The Poetical Works of Samuel Butler, Volume 1

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W. Pickering, 1835

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Page 4 - He'd undertake to prove, by force Of argument, a man's no horse; He'd prove a buzzard is no fowl, And that a lord may be an owl, A calf an alderman, a goose a justice, And rooks committee-men and trustees.
Page 5 - H' had hard words ready to show why, And tell what rules he did it by ; Else when with greatest art he spoke, You'd think he talk'd like other folk ; For all a rhetorician's rules Teach nothing but to name his tools.
Page 11 - ... devotion lies In odd perverse antipathies; In falling out with that or this, And finding somewhat still amiss: More peevish, cross, and splenetic, Than dog distract, or monkey sick. That with more care keep Holy-day The wrong...
Page 7 - For th' other, as great clerks have done. He could reduce all things to acts, And knew their natures by abstracts ; Where Entity and Quiddity, The ghosts of defunct bodies, fly ; Where truth in person does appear, Like words congeal'd in northern air. He knew what's what, and that's as high As metaphysic wit can fly...
Page 125 - Thou hast most traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm in erecting a grammar school: and whereas, before, our forefathers had no other books but the score and the tally, thou hast caused printing to be used, and, contrary to the king, his crown and dignity, thou hast built a paper-mill.
Page 249 - A mode that is held honourable, As well as French and fashionable: For when it falls out for the best, Where both are incommoded least, In soul and body two unite...
Page 1 - WHEN civil dudgeon first grew high, And men fell out, they knew not why ; When hard words, jealousies, and fears, Set folks together by the ears...
Page 16 - He ne'er gave quarter to any such. The trenchant blade, Toledo trusty, For want of fighting was grown rusty, And ate into itself, for lack Of somebody to hew and hack...
Page 128 - But those that write in rhyme still make The one verse for the other's sake ; For one for sense, and one for rhyme, I think 's sufficient at one time.
Page 12 - His tawny beard was th' equal grace Both of his wisdom and his face; In cut and dye so like a tile, A sudden view it would beguile ; The upper part whereof was whey, The nether orange, mix'd with grey.

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