He took my father grossly, full of bread,
With all his crimes broad blown, and flush as May; And how his audit stands, who knows save heaven?
I can make my audit up, that all
From me do back receive the flour of all,
And leave me but the bran.
Yet went she not, as not with such discourse
Delighted, or not capable her car
Of what was high; such pleasure she reserved
Adam retreating, she sole auditress.
AH! Luciana, did he tempt thee so?
Might'st thou perceive austerely in his eye,
That he did plead in earnest, yea or no?
Looked he or red, or pale, or sad, or merrily?
Shakspere.
My unsoiled name, the austerencss of my life,
They vouch against you; and my place i' the state
Will so your accusation outweigh.
What was that snaky-headed Gorgon shield
That wise Minerva wore, unconquered virgin,
Wherewith she freezed her foes to congealed stone
By rigid looks of chaste austerity,
And noble grace, that dashed brute violence
With sudden adoration and blank awe?
The austere and ponderous juices they sublime,
Make them ascend the porous soil, and climb
The orange tree, the citron, and the lime.-Blackmore.
Let not austerity breed servile fear;
No wanton word offend her virgin ear.-Roscommon.
How many great ones may remember'd be,
Which in their days most famously did flourish,
Of whom no word we hear, nor sign now see,
But as things wip'd out with a sponge do perish,
Because they living cared not to cherish
No gentle wits, through pride or covetise,
Which might their names for ever memorise.-Spenser.
Thou art my father, thou my author, thou
My being gav'st me; whom should I obey
But thee?
Be such a gosling to obey instinct, but stand
As if a man was author of himself,
And knew no other kin.
Let authors write for glory or reward,
Truth is well paid, when she is sung and heard.
Bishop Corbet.
Authors are judg'd by strange capricious rules,
The great ones are thought mad, the small ones fools;
Yet sure the best are more severely fated,
For fools are only laughed at-wits are hated.
Blockheads with reason men of sense abhor;
But fool 'gainst fool is barb'rous civil war.
Why on all authors then should critics fall,
Since some have writ and shewn no wit at all? Pope.
None but an author knows an author's cares,
Or fancy's fondness for the child she bears.
Some write a narrative of wars and feats,
Of heroes little known, and call the rant
An history. Describe the man, of whom
His own coevals took but little note,
And paint his person, character and views,
As they had known him from his mother's womb.
So vain some authors are to boast
Their want of ingenuity, and club
Their affidavit wits, and dub
Each other but a knight o' the post,
As false as suborned perjurers,
That vouch away all right they have to their own ears.
Butler.
Look through the world-in every other trade
The same employment's cause of kindness made,
At least appearance of good-will creates,
And every fool puffs off the fool he hates:
Cobblers with cobblers smoke away the night,
And in the common cause e'en players unite:
Authors alone, with more than savage rage,
Unnatural war with brother authors wage.-Churchill.
An author! 't is a venerable name!
How few deserve it, and what numbers claim!
Unblest with sense above their peers refined,
Who shall stand up, dictators to mankind?
Nay, who dare shine, if not in virtue's cause,
That sole proprietor of just applause?
This globe pourtrayed the race of learned men,
Still at their books and turning o'er the page
Backwards and forwards: oft they snatched the pen
As if inspired, and in a Thespian rage
Then writ and blot, as would your wrath engage.
Why authors, all this scrawl and scribbling sore?
To lose the present, gain the future age,
Praised to be when you can hear no more,
And much enriched with fame, when useless worldly
One hates an author that's all author, fellows
In foolscap uniform turned up with ink;
So very anxious, clever, fine, and jealous,
One don't know what to say to them, or think,
Unless to puff them with a pair of bellows;
Of coxcombry's worst coxcombs, e'en the pink
Are preferable to these shreds of paper,
These unquenched snuffings of the midnight taper.
AUTHORITY bears off a credent bulk,
That no particular scandal once can touch,
But it confounds the breather.
Authority, though it err like others,
Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself,
That skins the voice o' the top. Shakspere.
Man, proud man,
Drest in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he's most assur'd,
His glassy essence-like an angry ape,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As make the angels weep!
To know, when two authorities are up,
Neither supreme, how soon confusion
May enter 'twixt the gap of both, and take
Thieves for their robbery have authority,
When judges steal themselves.
Dost thou expect the authority of their voices,
Whose silent will condemns thee?
A man in authority is but as
A candle in the wind, sooner wasted
Or blown out, than under a bushel.
Beaumont and Fletcher.
Deaf to complaints, they wait upon the ill,
Till some safe crisis authorize their skill.
Authority intoxicates,
And makes mere sots of magistrates;
The fumes of it invade the brain,
And make men giddy, proud, and vain:
By this the fool commands the wise,
The noble with the base complies,
The sot assumes the rule of wit,
And cowards make the brave submit.
Authority is a disease and cure,
Which men can neither want nor well endure.
Not from grey hairs authority doth flow,
Nor from bald heads, nor from a wrinkled brow;
But our past life, when virtuously spent,
Must to our age those happy fruits present.
Authority kept up, old age secures,
Whose dignity as long as life endures.
"Thus far and no farther," when addressed
To the wild wave, or wilder human breast,
Implies authority that never can,
That never ought to be, the lot of man.
THEN came the Autumne, all in yellow clad,
As though he joyed in his plenteous store,
Laden with fruits that made him laugh, full glad
That he had banished hunger, which to-fore
Had by the belly oft him pinched sore;
Upon his head a wreathe that was enrold
With ears of corne of every sort, he bore,
And in his hand a sickle he did holde,
To reape the ripened fruit the which the earth had yold.
Not spring or summer's beauty hath such grace
As I have seen in one autumnal face.
Mark how the summer kindly takes her leave,
And gathers round her her attendant flowers!
Yon glittering asters with their radiant hues
Convey the last memorial of her reign!
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