Avoid the politic, the factious fool,
The busy, buzzing, talking, harden'd knave;
The quaint smooth rogue, that sins against his
Calls saucy loud sedition public zeal : And mutiny the dictates of his spirit.
Trip we after the night's shade: We the globe can compass soon, Swifter than the wand'ring moon.
Shaks. Midsummer Night's Dream, Be kind and courteous to this gentleman; Hop in his walks, and gambol in his eyes; Feed him with apricots and dewberries; With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries; The honey-bags steal from the humble-bees, And, for night tapers, crop their waxen thighs, And light them at the fiery glow-worm's eyes; And pluck the wings from painted butterflies, To fan the moon-beams from his sleeping eyes; Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesics.
Shaks. Midsummer Night's Dream. Sometimes she driveth o'er a soldier's neck, And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats, Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades, Of healths five fathoms deep; and then anon Drums in his ear, at which he starts, and wakes, And, being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two, And sleeps again.
Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.
And sometimes comes she with a tithe-pig's tail,
Tickling a parson's nose as a' lies asleep,
Then dreams he of another benefice.
Beautiful spirit! with thy hair of light,
And dazzling eyes of glory, in whose form
The charms of earth's least mortal daughters grow
To an unearthly stature, in an essence
Of purer elements; while the hues of youth
Carnation'd like a sleeping infant's cheek,
Rock'd by the beating of her mother's heart,
Or the rose tints, which summer's twilight leaves
Upon the lofty glacier's virgin snow,
The blush of earth, embracing with her heaven-
Tinge thy celestial aspect, and make tame
The beauties of the sunbow which bends o'er thee.
Byron's Manfred.
Oberon, Titania,
Did your star-light mirth, With the song of Avon,
Quit this work-day earth? Yet while green leaves glisten And while bright stars burn, By that magic memory, Oh, return, return!
The tender violets bent in smiles
To elves that sported nigh,
Tossing the drops of fragrant dew
To scent the evening sky;
They kiss'd the rose in love and mirth,
And its petals fairer grew;
A shower of pearly dust they brought,
And o'er the lily threw.
Mrs. E. Oakes Smith's Sinless Child.
Tradition! time's suspected register!
Too oft religion at her trial fails;
Instead of knowledge, teacheth her to err,
And wears out truth's best stories into tales.
Sir W. Daverant.
Mrs. Hemans's Poems. If faith with reason never doth advise,
Nor yet tradition leads her, she is then
From heav'n inspir'd; and secretly grows wise
Above the schools, we know not how, nor when.
Sir W. Davenant.
Faith lights us through the dark to deity;
Whilst, without sight, we witness that she shows
More God than in his works our eyes can see;
Though none but by those works the Godhead
knows.
Sir W. Davenant.
When the soul grants what reason makes her see,
That is true faith, what's more's credulity.
For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight; His can't be wrong whose life is in the right.
Faith builds a bridge across the gulf of death, To break the shock blind nature cannot shun, And lands thought smoothly on the further shore. Young's Night Thoughts.
And melancholy fear subdued by faith.
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I've touch'd the highest point of all my greatness:
And from that full meridian of my glory,
I haste now to my setting. I shall fall,
Like a bright exhalation in the evening;
And no man see me more.
Shaks. Henry VIII.
He, that this morn rose proudly as the sun,
And breaking through a mist of clients' breath,
Came on as gaz'd at, and admir'd as he,
When superstitious Moors salute his light!
That had our servile nobles waiting him
As common grooms; and hanging on his look,
No less than human life on destiny!
That had men's knees as frequent as the gods;
And sacrifices more than Rome had altars;
And this man fall! fall! ay, without a look,
That durst appear his friend, or lend so much
Of vain relief, to his chang'd state, as pity!
Jonson's Sejanus.
Who bravely fall have this one happiness,
Above the conqueror; they share his fame,
And have more love, and an unenvy'd name.
Crown's Darius.
When once a shaking monarchy declines,
Each thing grows bold, and to its fall combines.
Crown's Charles VIII. of France.
What wit so sharp is found in age or youth, That can distinguish truth from treachery? Falsehood puts on the face of simple truth, And masks i' th' habit of plain honesty, When she in heart intends most villany.
Money and man a mutual falsehood show,
Men make false money,-money makes men so.
Aleyn's Henry VII.
Every man in this age has not a soul
Of crystal for all men to read their actions
Through: men's hearts and faces are so far
That they hold no intelligence.
Beaumont and Fletcher's False One. How false are men, both in their heads and hearts; And there is falsehood in all trades and arts. Lawyers deceive their clients by false law; Priests, by false gods, keep all the world in awe. For their false tongues such flatt'ring knaves are
For their false wit, scribblers by fools are prais'd. Crown's Caligula
Who should be trusted when one's own right hand
Is perjur'd to the bosom? Protheus.
I am sorry, I must never trust thee more,
The private wound is deepest.
But count the world a stranger for thy sake.
Shaks. Two Gentlemen of Verona.
But, fare thee well, most foul, most fair! farewell!
Thou pure impiety, and impious purity!
For thee I'll lock up all the gates of love,
And on my eyelids shall conjecture hang,
To turn all beauty into thoughts of harm,
And never shall it more be gracious.
Let falsehood be a stranger to thy lips;
Shame on the policy that first began
To tamper with the heart to hide its thoughts!
And doubly shame on that inglorious tongue
That sold its honesty and told a lie.
Ah! doom'd indeed to worse than death,
To teach those sweet lips hourly guile;
Havard's Regulus. To breathe through life but falsehood's breath,
And smile with falsehood's smile!
The man of pure and simple heart
Through life disdains a double part,
He never needs the screen of lies
His inward bosom to disguise.
Oh! colder than the wind that freezes
Founts that but now in sunshine play'd,
Is that congealing pang which seizes
The trusting bosom when betray'd.
Then fare thee well—I'd rather make
My bower upon some icy lake,
When thawing suns begin to shine,
Than trust to love so false as thine.
Then straight thro' all the world 'gan fame to fly,
A monster swifter none is under sun;
Increasing as in waters we descry
The circles small, of nothing that begun;
Moore. Which at the length, unto such breadth do come,
That of a drop which from the skies do fall,
The circles spread and hide the waters all:
So fame in flight increaseth more and more:
For at the first, she is not scarcely known,
But by and by she fleets from shore to shore,
To clouds from the earth her stature straight is
Out on our beings' falsehood! studied, cold—
Are we not like that actor of old time,
Who wore his mask so long his features took
Its likeness?
I live among the cold, the false,
And I must seem like them;
And such I am, for I am false
As those I most condemn.
There whatsoever by her trump is blown,
The sound that both by sea and land outflies,
Miss Landon. Rebounds again and verberates the skies.
Mirror for Magistrates.
The sting of falsehood loses half its pain
If our own soul bear witness-
-we are true.
For trusting heart to find
The voice of fame should be as loud as thunder;
Her house is all of echo made,
Where never dies the sound;
And, as her brows the clouds invade,
Her feet do strike the ground.
Sing then good fame, that's out of virtue born;
Mrs. Hale. For who doth fame neglect, doth virtue scorn.
That vows believed, were vows conceived
As light as summer wind.
Of masking and disguise,
Where men on men still gleam,
With falseness in their eyes;
Where all is counterfeit,
And truth hath never say;
Where hearts themselves do cheat,
Concealing hope's decay.
Jonson's Masque of Queens.
The life of fame is action understood;
That action must be virtuous, great, and good.
Virtue itself by fame is oft protected,
Motherwell. And dies despised, where the fame 's neglected.
We hear, indeed, but shudder while we hear,
The insidious falsehood, and the heartless jeer:
For each dark libel that thou lik'st to shape,
Thou mayst from law, but not from scorn escape;
The pointed finger, cold averted eye,
Lasalted virtue's hiss-thou canst not fly.
Adiea, and take thy praise with thee to heav'n!
Thy ignominy sleep with thee in the grave,
But not remember'd in thy epitaph.
Knows he, that mankind praise against their will,
And mix as much detraction as they can?
Knows he, that faithless fame her whisper has,
Shaks. Henry IV. Part I. As well as trumpet? That his vanity
Is so much tickled from not hearing all?
Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives,
Live register'd upon our brazen tombs,
And then grace us in the disgrace of death.
Shaks. Love's Labour.
After my death I wish no other herald,
No other speaker of my living actions,
To keep mine honour from corruption,
But such an honest chronicler as Griffith.
Shaks. Henry VIII.
O, your desert speaks loud; and I should wrong it,
To lock it in the wards of covert bosom,
When it deserves with characters of brass
A forted residence, 'gainst the tooth of time
And razure of oblivion.
The fame that a man wins himself is best;
That he may call his own: honours put on him
Make him no more a man than his clothes do,
Which are as soon ta'en off; for in the warmth
The heat comes from the body not the weeds;
So man's true fame must strike from his own deeds.
Middleton.
Of honour, glory, and immortal fame,
Can these recall the spirit from its place,
Or re-inspire the breathless clay with life?
What tho' your fame with all its thousand trumpets,
Sound o'er the sepulchres, will that awake
The sleeping dead.
Young's Night Thoughts.
With fame, in just proportion, envy grows;
The man that makes a character, makes foes.
Young's Epistle to Pope
Fame is a public mistress, none enjoys,
But, more or less, his rival's peace destroys.
Young's Epistle to Pope.
Of boasting more than of a bomb afraid,
A soldier should be modest as a maid:
Fame is à bubble the reserv'd enjoy;
Who strive to grasp it, as they touch destroy:
'Tis the world's debt to deeds of high degree:
But if you pay yourself, the world is free.
What so foolish as the chase of fame ?
How vain the prize! how impotent our aim!
For what are men who grasp at praise sublime,
But bubbles on the rapid stream of time,
That rise and fall, that swell, and are no more,
Born and forgot, ten thousand in an hour.
Young's Love of Fame
A prattling gossip, on whose tongue
Proof of perpetual motion hung,
Whose lungs in strength all lungs surpass,
Like her own trumpet made of brass;
Who with a hundred pair of eyes,
The vain attacks of sleep defies;
Who with a hundred pair of wings
Sewell's Sir Walter Raleigh. News from the farthest quarters brings;
Sees, hears, and tells, untold before,
All that she knows, and ten times more.
I courted fame but as a spur to brave
And honest deeds; and who despises fame
Will soon renounce the virtues that deserve it.
Mallet's Mustapha.
Some when they die, die all; their mould'ring clay
Is but an emblem of their memories;
The space quite closes up thro' which they pass'd:
That I have liv'd, I leave a mark behind,
Shall pluck the shining age from vulgar time,
And give it whole to late posterity.
Young's Busiris.
In stress of weather, most; some sink outright;
O'er them, and o'er their names, the billows close;
To-morrow knows not they were ever born.
Others a short memorial leave behind,
Like a flag floating, when the bark's ingulph'd;
It floats a moment and is seen no more:
One Cæsar lives; a thousand are forgot.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Absurd! to think to overreach the grave,
And from the wreck of names to rescue ours:
The best concerted schemes men lay for fame
Die fast away only themselves die faster.
The far-fam'd sculptor, and the laurel'd bard,
Those bold insurers of eternal fame,
Supply their little feeble aids in vain.
Sepulchral columns wrestle, but in vain,
With all-subduing time; her cankering hand
With calm deliberate malice wasteth them:
Worn on the edge of days, the brass consumes,
The busto moulders, and the deep-cut marbie,
Uns 'eady to the steel, gives up its charge.
Ambrion, half-convicted of her folly,
Hangs down the head and reddens at the tais
Blair's Grave
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