Where to my finger, like a dial's point,

Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears.
Now, Sir, the sound, that tells what hour it is,
Are clamorous groans, that strike upon my heart,
Which is the bell: so sighs, and tears, and groans,
Show minutes, times, and hours.

K. Richard II-Shakspeare.

MCCXII.

Proteus.-Madam, if your heart be so obdurate,
Vouchsafe me yet your picture for my love,
The picture that is hanging in your chamber:
To that I'll speak, to that I'll sigh and weep:
For, since the substance of your perfect self
Is else devoted, I am but a shadow:

And to your shadow I'll make true love.

Julia. If 'twere a substance, you would sure deceive it, And make it but a shadow, as I am.

Silvia.-I am very loth to be your idol, Sir;

But, since your falsehood shall become you well
To worship shadows, and adore false shapes,
Send to me in the morning, and I'll send it:

And so, good rest.

Proteus. As wretches have o'er night, That wait for execution in the morn.

[Aside.

Two Gentlemen of Verona-Shakspeare.

MCCXIII.

God takes men's hearty desires and will, instead of the deed, where they have not power to fulfil it; but he never took the bare deed instead of the will.-Baxter.

MCCXIV.

Take heed of pride, and curiously consider,
How brittle the foundation is, on which
You labour to advance it. Niobe,

Proud of her numerous issue, durst contemn

Latona's double burthen; but what follow'd?

She was left a childless mother, and mourn'd to marble. The beauty you o'erprize so, time or sickness

Can change to loath'd deformity; your wealth

VOL. II.

C c

The prey of thieves; Queen Hecuba, Troy fired,
Ulysses' bondwoman.

MCCXV.

As there is music uninform'd by art

Massinger.

In those wild notes which, with a merry heart,
The birds in unfrequented shades express,
Who, better taught at home, yet please us less;
So in your verse a native sweetness dwells,
Which shames composure, and its art excels.
Singing no more can your soft numbers grace
Than paint add charms unto a beauteous face.
Yet as when mighty rivers gently creep,

Their even calmness does suppose them deep;
Such is your muse; no metaphor swell'd high
With dangerous boldness lifts her to the sky:
Those mountain fancies, when they fall again,
Show sand and dirt at bottom do remain.

So firm a strength, and yet withal so sweet
Did never but in Sampson's riddle meet.
'Tis strange each line so great a weight should bear,
And yet no sign of toil, no sweat appear.
Either your art hides art, as stoics feign

Then least to feel when most they suffer pain;
And we, dull souls, admire, but cannot see
What hidden springs within the engine be:
Or 'tis some happiness that still pursues
Each act and motion of your grateful muse.

To Sir R. Howard.-Dryden.

MCCXVI.

Ceremony resembles that base coin which circulates through a country by the royal mandate; it serves every purpose of real money at home; but it is entirely useless if carried abroad: a person who should attempt to circulate his native trash in another country, would be thought either ridiculous or culpable. He is truly well bred who knows when to value and when to despise those national peculiarities which are regarded by some with so much observance. A traveller of taste at once

perceives that the wise are polite all the world over; but that fools are only polite at home.-Goldsmith.

MCCXVII.

He owns with toil he wrote the following scenes;
But, if they're nought, ne'er spare him for his pains:
Damn him the more; have no commiseration
For dulness on mature deliberation.

He swears he'll not resent one hiss'd-off scene,
Nor, like those peevish wits, his play maintain,
Who, to assert their sense, your taste arraign.
Some plot we think he has and some new thought,
Some humour too, no farce; but that's a fault.
Satire, he thinks, you ought not to expect;
For so reform'd a town, who dares correct?
To please, this time, has been his sole pretence:
He'll not instruct, lest it should give offence.
Should he by chance a knave or fool expose,
That hurts none here, sure here are none of those.
In short, our play shall (with your leave to show it)
Give you one instance of a passive poet,
Who to your judgments yields all resignation,
To save or damn, after your own discretion.

Prologue to the Way of the World-Congreve.

MCCXVIII.

Such is the present state of our literature, that the ancient sage, who thought a great book a great evil, would now think the multitude of books a multitude of evils. He would consider a bulky writer who engrossed a year, and a swarm of pamphleteers who stole each an hour, as equal wasters of human life, and would make no other difference between them, than between a beast of prey and a flight of locusts.-Johnson.

MCCXIX.

Those you make friends,

And give your hearts to, when they once perceive
The least rub in your fortunes, fall away

Like water from ye, never found again
But where they mean to sink ye.

MCCXX.

Shakspeare.

The heavenly choir who heard his notes from high,
Let down the scale of music from the sky;

They handed him along,

And all the way he taught, and all the way they sung.
Ye brethren of the lyre and tuneful voice,
Lament his lot, but at your own rejoice:
Now live secure, and linger out your days,
The gods are pleas'd alone with Purcell's lays,
Nor know to mend their choice.

Dryden-On the Death of Purcell.

MCCXXI.

There are in life a sort of pseudo-ascetics, who can have no real converse either with themselves, or with heaven, whilst they look thus a-squint upon the world, and carry titles and editions along with them in their meditations. And although the books of this sort, by a common idiom, are called good books, the authors for certain are a sorry race: for religious crudities are undoubtedly the worst of any.-Shaftesbury.

MCCXXII.

As we do turn our backs

From our companion, thrown into his grave;
So his familiars to his buried fortunes

Slink all away: leave their false vows with him,
Like empty purses pick'd; and his poor self,
A dedicated beggar to the air,

With his disease of all shunn'd poverty,
Walks, like contempt, alone.

MCCXXIII.

Shakspeare.

Pleasure, when it is a man's chief purpose, disappoints itself; and the constant application to it palls the faculty of enjoying it, though it leaves the sense of our inability for that we wish, with a disrelish of every thing else.

Thus the intermediate seasons of the man of pleasure are more heavy than one would impose upon the vilest criminal.-Steele.

MCCXXIV.

They are the moths and scarabs of a state,

The bane of empires, and the dregs of courts,
Who, to endear themselves to an employment,
Care not whose fame they blast: whose life they endanger;
And, under a disguised and cobweb mask
Of love unto their sovereign, vomit forth
Their own prodigious malice; a pretending
To be the props and columns of their safety,
The guards unto his person and his peace,
Disturb it most, with their false, lapwing cries.
Princes, that will but hear, or give access
To such officious spies, can ne'er be safe:
They take in poison with an open ear,
And, free from danger, become slaves to fear.
Ben Jonson.

MCCXXV.

In matters of great concern, and which must be done, there is no surer argument of a weak mind than irresolution; to be undermined where the case is so plain, and the necessity so urgent. To be always intending to live a new life, but never to find time to set about it; this is as if a man should put off eating and drinking, and sleeping, from one day and night to another, till he is starved and destroyed.-Tillotson.

MCCXXVI.

I reckon this always-that a man is never undone, till he be hanged; nor never welcome to a place, till some certain shot be paid, and the hostess say, welcome. -Shakspeare.

MCCXXVII.

It is the fate of mankind, too often, to seem insensible of what they may enjoy at the easiest rate.-Sterne,

MCCXXVIII.

For theft, he that restores treble the value

Makes satisfaction, and for want of means