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God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea
And rides upon the storm.

Light shining out of Darkness.

Behind a frowning providence

He hides a shining face.

Beware of desperate steps! The darkest day,
Live till to-morrow, will have pass'd away.

Ibid.

The Needless Alarm. Moral.

Oh that those lips had language! Life has pass'd
With me but roughly since I heard thee last.

On the Receipt of my Mother's Picture.

The son of parents pass'd into the skies.

Ibid.

The man that hails you Tom or Jack,
And proves, by thumping on your back,1
His sense of your great merit,2

Is such a friend that one had need
Be very much his friend indeed
To pardon or to bear it.

A worm is in the bud of youth,
And at the root of age.

Toll for the brave!

On Friendship,

Stanzas subjoined to a Bill of Mortality.

The brave that are no more!
All sunk beneath the wave,
Fast by their native shore!

On the Loss of the Royal George.

There is a bird who by his coat,

And by the hoarseness of his note,

Might be supposed a crow.

The Jackdaw. (Translation from Vincent Bourne.)

1 See Young, page 312.

2 Var. How he esteems your merit.

He sees that this great roundabout
The world, with all its motley rout,
Church, army, physic, law,

Its customs and its businesses,
Is no concern at all of his,

And says what says he?

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- Caw.

The Jackdaw. (Translation from Vincent Bourne.)

For 't is a truth well known to most,

That whatsoever thing is lost,

We seek it, ere it come to light,

In every cranny but the right.

He that holds fast the golden mean,1

And lives contentedly between

The little and the great,

The Retired Cat.

Feels not the wants that pinch the poor,

Nor plagues that haunt the rich man's door.

Translation of Horace. Book ii. Ode x.

But strive still to be a man before your mother.2

Connoisseur. Motto of No. iii.

ERASMUS DARWIN.

1731-1802.

Soon shall thy arm, unconquer'd steam! afar
Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car;
Or on wide-waving wings expanded bear
The flying chariot through the field of air.

The Botanic Garden. Part i. Canto i. Line 289.

No radiant pearl which crested Fortune wears,
No gem that twinkling hangs from Beauty's ears,
Not the bright stars which Night's blue arch adorn,
Nor rising suns that gild the vernal morn,
Shine with such lustre as the tear that flows
Down Virtue's manly cheek for others' woes.

Part ii. Canto iii. Line 459.

1 Keep the golden mean. - PUBLIUS SYRUS: Maxim 1072. 2 See Beaumont and Fletcher, page 199.

BEILBY PORTEUS. 1731-1808.

In sober state,

Through the sequestered vale of rural life,

The venerable patriarch guileless held
The tenor of his way.1

One murder made a villain,

Millions a hero. Princes were privileged

Death. Line 108.

To kill, and numbers sanctified the crime."

Line 154.

War its thousands slays, Peace its ten thousands.

Line 178.

Teach him how to live,

And, oh still harder lesson! how to die.

Line 316.

GEORGE WASHINGTON. 1732-1799.

Labour to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire,

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conscience.

Rule from the Copy-book of Washington when a schoolboy.

To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.

Speech to both Houses of Congress, Jan. 8, 1790.

'Tis our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world.

1 See Gray, page 385.

2 See Young, page 311.

8 See Tickell, page 313.

His Farewell Address.

4 Qui desiderat pacem præparet bellum (Who would desire peace should be prepared for war). VEGETIUS: Rei Militari 3, Prolog.

In pace, ut sapiens, aptarit idonea bello (In peace, as a wise man, he should make suitable preparation for war. - HORACE: Book ii. satire ii.

LORD THURLOW.

1732-1806.

The accident of an accident.

Speech in Reply to the Duke of Grafton. Butler's
Reminiscences, vol. i. P. 142.

When I forget my sovereign, may my God forget me.1
27 Parliamentary History, 680; Annual Register, 1789.

JOHN DICKINSON. 1732-1808.

Then join in hand, brave Americans all!
By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall.

Our cause is just, our union is perfect.

The Liberty Song (1768).

Declaration on taking up Arms in 1775.2

W. J. MICKLE. 1734-1788.

The dews of summer nights did fall,
The moon, sweet regent of the sky,3
Silvered the walls of Cumnor Hall

And many an oak that grew thereby.

For there's nae luck about the house,
There's nae luck at a';

66

Cumnor Hall.

1 Whereupon Wilkes is reported to have said, somewhat coarsely, but not unhappily it must be allowed, Forget you! He'll see you d-d first." Burke also exclaimed, "The best thing that could happen to you!"- BROUGHAM: Statesmen of the Time of George III. (Thurlow.) 2 From the original manuscript draft in Dickinson's handwriting, which has given rise to the belief that he, not Jefferson (as formerly claimed), is the real author of this sentence.

8 Jove, thou regent of the skies. - POPE: The Odyssey, book ii. line 42. Now Cynthia, named fair regent of the night. - GAY: Trivia, book iii. And hail their queen, fair regent of the night. - DARWIN: The Botanic Garden, part i. canto ii. line 90.

There's little pleasure in the house
When our gudeman 's awa'.

His very foot has music in 't

As he comes up the stairs.

The Mariner's Wife.1

JOHN LANGHORNE. 1735-1779.

Cold on Canadian hills or Minden's plain,
Perhaps that parent mourned her soldier slain;
Bent o'er her babe, her eye dissolved in dew,
The big drops mingling with the milk he drew
Gave the sad presage of his future years,
The child of misery, baptized in tears.2

Ibid.

The Country Justice. Part i.

ISAAC BICKERSTAFF. 1735-1787.

Hope! thou nurse of young desire.

Love in a Village. Act i. Sc. 1.

There was a jolly miller once,

Lived on the river Dee;

He worked and sung from morn till night:
No lark more blithe than he.

Sc. 2.

And this the burden of his song

Forever used to be,

I care for nobody, no, not I,

If no one cares for me.3

Ibid.

"The Mariner's Wife " is now given" by common consent," says Sarah Tytler, to Jean Adam (1710–1765).

2 This allusion to the dead soldier and his widow on the field of battle was made the subject of a print by Bunbury, under which were engraved the pathetic lines of Langhorne. Sir Walter Scott has mentioned that the only time he saw Burns this picture was in the room. Burns shed tears over it; and Scott, then a lad of fifteen, was the only person present who could tell him where the lines were to be found. - LOCKHART: Life of Scott, vol. i. chap. iv.

3 If naebody care for me,

I'll care for naebody.

BURNS: I hae a Wife o' my Ain.

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