Love of Fame continued.] None think the great unhappy, but the great.1 Satire i. Line 238. Where nature's end of language is declined, And men talk only to conceal the mind." Satire ii. Line 207. Be wise with speed; Satire ii. Line 282. A fool at forty is a fool indeed. Think naught a trifle, though it small appear; Small sands the mountain, moments make the year, And trifles life. Satire vi. Line 208. One to destroy is murder by the law; How commentators each dark passage shun, 1 As if Misfortune made the throne her seat, 2 The germ of this thought is found in Jeremy Taylor: Lloyd, South, Butler, Young, and Goldsmith have repeated it after him; see p. 594. 3 But to enlarge or illustrate this love is to set a candle in the sun. Melancholy, Pt. iii. Sect. 2. Mem. 1. I forbear to light a candle to the to Mare Clausum, ed. 1635. power and effects of Burton, Anatomy of Subs. 2. sun. To match the candle with the sun. of His Love. Selden, Preface Surrey, A Praise [Young continued. Their feet through faithless leather met the dirt, And oftener changed their principles than shirt. Epistle to Mr. Pope. Line 277. Accept a miracle, instead of wit, - See two dull lines with Stanhope's pencil writ. Lines Written with the Diamond Pencil of Lord Chesterfield. Time elaborately thrown away. The Last Day. Book i There buds the promise of celestial worth. Ibid. Book iii. In records that defy the tooth of time. The Statesman's Creed. Great let me call him, for he conquered me.* The Revenge. Act i. Sc. 1. The blood will follow where the knife is driven, The flesh will quiver where the pincers tear. Ibid. Act v. Sc. 1. Souls made of fire, and children of the sun, 1 From Mitford's Life of Young. See also Spence's Anecdotes, p. 378. 2 True as the dial to the sun, Although it be not shin'd upon. Butler, Hudibras, Pt. iii. C. 2, L. 175. ALEXANDER POPE. 1688-1744. ESSAY ON MAN. Awake, my St. John! leave all meaner things Epistle i. Line 1. Together let us beat this ample field, Epistle i. Line 9. Eye Nature's walks, shoot folly as it flies, Epistle i. Line 13. Heaven from all creatures hides the book of Fate. Epistle i. Line 77. Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food, And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood. Epistle i. Line 83. Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, A hero perish, or a sparrow fall, Atoms or systems into ruin hurled, And now a bubble burst, and now a world. Epistle i. Line 87. And justify the ways of God to men. Milton, Paradise Lost, Book. i. Line 26. [Essay on Man continued. Hope springs eternal in the human breast: Far as the solar walk or milky way. Epistle i. Line 102. But thinks, admitted to that equal sky, Epistle i. Line 111. In pride, in reasoning pride, our error lies; All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies. Pride still is aiming at the blessed abodes, Men would be angels, angels would be gods. Epistle i. Line 123. Die of a rose in aromatic pain. Epistle i. Line 200. The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine! 1 Much like a subtle spider which doth sit, Sir John Davies (1570-1626), The Immortality of the Soul. And their own web from their own entrails spin; Dryden, Mariage à la Mode, Act ii. Sc. I. Essay on Man continued.] What thin partitions sense from thought divide.' Epistle i. Line 226. All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Epistle i. Line 267. Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns, All nature is but art, unknown to thee; All chance, direction, which thou canst not see; All discord, harmony not understood; All partial evil, universal good; And spite of pride, in erring reason's spite, One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right.2 Epistle i. Line 289. 1 Great wits are sure to madness near allied, And thin partitions do their bounds divide. Dryden, Ante, p. 221. "Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiæ fuit." Seneca, De Tranquillitate Animi, xvii. 10, quotes this from Aristotle, who gives as one of his Problemata (xxx. 1), Διὰ τί πάντες ὅσοι περιττοὶ γεγόνασιν ἄνδρες ἢ κατὰ φιλοσοφίαν ἢ πολιτικὴν ἢ ποίησιν ἢ τέχνας φαίνονται μελαγχολικοὶ ὄντες. 2 Whatever is, is in its causes just. Dryden, Edipus, Act iii. Sc. 1. |