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towers and temples and cathedrals-Then, I say, a' at ance, the trees unfauld themselves like a banner,-or as you micht suddenly unfauld that fan-the yearth, that has been lookin' greyish and gloomyish, wi' a' the roots o' garse like mouse's nests, puts on without warnin' her green cymar, like a fairy bride gaun to be married.

WILSON. Noctes Ambrosianæ.

CHANGE TO COLD.

THE seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts
Fall'in the fresh lap of the crimson rose;
And on old Hyem's chin, and icy crown,
An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds
Is, as in mockery, set.

Midsummer Night's Dream, Act II.

TEARS.

WHAT precious drops are these,

Which silently each other's track pursue,

Bright as young diamonds in their infant dew?

DRYDEN.

HER eye did seem to labour with a tear,
Which suddenly took birth, but, overweigh'd
With its own swelling, dropp'd upon her bosom,
Which, by reflection of her light, appear'd

As Nature meant her sorrow for an ornament.
After, her looks grew cheerful, and I saw
A smile shoot graceful upward from her eyes,
As if they gain'd a victory o'er grief;
And with it many beams twisted themselves
Upon whose golden threads the angels walk
To and again from Heaven.

SHIRLEY. The Brothers.

So cheer'd he his fair spouse, and she was cheer'd;
But silently a gentle tear let fall

From either eye, and wiped them with her hair;
Two other precious drops that ready stood
Each in their crystal sluice, he ere they fell
Kiss'd, as the gracious signs of sweet remorse
And pious awe that fear'd to have offended.

Paradise Lost, Book V.

BUT now, with head declined,
Like a fair flower surcharged with dew, she weeps.
Samson Agonistes.

How many a holy and obsequious tear

Hath dear religious love stolen from mine eye,

As interest of the dead.

ANARCHY.

SHAKSPEARE. Sonnet.

AND vast confusion waits

(As doth a raven on a sick-fallen beast).

King John, Act III. Mustapha, Captain of the Rabble. For what should a poor man do, that gets his living by hard labour, but pray for bad times when he may get it easily. Oh! for some incomparable tumult! Then should I naturally wish that the beaten party might prevail, because we have plundered the other side already, and there's nothing more to be got of them.

DRYDEN. Don Sebastian.

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Then die! that she,

The common fate of all things rare,
May read in thee,

How small a part of time they share

That are so wondrous sweet and fair !*

WALLER.

A ROSE-BUD.

A ROSE-BUD by my early walk,
Adown a corn-enclosed bank,
Sae gently bent its thorny stalk,
All on a dewy morning.

Ere twice the shades o' dawn are fled,
In a' its crimson glory spread,
And drooping rich the dewy head,

It scents the early morning.

BURNS.

TASTE.

TASTE and elegance, though they are reckoned only among the smaller and secondary morals, yet are of no mean importance in the regulations of life. A moral taste is not of force to turn vice into virtue; but it recommends virtue with something like the blandishments of pleasure; and it infinitely abates the evils of vice.

BURKE.

TRUE Taste is an excellent Economist; she confines her choice to a few objects, and delights in producing great effects by small means; while False Taste is for ever sighing after the new and the rare, and reminds us in her works of the scholar of Apelles, who, not being able to paint his Helen beautiful, determined to make her fine.

S. ROGERS.

I BELIEVE it is no wrong observation, that persons of genius, and those who are most capable of art, are always most fond of

* The following stanza is added by H. Kirke White :

Yet though thou fade,

From thy dead leaves let fragrance rise

And teach the maid

That goodness Time's rude hand defies,

T at Virtue lives when Beauty dies.

nature; as such are chiefly sensible, that all art consists in the imitation and study of nature. On the contrary, people of the common level of understanding are principally delighted with the little niceties of fantastical operations of art, and constantly think that finest which is least natural. A citizen in no sooner proprietor of a couple of yews but he entertains thoughts of erecting them into giants, like those of Guildhall. ·

POPE.

WHEN they had passed all those troubled ways,
The garden sweet spread forth her green to show,
The moving crystal from the fountain plays,
Fair trees, high plants, strange herbs, and flowrets new,
Sun-shiny hills, dales hid from Phoebus' rays,
Groves, arbours, mossy caves, at once they view;
And that which Beauty most, most wonder brought,
No where appear'd the Art which all this wrought.
FAIRFAX' TASSo. Jerusalem Delivered, Book XVI. Canto 9.

SIMILAR TASTES.

BUT thou and I are one in kind,

As moulded like in Nature's mint;
And hill and wood and field did print
The same sweet forms in either mind.

For us the same cold streamlet curl'd
Through all his eddying coves; the same
All winds that roam the twilight came
In whispers of the beauteous world.

*

TENNYSON. In Memoriam..

GREECE.

STRANGE that where nature loved to trace,
As if for Gods, a dwelling-place,

And every charm and grace hath mix'd

Within the paradise she fix'd,

There man, enamour'd of distress,

Should mar it into wilderness,

And trample, brute-like, o'er each flower
That tasks not one laborious hour;

* And that which all faire works doth most aggrace,
The art which all that wrought appeared in no place.
Faery Queen, Book II., Canto 12.

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He who hath bent him o'er the dead
Ere the first day of death is fled,
The first dark day of nothingness,

The last of danger and distress,
(Before decay's effacing fingers

Have swept the lines where beauty lingers,)
And mark'd the mild angelic air,

The rapture of repose that's there,
The fix'd yet tender traits that streak
The languor of the placid cheek,
And-but for that sad shrouded eye,

That fires not, wins not, weeps not, now,
And but for that chill, changeless brow,
Where cold obstruction's apathy
Appals the gazing mourner's heart,
As if to him it could impart

The doom he dreads, yet dwells upon;
Yes, but for these and these alone,
Some moments, ay, one treacherous hour,
He still might doubt the tyrant's power;
So fair, so calm, so softly seal'd,
The first, last look by death reveal'd!
Such is the aspect of this shore;
"Tis Greece, but living Greece no more!
So coldly sweet, so deadly fair,
We start, for soul is wanting there.
Hers is the loveliness in death,

That parts not quite with parting breath;

But beauty with that fearful bloom,

That hue which haunts it to the tomb,
Expression's last receding ray,

A gilded halo hovering round decay,

The farewell beam of Feeling past away!

Spark of that flame, perchance of heavenly birth,

Which gleams, but warms no more its cherish'd earth.

BYRON. The Giaour.

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