BIRDS.

The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark,
When neither is attended; and, I think,
The nightingale, if she should sing by day,
When every goose is cackling, would be thought
No better a musician than the wren.

401
Ten thousand warblers cheer the day, and one
The live-long night: nor these alone whose notes
Nice-fingered art must emulate in vain,

Shaks.: M. of Venice. Act v. Sc. 1

But cawing rooks, and kites that swim sublime
In still repeated circles, screaming loud,
The jay, the pie, and ev'n the boding owl
That hails the rising moon, have charms for me.
402
You call them thieves and pillagers; but know
They are the winged wardens of your farms,
Who from the cornfields drive the insidious foe,
And from your harvests keep a hundred harms;
Even the blackest of them all, the crow,
Renders good service as your man-at-arms,
Crushing the beetle in his coat of mail,
And crying havoc on the slug and snail.

Cowper: Task. Bk. i. Line 200

403

Longfellow: Birds of Killingworth. St. 19

Do you ne'er think what wondrous beings these?
Do you ne'er think who made them, and who taught

The dialect they speak, where melodies

Alone are the interpreters of thought?

Whose household words are songs in many keys,
Sweeter than instrument of man e'er caught!

Whose habitations in the tree-tops even

Are half-way houses on the road to heaven!

404

Longfellow: Birds of Killingworth. St. 15.

The birds, great nature's happy commoners,
That haunt in woods, in meads, and flow'ry gardens,
Rifle the sweets and taste the choicest fruits,
Yet scorn to ask the lordly owner's leave.
405

BIRTH -see Ancestry.

Rowe: Fair Penitent. Act ii. Sc. 2.

Let high birth triumph! what can be more great?
Nothing but merit in a low estate.

To virtue's humblest son let none prefer

Vice, though descended from the Conqueror.

406 BIRTHDAY.

Young: Love of Fame. Satire i. Line 131.

Is that a birthday? 'tis, alas! too clear, "Tis but the funeral of the former year.

407

Pope: To Mrs. M. B. Line 9

My birthday! what a different sound

That word had in my youthful ears;
And how each time the day comes round,
Less and less white its mark appears.
408

This is my birthday, and a happier one
Was never mine.

Moore: My Birthday

409 Longfellow: Divine Tragedy. Second Passover. Pt. ii. My birthday! "How many years ago? Twenty or thirty?" Don't ask me! "Forty or fifty? How can I tell? I do not remember my birth, you see! 410

Julia C. R. Dorr: My Birthday.

A birthday :- and now a day that rose
With much of hope, with meaning rife -
A thoughtful day from dawn to close:
The middle day of human life.

411 Thou art my single day, God lends to leaven What were all earth else, with a feel of heaven.

Jean Ingelow: A Birthday Walk.

412

BLACKGUARDS.

Robert Browning: Pippa Passes. Sc. 1.

They each pull'd different ways, with many an oath, "Arcades ambo," id est-blackguards both.

413

BLASPHEMY.

Byron: Don Juan. Canto iv. St. 93.

Great men may jest with saints; 'tis wit in them;
But, in the less, foul profanation.

That in the captain's but a choleric word,
Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.

414

Shaks.: M. for M. Act ii. Sc. 2.

Pope: Epil. to Satires. Dialogue ii. Line 194.

And each blasphemer quite escape the rod,
Because the insult's not on man, but God?

415

BLINDNESS.

O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon;
Irrecoverably dark! total eclipse,
Without all hope of day.

416

Milton: Samson Agonistes. Line 80.

O, loss of sight, of thee I most complain!
Blind among enemies, O worse than chains,
Dungeons, or beggary, or decrepit age!
Light, the prime work of God, to me's extinct,
And all her various objects of delight

Annul'd, which might in part my grief have eas'd.

417

Milton: Samson Agonistes. Line 67

Thus with the year

Seasons return, but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair
Presented with a universal blank

Of nature's works, to me expunged and rased,
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.

418

Milton: Par. Lost. Bk. iii. Line 40
These eyes, though clear

To outward view of blemish or of spot,
Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot;
Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear
Of sun, or moon, or star, throughout the year,
Or man, or woman. Yet I argue not
Against heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot
Of heart or hope; but still bear up and steer
Right onward.

419

BLISS - see Happiness.

Milton: Sonnet xxii. Line 1.

Condition, circumstance, is not the thing,
Bliss is the same in subject or in king.
420

Pope: Essay on Man. Epis. iv. Line 57.

The spider's most attenuated thread

Is cord, is cable, to man's tender tie

On earthly bliss; it breaks at every breeze.

421

BLUE

- see Sky.

Young: Night Thoughts. Night i. Line 178.

O, "darkly, deeply, beautifully blue,"

As some one somewhere sings about the sky.

422

BLUNTNESS.

Byron: Don Juan. Canto iv. St. 110.

Rudeness is a sauce to his good wit,

Which gives men stomach to digest his words
With better appetite.

423

Shaks. Jul. Cæsar. Act i. Sc. 2

I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth,

Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech,
To stir men's blood: I only speak right on.

424

Shaks.: Jul. Cæsar. Act iii. Sc. 2.

These kind of knaves I know, which in their plainness
Harbor more craft, and more corrupter ends,

Than twenty silly ducking observants,

That stretch their duties nicely.

425

Shaks.: King Lear. Act ii. Sc. 2

1 Southey; Madoc in Wales. V.

'Tis not enough your counsel still be true;

Blunt truths more mischief than nice falsehoods do.
Pope: E. on Criticism.

426 BLUSHING

see Bashfulness.

From every blush that kindles in thy cheeks,
Ten thousand little loves and graces spring
To revel in the roses.

427

Pt. iii. Line 13.

Rowe: Tamerlane. Act i. Sc. 1.

Gay: Dione. Act ii. Sc. 3.

The rising blushes, which her cheek o'erspread,
Are opening roses in the lily's bed.
428

Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.

429

Pope: Epil. to Satire. Dialogue i. Line 136.

With every change his features played,
As aspens show the light and shade.

430
Girls blush, sometimes, because they are alive,
Half wishing they were dead to save the shame.
The sudden blush devours them, neck and brow;
They have drawn too near the fire of life, like gnats,
And flare up boldly, wings and all.

Scott: Rokeby. Canto iii. St. 5.

What then?

Who's sorry for a gnat . . . or girl?

431 Mrs. Browning: Aurora Leigh.

BOASTING-
-see Braggart.

Bk. ii. Line 732.

The empty vessel makes the greatest sound.
432
The man that once did sell the lion's skin,
While the beast lived, was killed with hunting him.

Shaks.: Henry V. Act iv. Sc. 4.

Shaks.: Henry V. Act iv. Sc. 3.

Shaks.: King John. Act ii. Sc. 1

433 What cracker is this same, that deafs our ears With this abundance of superfluous breath?

434

Here's a large mouth, indeed,

That spits forth death, and mountains, rocks, and seas;
Talks as familiarly of roaring lions,

As maids of thirteen do of puppy dogs.

435

Shaks.: King John. Act ii. Sc. 2

Nay, an thou❜lt mouth,

Shaks.: Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 1.

I'll rant as well as thou.

436

A mad-cap ruffian, and a swearing Jack,

That thinks with oaths to face the matter out.

437

We rise in glory, as we sink in pride:

Shaks.: Tam. of the S. Act ii. Sc. 1.

Young: Night Thoughts. Night viii. Line 510

Where boasting ends, there dignity begins.

438

BOLDNESS.

In conversation boldness now bears sway,
But know, that nothing can so foolish be
As empty boldness; therefore, first assay
To stuff thy mind with solid bravery;
Then march on gallant. Get substantial worth,
Boldness gilds finely, and will set it forth.
439

BOND.

Herbert: Temple. Church Porch. St. 34

I'll have my bond; I will not hear thee speak;
I'll have my bond; and therefore speak no more.
440
Shaks.: M. of Venice. Act iii. Sc. 3.

BOOKISHNESS-see Pedantry, Learning.
The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read,
With loads of learned lumber in his head,
With his own tongue still edifies his ears,
And always list'ning to himself appears.

441

Pope: E. on Criticism. Pt. iii. Line 52.

BOOKS see Authors, Reading.

They are the books, the arts, the academes, that show, contain, and nourish all the world.

442 Shaks.: Love's L. Lost. Act iv. Sc. 3. That book in many's eyes doth share the glory, That in gold clasps locks in the golden story.

Shaks.: Rom. and Jul. Act i. Sc. 3.

Be not, as is our fangled world, a garment
Nobler than that it covers.

444

Shaks. Cymbeline. Act v. Sc. 4.

Was ever book containing such vile matter
So fairly bound.

445

Shaks.: Rom. and Jul. Act iii. Sc. 2.

I read books bad and good—some bad and good
At once; (good aims not always make good books;
Well-tempered spades turn up ill-smelling soils
In digging vineyards, even :) books, that prove
God's being so definitely, that man's doubt
Grows self-defined the other side the line,
Made atheist by suggestion; moral books
Exasperating to license; genial books,
Discounting from the human dignity;

And merry books, which set you weeping when
The sun shines ay, and melancholy books,
Which make you laugh that any one should weep,
In this disjointed life, for one wrong more.

446

Mrs. Browning: Aurora Leigh. Bk. i. Line 793