Of life and manners doth desire to grow?
What are all these human arts and lights
But seas of error? in whose depths who sound,
Of truth find only shadows, and no ground.
Then if our arts want power to make us better,
What fool will think they can us wiser make.
Life is the wisdom, art is but the letter,
Or shell, which men oft for the kernel take;
In moods and figures moulding up deceit,
To make each science rather hard than great.
Such is the strength of art, rough things to shape,
And of rude commons rich enclosures make.
James Howell.
For though I must confess an artist can
Contive things better than another man,
Yet when the task is done, he finds his pains
Sought but to fill his belly with his brains.
Is this the guerdon due to liberal arts,
Tadmire the head and then to starve the parts?
Timely prevention though discreetly used
Before the fruits of knowledge were abused.
When learning has incurr'd a fearful damp,
To save our oil, 't is good to quench the lamp.
Shallow artifice begets suspicion,
And like a cobweb veil but thinly shades
The face of thy design: alone disguising
What should have ne'er been seen; imperfect
Thou, like the adder, venomous and deaf,
Hast stung the traveller; and, after, hear'st
Not his pursuing voice; e'en when thou think'st
To hide, the rustling leaves and bended grass
Confess and point the path which thou hast crept.
O fate of fools! officious in contriving;
In executing, puzzled, lame, and lost.
What's the bent brow, or neck in thought reclin'd?
The body's wisdom to conceal the mind.
A man of sense can artifice disdain,
And be this truth eternal ne'er forgot,
As men of wealth may venture to go plain;
Solemnity's a cover for a sot.
I find the fool when I behold the screen;
For 'tis the wise man's interest to be seen.
Young's Love of Fame.
The fatal trespass done by Eve, amaz'd
Astonish'd stood and blank, while horror chill
Ran through his veins and all his joints relax'd;
From his slack hand the garland wreath'd for Eve,
Down dropp'd, and all the faded roses shed:
Speechless he stood and pale.
Much thou hast said, which I know when
And where thou stol'st from other men;
Milton's Paradise Lost. Whereby 'tis plain thy light and gifts,
With wild surprise,
Are all but plagiary shifts.
As if to marble struck devoid of sense,
A stupid moment motionless she stood.
Thomson's Seasons.
But who can paint the lover, as he stood,
Pierced by severe amazement, hating life,
Speechless and fix'd in all the death of woe!
So, faint resemblance! on the marble tomb,
The well dissembled mourner stands,
For ever silent and for ever sad.
Thomson's Seasons.
Hear it not, ye stars!
And thou, pale moon! turn paler at the sound. Young's Night Thoughts.
When prejudice and strong aversions work,
All whose opinions we dislike are atheists.
Now 'tis a term of art, a bug-bear word,
The villain's engine, and the vulgar's terror.
The man who thinks and judges for himself,
Unsway'd by aged follies, reverend errors,
Grown holy by traditionary dulness
Of school authority, he is an atheist.
The man who, hating idle noise, preserves
A pure religion seated in his soul,
He is a silent dumb dissembling atheist!
Sewell's Sir Walter Raleigh.
Virtue in distress, and vice in triumph,
Make atheists of mankind.
How many great ones may remember'd be,
Which in their days most famously did flourish,
Of whom no word we hear, nor sign now see,
But as things wip'd out with a sponge do perish,
Because they living cared not to cherish
No gentle wits, through pride or covetize
Which might their names for ever memorize!
Spenser's Ruins of Time.
Let authors write for glory or reward,
Truth is well paid, when she is sung and heard.
R. Corbet, Bishop of Norwich.
He that writes,
Or makes a feast, more certainly invites
His judges than his friends; there's not a guest
But will find something wanting, or ill drest.
Prologue to Sir R. Howard's Surprisal.
C
Some write, confin'd by physic; some by debt;
Some, for 'tis Sunday; some, because 't is wet;
Another writes because his father writ,
And proves himself a bastard by his wit.
Young's Epistle to Mr. Pope.
Authors are judg'd by strange capricious rules, The great ones are thought mad, the small ones fools;
Yet sure the best are most severely fated,
For fools are only laugh'd at-wits are hated.
Blockheads with reason men of sense abhor;
But fool 'gainst fool is barb'rous civil war.
Why on all authors then should critics fall?
Since some have writ, and shown no wit at all.
Pope.
An author! "Tis a venerable name!
How few deserve it, and what numbers claim!
Unblest with sense above their peers refin'd,
Who shall stand up, dictators to mankind?
Nay, who dare shine, if not in virtue's cause?
That sole proprietor of just applause.
Some write a narrative of wars and feats,
Of heroes little known, and call the rant
An history. Describe the man, of whom
His own coevals took but little note,
And paint his person, character and views,
As they had known him from his mother's womb.
Cowper's Task.
And novels (witness every month's review)
Belie their name, and offer nothing new.
Cowper's Retirement.
One hates an author that's all author, fellows
In foolscap uniforms turn'd up with ink,
So very anxious, clever, fine, and jealous,
One don't know what to say to them, or think.
Unless to puff them with a pair of bellows;
Of coxcombry's worst coxcombs, e'en the pink
Are preferable to these shreds of paper,
'These unquench'd snuffings of the midnight taper.
Byron's Beppo.
'Tis pleasant sure to see one's name in print;
A book's a book, although there's nothing in 't.
Byron.
But every fool describes in these bright days,
His wondrous journey to some foreign court,
And spawns his quarto, and demands your praise;
Death to his publisher, to him 't is sport.
Byron's Don Juan. To know, when two authorities are up,
Neither supreme, how soon confusion
May enter 'twixt the gap of both, and take
The one by the other.
Authority is a disease and cure,
Which men can neither want nor will endure.
Butler's Hudibras.
And makes mere sots of magistrates;
The fumes of it invade the brain,
And make men giddy, proud, and vain;
By this the fool commands the wise,
The noble with the base complies,
The sot assumes the rule of wit,
And cowards make the base submit.
Butler's Hudibras.
The monarch mind, the mystery of commanding,
The birth-hour gift, the art Napoleon,
Of winning, fettering, moulding, wielding, binding
The hearts of millions till they seem as one,
Thou hast it.
A man in authority is but as
A candle in the wind, sooner wasted
Or blown out than under a bushel.
Then came the autumne, all in yellow clad,
As though he joyed in his plenteous store,
Laden with fruits that made him laugh, full glad
That he had banish'd hunger, which to-fore
Beaumont and Fletcher's Four Plays in One. Had by the belly oft him pinched sore;
Not from grey hairs authority doth flow,
Nor from bald heads, nor from a wrinkled brow;
But our past life, when virtuously spent,
Must to our age those happy fruits present.
Autnority kept up, old age secures,
Whose dignity as long as life endures.
Upon his head a wreath that was enrold
With ears of corne of every sort, he bore,
And in his hand a sickle he did holde,
To reape the ripened fruit the which the carth
had yold.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
Whate'er the wanton spring,
When she doth diaper the ground with beauties,
Toils for; comes home to autumn; summer sweats
Either in pasturing her furlongs, reaping
The crop of bread, rip'ning the fruits for food,
Autumn's garners house them, autumn's jollities
Shaks. Mea. for Mea. Feed on them: I alone in every land
Authority bears off a credent bulk,
That no particular scandal once can touch,
But it confounds the breather.
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