There is a pleasure sure

In being mad, which none but madmen know.

Spanish Friar.

Ere the base laws of servitude began,
When wild in woods the noble savage ran.
Conquest of Grenada.

Act 1.

Scene 1.

Great wits are sure to madness near allied,

And thin partitions do their bounds divide.*

Absalom and Achitophel. Part 1. Lines 163, 164.

A man so various that he seem'd to be,
Not one, but all mankind's epitome;
Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong;
Was everything by starts, and nothing long;
But, in the course of one revolving moon,
Was chymist, fiddler, statesman and buffoon.†

Ibid. Lines 545-550.

* "What thin partitions sense from thought divide.” Pope's Essay on Man, Epistle i. Line 226.

† In these celebrated lines, George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, the profligate companion of Charles the Second, is referred to. Dryden satirizes him in the poem under the name of Zimri. The Duke was not devoid of talent in "The Rehearsal," an entertainment written by him, he introduces the poet under the name of Bayes, and

PALAMON AND ARCITE.

Love endures no tie,

And Jove but laughs at lovers' perjury.

Book 11. Lines 148, 149.

The love of liberty with life is given,
And life itself th' inferior gift of heaven.

Lines 291, 292.

Since every man, who lives, is born to die,
And none can boast sincere felicity,

With equal mind, what happens, let us bear,

Nor joy, nor grieve too much for things beyond our care ; Like pilgrims to th' appointed place we tend ;

The world's an inn, and death the journey's end.

Book III. Lines 883-888.

Then t'is our best, since thus ordained to die,
To make a virtue of necessity;*

handles him severely. Pope's lines (see Quotations from Pope) describing the death-bed of "this lord of useless thousands," though by no means correctly narrating the event, have obtained great popularity.

* To make a virtue of necessity. This is a line frequently used by the old authors.-See Quotations from Shakspere's Two Gentlemen of Verona. Chaucer also uses it in The Squier's Tale, Part ii. line 244.

Take what He gives, since to rebel is vain,

The bad grows better, which we well sustain ; And could we choose the time, and choose aright, 'Tis best to die, our honour at the height.

Book III.

Lines 1084-1089.

Three poets in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England, did adorn ;
The first in loftiness of thought surpassed;
The next in majesty; in both the last.
The force of nature could no further go;
To make a third, she join'd the former two.*

Lines written under a Portrait of Milton.

Ill news is wing'd with fate, and flies apace.†

Threnodia Augustalis. Line 49.

For friendship, of itself an holy tie,

Is made more sacred by adversity.

The Hind and the Panther. Part III. Lines 47, 48.

Murder may pass unpunish'd for a time,

But tardy justice will o'ertake the crime,

The Cock and the Fox. Lines 285, 286.

* The two other poets here referred to are Homer and Virgil.

"For evil news rides post, while good news bates." See Quotations from Milton.

Virtue in distress, and vice in triumph,

Make atheists of mankind.

Kings, who are fathers, live but in their people.

Don Sebastian.

Act 1.

Scene I.

This is the porcelain clay of human kind.

Ibid.

Johnson.

When Learning's triumph o'er her barb'rous foes
First rear'd the stage, immortal Shakspere rose;
Each change of many-coloured life he drew,
Exhausted worlds, and then imagin'd new ;
Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign,
And panting time toil'd after him in vain.
His powerful strokes presiding truth impress'd,
And unresisted passion stormed the breast.*

(Prologue spoken by Garrick)

at the opening of Drury Lane Theatre, 1747.

Ah! let not censure term our fate our choice,
The stage but echoes back the public voice;

"for just

*Boswell, speaking of this Prologue, says, and manly dramatic criticism on the whole range of the English stage, as well as for poetical excellence, it is unrivalled; it was, during the season, often called for by the audience."