Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

The maid who modestly conceals
Her beauties, while she hides, reveals;
Give but a glimpse, and fancy draws

Whate'er the Grecian Venus was.

The Spider and the Bee. Fable x.

But from the hoop's bewitching round,
Her very shoe has power to wound.

Ibid.

Time still, as he flies, brings increase to her truth,
And gives to her mind what he steals from her youth.
The Happy Marriage.

I am rich beyond the dreams of avarice.1

[blocks in formation]

'Tis now the summer of your youth. Time has not cropt the roses from your cheek, though sorrow long has washed them.

Labour for his pains.2

Act iii. Sc. 4.

The Boy and the Rainbow.

LAURENCE STERNE. 1713-1768.

Go, poor devil, get thee gone! Why should I hurt thee? This world surely is wide enough to hold both thee and me. Tristram Shandy (orig. ed.). Vol. ii. chap. xii. Vol. iii. Chap. ix.

Great wits jump.

"Our armies swore terribly in Flanders," cried my Uncle Toby, "but nothing to this."

Chap. xi.

Of all the cants which are canted in this canting world, though the cant of hypocrites may be the worst, the cant of criticism is the most tormenting!

1 See Johnson, page 374.

2 See Shakespeare, page 101.

Chap. xii.

8 Great wits jump. -- BYROM: The Nimmers. BUCKINGHAM: The Chances, act. iv. sc. 1.

Good wits jump. - CERVANTES: Don Quixote, part ii. chap. xxxviii.

The accusing spirit, which flew up to heaven's chancery with the oath, blushed as he gave it in; and the recording angel as he wrote it down dropped a tear upon the word and blotted it out forever.1

Tristram Shandy (orig. ed.). Vol. vi. Chap. viii.

I am sick as a horse.

Vol. vii. Chap. xi.

66 "They order," said I, "this matter better in France." Sentimental Journey. Page 1.

I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba and cry, ""T is all barren!"

In the Street. Calais.

God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb.2

Maria.

"Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery," said I,

"still thou art a bitter draught."

The Passport. The Hotel at Paris.

Sermon xvi.

The sad vicissitude of things.3 Trust that man in nothing who has not a conscience in everything.

Sermon xxvii.

WILLIAM SHENSTONE. 1714-1763.

Whoe'er has travell'd life's dull round,
Where'er his stages may have been,
May sigh to think he still has found
The warmest welcome at an inn.1

Written on a Window of an Inn.

1 But sad as angels for the good man's sin,
Weep to record, and blush to give it in.

CAMPBELL: Pleasures of Hope, part ii. line 357.

2 Dieu mésure le froid à la brebis tondue (God measures the cold to the

shorn lamb).

HENRI ESTIENNE (1594): Prémices, etc. p. 47.

See Herbert, page 206.

3 Revolves the sad vicissitudes of things. - R. GIFFORD: Contemplation. 4 See Johnson, page 372.

Archbishop Leighton often said that if he were to choose a place to die in, it should be an inn. - Works, vol. i. p. 76.

So sweetly she bade me adieu,

I thought that she bade me return.

I have found out a gift for my fair;

A Pastoral. Part i.

I have found where the wood-pigeons breed.
My banks they are furnish'd with bees,
Whose murmur invites one to sleep.
For seldom shall she hear a tale
So sad, so tender, and so true.

Her cap, far whiter than the driven snow,
Emblems right meet of decency does yield.

Pun-provoking thyme.

Ibid.

Part ii. Hope.

Jemmy Dawson.

The Schoolmistress. Stanza 6.

Stanza 11.

A little bench of heedless bishops here,
And there a chancellor in embryo.

Stanza 28.

JOHN BROWN. 1715-1766.

Now let us thank the Eternal Power: convinced
That Heaven but tries our virtue by affliction,
That oft the cloud which wraps the present hour
Serves but to brighten all our future days.

Barbarossa. Act v. Sc. 3.

And coxcombs vanquish Berkeley by a grin.

An Essay on Satire, occasioned by the Death of Mr. Pope.1

JAMES TOWNLEY. 1715-1778.

Kitty. Shikspur? Shikspur? Who wrote it? No, I never read Shikspur.

Lady Bab. Then you have an immense pleasure to High Life below Stairs. Act ii. Sc. 1.

come.

From humble Port to imperial Tokay.

Ibid.

1 ANDERSON: British Poets, vol. x. p. 879. See note in "Contemporary Review," September, 1867, p. 4.

THOMAS GRAY. 1716-1771.

What female heart can gold despise?

What cat's averse to fish? On the death of a Favourite Cat.

A fav'rite has no friend!

Ibid.

Ye distant spires, ye antique towers.

On a Distant Prospect of Eton College. Stanza 1.

Ah, happy hills! ah, pleasing shade!

Ah, fields beloved in vain!

Where once my careless childhood stray'd,

A stranger yet to pain!

I feel the gales that from ye
A momentary bliss bestow.

blow

They hear a voice in every wind,
And snatch a fearful joy.

Gay hope is theirs by fancy fed,
Less pleasing when possest;
The tear forgot as soon as shed,
The sunshine of the breast.

Alas! regardless of their doom,

Stanza 2.

Stanza 4.

Stanza 5.

[blocks in formation]

To each his suff'rings; all are men,
Condemn'd alike to groan,

The tender for another's pain,
Th' unfeeling for his own.

Yet ah! why should they know their fate,
Since sorrow never comes too late,

And happiness too swiftly flies ? Thought would destroy their paradise. No more; where ignorance is bliss,

'Tis folly to be wise.1

On a Distant Prospect of Eton College. Stanza 10.

Daughter of Jove, relentless power,

Thou tamer of the human breast,

Whose iron scourge and tort'ring hour
The bad affright, afflict the best!

From Helicon's harmonious springs

A thousand rills their mazy progress take.

Hymn to Adversity.

The Progress of Poesy. I. 1, Line 3.

Glance their many-twinkling feet.

3, Line 11.

O'er her warm cheek and rising bosom move
The bloom of young Desire and purple light of Love.2

Her track, where'er the goddess roves,
Glory pursue, and gen'rous shame,

Th' unconquerable mind, and freedom's holy flame.

Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic tears.

Line 16.

11. 2, Line 10.

III. 1, Line 12.

He pass'd the flaming bounds of place and time:
The living throne, the sapphire blaze,

Where angels tremble while they gaze,

He saw; but blasted with excess of light,
Closed his eyes in endless night.

2, Line 4.

Bright-eyed Fancy, hov'ring o'er,

Scatters from her pictured urn

Thoughts that breathe and words that burn.1

Beyond the limits of a vulgar fate,

3, Line 2.

Beneath the good how far, - but far above the great.

1 See Davenant, page 217.

[ocr errors]

Line 16.

He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. - Ecclesiastes i. 18. 2 The light of love. BYRON Bride of Abydos, canto i. stanza 6.

8 Unconquerable mind. · 4 See Cowley, page 262.

WORDSWORTH: To Toussaint L'Ouverture.

« AnteriorContinuar »