Circumstance must make it probable
Whether the cause's justness may command
Th' attendance of success: For an attempt
That's warranted by justice, cannot want
A prosperous end.
Nabb's Hannibal and Scipio.
Justness of cause is nothing,
When things are risen to the point they are:
"Tis either not examin'd or believ'd
Among the warlike.
It seems it is as proper to our age
To cast beyond ourselves in our opinions,
As it is common for the younger sort
To lack discretion.
When clouds are seen, wise men put on their
cloaks;
When great leaves fall, then winter is at hand;
When the sun sets, who doth not look for night?
Untimely storms make men expect a dearth.
All may be well; but if God sort it so,
'T is more than we deserve, or I expect.
Be advis'd;
Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot
That it doth singe yourself; we may outrun,
By violent swiftness, that which we run at,
And lose by over-running. Know you not,
The fire, that mounts the liquor till it run o'er,
In seeming to augment it, wastes it? Be advis d
Shaks. Henry VIII.
Trust none;
For oaths are straws, men's faiths are wafer cakes,
And hold-fast is the only dog.
Shaks. Henry V.
Man's caution often into danger turns,
Sir W. Davenant's Gondibert.
And his guard falling, crushes him to death.
Small are the seeds fate does unheeded sow
Young's Night Thoughts
Of slight beginnings to important ends;
Whilst wonder, which does best our rev'rence He knows the compass, sail, and oar,
This is a cause which our ambition fills;
A cause, in which our strength we should not
waste
In vain, like giants, who did heave at hills;
'Tis too unwieldy for the force of haste.
To heav'n, all reason's sight in gazing spends.
Sir W. Davenant's Gondibert.
Or never launches from the shore;
Before he builds, computes the cost,
And in no proud pursuit is lost
Gay's Fables.
All's to be fear'd where all is to be lost.
Byron.
Let no man know thy business save some friend,
CEREMONY-CHALLENGE-CHANGE.
f I am fair, 'tis for myself alone;
I do not wish to have a sweetheart near me,
Nor would I call another's heart my own,
Nor have a gallant lover to revere me;
For surely I would plight my faith to none,
Then ceremony leads her bigots forth, Prepar'd to fight for shadows of no worth; While truths, on which eternal things aepend. Find not, or hardly find, a single friend: As soldiers watch the signal of command, Though many an amorous wit might jump to They learn to bow, to kneel, to sit, to stand; hear me; For I have heard that lovers prove deceivers, When once they find that maidens are believers. From Michel Angelo.
Happy to fill religion's vacant place
With hollow form, and gesture and grimace.
Cowy
It was withal a highly polished age,
And scrupulous in ceremonious rite,
When stranger stranger met upon the wav,
First each to other bowed respectfully,
And large professions made of humble service.
Pollock
I never in my life
Did hear a challenge urg'd more modestly,
Unless a brother should a brother dare
To gentle exercise and proof of arms.
Shaks. Henry IV
Now, Thomas Mowbray, do I turn to thee,
And mark my greeting well; for what I speak,
My body shall make good upon this earth,
Or my divine soul answer it in heaven:
Thou art a traitor and a miscreant.
CEREMONY.
Ceremony was but devis'd at first,
To set a gloss on faint deeds,-hollow welcomes,
Recanting goodness, sorry e'er 'tis shown;
But where there is true friendship, there needs
And what art thou, thou idol, ceremony?
What kind of god art thou? that sufferest more
Of mortal griefs than do thy worshippers.
Weep not that the world changes-did it keep
A stable, changeless course, 't were cause to weep
Bryant
Not in vain the distance beckons,
Forward, forward let us range;
Let the peoples spin for ever
Down the ringing grooves of change.
I ask not what change
Has come over thy heart,
I seek not what chances
Have doomed us to part;
What are thy comings in? I know thou hast told me
O ceremony, show me but thy worth:
What is thy toll, O adoration?
Art thou aught else but place, degree, and form,
Creating awe and fear in other men?
Wherein thou art less happy, being fear'd,
Than they in fearing.
What drink'st thou oft, instead of homage sweet,
But poison'd flattery? O be sick, great greatness,
And bid thy ceremony give thee cure.
And I still must obey
Where I once did adore.
In bower and garden rich and rare
There's many a cherish'd flower,
Whose beauty fades, whose fragrance flits
Within the flitting hour.
Not so the simple forest leaf,
Unprized, unnoticed, lying -
Stand free and fast,
And judge him by no more than what you know
Ingenuously, and by the right laid line
Of truth, he truly will all styles deserve,
Of wise, good, just; a man both soul and nerve.
Shirley's Admiral of France.
She can't be parallel'd by art, much less
By nature: she'd battle painters to decypher
Her exactly, as bad as agues puzzle doctors.
Robert Neville's Poor Scholar.
As through the hedgerows'shade the violet steals,
And the sweet air its modest leaf reveals,
Her softer charms, but by their influence known,
Surprise all hearts, and mould them to her own.
Rogers.
Though gay as mirth, as curious thoughts sedate;
As elegance polite, as power elate;
Profound as reason, and as justice clear;
Soft as compassion, yet as truth severe.
Passes from Mahomet to Moses;
Beginning with the laws that keep
The planets in their radiant courses,
And ending with some precept deep
For dressing eels or shocing horses.
Praed-The Vicar
It is not mirth, for mirth she is too still;
It is not wit, which leaves the heart more chill,
But that continuous sweetness, which with ease
Pleases all round it from the wish to please.
The New Timon
Those who see thee in thy full-blown pride,
Know little of affections crushed within,
And wrongs which frenzy thee.
Talfourd's on
She was the pride
Of her familiar sphere - the daily joy
Of all who on her gracefulness might gaze,
And in the light and music of her way
Have a companion's portion.
Savage. The angels sang in heaven when she was born.
With more capacity for love than earth lestows on most of mortal mould and birth, lis earlv dreams of good out-stripped the truth, And troubled manhood followed baffled youth.
Devoted, anxious, generous, void of guile,
And with her whole heart's welcome in her saile
Mrs Norton
A gentle maiden, whose large, loving ejes
Enshrine a tender, melancholy light,
I see not charity written, which some cal'
The first-born of religion; and I wonder,
Like the soft radiance of the starry skies,
Or autumn sunshine, mellow'd when most bright; I cannot see it in yours. Believe it, sir,
She is not sad, yet in her gaze appears
Something that makes the gazer think of tears.
Mrs. Embury.
She has a glowing heart, they say,
Though calm her seeming be;
And oft that warm heart's lovely play
Upon her cheek I see.
Though time her bloom is stealing,
There's still beyond his art-
The wild flower wreath of feeling,
The sunbeam of the heart.
There is no virtue can be sooner miss'd,
Or later welcom'd; it begins the rest,
And sets them all in order.
Take physic, pomp;
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel;
That thou may'st shake the superflux to them,
Mrs. Osgood. And show the heavens more just.
Bold in the cause of God he stood
Like Templar in the Holy Land;
And never knight of princely blood
In lady's bower more bland.
The gentle deeds of mercy thou hast done,
Halleck. Shall die forgotten all; the poor, the pris'ner,
The fatherless, the friendless, and the widow,
Who daily own the bounty of thy hand,
Shall cry to heav'n, and pull a blessing on thee.
Rowe's Jane Shore
Mrs. Hale. How few, like thee, inquire the wretched out,
And court the offices of soft humanity!
Like thee, reserve their raiment for the naked,
Reach out their bread to feed the crying orphan,
Or mix the pitying tears with those that sweep!
Rowe's Jane Shore.
His high broad forehead, marble fair,
Told of the power of thought within;
And strength was in his raven hair
But when he smiled a spell was there
That more than strength or power could win.
Mrs. Hale's Vigil of Love.
Good is no good, but if it be spend;
Great minds, like heaven, are pleas'd in doing
good,
Though the ungrateful subjects of their favours
Are barren in return.
Rowe's Tamerlane.
God giveth good for none other end.
The secret pleasure of a generous act
Spenser's Shepherd's Calendar. Is the great mind's great bribe.
Charity ever
Finds in the act reward, and needs no trumpet
In the receiver.
Beaumont and Fletcher's Sea Voyage.
It was sufficient that his wants were known,
True charity makes others' wants their own.
Robert Dauborne's Poor Man's Comfort.
For true charity
Though ne'er so secret finds a just reward.
May's Old Couple.
For his bounty,
There was no winter in 't an autumn 't was
That grew the more by reaping.
Shaks. Ant. and Cleo.
Nothing truly can be term'd mine own
But what I make mine own by using well.
Those deeds of charity which we have done
Shall stay for ever with us: and that wealth
Which we have so bestow'd, we only keep;
The other is not ours.
Dryden's Don Sebastian
Is there a variance? enter but his door,
Balk'd are the courts, and contest is no more.
Despairing quacks with curses left the place,
And vile attorneys, now an useless race.
Pope's Moral Essays.
In faith and hope the world will disagree,
But all mankind's concern is charity:
All must be false that thwart this one great end;
And all of God, that bless mankind, or mend.
Pope's Essay on Man
Self-love thus push'd to social, to divine,
Gives thee to make thy neighbour's blessing thine
Is this too little for the boundless heart?
Extend it let thy enemies have part,
Grasp the whole worlds of reason, life and sense
In one close system of benevolence:
Happier as kinder, in whate'er degree
And height of bliss but height of charity.
The generons pride of virtue, Diedams to weigh too nicely the returns Her bounty meets with-like the liberal gods, From her own gracious nature she bestows, Nor stops to ask reward.
But to the generous still-improving mind,
That gives the hopeless heart to sing for joy,
Diffusing kind beneficence around,
Boastless, as now descends the silent dew;
To him the long review of order'd life,
Is inward rapture, only to be felt.
Thomson's Seasons.
The truly generous is the truly wise;
And he who loves not others, lives unblest.
Home's Douglas.
His house was known to all the vagrant train,
He chid their wanderings but reliev'd their pain:
The long-remember'd beggar was his guest,
Whose beard descending swept his aged breast;
The ruin'd spendthrift, now no longer proud,
Claim'd kindred there, and had his claims allow'd.
Goldsmith's Deserted Village.
Pleas'd with his guests, the good man learn'd to glow,
And quite forgot their vices in their woe;
Careless their merits or their faults to scan,
His pity gave ere charity began.
Goldsmith's Deserted Village.
There are, while human miseries abound,
A thousand ways to waste superfluous wealth,
Without one fool or flatterer at our board,
Without one hour of sickness or disgust.
Armstrong's Art of Preserving Health.
Pure in her aim, and in her temper mild,
Her wisdom seems the weakness of a child:
She makes excuses where she might condemn,
Revil'd by those that hate her, prays for them;
Suspicion lurks not in her artless breast,
The worst suggested, she believes the best;
Not soon provok'd, however stung and teas'd,
And, if perhaps made angry, soon appeas'd;
She rather waves than will dispute her right,
Ano mjur'd makes forgiveness her delight.
Cowper's Charity.
True charity, a plant divinely nurs'd,
Fed by the love, from which it rose at first,
'Thrives against hope, and in the rudest scene,
Storms but enliven its unfading green;
Exuborant is the shadow it supplies,
Its fruit on earth. its growth above the skies.
Cowper's Charity.
Und charity prevail, the press would prove
A venicie of virtue, truth and love.
I mean the man, who when the distant poor
Need help, denies them nothing but his name.
Cowper's Task
Far may we search before we find
A heart so manly or so kind.
But not around his honour'd urn,
Shall friends alone and kindred mourn;
The thousand eyes his care had dried,
Pour at his name a bitter tide;
And frequent falls the grateful dew,
For benefits the world ne'er knew.
The drying up a single tear has more
Of honest fame, than shedding seas of gore.
Byron's Don Juan
And-not from piety but pride,
Gives wealth to walls that never heard
Of his own holy vow or word.
Byron's Giaour.
To the blind, the deaf, the lame,
To the ignorant, and vile,
Stranger, captive, slave, he came,
With a welcome and a smile.
Help to all he did dispense,
Gold, instruction, raiment, food;
Like the gifts of Providence,
To the evil and the good.
Why not believe the homely letter That all you give will God restore ? The poor man may deserve it better, Cowper's Charity. And surely, surely wants it more,
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