Statesman, yet friend to truth! of soul sincere,
In action faithful, and in honour clear;
Who broke no promise, serv'd no private end,
Who gain'd no title, and who lost no friend.

Epistle to Mr. Addison. Line 67.

'Tis with our judgments as our watches, Go just alike, yet each believes his own.1

Essay on Criticism. Part i. Line 9.

One science only will one genius fit:
So vast is art, so narrow human wit.

From vulgar bounds with brave disorder part,
And snatch a grace beyond the reach of art.
Those oft are stratagems which errors seem,
Nor is it Homer nods, but we that dream.2

Of all the causes which conspire to blind
Man's erring judgment, and misguide the mind;
What the weak head with strongest bias rules,
Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools.

A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.

Line 60.

Line 152.

Line 177.

Part ii. Line 1.

Line 15.

Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise!

Line 32.

Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see,

Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be.1

Line 53.

True wit is Nature to advantage dress'd,

What oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd.

Line 97.

Words are like leaves; and where they most abound,
Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.

Line 109.

1 See Suckling, page 256.

2 Quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus (Even the worthy Homer sometimes nods). HORACE: De Arte Poetica, 359.

-

8 See Bacon, page 166.

4 See Suckling, page 256.

Such labour'd nothings, in so strange a style,
Amaze th' unlearn'd and make the learned smile.
Essay on Criticism. Part ii. Line 126.

In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold,
Alike fantastic if too new or old :
Be not the first by whom the new are tried,
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.

Some to church repair,

Line 133.

Not for the doctrine, but the music there.
These equal syllables alone require,
Though oft the ear the open vowels tire;
While expletives their feeble aid to join,

And ten low words oft creep in one dull line.

Line 142.

A needless Alexandrine ends the song,
That like a wounded snake drags its slow length along.

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance.
'Tis not enough no harshness gives offence,
The sound must seem an echo to the sense.

Line 156.

Line 162.

Soft is the strain when zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,
The hoarse rough verse should like the torrent roar.
When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line too labours, and the words move slow :
Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main.

Line 166.

Yet let not each gay turn thy rapture move;
For fools admire, but men of sense approve.

Line 190.

But let a lord once own the happy lines,

How the wit brightens! how the style refines !

Line 220.

Envy will merit as its shade pursue,

But like a shadow proves the substance true.

Line 266.

To err is human, to forgive divine.1

Essay on Criticism. Part ii. Line 325.

Line 358.

Part iii. Line 12.

All seems infected that th' infected spy,
As all looks yellow to the jaundic'd eye.
And make each day a critic on the last.
Men must be taught as if you taught them not,
And things unknown propos'd as things forgot.
The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read,
With loads of learned lumber in his head.

Line 15.

Line 53.

Most authors steal their works, or buy;

Garth did not write his own Dispensary.

Line 59.

For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.2
Led by the light of the Mæonian star.

Line 66.

Line 89.

Content if hence th' unlearn'd their wants may view,
The learn'd reflect on what before they knew.

Part iii. Line 180.

Line 134.

What dire offence from amorous causes springs !
What mighty contests rise from trivial things!
The Rape of the Lock. Canto i. Line 1.
And all Arabia breathes from yonder box.
On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore
Which Jews might kiss, and infidels adore.
If to her share some female errors fall,
Look on her face, and you'll forget them all.

1 Then gently scan your brother man,
Still gentler sister woman;

Though they may gang a kennin' wrang,
To step aside is human.

2 See Shakespeare, page 96.

Canto ii. Line 7.

Line 17.

BURNS: Address to the Unco Guid.

3 Indocti discant et ament meminisse periti (Let the unlearned learn, and the learned delight in remembering). This Latin hexameter, which is commonly ascribed to Horace, appeared for the first time as an epigraph to President Hénault's “Abrégé Chronologique," and in the preface to the third edition of this work Hénault acknowledges that he had given it as a translation of this couplet.

Fair tresses man's imperial race insnare,
And beauty draws us with a single hair.1

The Rape of the Lock. Canto ii. Line 27.
Here thou, great Anna! whom three realms obey,
Dost sometimes counsel take-and sometimes tea.
At every word a reputation dies.

Canto iii. Line 7.
Line 16.

The hungry judges soon the sentence sign,
And wretches hang that jurymen may dine.

Line 21.

Coffee, which makes the politician wise,

And see through all things with his half-shut eyes.

Line 117.

The meeting points the sacred hair dissever
From the fair head, forever, and forever!

Line 153.

Canto iv. Line 123.

Sir Plume, of amber snuff-box justly vain,
And the nice conduct of a clouded cane.
Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.

Canto v. Line 34.

Shut, shut the door, good John! fatigued, I said;
Tie up the knocker! say I'm sick, I'm dead.

Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. Prologue to the Satires. Line 1.

Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand,
They rave, recite, and madden round the land.

Line 5.

E'en Sunday shines no Sabbath day to me.

Line 12.

Line 15.

Is there a parson much bemused in beer,
A maudlin poetess, a rhyming peer,
A clerk foredoom'd his father's soul to cross,
Who pens a stanza when he should engross?
Friend to my life, which did not you prolong,
The world had wanted many an idle song.
Obliged by hunger and request of friends.
Fired that the house rejects him, "'Sdeath! I'll print it,
And shame the fools."

Line 27.

Line 44.

Line 61.

1 See Burton, page 191.

No creature smarts so little as a fool.

Prologue to the Satires. Line 84.

Destroy his fib or sophistry-in vain!
The creature's at his dirty work again.

As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame,
I lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came.
Pretty in amber to observe the forms

Of hairs, or straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms!
The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare,
But wonder how the devil they got there.

Means not, but blunders round about a meaning;
And he whose fustian 's so sublimely bad,

It is not poetry, but prose run mad.

Should such a man, too fond to rule alone,
Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne.2

Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
And without sneering teach the rest to sneer;
Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,
Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike.

8

Line 91.

Line 127.

Line 169.

Line 186.

Line 197.

Line 201.

By flatterers besieg'd,
And so obliging that he ne'er oblig'd;
Like Cato, give his little senate laws,*
And sit attentive to his own applause.
Who but must laugh, if such a man there be?
Who would not weep, if Atticus were he?

Line 207.

Line 213.

"On wings of winds came flying all abroad." 5 Cursed be the verse, how well so e'er it flow, That tends to make one worthy man my foe.

Line 218.

1 See Bacon, page 168.

Line 283.

2 See Denham, page 258.

3 When needs he must, yet faintly then he praises ;
Somewhat the deed, much more the means he raises :
So marreth what he makes, and praising most, dispraises.
P. FLETCHER: The Purple Island, canto vii.

4 See page 336.

5 See Sternhold, page 23.