Imatges de pàgina
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ADVERSITY.

I will bear it

With all the tender suff'rance of a friend,
As calmly as the wounded patient bears
The artist's hand that ministers his cure.

Otway's Orphan.

To-day a conquerer, and to-night a slave !
How short the space betwixt these vast extremes.

Higgon's Generous Conqueror.

How sudden are the blows of fate! what change,
What revolution, in the state of glory!

Cibber's Casar in Egypt.

The gods in bounty work up storms about us,
That give mankind occasion to exert

Their hidden strength, and throw out into practice
Virtues that shun the day, and lie conceal'd

In the smooth seasons and the calms of life.

Addison's Cato.

Where is the hero, who ne'er found his equal?
Or which the nation that can boast a chief,
Who still return'd victorious from the field?

Frowde's Fall of Saguntum.

To exult

Ev'n o'er an enemy oppress'd, and heap
Affliction on the afflicted, is the mark,
And the mean triumph of a dastard soul.

Smollett's Regicide.

Now let us thank th' eternal Power; convinc'd,
That heav'n but tries our virtue by affliction:
That oft the cloud which wraps the present hour,
Serves but to brighten all our future days.
Brown's Barbarossa.

Who has not known ill fortune, never knew
Himself, or his own virtue.

Mallet and Thomson's Alfred.

Affliction is the wholesome soil of virtue :

Where patience, honor, sweet humanity,

Calm fortitude, take root, and strongly flourish. Ibid.

The brave unfortunate are our best acquaintance;
They shew us virtue may be much distress'd,

And give us their example how to suffer.

Francis's Eugenia.

When a great mind falls,

The noble nature of man's gen'rous heart
Doth bear him up against the shame of ruin;
With gentle censure, using but his faults
As modest means to introduce his praise ;
For pity like a dewy twilight comes
To close th' oppressive splendour of his day,
And they who but admired him in his height,
His altered state lament, and love him fall'n.

Joanna Baillie's Basil, a. 5, s 3.

List to me, monk, it is thy trade to talk,
As reverend men do use in saintly wise,
Of life's vicissitudes and vanities—

Hear one plain tale that doth

saws,

surpass all Hear it from me- -Count Bertram-aye-Count

Bertram,

The darling of his liege and of his land,
The army's idol, and the council's head-

Whose smile was fortune, and whose will was law-
Doth bow him to the prior of St. Anselm

For water to refresh his parched lip,

And this hard-matted couch to throw his limbs on.

Maturin's Bertram, a 2, s 1.

If I once fall, how many knees, now bending,
Would stamp the heel of hate into my breast.

Sir A. Hunt's Julian.

We bleed, we tremble, we forget, we smile.
The mind turns fool, before the cheek is dry.
Young's Night Thoughts. n. 5.

Affliction is the good man's shining scene;
Prosperity conceals his brightest ray;

As night to stars, woe lustre gives to man. Ibid, n. 9.

Heaven gives us friends to bless the present scene;
Resumes them, to prepare us for the next.
All evils natural are moral goods;

All discipline, indulgence, on the whole. Ibid, n. 9,

Ye good distress'd!

Ye noble few! who here unbending stand
Beneath life's pressure, yet bear up awhile,
And what your bounded view, which only saw
A little part, deem'd evil, is no more;

The storms of wintry time will quickly pass,
And one unbounded spring encircle all.

Thomson's Seasons-Winter.

ADVICE.

Learn to dissemble wrongs, to smile at injuries,
And suffer crimes thou want'st the power to punish:
Be easy, affable, familiar, friendly:

Search, and know all mankind's mysterious ways;
But trust the secret of thy soul to none:

This is the way,

This only, to be safe in such a world as this is.

Rowe's Ulysses.

Saints

And cool-soul'd hermits, mortify'd with care,

And bent by age and palsies, whine out maxims,
Which their brisk youth had blushed at.

Hill's Henry V.

What could I more?

I warn'd thee, I admonished thee, foretold

The danger, and the lurking enemy

That lay in wait; beyond this had been force,
And force upon free-will hath here no place.

Milton's Paradise Lost, b. 9.

AGE.

Of no distemper, of no blast he died,

But fell like autumn fruit that mellow'd long,
Even wonder'd at because he dropt no sooner;
Fate seem'd to wind him up for fourscore years
Yet freshly ran he on ten winters more,

Till, like a clock worn out with eating time,
The wheels of weary life at last stood still.

Lee's Edipus.

These are the effects of doting age,
Vain doubts, and idle cares, and over caution.

Dryden's Sebastian.

Age sits with decent grace upon his visage,
And worthily becomes his silver locks;
He wears the marks of many years well spent,
Of virtue, truth well try'd, and wise experience.
Rowe's Jane Shore, a. 1, s. 2.

Thirst of power and riches now bear sway,
The passions and infirmity of age.

Frowde's Philotas.

Those wise old men, those plodding grave state pe

dants,

Forget the course of youth; their crooked prudence,
To baseness verging still, forgets to take

Into their fine-spun schemes the generous heart,
That thro' the cobweb system bursting lays
Their labours waste.

Thomson's Tancred and Sigismunda, a. 2, s. 6.

AGE.

This heart, by age and grief congeal'd, Is no more sensible to love's endearments, Than are our barren rocks to morn's sweet dew, That calmly trickles down their rugged cheeks. Miller's Mahomet.

His mien is lofty, his demeanour great,
Nor sprightly folly wantons in his air,
Nor dull serenity becalms his eyes,
Such had I trusted once as soon as seen,
But cautious age suspects the flattering form,
And only credits what experience tells.

Dr. Johnson's Irene.

There age essaying to recal the past,
After long striving for the hues of yout,
At the sad labour of the toilet, and

Full many a glance at the too faithful mirror,
Prankt forth in all the pride of ornament,
Forgets itself, and trusting to the falsehood
Of the indulgent beams, which show, yet hide,
Believed itself forgotten, and was fool'd.

Byron's Doge of Venice, a. 4, s. 1.

Fresh hopes are hourly sown

In furrow'd brows. So gentle life's descent,
We shut our eyes, and think it is a plain :
We take fair days in winter, for the spring;
And turn our blessings into bane.

Young's Night Thoughts, n. 2.

O my coevals! remnants of yourselves!
Poor human ruins, tott'ring o'er the grave!
Shall we, shall aged men, like aged trees,
Srike deeper their vile root, and closer cling,
Still more enamour'd of this wretched soil?

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