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(He who flies can also return; but it is not so with him who dies).
Scarron (1610-1660).
He that fights and runs away
May turn and fight another day;
But he that is in battle slain
Will never rise to fight again.
Ray: History of the Rebellion (1752), p. 48.
For he who fights and runs away
May live to fight another day;
But he who is in battle slain
Can never rise and fight again.
Goldsmith: The Art of Poetry on a New Plan (1761), vol. ii. p. 147.
[216:1]
Most wretched men
Are cradled into poetry by wrong;
They learn in suffering what they teach in song.
Shelley: Julian and Maddalo.
[217]
SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT. 1605-1668.The assembled souls of all that men held wise.
Gondibert. Book ii. Canto v. Stanza 37.
Since knowledge is but sorrow's spy,
It is not safe to know.[217:1]
The Just Italian. Act v. Sc. 1.
For angling-rod he took a sturdy oake;[217:2]
For line, a cable that in storm ne'er broke;
His hooke was such as heads the end of pole
To pluck down house ere fire consumes it whole;
The hook was baited with a dragon's tale,—
And then on rock he stood to bob for whale.
Britannia Triumphans. Page 15. 1637.
[217:1] From ignorance our comfort flows.—Prior: To the Hon. Charles Montague.
Where ignorance is bliss,
'T is folly to be wise.
Gray: Eton College, Stanza 10.
[217:2]
For angling rod he took a sturdy oak;
For line, a cable that in storm ne'er broke;
. . . . .
His hook was baited with a dragon's tail,—
And then on rock he stood to bob for whale.
From The Mock Romance, a rhapsody attached to The Loves of Hero and Leander, published in London in the years 1653 and 1677. Chambers's Book of Days, vol. i. p. 173. Daniel: Rural Sports, Supplement, p. 57.
His angle-rod made of a sturdy oak;
His line, a cable which in storms ne'er broke;
His hook he baited with a dragon's tail,—
And sat upon a rock, and bobb'd for whale.
William King (1663-1712): Upon a Giant's Angling (In Chalmers's "British Poets" ascribed to King.)
SIR THOMAS BROWNE. 1605-1682.Too rashly charged the troops of error, and remain as trophies unto the enemies of truth.
Religio Medici. Part i. Sect. vi.
Rich with the spoils of Nature.[217:3]
Religio Medici. Part i. Sect. xiii.
[218]
Nature is the art of God.[218:1]
Religio Medici. Part i. Sect. xvi.
The thousand doors that lead to death.[218:2]
Religio Medici. Part i. Sect. xliv.
The heart of man is the place the Devil 's in: I feel sometimes a hell within myself.[218:3]
Religio Medici. Part i. Sect. li.
There is no road or ready way to virtue.
Religio Medici. Part i. Sect. lv.
It is the common wonder of all men, how among so many million of faces there should be none alike.[218:4]
Religio Medici. Part ii. Sect. ii.
There is music in the beauty, and the silent note which Cupid strikes, far sweeter than the sound of an instrument; for there is music wherever there is harmony, order, or proportion; and thus far we may maintain the music of the spheres.[218:5]
Religio Medici. Part ii. Sect. ix.
Sleep is a death; oh, make me try
By sleeping what it is to die,
And as gently lay my head
On my grave as now my bed!
Religio Medici. Part ii. Sect. xii.
Ruat cœlum, fiat voluntas tua.[218:6]
Religio Medici. Part ii. Sect. xii.
[219]
Times before you, when even living men were antiquities,—when the living might exceed the dead, and to depart this world could not be properly said to go unto the greater number.[219:1]
Dedication to Urn-Burial.
I look upon you as gem of the old rock.[219:2]
Dedication to Urn-Burial.
Man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes and pompous in the grave.
Dedication to Urn-Burial. Chap. v.
Quietly rested under the drums and tramplings of three conquests.
Dedication to Urn-Burial. Chap. v.
Herostratus lives that burnt the temple of Diana; he is almost lost that built it.[219:3]
Dedication to Urn-Burial. Chap. v.
What song the Sirens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women.
Dedication to Urn-Burial. Chap. v.
When we desire to confine our words, we commonly say they are spoken under the rose.
Vulgar Errors.
[217:3] Rich with the spoils of time.—Gray: Elegy, stanza 13.
[218:1] The course of Nature is the art of God.—Young: Night Thoughts, night ix. line 1267.
[218:2] See Massinger, page 194.
[218:3]
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.
Milton: Paradise Lost, book i. line 253.
[218:4] The human features and countenance, although composed of but some ten parts or little more, are so fashioned that among so many thousands of men there are no two in existence who cannot be distinguished from one another.—Pliny: Natural History, book vii. chap. i.
Of a thousand shavers, two do not shave so much alike as not to be distinguished.—Johnson (1777).
There never were in the world two opinions alike, no more than two hairs or two grains; the most universal quality is diversity.—Montaigne: Of the Resemblance of Children to their Fathers, book i. chap. xxxvii.
[218:5]
Oh, could you view the melody
Of every grace
And music of her face.
Lovelace: Orpheus to Beasts.
[218:6] See Herbert, page 204.
[219:1] 'T is long since Death had the majority.—Blair: The Grave, part ii. line 449.
[219:2] Adamas de rupe præstantissimus (A most excellent diamond from the rock).
A chip of the old block.—Prior: Life of Burke.
[219:3]
The aspiring youth that fired the Ephesian dome
Outlives in fame the pious fool that raised it.
Cibber: Richard III. act iii. sc. 1.
EDMUND WALLER. 1605-1687.The yielding marble of her snowy breast.
On a Lady passing through a Crowd of People.
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.[219:4]
To a Lady singing a Song of his Composing.
[220]
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.
On a Girdle.
For all we know
Of what the blessed do above
Is, that they sing, and that they love.
While I listen to thy Voice.
Poets that lasting marble seek
Must come in Latin or in Greek.
Of English Verse.
Under the tropic is our language spoke,
And part of Flanders hath receiv'd our yoke.
Upon the Death of the Lord Protector.
Go, lovely rose!
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!
Go, Lovely Rose.
Illustrious acts high raptures do infuse,
And every conqueror creates a muse.
Panegyric on Cromwell.
[221]
In such green palaces the first kings reign'd,
Slept in their shades, and angels entertain'd;
With such old counsellors they did advise,
And by frequenting sacred groves grew wise.
On St. James's Park.
And keeps the palace of the soul.[221:1]
Of Tea.
Poets lose half the praise they should have got,
Could it be known what they discreetly blot.
Upon Roscommon's Translation of Horace, De Arte Poetica.
Could we forbear dispute and practise love,
We should agree as angels do above.
Divine Love. Canto iii.
The soul's dark cottage, batter'd and decay'd,
Lets in new light through chinks that Time has made.[221:2]
Stronger by weakness, wiser men become
As they draw near to their eternal home:
Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view
That stand upon the threshold of the new.
On the Divine Poems.
[219:4]
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 others' hands,
Are we now smitten."
Æschylus: Fragm. 123 (Plumptre's Translation).
So the struck eagle, stretch'd upon the plain,
No more through rolling clouds to soar again,
View'd his own feather on the fatal dart,
And wing'd the shaft that quiver'd 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.
[221:1] The dome of thought, the palace of the soul.—Byron: Childe Harold, canto ii. stanza 6.
[221:2] See Daniel, page 39.
To vanish in the chinks that Time has made.—Rogers: Pæstum.
THOMAS FULLER. 1608-1661.Drawing near her death, she sent most pious thoughts as harbingers to heaven; and her soul saw a glimpse of happiness through the chinks of her sickness-broken body.
Life of Monica.
He was one of a lean body and visage, as if his eager soul, biting for anger at the clog of his body, desired to fret a passage through it.[221:3]
Life of the Duke of Alva.
[222]
She commandeth her husband, in any equal matter, by constant obeying him.
Holy and Profane State. The Good Wife.
He knows little who will tell his wife all he knows.
Holy and Profane State. The Good Husband.
One that will not plead that cause wherein his tongue must be confuted by his conscience.
Holy and Profane State. The Good Advocate.
A little skill in antiquity inclines a man to Popery; but depth in that study brings him about again to our religion.[222:1]
Holy and Profane State. The True Church Antiquary.
But our captain counts the image of God—nevertheless his image—cut in ebony as if done in ivory, and in the blackest Moors he sees the representation of the King of Heaven.
Holy and Profane State. The Good Sea-Captain.
To smell to a turf of fresh earth is wholesome for the body; no less are thoughts of mortality cordial to the soul.
Holy and Profane State. The Virtuous Lady.
The lion is not so fierce as painted.[222:2]
Holy and Profane State. Of Preferment.
Their heads sometimes so little that there is no room for wit; sometimes so long that there is no wit for so much room.
Holy and Profane State. Of Natural Fools.
The Pyramids themselves, doting with age,
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