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Give but a glimpse, and fancy draws
Whate'er the Grecian Venus was.

Fable x. The Spider and the Bee.

But from the hoop's bewitching round,
Her very shoe has power to wound.

Ibid.

Time still, as he flies, adds increase to her truth,
And gives to her mind what he steals from her youth.
The Happy Marriage.

'T is now the summer of your youth: time has not cropt the roses from your cheek, though sorrow long has washed them. The Gamester. Act iii. Sc. 4.

WILLIAM SHENSTONE.

1714-1763.

HO'ER has travelled life's dull round,

WHO'ER

Where'er his stages may have been,

May sigh to think he still has found

The warmest welcome at an inn.*

Written on the Window of an Inn.

So sweetly she bade me adieu,

I thought that she bade me return.

A Pastoral. Parti.

I have found out a gift for my fair;

I have found where the wood-pigeons breed.

Ibid. Part ii.

* There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced, as by a good tavern or inn.-JOHNSON. Boswell's Life (1766).

Archbishop Leighton used often to say, that if he were to choose a place to die in, it should be an inn.

224

PHILIPS-AKENSIDE.

For seldom shall she hear a tale

So sad, so tender, and so true.

Femmy Dawson.

Her cap, far whiter than the driven snow,
Emblems right meet of decency does yield.

The Schoolmistress. St. 5.

Pun-provoking thyme.

A little bench of heedless bishops here,
And there a chancellor in embryo.

Ibid. St. II.

Ibid. St. 28.

JOHN PHILIPS. 1676-1708.

MY galligaskins, that have long withstood

The winter's fury and encroaching frosts,
By time subdued (what will not time subdue !),
A horrid chasm disclosed.

The Splendid Shilling. Line 121.

THE

MARK AKENSIDE. 1721-1770.

HE man forget not, though in rags he lies,
And know the mortal through a crown's disguise.
Epistle to Curio.

DAVID GARRICK. 1716-1779.

HEIR cause I plead,-plead it in heart and mind;

THEIR

A fellow feeling makes one wondrous kind.*

Prologue on Quitting the Stage in 1766, 10th June.

Let others hail the rising sun :

I bow to that whose race is run.

On the Death of Mr. Pelham.

Heaven sends us good meat, but the devil sends cooks.

Epigram on Goldsmith's Retaliation.

THOMAS GRAY. 1716-1771.

ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF ETON COLLEGE.

A

H, happy hills! ah, pleasing shade!

Ah, fields beloved in vain!

Where once my careless childhood strayed,

A stranger yet to pain.

They hear a voice in every wind,

And snatch a fearful joy.

The tear forgot as soon as shed,

The sunshine of the breast.

* I would help others, out of a fellow-feeling.-BURTON. Anatomy of Melancholy; Democritus to the Reader.

Non ignara mali, miseris succurrere disco.

VIRGIL. Eneid, Lib. i. 630.

P

Alas! regardless of their doom,
The little victims play;

Nor sense have they of ills to come,
Nor care beyond to-day.

And moody madness laughing wild,
Amid severest woe.

To each his sufferings: all are men,
Condemned alike to groan;

The tender for another's pain,
The unfeeling for his own.

Since sorrow never comes too late,
And happiness too swiftly flies.

Where ignorance is bliss,

'T is folly to be wise.*

THE PROGRESS OF POESY.

O'er her warm cheek, and rising bosom, move
The bloom of young desire, and purple light of Love.

Parti. St. 3.

Ope the sacred source of sympathetic tears.

The living throne, the sapphire blaze,
Where angels tremble while they gaze,

* From ignorance our comfort flows,
The only wretched are the wise.

Part iii. St. 1.

PRIOR. To the Hon. Charles Montague.
Ecclesiastes i. 18.

He that increaseth knowledge, increaseth sorrow.

He saw; but, blasted with excess of light,

Closed his eyes in endless night.

Bright-eyed Fancy, hovering o'er,

Scatters from her pictured urn

Part iii. St. 2.

Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.*

Beyond the limits of a vulgar fate,

Part ii. St. 3.

Beneath the good how far-but far above the Great.

THE BARD.

Loose his beard, and hoary hair

Part iii. St. 3.

Streamed like a meteor to the troubled air.+

Parti. St. 2.

Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes;
Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart.‡

Give ample room, and verge enough, §
The characters of Hell to trace.

* Words that weep and tears that speak.

COWLEY.

† An harmless flaming meteor shone for hair,
And fell adown his shoulders with loose care.

Parti. St. 3.

Part ii. St. 1.

The Prophet.

COWLEY. Davideis. Book ii. Line 102.
The imperial ensign, which full high advanced,
Shone like a meteor streaming to the wind.

Paradise Lost. Booki. Line 536.

As dear to me as are the ruddy drops
That visit my sad heart.

Julius Cæsar. Act ii. Sc. 1.

Dear as the vital warmth that feeds my life;
Dear as these eyes that weep in fondness o'er thee.
OTWAY. Venice Preserved.

§ I have a soul that like an ample shield,
Can take in all, and verge enough for more.

Act v.

DRYDEN. Don Sebastian. Acti. Sc. 1.

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