With power to add, retouch, efface, Which hath been more than wealth to me: WHAT is commonly called genius, for any particular calling or pursuit, is often nothing more than a disposition towards it, generally given by accidental causes; and the superiority attainable in it does not always depend on any innate propensity of the mind, but on the general strength of the intellect, and on the intense and constant application of that strength to a specific purpose. THE reason why so few marriages are happy is, because young ladies spend their time in making nets, not in making cages. SWIFT. THE SEA. EARTH has not a plain So boundless or so beautiful as thine ; The lightning's wing, too weak to sweep its space, It is the mirror of the stars, where all CAMPBELL. THE restless inanity of minds, which can neither use, retain, nor even receive any of the materials of intellectual enjoyment, require, as the gratifications of sensuality cease, a continued and endless succession of novelties, at once violent and frivolous, to relieve them from the painful sense of that vacancy, which it is impossible to fill, and that lassitude of selfdisgust which it is impossible to fly. The desires of avarice have an end; but those of prodigality have none: the one is a monogastric bloodsucker, which fills itself, grows torpid, and falls off; the other is a living syphon, which discharges as fast as it receives, and enlarges its tube, and accelerates its transmission, the longer it adheres, and the more copiously it exhausts. It is never satiated, because it never enjoys; and ever covets what is absent, because it can never relish what is present. THUS the gay moth, by sun and vernal gales more. AGAINST the threats Of Malice, or of Sorcery, or that power Surprised by unjust force, but not enthrall'd: And mix no more with goodness. MILTON, FIRMNESS is as different from its mean substitute, obstinacy, as rashness is from true courage, prudery from virtue, and bigotry from religion. COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON. LOVE is a plant of holier birth But Love shall live for ever, And chance and change shall meet it never! Ah, no! like buds on one stem born, They share between them even the thorn Which round them dwells, but parts them not, Can Death dissever or part The loved one from the lover's heart? No, no; he does but guard the prize Making it purer, holier seem; As the ice closing o'er the stream, Keeps, while storms ravage earth and air, All baser things from mingling there. L'EXPÉRIENCE du monde brise le coeur ou le bronze. CHAMPFORT. I SAW the virtuous man contend I saw the passions' pliant slave His course was pleasure's placid wave, And I was caught in Folly's snare There surely is some guiding Pow'r, STRANG FORD. He who would do an unworthy act for the sake of power, would do the same for pelf, if he happened to feel the want of it, or to place as high a value upon it; and he that reserves the practice of base arts for the gratification of his ambition alone, proves his estimate of the object to vary, rather than his scrupulousness about the means. L |