Obrázky stránek
PDF
ePub

Then with no throbs of fiery pain,1
No cold gradations of decay,
Death broke at once the vital chain,
And freed his soul the nearest way.

Verses on Robert Levet. Stanza 9.

That saw the manners in the face.

Lines on the Death of Hogarth.

Philips, whose touch harmonious could remove
The pangs of guilty power and hapless love;
Rest here, distrest by poverty no more,
Here find that calm thou gav'st so oft before;
Sleep, undisturb'd, within this peaceful shrine,
Till angels wake thee with a note like thine!
Epitaph on Claudius Philips, the Musician.

A Poet, Naturalist, and Historian,

Who left scarcely any style of writing untouched,
And touched nothing that he did not adorn.2
Epitaph on Goldsmith.

How small, of all that human hearts endure,
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure!
Still to ourselves in every place consign'd,
Our own felicity we make or find.

With secret course, which no loud storms annoy,
Glides the smooth current of domestic joy.
Lines added to Goldsmith's Traveller.

Trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay.
Line added to Goldsmith's Deserted Village.

1 Var. Then with no fiery throbbing pain.

2 Nullum quod tetigit non ornavit.

He adorned whatever subject he either spoke or wrote upon by the most splendid eloquence. — Chesterfield's Characters: Bolingbroke.

[ocr errors]

Libra

Of Califor

From thee, great God, we spring, to thee we tend,
Path, motive, guide, original, and end.1
The Rambler. No. 7.

Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope; who expect that age will perform the promises of youth, and that the deficiencies of the present day will be supplied by the morrow; attend to the history of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia. Rasselas. Chap. i.

I am not so lost in lexicography as to forget that words are the daughters of earth, and that things are the sons of heaven.2

From The Preface to his Dictionary. Words are men's daughters, but God's sons are things.3

From Dr. Madden's "Boulter's Monument." Supposed to have been inserted by Dr. Johnson, 1745.

Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison.

Life of Addison.

To be of no church is dangerous.

1 Boethius de Cons. III. 9, 27.

Religion,

2 The italics and the word "forget" would seem to imply that the saying was not his own.

Sir William Jones gives a similar saying in India: "Words are the daughters of earth and deeds are the sons of heaven."

[ocr errors]

8 Words are women, deeds are men. Herbert, Jacula Prudentum. Sir Thomas Bodley, Letter to his Librarian, 1604.

of which the rewards are distant, and which is animated only by Faith and Hope, will glide by degrees out of the mind, unless it be invigorated and reimpressed by external ordinances, by stated calls to worship, and the salutary influence of example. Life of Milton.

The trappings of a monarchy would set up an ordinary commonwealth.

Ibid.

His death eclipsed the gayety of nations, and impoverished the public stock of harmless pleasLife of Edmund Smith (alluding to the death of Garrick).

ure.

That man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona.

Journey to the Western Islands: Inch Kenneth.

If he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, Sir, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons.

Boswell's Life of Johnson. An. 1763.

Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it. Ihid. An. 1775.

There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn. Ibid. An. 1776.

Claret is the liquor for boys; port for men; but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy. Ibid. An. 1779.

[Johnson continued.

Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat.1

Boswell's Life of Johnson. An. 1784.

If the man who turnips cries
Cry not when his father dies,
'Tis a proof that he had rather

Have a turnip than his father.

Johnsoniana. Piozzi, 30.

A good hater.

Johnsoniana. Piozzi, 39.

Books that you may carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are the most useful after Ibid. Hawkins, 197.

all.

WILLIAM PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM.

17081778.

The atrocious crime of being a young man.. Speech, March 6, 1741.

Confidence is a plant of slow growth in an Speech, January 14, 1766.

aged bosom.

A long train of these practices has at length unwillingly convinced me that there is something behind the Throne greater than the King himself. Speech, March 2, 1770. (Chatham Correspondence.)

1 Parody on "Who rules o'er freemen should himself be free." From Brooke's Gustavus Vasa, First edition. 2 Quoted by Lord Mahon, "greater than the Throne itself." History of England, Vol. v. p. 258.

Where law ends, tyranny begins.

Speech, Jan. 9, 1770.

Case of Wilkes.

If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms, never Speech, Nov. 18, 1777.

never- never.

Necessity is the argument of tyrants,' it is the creed of slaves.

Speech on the India Bill. Nov. 1783.

The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the force of the crown. It may be frail; its roof may shake; the wind may blow through it; the storms may enter, the rain may enter, — but the King of England cannot enter! all his forces dare not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement.2

Speech on the Excise Bill.

Indemnity for the past and security for the future."

We have a Calvinistic creed, a Popish liturgy, and an Arminian clergy.

From Prior's Life of Burke, 1790.

1 Necessity, the tyrant's plea.

Milton, Par. Lost, Book iv. Line 393.

2 From Brougham's Statesmen of George III. First Se

ries, p. 41.

8 Mr. Pitt's phrase. De Quincey, Theol. Essays, Vol. ii. p. 170. See also Russell's Memoir of Fox, Vol.

iii. p. 345. Letter to the Hon. T. Maitland.

« PředchozíPokračovat »