110

CEREMONY-CHANCE-FORTUNE.

11. For who would bear the whips and thorns of doubt,
The oppressor's wrong, the old maid's contumely,
The pangs of untold love, the priest's delay,
The insolence of rivals, and the sneers
That bachelors from womankind must take-
But that the dread of something after marriage,
That yet untried condition, from whose bonds
No victim can be freed, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear the life we have
Than risk another that we know not of?

CEREMONY.

J. T. WATSON.

1. Ceremony was devised at first

To set a gloss on faint deeds-hollow welcomes,
Recanting goodness, sorry e'er 't is shown;

But where there is true friendship, there needs none.

2. Then Ceremony leads her bigots forth

Prepar'd to fight for shadows of no worth;
While truths, on which eternal things depend,
Find not, or hardly find, a single friend.
As soldiers watch the signal of command,
They learn to bow, to sit, to kneel, to stand;
Happy to fill religion's vacant place
With hollow form, and gesture, and grimace.

SHAKSPEARE.

CHANCE - FORTUNE.

1. There is a tide in the affairs of men,

That, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.

COWPER.

SHAKSPEARE.

2. Will fortune never come with both hands full,
But write her fair words still in foulest letters ?
She either gives a stomach, and no food,-
Such are the poor in health; or else a feast,
And takes away the stomach-such the rich,
That have abundance and enjoy it not.

3. An eagle, towering in his pride of place, Was by a mousing owl hawk'd at, and kill'd.

SHAKSPEARE.

SHAKSPEARE.

4. Fortune, the great commandress of the world,
Hath divers ways to enrich her followers:
To some she honour gives without deserving;
To other some, deserving without honour;
Some, wit-some, wealth and some, wit without wealth;
Some, wealth without wit-some, nor wit nor wealth.

5. Let not one look of fortune cast you down;
She were not fortune, if she did not frown:
Such as do braveliest bear her scorns awhile,
Are those on whom at last she most will smile.

CHAPMAN.

LORD ORRERY.

6. Be juster, heav'ns! such virtue punish'd thus,
Will make us think that Chance rules all above,
And shuffles, with a random hand, the lots
Which men are forc'd to draw.

7. Alas! the joys that fortune brings
Are trifling, and decay,

And those who prize the paltry things,
More trifling still than they.

DRYDEN.

GOLDSMITH.

8. Fortune in men has some small difference made:

One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade.

POPE'S Essay on Man.

112

CHANGE - VICISSITUDE.

9. Fortune makes quick despatch, and in a day May strip you bare as beggary itself.

CUMBERLAND'S Philemon.

10. All our advantages are those of fortune;

Birth, health, wealth, beauty, are her accidents;
And fortune can take nought save what she gives.

BYRON'S Two Foscari.

11. Oh, many a shaft, at random sent,
Finds mark the archer little meant;
And many a word, at random spoken,
May soothe or wound a heart that's broken.

CHANGE - VICISSITUDE.

Scott.

1. For all, that in this world is great or gay, Doth, as a vapour, vanish and decay.

SPENSER'S Ruins of Time.

2. Thus doth the ever-changing course of things
Run a perpetual circle, ever turning;
And that same day, that highest glory brings,
Brings us unto the point of back-returning.

3. Is there no constancy in earthly things?
No happiness in us, but what must alter?
No life without the heavy load of fortune?
What miseries we are, and to ourselves!
Even then, when full content seems to sit by us,
What daily sores and sorrows !

DANIEL.

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

4. But yesterday the word of Cæsar might
Have stood against the world; now lies he there,
And none so poor to do him reverence.

SHAKSPEARE.

5. The time has been, when no harsh sounds would fall
From lips that now may seem imbued with gall;
But now so callous grown, so chang'd since youth,
I've learn'd to think, and sternly speak the truth.

BYRON'S English Bards, &c.

6. Gone, glimm'ring thro' the dreams of things that were A schoolboy's tale-the wonder of an hour.

BYRON'S Childe Harold.

7. How chang'd since last her speaking eye

Glanc'd gladness round the glitt'ring room;
Where high-born men were proud to wait,
Where beauty watch'd to imitate!

BYRON'S Parisina.

8. A minute past, and she had been all tears,
And tenderness, and infancy; but now
She stood as one who champion'd human fears :-
Pale, statue-like, and stern, she woo'd the blow.

9. Roses bloom, and then they wither,

BYRON'S Don Juan.

Cheeks are bright, then fade and die;

Shapes of light are wafted hither,
Then like visions hurry by.

J. G. PERCIVAL.

10. Ah me! what is there in earth's various range, Which time and absence may not sadly change?

11. But while the glitter charms our gazing eyes, Its wings are folded, and the meteor dies.

SANDS.

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CHARACTER – DISPOSITION, &c.

13. There are no birds in last year's nest.

H. W. LONGFELLOW.

14. Your coldness I heed not, your frown I defy;
Your affection I need not the time has gone by,
When a blush or a smile on that cheek could beguile
My soul from its safety, with witchery's wile.

MRS. OSGOOD.

15. Oh! what a change comes over that sad heart!
Where all was joyous, light, and free from care,
All thoughts of peace do for a time depart,
And yield to rage, and anguish, and despair!

J. T. WATSON.

CHARACTER - DISPOSITION, &c.

1. He was a man of rare, undoubted might,

Famous throughout the world for warlike praise,
And glorious spoils purchas'd in perilous fight;
Full many doughty knights he, in his days,
Had done to death, subdued in equal frays.

SPENSER'S Fairy Queen.

2. With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut, Full of wise saws, and modern instances.

SHAKSPEARE.

3. Who steals my purse, steals trash; 't is something, nothing,
'T was mine, 't is his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he, who filches from me my good name,
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed.

4. The purest treasure mortal times afford,
Is spotless reputation; that away,
Men are but gilded loam, or painted clay.

SHAKSPEARE.

SHAKSPEARE.