Learn to live well, or fairly make your will;

You've play'd, and lov'd, and ate, and drank your fill,
Walk sober off, before a sprightlier age

Comes titt'ring on, and shoves you from the stage:
Leave such to trifle with more grace and ease,
Whom folly pleases, and whose follies please.

95

Pope: Im. of Horace. Bk. ii. Epis. 2. Line 322. What folly can be ranker? Like our shadows, Our wishes lengthen as our sun declines.

96

Young: Night Thoughts. Night v Line 661.

We see time's furrows on another's brow.
How few themselves in that just mirror see!

97

Young: Night Thoughts. Night v. Line 627.

O, sir! I must not tell my age.
They say women and music should never be dated.
98
Goldsmith: She Stoops to Con. Act iii.

An age that melts with unperceived decay,
And glides in modest innocence away;
Whose peaceful Day benevolence endears,
Whose Night congratulating conscience cheers;
The general favorite as the general friend;
Such age there is, and who shall wish its end?
99
Yet time, who changes all, had altered him
In soul and aspect as in age: years steal
Fire from the mind as vigor from the limb:
And life's enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim.
100

Dr. Johnson: Vanity of II. W. Line 293.

Byron: Ch. Harold. Canto iii. St. 8.

What is the worst of woes that wait on age?
What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow?
To view each loved one blotted from life's page,
And be alone on earth as I am now.

101

AGGRESSION.

Byron: Ch. Harold. Canto ii. St. 98.

You take my house, when you do take the prop
That doth sustain my house; you take my life,
When you do take the means whereby I live.

102

Shaks.: M. of Venice. Act iv. Sc. 1.

ALACRITY- see Promptitude.

A willing heart adds feather to the heel,
And makes the clown a winged Mercury.

103 ALARM.

Joanna Baillie: De Monfort. Act iii. Sc. 2.

What's the business,

That such a hideous trumpet calls to parley,

The sleepers of the house?-Speak, speak!

104

Shaks.: Macbeth. Act ii. Sc. 3.

ALEXANDRINE.

A needless Alexandrine ends the song,

That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.
Pope: E. on Criticism. Part ii. Line 156.

105

AMAZEMENT- -see Astonishment, Surprise.

In arguing, too, the parson own'd his skill,
For e'en though vanquish'd, he could argue still;
While words of learned length and thund'ring sound
Amazed the gaping rustics ranged around;

And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew,
That one small head could carry all he knew.
106
Goldsmith: The Deserted Village. Line 211.
But look! Amazement on thy mother sits;
O step between her and her fighting soul:
Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works.
107

Shaks.: Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 4.

They spake not a word;
But, like dumb statues, or breathing stones,
Star'd on each other, and look'd deadly pale.

108

AMBER.

Shaks.: Richard III. Act iii. Sc. 7.

Pretty! in amber to observe the forms

Of hairs, or straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms!
The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare,

But wonder how the devil they got there.

109

Pope: Epis. to Arbuthnot. Line 169.

AMBITION - -see Fame, Glory, Pride.
Fain would I climb, but that

110

fear to fall.

Sir Walter Raleigh: Written in a Window.
Fling away ambition;

By that sin fell the angels: how can man then,
The image of his Maker, hope to win by it?

111

Shaks.: Henry VIII. Act iii. Sc. 2.

I have ventur'd

Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders,
This many summers in a sea of glory.
But far beyond my depth; my high-blown pride
At length broke under me.

112

Shaks.: Henry VIII. Act iii. Sc. 2.

Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
113

Shaks.: Jul. Cæsar. Act i. Sc. 2.

I have no spur

To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself,
And falls on the other.

Shaks.: Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 7.

Lowliness is young ambition's ladder,

Whereto the climber upward turns his face;
But when he once attains the utmost round,
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend.

115

Shaks.: Jul. Cæsar. Act ii. Sc. 1.

They that stand high, have many blasts to shake them;
And if they fall, they dash themselves to pieces.

Shaks.: Richard III. Act i. Sc. 3.

116 Reign, and keep life in this our deep desireOur only greatness is that we aspire.

117

Jean Ingelow: A Snow Mountain.

Ambition has but one reward for all:
A little power, a little transient fame,
A grave to rest in, and a fading name.
118
To reign is worth ambition, though in hell:
Better to reign in hell, than serve in heaven.
119

William Winter: Queen's Domain.

Milton: Par. Lost. Bk. i. Line 262.

But what will not Ambition and Revenge
Descend to? Who aspires, must down as low
As high he soar'd, obnoxious, first or last,

To basest things. Revenge, at first though sweet,
Bitter ere long, back on itself recoils.

120

Milton: Par. Lost. Bk. ix. Line 168.

What various wants on power attend!
Ambition never gains its end.
Who hath not heard the rich complain
Of surfeits, and corporeal pain?
He, barr'd from every use of wealth,
Envies the ploughman's strength and health.
/ 121

Gay: Pt. ii. Fable 15.

Ambition is an idol, on whose wings
Great minds are carry'd only to extreme;
To be sublimely great, or to be nothing.
122

Southern: Loyal Brothers.

The fiery soul abhorr'd in Catiline,
In Decius charms, in Curtius is divine:
The same ambition can destroy or save,
And makes a patriot, as it makes a knave.
123

Pope: Essay on Man. Epis. ii. Line 199.

Oh, sons of earth! attempt ye still to rise,
By mountains pil'd on mountains, to the skies?
Heaven still with laughter the vain toil surveys,
And buries madmen in the heaps they raise.

124

Pope: Essay on Man. Epis. iv. Line 74.

/The true ambition there alone resides,

Where justice vindicates, and wisdom guides;

Where inward dignity joins outward state,

Our purpose good, as our achievement great;

Where public blessings, public praise attend,

Where glory is our motive, not our end:

Wouldst thou be famed? have those high acts in view,

Brave men would act, though scandal would ensue.

Young: Love of Fame. Satire vii. Line 175.

125

Fame is the shade of immortality,

And in itself a shadow. Soon as caught,
Contemn'd, it shrinks to nothing in the grasp.

126

Young: Night Thoughts. Night vii. Line 355.
Dream after dream ensues,

And still they dream that they shall still succeed,

And still are disappointed.

127

Cowper: Task. Bk. iii. Line 127.

On the summit, see,

At his heels,

The seals of office glitter in his eyes;

He climbs, he pants, he grasps them.

Close at his heels, a demagogue ascends,

And with a dext'rous jerk soon twists him down,

And wins them, but to lose them in his turn.

128

Cowper: Task. Bk. iv. Line 58.

Beattie: Minstrel. Bk. i. St. 1.

Ah! who can tell how hard it is to climb

The steep where Fame's proud temple shines afar.

129

He who ascends to mountain-tops, shall find

The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow;

He who surpasses or subdues mankind,

Must look down on the hate of those below.

130

Byron: Ch. Harold. Canto iii. St. 45.

To th' expanded and aspiring soul,

To be but still the thing it long has been,
Is misery, c'en though enthron'd it were
Under the cope of high imperial state.

131

AMERICA.

Joanna Baillie: Ethwald. Act v. Sc. 5.

Poor lost America, high honors missing,

Knows nought of Smile and Nod, and sweet Hand-kissing;

Knows nought of golden promises of kings;

Knows nought of coronets, and stars, and strings.

132

Peter Pindar: The Rights of Kings. Ode ix.

America! half brother of the world!

With something good and bad of every land;

Greater than thee have lost their seat-

Greater scarce none can stand.

133

Bailey: Festus. Sc. The Surface.

ANCESTRY- see Pedigree.

The sap which at the root is bred

In trees, through all the boughs is spread;
But virtues which in parents shine
Make not like progress through the line.
134

Waller: To Zelinda.

Nobler is a limited command

Given by the love of all your native land,
Than a successive title, long and dark,

Drawn from the mouldy rolls of Noah's ark.

135 Dryden: Absalom and Achitophel. Pt. i. Line 299. Nor does it follow, 'cause a herald

Can make a gentleman scarce a year old,

To be descended of a race

Of ancient kings in a small space;
That we should all opinions hold
Authentic, that we can make old.

136
Butler: Hudibras. Pt. ii. Canto iii. Line 669
What can ennoble sots, or slaves, or cowards?
Alas! not all the blood of all the Howards.
137
Pope: Essay on Man. Epis. iv. Line 215.
He stands for fame on his forefathers' feet,
By heraldry, proved valiant or discreet!

138 ANGELS.

Young: Love of Fame. Satire i. Line 123.

Heaven bless thee!

Thou hast the sweetest face I ever looked on;
Sir, as I have a soul, she is an angel.

Shaks.: Henry VIII. Act iv. Sc. 1.

139
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

140
The angels come and go, the messengers of God.
Nor, though they fade from us, do they depart-
It is the childly heart:

Pope: E. on Criticism. Pt. iii. Line 66.

We walk as heretofore,

Adown their shining ranks, but see them nevermore.
Heaven is not gone, but we are blind with tears,
Groping our way along the downward slope of Years.
141
R. H. Stoddard: Hymn to the Beautiful.

Cease, every joy, to glimmer on my mind,
But leave, oh! leave the light of hope behind!
What though my winged hours of bliss have been,
Like angel-visits, few and far between.

142

Campbell: Pl. of Hope. Pt. ii. Line 375.

ANGER-see Passion, Rage, Temper.
Anger's my meat; I sup upon myself,
And so shall starve with feeding.

143

Shaks.: Coriolanus. Act iv. Sc. 2