Then Cæsar he's nicknamed, as duly as As pertinently long ago. BUTLER. Miscellaneous Thoughts. POETS THEIR POVERTY. IT has been observed, that not one favourite of the Muses has ever been able to build a house since the days of Amphion, whose art it would be fortunate for them if they possessed; and that the greatest punishment that can possibly be inflicted upon them, is to oblige them to sup in their own lodgings. Adventurer. Of all the good that mortal men pursue, ALL writers, tho' of diff'rent fancies, To make a poet excellent, But only want and discontent, BUTLER. Miscellaneous Thoughts. Advice to a young Poet. WHEN you set about composing, it may be necessary for your ease, and better distillation of wit, to put on your worst clothes, and the worse the better; for an author, like a limb, will yield the better for having a rag about him: besides that I have observed a gardener cut the outward rind of a tree, (which is the surtout of it,) to make it bear well: and this is a natural account of the usual poverty of poets, and is an argument, why wits, of all men living, ought to be ill clad. I have always a sacred veneration for any one I observe to be a little out of repair in his person, as supposing him either a poet or a philosopher; because the richest minerals are ever found under the most ragged and withered surfaces of the earth. SWIFT. SEVEN wealthy towns contend for Homer dead,* On Butler's Monument in Westminster Abbey. See him, when starved to death, and turn'd to dust, The poet's fate is here in emblems shown; He asked for bread and he received a stone. MYSELF was once a student, and indeed Good unto none but least to the professors; S. WESTLEY. Which then I thought the mistress of all knowledge, And reason taught me better to distinguish The vain from the useful learnings. BEN JONSON. Every Man in His Humour. 66 HOOD observes that the phrase republic of letters was hit upon to insinuate that, taking the whole lot of authors together, they had not got a sovereign amongst them. It is not poetry that make men poor, For few do write that were not so before; And those that have writ best, had they been rich, Had loved their ease too well to take the pains To undergo that drudgery of brains; But being for all other trades unfit, BUTLER. Miscellaneous Thoughts. * Homer's poverty, as taught by the Irish schoolmaster : And so, of parish rights, was all his days forlorn. HOOD. CAPTAIN, or colonel, or knight in arms, Whose chance on these defenceless doors may seize, To save the Athenian walls from ruin bare. MILTON. Sonnet, When the Assault was intended to the City. FOR Rhyme the rudder is of verses, With which like ships they steer their courses. Hudibras, Part I., Canto 1. HOLD, hold, quoth she, no more of this, Sir Knight; you take your aim amiss: Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd; Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, We poets, madder yet than all, SHAKESPEARE. Sonnets. Think we not only have, but give eternity. COWLEY. Odes. heart: In which your mastery of art Is but a desk to write upon; And what men say of her they mean No more than on the thing they lean. Hudibras, Part II., Canto 1. NIGHTINGALE. DEAR chorister, who from those shadows sends, The bird, as if my questions did her move, With trembling wings sigh'd forth, I love, I love. AND made him like a man abroad at morn DRUMMOND. Breaks from a coppice gemm'd with green and red, And he suspends his converse with a friend, Or it may be the labour of his hands, To think or say, There is the Nightingale. COMMANDERS. TENNYSON. Idylls, Enid. FOR no man is judged fit to have the care BUTLER. Miscellaneous Thoughts. And that bewailing nightingales did borrow, DRUMMOND. IN desp❜rate cases, all, or most are known PROFESSION. AND, like an hypocritic brother, Profess'd one thing and did another. As all things when they're most profess'd, Are found to be regarded least. HERRICK. BUTLER. Fragments. WOMEN QUICK AT EXCUSES. THE intellect of the generality of women serves more to fortify their folly than their reason. CONTRADICTION. ROCHEFOUCAULD. Gripe. WHY, what shall hinder me, insolence? Flip. That which hinders most husbands; contradiction. F. Suppose she resolves you shall? G. A wife's resolution is not good by law. F. Nor a husband's by custom. VANBRUGH. The Confederacy. FICKLENESS. Ulysses. TIME hath, my lord, a wallet at his back, A great-sized monster of ingratitudes: Those scraps are good deeds past; which are devour'd As done perseverance, dear my lord, Keeps honour bright: to have done, is to hang Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail In monumental mockery. Take the instant way; Like to an enter'd tide, they all rush by, And leave you hindmost ; Or, like a gallant horse fall'n in first rank, Lie there for pavement to the abject rear, O'er-run and trampled on: then what they do in present, For Time is like a fashionable host, That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand: |