Familiar Quotations, - [best romance ebooks .txt] 📗
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Actions of the last age are like almanacs of the last year.
The Sophy. A Tragedy.
But whither am I strayed? I need not raise
Trophies to thee from other men's dispraise;
Nor is thy fame on lesser ruins built;
Nor needs thy juster title the foul guilt
Of Eastern kings, who, to secure their reign,
Must have their brothers, sons, and kindred slain.[258:1]
On Mr. John Fletcher's Works.
[258:1]
Poets are sultans, if they had their will;
For every author would his brother kill.
Orrery: Prologues (according to Johnson).
Should such a man, too fond to rule alone,
Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne.
Pope: Prologue to the Satires, line 197.
RICHARD CRASHAW. Circa 1616-1650.The conscious water saw its God and blushed.[258:2]
Epigram.
Whoe'er she be,
That not impossible she,
That shall command my heart and me.
Wishes to his Supposed Mistress.
Where'er she lie,
Locked up from mortal eye,
In shady leaves of destiny.
Wishes to his Supposed Mistress.
Days that need borrow
No part of their good morrow
From a fore-spent night of sorrow.
Wishes to his Supposed Mistress.
Life that dares send
A challenge to his end,
And when it comes, say, Welcome, friend!
Wishes to his Supposed Mistress.
[259]
Sydneian showers
Of sweet discourse, whose powers
Can crown old Winter's head with flowers.
Wishes to his Supposed Mistress.
A happy soul, that all the way
To heaven hath a summer's day.
In Praise of Lessius's Rule of Health.
The modest front of this small floor,
Believe me, reader, can say more
Than many a braver marble can,—
"Here lies a truly honest man!"
Epitaph upon Mr. Ashton.
[258:2] Nympha pudica Deum vidit, et erubuit (The modest Nymph saw the god, and blushed).—Epigrammationa Sacra. Aquæ in vinum versæ, p. 299.
RICHARD LOVELACE. 1618-1658.Oh, could you view the melody
Of every grace
And music of her face,[259:1]
You 'd drop a tear;
Seeing more harmony
In her bright eye
Than now you hear.
Orpheus to Beasts.
I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Lov'd I not honour more.
To Lucasta, on going to the Wars.
When flowing cups pass swiftly round
With no allaying Thames.[259:2]
To Althea from Prison, ii.
Fishes that tipple in the deep,
Know no such liberty.
To Althea from Prison, ii.
[260]
Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage;
If I have freedom in my love,
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone that soar above
Enjoy such liberty.
To Althea from Prison, iv.
[259:1] See Browne, page 218.
The mind, the music breathing from her face.—Byron: Bride of Abydos, canto i. stanza 6.
[259:2] See Shakespeare, page 103.
ABRAHAM COWLEY. 1618-1667.What shall I do to be forever known,
And make the age to come my own?
The Motto.
His time is forever, everywhere his place.
Friendship in Absence.
We spent them not in toys, in lusts, or wine,
But search of deep philosophy,
Wit, eloquence, and poetry;
Arts which I lov'd, for they, my friend, were thine.
On the Death of Mr. William Harvey.
His faith, perhaps, in some nice tenets might
Be wrong; his life, I 'm sure, was in the right.[260:1]
On the Death of Crashaw.
The thirsty earth soaks up the rain,
And drinks, and gapes for drink again;
The plants suck in the earth, and are
With constant drinking fresh and fair.
From Anacreon, ii. Drinking.
Fill all the glasses there, for why
Should every creature drink but I?
Why, man of morals, tell me why?
From Anacreon, ii. Drinking.
[261]
A mighty pain to love it is,
And 't is a pain that pain to miss;
But of all pains, the greatest pain
It is to love, but love in vain.
From Anacreon, vii. Gold.
Hope, of all ills that men endure,
The only cheap and universal cure.
The Mistress. For Hope.
Th' adorning thee with so much art
Is but a barb'rous skill;
'T is like the pois'ning of a dart,
Too apt before to kill.
The Waiting Maid.
Nothing is there to come, and nothing past,
But an eternal now does always last.[261:1]
Davideis. Book i. Line 25.
When Israel was from bondage led,
Led by the Almighty's hand
From out of foreign land,
The great sea beheld and fled.
Davideis. Book i. Line 41.
An harmless flaming meteor shone for hair,
And fell adown his shoulders with loose care.[261:2]
Davideis. Book ii. Line 95.
The monster London laugh at me.
Of Solitude, xi.
Let but thy wicked men from out thee go,
And all the fools that crowd thee so,
Even thou, who dost thy millions boast,
A village less than Islington wilt grow,
A solitude almost.
Of Solitude, vii.
The fairest garden in her looks,
And in her mind the wisest books.
The Garden, i.
God the first garden made, and the first city Cain.[261:3]
The Garden, ii.
[262]
Hence, ye profane! I hate ye all,
Both the great vulgar and the small.
Horace. Book iii. Ode 1.
Charm'd with the foolish whistling of a name.[262:1]
Virgil, Georgics. Book ii. Line 72.
Words that weep and tears that speak.[262:2]
The Prophet.
We griev'd, we sigh'd, we wept; we never blush'd before.
Discourse concerning the Government of Oliver Cromwell.
Thus would I double my life's fading space;
For he that runs it well, runs twice his race.[262:3]
Discourse xi. Of Myself. St. xi.
[260:1]
For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight,
He can't be wrong whose life is in the right.
Pope: Essay on Man, epilogue iii. line 303.
[261:1] One of our poets (which is it?) speaks of an everlasting now.—Southey: The Doctor, chap. xxv. p. 1.
[261:2]
Loose his beard and hoary hair
Stream'd like a meteor to the troubled air.
Gray: The Bard, i. 2.
[261:3] See Bacon, page 167.
[262:1] Ravish'd with the whistling of a name.—Pope: Essay on Man, epistle iv. line 281.
[262:2] Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.—Gray: Progress of Poesy, iii. 3, 4.
[262:3]
For he lives twice who can at once employ
The present well, and ev'n the past enjoy.
Pope: Imitation of Martial.
RALPH VENNING. 1620(?)-1673.All the beauty of the world, 't is but skin deep.[262:4]
Orthodoxe Paradoxes. (Third edition, 1650.) The Triumph of Assurance, p. 41.
They spare the rod, and spoyle the child.[262:5]
Mysteries and Revelations, p. 5. (1649.)
[262:4] Many a dangerous temptation comes to us in fine gay colours that are but skin-deep.—Henry: Commentaries. Genesis iii.
[262:5] See Skelton, page 8.
ANDREW MARVELL. 1620-1678.Orange bright,
Like golden lamps in a green night.
Bermudas.
And all the way, to guide their chime,
With falling oars they kept the time.
Bermudas.
[263]
In busy companies of men.
The Garden. (Translated.)
Annihilating all that 's made
To a green thought in a green shade.
The Garden. (Translated.)
The world in all doth but two nations bear,—
The good, the bad; and these mixed everywhere.
The Loyal Scot.
The inglorious arts of peace.
Upon Cromwell's return from Ireland.
He nothing common did, or mean,
Upon that memorable scene.
Upon Cromwell's return from Ireland.
So much one man can do,
That does both act and know.
Upon Cromwell's return from Ireland.
To make a bank was a great plot of state;
Invent a shovel, and be a magistrate.
The Character of Holland.
JOSEPH HENSHAW.[263:1] —— -1678.Man's life is like unto a winter's day,—
Some break their fast and so depart away;
Others stay dinner, then depart full fed;
The longest age but sups and goes to bed.
O reader, then behold and see!
As we are now, so must you be.
Horæ Sucissive (1631).
[263:1] Bishop of Peterborough, 1663.
HENRY VAUGHAN. 1621-1695.But felt through all this fleshly dress
Bright shoots of everlastingness.
The Retreat.
I see them walking in an air of glory
Whose light doth trample on my days,—
[264]My days, which are at best but dull and hoary,
Mere glimmering and decays.
They are all gone.
Dear, beauteous death, the jewel of the just!
Shining nowhere but in the dark;
What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust,
Could man outlook that mark!
They are all gone.
And yet, as angels in some brighter dreams
Call to the soul when man doth sleep,
So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes,
And into glory peep.
They are all gone.
Then bless thy secret growth, nor catch
At noise, but thrive unseen and dumb;
Keep clean, be as fruit, earn life, and watch
Till the white-wing'd reapers come!
The Seed growing secretly.
ALGERNON SIDNEY. 1622-1683.Manus haec inimica tyrannis
Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem.[264:1]
From the Life and Memoirs of Algernon Sidney.
Liars ought to have good memories.[264:2]
Discourses on Government. Chap. ii. Sect. xv.
Men lived like fishes; the great ones devoured the small.[264:3]
Discourses on Government. Chap. ii. Sect. xviii.
[265]
God helps those who help themselves.[265:1]
Discourses on Government. Chap. ii. Sect. xxiii.
It is not necessary to light a candle to the sun.[265:2]
Discourses on Government. Chap. ii. Sect. xxiii.
[264:1] His father writes to him, Aug. 30, 1660: "It is said that the University of Copenhagen brought their album unto you, desiring you to write something; and that you did scribere in albo these words." It is said that the first line is to be found in the patent granted in 1616 by Camden (Clarencieux).—Notes and Queries, March 10, 1866.
[264:2] He who has not a good memory should never take upon him the trade of lying.—Montaigne: Book i. chap. ix. Of Liars.
[264:3] See Shakespeare, page 161.
[265:1] See Herbert, page 206.
Heaven ne'er helps the man who will not act—Sophocles: Fragment 288 (Plumptre's Translation).
Help thyself, Heaven will help thee.—La Fontaine: Book vi. fable 18.
[265:2] Like his that lights a candle to the sun.—Fletcher: Letter to Sir Walter Aston.
And hold their farthing candle to the sun.—Young: Satire vii. line 56.
WILLIAM WALKER. 1623-1684.Learn to read slow: all other graces
Will follow in their proper places.[265:3]
The Art of Reading.
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