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O
OAK

OATHS (See also SWEARING, Vows) 1

Quercus
A song to the oak, the brave old oak,

Oaths were not purpos’d, more than law,
Who hath ruled in the greenwood long;

To keep the Good and Just in awe,

But to confine the Bad and Sinful, Here's health and renown to his broad green

Like mortal cattle in a penfold. crown,

BUTLER-Hudibras. Pt. II. Canto II. L. And his fifty arms so strong.

197. There's fear in his frown when the Sun goes

down, And the fire in the West fades out;

He that imposes an Oath makes it,

Not he that for Convenience takes it.
And he showeth his might on a wild midnight,
When the storms through his branches shout.

Then how can any man be said

To break an oath he never made? H. F. CHORLEY—The Brave Old Oak.

BUTLER—Hudibras. Pt. II. Canto II. L. 2

377. The oak, when living, monarch of the wood; The English oak, which, dead, commands the flood.

I will take my corporal oath on it.

CERVANTES-Don Quixote. Pt. I. Bk. IV. CHURCHILL-Gotham. I. 303.

Ch. X. 3 Old noted oak! I saw thee in a mood

Juravi lingua, mentem injuratam gero. Of vague indifference; and yet with me

I have sworn with my tongue, but my mind Thy memory, like thy fate, hath lingering stood

is unsworn. For years, thou hermit, in the lonely sea

CICERO—De Officiis. III. 29. Of grass that waves around thee!

JOHN CLARE—The Rural Muse. Burthorp Oak. 4

They fix attention, heedless of your pain, The monarch oak, the patriarch of the trees,

With oaths like rivets forced into the brain; Shoots rising up, and spreads by slow degrees.

And e'en when sober truth prevails throughout, Three centuries he grows, and three he stays

They swear it, till affirmance breeds a doubt. Supreme in state; and in three more decays.

COWPER—Conversation. L. 63. DRYDEN-Palamon and Arcite. Bk. III. L. 1,058.

And hast thou sworn on every slight pretence, 5

Till perjuries are common as bad pence, Tall oaks from little acorns grow.

While thousands, careless of the damning sin, DAVID EVERETT-Lines for a School Decla Kiss the book's outside, who ne'er look'd within? mation.

COWPER—Expostulation. L. 384. The oaks with solemnity shook their heads;

In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath. The twigs of the birch-trees, in token

SAMUEL JOHNSON—Boswell's Life of Johnson. Of warning, nodded, -and I exclaim'd:

(1775) "Dear Monarch, forgive what I've spoken!" HEINE—Songs. Germany. Caput XVII.

I take the official oath to-day with no mental 7 Those green-robed senators of mighty woods,

reservations and with no purpose to construe Tall oaks, branch-charmed by the earnest stars,

the Constitution by any hypercritical rules.

LINCOLN—First” Inaugural Address. March Dream, and so dream all night without a stir.

4, 1861. KEATS—Hyperion. Bk. I. L. 73. The tall Oak, towering to the skies,

You can have no oath registered in heaven to The fury of the wind defies,

destroy the Government; while I shall have the From age to age, in virtue strong.

most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and Inured to stand, and suffer wrong.

defend" it. MONTGOMERY—The Oak.

LINCOLN—First Inaugural Address. March

4, 1861. There grewe an aged tree on the greene; A goodly Oake sometime had it bene,

He that sweareth to his own hurt and changeth With armes full strong and largely displayed,

not. But of their leaves they were disarayde

Psalms. XV. 4. The bodie bigge, and mightely pight, Thoroughly rooted, and of wond'rous hight; 'Tis not the many oaths that makes the truth, Whilome had bene the king of the field,

But the plain single vow that is vow'd true. And mochell mast to the husband did yielde, All's Well That Ends Well. Act IV. Sc. 2. And with his nuts larded many swine:

L. 21 But now the gray mosse marred his rine;

Trust none; His bared boughes were beaten with stormes, For oaths are straws, men's faiths are waferHis toppe was bald, and wasted with wormes, cakes, His honour decayed, his braunches sere. And hold-fast is the only dog.

SPENSER Shepheard's Callender. Februarie. Henry V. Act II. Sc. 3. L. 52.

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melodious, true, there may come a modern Iliad | Swept from the earth and blotted from his mind, as memorial of the Past.

There, secret in the grave, he bade them lie, CARLYLE—Cromwell's Letters and Speeches. And grieved they could not 'scape the Almighty Introduction. Ch. I.

eye.

SAMUEL MADDEN-Boulter's Monument. And o'er the past oblivion stretch her wing. HOMER— Odyssey. Bk. XXIV. L. 557. The palpable obscure. POPE's trans.

MILTON—Paradise Lost. Bk. II. L. 406. 2

He shall return no more to his house, neither Bene qui latuit, bene vixit. shall his place know him any more.

He who has lived obscurely and quietly has Job. VII. 10.

lived well. 3

OVID——Tristium. III. 4. 25.
Injuriarum remedium est oblivio.
Oblivion is the remedy for injuries.

Ut sæpe summa ingenia in occulto latent! SENECA—Epistles. 94. Quoting from an old How often the highest talent lurks in obscurity! poet, also found in SYRUS.

PLAUTUS—Captivi. I. 2. 62.

17 What's past and what's to come is strew'd with How happy is the blameless vestal's lot! husks

The world forgetting, by the world forgot. And formless ruin of oblivion.

POPE-Eloisa to Abelard. L. 207. Troilus and Cressida. Act IV. Sc. 5. L. 166. 5

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown, Eo magis præfulgebant quod non videbantur. Thus unlamented let me die;

They shone forth the more that they were Steal from the world, and not a stone not seen.

Tell where I lie.
TACITUS. Adapted from Annals. Bk. III. 76. POPE-Ode on Solitude.
6
But from your mind's chilled sky

Yet was he but a squire of low degree.
It needs must drop, and lie with stiffened wings SPENSER—Faerie Queene. Bk. IV. Canto
Among your soul's forlornest things;

VII. St. 15.
A speck upon your memory, alack!
A dead fly in a dusty window-crack.

Eo magis præfulgebat quod non videbatur. FRANCIS THOMPSON-"Manus Animam Pinx He shone with the greater splendor, because it." St. 2.

he was not seen. OBSCURITY

TACITUS-Annales. III. 76. Content thyself to be obscurely good.

She dwelt among the untrodden ways ADDISON—Cato. Act IV. Sc. 4.

Beside the springs of Dove, 8

A maid whom there were none to praise I give the fight up; let there be an end,

And very few to love. A privacy, an obscure nook for me,

WORDSWORTH-She Dwelt Among the UntrodI want to be forgotten even by God.

den Ways. ROBERT BROWNING—Paracelsus. Pt. V.

OCCUPATION (See also LABOR, WORK, and Like beauteous flowers which vainly waste their

Different OCCUPATIONS) scent Of odours in unhaunted deserts.

I hold every man a debtor to his profession; CHAMBERLAYNE–Pharonida. Part II. Bk. IV. from the which as men of course do seek to re(See also GRAY, also Young under NATURE,

ceive countenance and profit, so ought they of POPE under Rose, CHURCHILL under

duty to endeavor themselves, by way of amends, SWEETNESS)

to be a help and ornament thereunto. 10

BACON-Maxims of the Law. Preface. As night the life-inclining stars best shows, So lives obscure the starriest souls disclose. Quam quisque novit artem, in hac se exerceat. GEORGE CHAPMAN-Hymns and Epigrams of Let a man practise the profession which he

Homer. The Translator's Epilogue. L. 74. best knows. 11

CICERO — Tusculanarum Disputationum. 1. Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,

18. And waste its sweetness on the desert air. GRAY-Elegy in a Country Churchyard. St. 14. The ugliest of trades have their moments of (See also CHAMBERLAYNE)

pleasure. Now, if I were a grave-digger, or even 12

a hangman, there are some people I could work Yet still he fills affection's eye,

for with a great deal of enjoyment. Obscurely wise, and coarsely kind.

DOUGLAS JERROLD - Jerrold's Wit. Ugly SAMUEL JOHNSON-On the Death of Robert Le Trades.

vet. 13

And sure the Eternal Master found Some write their wrongs in marble: he more just, The single talent well employ'd. Stoop'd down serene and wrote them on the dust, SAMUEL JOHNSON-On the Death of Robert Trod under foot, the sport of every wind,

Levet. St. 7.

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