ACCOMPLISHMENTS-ACCUSATION - ACTION - ACTIVITY.
She is of the best blood, yet betters it
With all the graces of an excellent spirit:
Mila as the infant rose, and innocent
As wnen heav'n lent her us. Her mind as well
As face, is yet a paradise untainted
With blemishes, or the spreading weeds of vice.
Robert Baron's Mirza.
Her even carriage is as far from coyness
As from immodesty ;-in play, in dancing,
In suffering courtship, in requiting kindness,
In use of places-hours-and companions,
Free as the sun, and nothing more corrupted;
As circumspect as Cynthia in her vows,
And constant as the centre to observe them.
George Chapman.
Accomplishments were native to her mind,
Like precious pearls within a clasping shell,
And winning grace her every act refined,
Like sunshine shedding beauty where it fell.
Mrs. Hale.
Give me good proofs of what you have alleged:
'Tis not enough to say-in such a bush
There lies a thief-in such a cave a beast,-
But you must show him to me cre I shoot,
Else I may kill one of my straggling sheep:
I'm fond of no man's person but his virtue.
Crown's 1st part of Henry VI.
None have accused thee; 'tis thy conscience cries,
The witness in the soul that never dies;
Its accusation, like the moaning wind,
Of wintry midnight moves thy startled mind;
Oh! may it melt thy hardened heart, and bring
From out thy frozen soul the life of spring.
Good actions crown themselves with lasting bags,
Who deserves well needs not another's praise.
Heath's Clarestell.
Of every noble action, the intent
Is to give worth reward, vice punishment
Beaumont and Fletcher's Captara
If thou doest ill, the joy fades, not the pains.
If well, the pain doth fade, the joy remains.
George Herbert
The body sins not, 'tis the will
That makes the action good or ill.
Actions rare and sudden, de commonly
Proceed from fierce necessity: or else
From some oblique design, which is asham'd
To show itself in the public road.
Sir William Davenant
Our unsteady actions cannot be
Manag'd by rules of strict philosophy.
Sir Robert Howard Some place the bliss in action, some in ease, Those call it pleasure, and contentment these. Pope
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or sway;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Finds us further than to-day.
Celerity is never more admired Than by the negligent.
Away then, work with boldness and with speed, If it were done, when 'tis done, then 'twere well On greatest actions greatest dangers feed.
Marloe's Lust of Dominion.
Whilst timorous knowledge stands considering
Audacious ignorance hath done the deed.
For who knows most, the more he knows to douht;
The least discourse is commonly most stout.
Shahs. Macbeth Wise men ne'er sit and wail their loss, But cheerly seek how to redress their harm. Shaks. Henry VI Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, Which we ascribe to heaven: the fated sky Gives us free scope; only doth backward pull Our slow designs, when we ourselves are dull Shaks. All's uch
Learn to labour and to wait.
Let us then be up and doing;
For honour travels in a strait so narrow,
With a heart for any fate,
Where one but goes abreast: keep then the path: Still achieving, still pursuing,
For emulation hath a thousand sons,
That one by one pursue: if you give way,
Or edge aside from the direct forthright,
Like to an enter'd tide, they all rush by,
And leave you hindmost.
Shaks. Troi, and Cress.
Let's take the instant by the forward top;
For we are old, and on our quick'st decrees,
The inaudible and noiseless foot of time
Steals, ere we can effect them.
Come, I have learn'd, that fearful commenting
Is laden servitor to dull delay;
Delay leads impotent and snail-pac'd beggary.
Then fiery expedition be my wing,
Jove's Mercury, and herald for a king!
Go, muster men: my counsci is my shield:
We must be brief, when traitors brave the field.
Shaks. Richard III.
Time, thou anticipat'st my dread exploits:
The flighty purpose never is o'ertook,
Unless the deed go with it: from this moment,
The very firstlings of my heart shall be
The firstlings of my hard. And even now,
To crown my thoughts with acts, be it thought
Run if you like, but try to keep your breath;
Work like a man, but don't be work'd to death.
O. W. Holmes
He who hath never warr'd with misery,
Nor ever tugg'd with fortune and distress,
Hath had n' occasion, nor no field to try
The strength and forces of his worthiness;
Those parts of judgment which felicity
Keeps as conceal'd, affliction must express,
And only men show their abilities,
And what they are, in their extremities.
Daniel on the Earl of Southampton.
By adversity are wrought
The greatest works of adıniration,
And all the fair examples of renown,
Out of distress and misery are grown.
Daniel on the Earl of Southampton.
Not one care wanting hour my life had tasted;
But from the very instant of my birth,
Incessant woes my tired heart have wasted,
And my poor thoughts are ignorant of mirth,
Look how one wave another still pursueth,
When some great tempest holds their troops in
chase;
Due entrance he disdain'd, and in contempt
At one slight bound high overleap'd all bound
Of hill or highest wall, and sheer within
Lights on his feet.
Or as one hour another close rencweth,
Milton's Paradise Lost. Or posting day supplies another's place,
So do the billows of affliction beat me,
And hand in hand the storins of mischief go;
Successive cares with utter ruin threat me,
Grief is enchain'd with grief, and woe with woe.
Samuel Brandon's Octavia.
How slow the time
To the warm soul, that, in the very instant
It forms, would execute a great design!
Thomson's Coriolanus.
Seizes the prompt occasion, makes the thought
Start into instant action, and at once
Plans and performs, resolves and executes!
Hannah More's Daniel.
My days, though few, have passed below
In Louch of joy though more of woe;
Yet still, in hours of love or strife,
('re 'scap'd the weariness of life.
Byron's Giaour. According to the force with which 'twas thrown
So in affliction's violence, he that's wise,
The more he's cast down, will the higher rose.
Nabb's Micreens
Though affliction, at the first, dott. w
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footsteps on the sands of time.
Longfellow Poems. Most virtuous natures, from these that "
Unjustly laic; yet when the amazement, which That ew pan brings, is worn away, they then Embrace oppression straight, with such
Obedient cheerfulness, as if it came
Sweet are the uses of adversity;
They answer in a joint and corporate voice. Than now they are at fall, -want treasure-canne Do what they would; are sorry - you are honou. able
Sir William Davenant's Fair Favourite. Something had been amiss
Which, like the toad, ugly and venoinous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head:
And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.
But yet they could have wish'd-they knew not-
a noble nature
May catch a wrench - would all were all well
'tis pity -
And so, intending other serious matters,
After distasteful looks, and these hard fractions,
With certain half caps, and cold moving nods,
They froze me into silence.
Shaks. As you like it. Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens;
'Tis just the fashion: wherefore do you look Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there?
His overthrow heap'd happiness upon him,
For then, and not till then, he felt himself
And found the blessedness of being little
And, to add greater honours to his age
Than man could give him, he died, fea.ing God.
Shaks Henry VIII.
'Tis certain, greatness, once fallen out with for.
tune,
Must fall out with men too: what the declin'd is,
He shall as soon read in the eyes of others,
As feel in his own fall; for men, 'ike butterflies,
Show not their mealy wings but to the summer.
Shaks. Troi. and Cres
If I once fall, how many knees, now bending,
Would stamp the heel of hate into my breast!
Sir A. Hunt's Julian
I am not now in fortune's power:
He that is down, can fall no lower.
Daughter of Jove, relentless power,
Thou tamer of the human breast,
Whose iron scoarge, and torturing hour,
The bad affright, afflict the best!
Bound in thy adamantine chain,
The proud are taught to taste of pain,
And purple tyrants vainly groan,
With pangs unfelt before, unpitied, and alone.
Gray's Hymn to Adversity.
The gods in bounty work up storms about us,
That give mankind occasion to exert
Their hidden strength, and throw out into practice
Virtues that shun the day, and lie conceal'd
In the smooth seasons and the calms of life.
How sudden are the blows of fate! what change,
What revolution, in the state of glory!
Cibber's Cæsar in Egypt.
I will bear it
With all the tender sufferance of a friend,
As calmly as the wounded patient bears
The artist's hand that ministers his cure.
Deserted at his utmost need,
By those his former bounty fed.
All evils natural are moral goods;
All discipline, indulgence, on the whole.
When a great mind falls,
The noble nature of man's gen'rous heart
Doth bear him up against the shame of ruin,
With gentle censure, using but his faults
As modest means to introduce his praise;
For pity, like a dewy twilight, comes
To close th' oppressive splendour of his day,
And they who but admired him in his height
His altered state laiment, and love him fall'n.
Joanna Baillie's Basil,
For as when merchants break, o'erthrown
Like ninepins, they strike others down.
Tho' losses and crosses
Be lessons right severe,
There's wit there, ye'll get there,
Ye'll find nae other where.
Burns's Epistle to Davie The brave unfortunate are our best acquaintance; They show us virtue may be much distress'd, Otway's Orphan. And give us their example how to suffer.
Dryden's Alexander's Feast.
Ev'n o'er an enemy oppress'd, and heap
Affliction on the afflicted, is the mark,
And the mean triumph of a dastard soul.
Smollett's Regicide.
Affliction is the wholesome soil of virtue:
Where patience, honour, sweet humanity,
Calm fortitude, take root, and strongly flourish.
Mallet and Thomson's Alfred.
Who has not known ill fortune, never knew
Himself, or his own virtue.
Francis's Eugenia.
In this wild world the fondest and the best,
Are the most tried, most troubled, and distress'd
Crabbe.
That saddening hour when bad men hotlier press:
But these did shelter him beneath their roof,
When less barbarians would have cheer'd him less,
And fellow countrymen have stood aloof-
In aught that tries the heart, how few withstand
the proof!
Byron's Childe Harold.
Of all the horrid, hideous notes of woe,
Sadder than owl-songs on the midnight blast,
Is that portentous phrase, " I told you so,"
Utter'd by friends, those prophets of the past,
Mallet and Thomson's Alfred. Who, 'stead of saying what you now should do,
Ye good distress'd!
Ye noble few! who here unbending stand
Beneath life's pressure, yet bear up awhile,
And what your bounded view, which only saw
A little part, deem'd evil, is no more;
'The storms of wintry time will quickly pass,
And one unbounded spring encircle all.
Own they foresaw that you would fall at last,
And solace your slight lapse 'gainst "bonos mores,"
With a long memorandum of old stories.
I have not quailed to danger's brow
When high and happy-need I now?
Thomson's Seasons. One thought alone he could not-dared not meot,
Affliction is the good man's shining scene;
Prosperity conceals his brightest ray;
As night to stars, woe lustre gives to man.
Young's Night Thoughts.
We bleed, we tremble, we forget, we smile,
The mind turns fool, before the cheek is dry.
Young's Night Thoughts.
"Oh how these tidings will Medora greet ?"
Then-only then-his clanking hands he raised
And strain'd with rage the chain on which he
gaz'd.
Byron's Corsa'n
The good are better made by ill:-
As odours crush'd are sweeter still!
Aaversity's cold frosts will soon be o'er;
It heralds brighter days:-the joyous Spring
Is cradled on the Winter's icy breast,
And yet comes flushed in beauty.
Give thy thougnts no tongue
Nor any unproportioned thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Mrs. Hemans. Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertaiment
Of each new hatch'd unfledged comrade.
Let me entreat you,
For to unfold the anguish of your heart:
Mishaps are master'd by advice discreet,
And counsel mitigates the greatest smart.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
Know when to speak; for many times it brings
Danger, to give the best advice to kings.
Herrick.
Direct not him, whose way himself will choose;
"Tis breath thou lack'st, and that breath wilt thou
lose.
Shaks. Richard II.
Let him be so,
For counsel still is folly's deadly foe.
Shaks. London Prodigal.
I pray thee, cease thy counsel.
Which falls into mine ears as profitless
As water in a sieve.
I shall the effect of this good lesson keep
As watchman to my heart.
'Tis all men's office to speak patience
To those that wring ander the load of sorrow;
But no man's virtue, nor sufficiency,
To be so moral, when he shall endure
The like himself. Therefore give me no counsel:
My griefs cry louder than advertisement.
Shaks. Much của
Men
Can counsel and speak comfort to that grief
Which they themselves not feel; but, tasting it,
Their counsel turns to passion, which before
Would give preceptial medicine to rage,
Fetter strong madness in a silken thread,
Charm ache with air, and agony with words.
Shaks. Much ado. A wretched soul, bruised with adversity,
We bid be quiet, when we hear it cry;
But were we burdened with like weight of pain,
As much, or more, we should ourselves complain.
Shaks. Much ada
Love all, trust a few,
Do wrong to none; be able for thine enemy
Rather in power than use; and keep thy friend
Under thine own life's key: be check'd for silence,
But never tax'd for speech.
What could I more?
Shaks. All's well. I warn'd thee, I admonish'd thee, foretold
Beware
The danger, and the lurking enemy
That lay in wait; beyond this had been force,
And force upon free will hath here no place.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Learn to dissemble wrongs, to smile at injuries,
And suffer crimes thou want'st the power t
punish:
Of entrance to a quarrel; but being in,
Bear it that the opposer may beware of thee.
Shaks. Hamlet.
Give every man thine ear but few thy voice:
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judg.
Shaks. Hamlet.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be:
For loan oft loses both itself and friend;
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
Shaks. Hamlet.
Love thyself last; cherish those hearts that hate
thee;
Corruption wins not more than honesty.
Sull in thy right hand carry gentle peace,
To silence envious tongues.
Shaks. Henry VIII.
Thy honourable metal may be wrought
From that it is disposed therefore 'tis meet
Toat noble minds keep ever with their likes:
bene firm, tha cannot be seduced ?
Aye free, off han', your story tell
When wi' a bosom crony;
But still keep something to yoursel
Shaks. Julius Cæsar. Ye scarcely tell to onv.
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