Th' adorning thee with so much art

Is but a barb'rous skill;

'Tis like the poisoning of a dart,

Too apt before to kill.

The Waiting Maid.

Nothing is there to come, and nothing past,

But an eternal now does always last.1

The monster London..

Davideis. Vol. i. Book i.

Let but thy wicked men from out thee go,
And all the fools that crowd thee so,
Even thou, who dost thy millions boast,
A village less than Islington wilt grow,
A solitude almost.

Of Solitude.

God the first garden made, and the first city

Cain.2

The Garden. Essay v.

Hence ye profane, I hate ye all,

Both the great vulgar and the small.

Horace. Book iii. Ode 1.

Charm'd with the foolish whistling of a name.3

Words that weep and tears that speak.1

The Prophet.

One of our poets (which is it?) speaks of an everlasting now. Southey, The Doctor, Ch. xxv. p. 1.

2 Compare Bacon, Of Gardens.

3 Ravish'd with the whistling of a name.

Pope, Essay on Man, Ep. iv. Line 283.

4 Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn. Gray, The Progress of Poesy, iii. 3, 4.

EDMUND WALLER.

1605 - 1687.

The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed,1
Lets in new light thro' chinks that time has made.
Stronger by weakness, wiser men become,
As they draw near to their eternal home.

Verses upon his Divine Poesy.
Under the tropic is our language spoke,
And part of Flanders hath received our yoke.
Upon the Death of the Lord Protector.

A narrow compass! and yet there

Dwelt all that 's good, and all that 's fair:

Give me but what this riband bound,

Take all the rest the sun goes round.

Go, lovely rose !

On a Girdle.

Tell her that wastes her time and me
That now she knows,

When I resemble her to thee,

How sweet and fair she seems to be.

Go, lovely Rose.

How small a part of time they share
That are so wondrous sweet and fair!
Illustrious acts high raptures do infuse,
And every conqueror creates a muse.

For all we know

Ibid.

Panegyric on Cromwell.

Of what the blessed do above

Is, that they sing and that they love.

While I listen to thy voice The yielding marble of her snowy breast. On a Lady passing through a Crowd of People. 1 See Fuller, The Holy and the Profane State, i. ii

180

Waller. - Montrose.

Poets lose half the praise they should have got, Could it be known what they discreetly blot. Upon Roscommon's Trans. of Horace, De Arte Poetica. Could we forbear dispute, and practise love, We should agree as angels do above.

That eagle's fate and mine are one,
Which, on the shaft that made him die,
Espied a feather of his own,

Wherewith he wont to soar so high.1

To a Lady singing a Song of his Composing.

MARQUIS OF MONTROSE.

1612-1650.

He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,

1 So in the Libyan fable it is told

That once an eagle, stricken with a dart,
Said when he saw the fashion of the shaft,
"With our own feathers, not by other's hands
Are we now smitten."

Æschylus, Fragm. 123, Plumptre's Translation.
So the struck eagle, stretched upon the plain,
No more through rolling clouds to soar again,
Viewed his own feather on the fatal dart,
And winged the shaft that quivered in his heart.
Byron, English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, Line 826.
Like a young eagle, who has lent his plume
To fledge the shaft by which he meets his doom;
See their own feathers pluck'd, to wing the dart
Which rank corruption destines for their heart.
Thomas Moore, Corruption.

That dares not put it to the touch

To gain or lose it all.

My Dear and only Love.

I'll make thee glorious by my pen,

And famous by my sword.

Ibid.

SIR THOMAS BROWNE.

1605-1682.

Too rashly charged the troops of error and remain as trophies unto the enemies of truth.

Religio Medici. Parti. Sec. vi.

Rich with the spoils of nature.2

Ibid. Part i. Sec. xiii.

Nature is the art of God."

Ibid. Sec. xvi.

There is music in the beauty, and the silent note which Cupid strikes, far sweeter than the sound of an instrument. Ibid. Part ii. Sec. ix.

Sleep is a death; O make me try
By sleeping what it is to die,
And as gently lay my head

On my grave as now my bed

Ibid. Part ii. Sec. 12.

Ruat cœlum, fiat voluntas tua.*

Ibid.

Man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes and pompous in the grave. Urn-Burial. Ch. v. 1 From Napier's Mem. of Montrose, Vol. i. App. xxxiv. That puts it not unto the touch,

To win or lose it all.

From Napier's Montrose and the Covenanters, Vol. ii. 2 Rich with the spoils of time. - Gray, Elegy, St. 13. 3 See Young, Night Thoughts, ix. Line 1267. 4 Do well and right, and let the world sink.

Herbert, Country Parson, Ch. 29.

JOHN MILTON. 1608-1674.

PARADISE LOST.

Of Man's first disobedience and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world and all our woe.

Book i. Line 1.

Or if Sion hill

Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook, that flowed

Fast by the oracle of God.

Line 10.

Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.

What in me is dark

Line 16.

Illumine, what is low raise and support;

That to the height of this great argument
I may assert eternal Providence,

And justify the ways of God to men.1 Line 22.

As far as Angel's ken.

Line 59.

Yet from those flames

No light, but rather darkness visible. Line 62.

Where peace

And rest can never dwell, hope never comes, That comes to all.

Line 65.

What though the field be lost?

All is not lost; th' unconquerable will,

And study of revenge, immortal hate,

And courage never to submit or yield. Line 105.

1 But vindicate the ways of God to man.

Pope, Essay on Man, Ep. i. Line 16.