Imatges de pàgina
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SLAVERY.

Lives there who loves his pain?

Who would not, finding way, break loose from hell, Though thither doom'd?

Milton's Paradise Lost, b. 4.

At first I thought that liberty and heaven
To heav'nly soul had been all one; but now
I see that most through sloth had rather serve;
Minist'ring spirits, train'd up in feast and song.
Ibid. b. 6.

War, famine, pest, volcano, storm, and fire,
Intestine broils, oppression, with her heart
Wrapt up in triple brass, besiege mankind.
God's image disinherited of day,

Here, plung'd in mines, forgets a sun was made.
There, beings deathless as their haughty lord,
Are hammer'd to the galling oar for life;
And plow the winter's wave, and reap despair.

Young's Night Thoughts, n. 1.

Ill-fated race! the softening arts of peace,
Whate'er the humanizing muses teach;
The godlike wisdom of the tempered breast;
Progressive truth, the patient force of thought;
Investigation calm, whose silent powers

Command the world; the light that leads to Heaven ;
Kind equal rule, the government of laws,

And all-protecting freedom, which alone
Sustain the name and dignity of man:

These are not theirs. Thomson's Seasons-Summer.

He finds his fellow guilty of a skin

Not colour'd like his own, and having pow'r
T'enforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause
Dooms and devotes him as his lawful prey.

Cowper's Task, b. 2.

I would not have a slave to till my ground,
To carry me, to fan me while I sleep,
And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth
That sinews bought and sold have ever earn'd.

Cowper's Task, b. 2.

I could endure

Chains nowhere patiently; and chains at home,
Where I am free by birthright, not at all.

To know

How salt another's bread is, and how toilsome
The going up and down another's stairs.

Ibid.

Rogers's Italy.

SLEEP.

How happy is that balm to wretches, sleep!
No cares perplex them for their future state,
And fear of death thus dies in senseless sleep;
Unruly love is this way lull'd to rest;

And injur'd honour, when redress is lost,
Is no way salv'd but this.

Beaumont's Queen of Corinth.

So sleeps the sea boy on the cloudy mast,
Safe as a drowsy Triton rock'd with storms,
While tossing princes wake in beds of down.

Lee's Mithridates.

In thee, oppressors soothe their angry brow:
In thee, th' oppress'd forget tyrannic pow'r ;
In thee,

The wretch condemn'd is equal to his judge;
And the sad lover to his cruel fair;
Nay, all the shining glories men pursue,
When thou art wanted, are but empty noise.

Sir R. Steele's Lying Lovers.

The noon of night is past, and gentle sleep,
Which friendly waits upon the labour'd hind,
Flies from the embraces of a monarch's arms:
The mind disturb'd denies the body rest.

Slade's Love and Duty.

O ye immortal powers that guard the just,
Watch round his couch, and soften his repose,
Banish his sorrows, and becalm his soul
With easy dreams; remember all his virtues,
And show mankind that goodness is your care!

Addison's Cato.

Kind sleep affords

The only boon the wretched mind can feel;

A momentary respite from despair.

Murphy's Alzuma.

Tir'd nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep!

He, like the world, his ready visit pays

Where fortune smiles; the wretched he forsakes:
Swift on his downy pinion flies from woe,
And lights on lids unsullied with a tear.

Young's Night Thoughts, n. 1.

Man's rich restorative; his balmy bath,
That supples, lubricates, and keeps in play,
The various movements of this nice machine,
Which asks such frequent periods of repair.
When tir'd with vain rotations of the day.
Sleep winds us up for the succeeding dawn;
Fresh we spin on, till sickness clogs our wheels,
Or death quite breaks the spring, and motion ends.
Ibid. n. 9.

Sleep's dewy wand

Has strok'd my drooping lids, and promises
My long arrear of rest; the downy god
(Wont to return with our returning peace)
Will pay, e'er long, and bless me with repose.

Ibid.

The shades descend, and midnight o'er the world
Expands her sable wings. Great nature droops
Through all her works. Now happy he whose toil
Has o'er his languid powerless limbs diffus'd
A pleasing lassitude; he not in vain
Invokes the gentle deity of dreams.
His powers the most voluptuously dissolve
In soft repose: on him the balmy dews
Of sleep with double nutriment descend.

Armstrong's Art of Preserving Health, b. 3.

The murmuring wind, the moving leaves
Lull'd him at length to sleep,

With mingled lullabies of sight and sound.

SOCIETY.

Southey's Thalaba.

Hail, social life! into thy pleasing bounds
Again I come to pay the common stock,
My share of service, and, in glad return,
To taste thy comforts, thy protected joys.

Thomson's Agamemnon, a. 3, s. 1.

Among unequals what society.

Can sort, what harmony or true delight.

Milton's Paradise Lost, b. 8.

Now I feel by proof,

That fellowship in pain divides not smart,

Nor lightens aught each man's peculiar load.

Milton's Paradise Regained, b. 1.

Meantime the song went round and dance and sport,

Wisdom and friendly talk, successive stole

Their hours away.

Thomson's Seasons-Spring.

I too remember well that cheerful bowl,

Which round his table flow'd. The serious there Mix'd with the sportive, with the learn'd the plain; Mirth soften'd wisdom, candour temper'd mirth; And wit its honey lent, without the sting.

Man in society is like a flow'r

Blown in its native bed. 'Tis there alone
His faculties expanded in full bloom
Shine out, there only reach their proper use.

SOLDIERS.

Thomson.

Cowper's Task, b. 4.

No matter what becomes of the poor soldiers,
So they perform the drudgery they are fit for;
Why, let 'em starve for want of their arrears,
Drop as they go, and lie like dogs in ditches.

The brave abroad fight for the wise at home:
You are but camp camelions, fed with air;
Thin fame is all the bravest hero's share.

Lee.

Dryden's King Arthur.

Dost thou not know the fate of soldiers ?.
They're but ambition's tools, to cut a way
To her unlawful ends: and when they're worn,
Hack'd, hewn with constant service, thrown aside,
To rust in peace, and rot in hospitals.

Southern's Loyal Brothers.

'Tis the sport of statesmen,

When heroes knock their knotty heads together,

And fall by one another.

Rowe's Ambitious Stepmother.

Gallant in strife, and noble in their ire,

The battle is their pastime. They go forth

Gay in the morning, as to the summer's sport:

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