To touch the sword with conscientious awe, COWPER. HUMAN life hath not a surer friend, nor many times a greater enemy, than Hope. 'Tis the miserable man's God, which in the hardest gripe of calamity, never fails to yield him beams of comfort. 'Tis the presumptuous man's Devil, which leads him awhile in a smooth way, and then makes him break his neck on the sudden. Hope is to man as a bladder to a learning swimmer; it keeps him from sinking in the bosom of the waves, and by that help he may attain the exercise but yet it many times makes him venture beyond his height, and then, if that breaks, or a storm rises, he drowns without recovery. How many would die, did not Hope sustain them! How many have died by hoping too much! This wonder we may find in Hope, that she is both a flatterer and a true friend. Like a valiant captain in a losing battle, it is ever encouraging man, and never leaves him till they both expire together. While breath pants in the dying body, there is Hope fleeting in the waving soul. 'Tis almost as the air by which the mind does live. FELTHAM. How beautiful the setting Sun Like Virtue, life's drear warfare done, Yet smiling with a brow of love, MOIR. Of all the prejudices in direct opposition to the established law, the point of Honour is perhaps the most ancient, and the most difficult to be overcome, because it is in some sort identified with the national character. Of what importance is it, in reality, that the Law forbids, under pain of death, that which Honour commands under pain of shame, in a warlike nation, where education makes cowardice a crime, and contempt a dreadful punishment? RODERICK alone appear'd Unmoved and calm; for now the Royal Goth And therefore in his soul he felt that peace SOUTHEY. THERE is not so agonizing a feeling in the whole catalogue of human suffering, as the first conviction that the heart of the being whom we most tenderly love, is estranged from us. LOVE's like a torch which, if secur'd from blasts, WALSH. No effect is ever lost, and often the little accidents which we think unlucky, tend to the most fortunate circumstances of our lives, AND press'd her hand-that lingering press When that hold breaks, is dead for ever. Gives hope-so fondly hope can err ! 'Twas joy, she thought, joy's mute excess Their happy flight's dear harbinger; 'Twas warmth-assurance-tenderness "Twas anything but leaving her. U MOORE. How happy is he born or taught, That serveth not another's will, Whose armour is his honest thought, And simple truth his utmost skill: Whose passions not his masters are, Who envies none that chance doth raise, Nor vice; who never understood How deepest wounds are given by praise, Nor rules of state, but rules of good: Who hath his life from rumours freed, Whose conscience is his strong retreat, Whose state can neither flatt'rers feed, Nor ruin make oppressors great : Who God doth late and early pray, This man is freed from servile bands, SIR HENRY WOTTON. THE wing of Time passes lightly over the cheek and the brow, unconscious of the ravages of misery and ungovernable feelings. It is only where the passions have left their strongly marked traces, that Time lends his aid to indent them still more deeply. WHO swerves from innocence, who makes divorce WORDSWORTH. To Contemplation's sober eye Such is the race of man : And they that creep, and they that fly, Shall end where they began. Alike the busy and the gay But flutter thro' life's little day, In fortune's varying colours drest : They leave, in dust to rest. GRAY. |