Vain sorrows! vain regrets! yet, loveliest, thee,

Thee still they follow in the silent urn,

Retracing hours of social converse free,

And soft endearments never to return.

How thou art torn, sweet flower, that smiled so fair!

Torn, and thy honored bloom with dust defiled;

Yet, holy earth, accept my suppliant prayer,

And in a mother’s arms enfold thy child.

FROM THE ALCESTIS OF EURIPIDES.

We will not look on her burial sod

As the cell of sepulchral sleep:

It shall be as the shrine of a radiant god,

And the pilgrim shall visit this blest abode

To worship, and not to weep.

And as he turns his steps aside,

Thus shall he breathe his vow:—

Here slept a self-devoted bride;

Of old, to save her lord she died,

She is an angel now.

ON A YOUNG BRIDE.

Not Hymen,—it was Ades’ self alone

That loosened Clearista’s virgin zone:

The morning ’spousal song was raised,—but oh!

At once ’twas silenced into threnes of woe;

And the same torches which the bridal bed

Had lit, now showed the pathway to the dead.

ON A BACHELOR.

At threescore winters’ end I died,

A cheerless being, sole and sad;

The nuptial knot I never tied,

And wish my father never had.

* * * * *

My name, my country, what are they to thee?

What, whether base or proud my pedigree?

Perhaps I far surpassed all other men;

Perhaps I fell below them all,—what then?

Suffice it, stranger, that thou seest a tomb;

Thou know’st its use,—it hides,—no matter whom.

ANTITHESIS EXTRAORDINARY.

The following singular inscription may be seen on a monument in Horsley

Down Church, Cumberland, England:—

Here lie the bodies of

Thomas Bond and Mary his wife.

She was temperate, chaste, and charitable.

But

She was proud, peevish, and passionate.

She was an affectionate wife and a tender

mother,

But

Her husband and child, whom she loved, seldom

saw her countenance without a

disgusting frown;

Whilst she received visitors whom she despised

with an endearing smile.

Her behaviour was discreet towards strangers,

But

Imprudent in her family.

Abroad her conduct was influenced by good

breeding,

But

At home by ill temper.

She was a professed enemy to flattery, and was

seldom known to praise or commend;

But

The talents in which she principally excelled

Were difference of opinion and discovering

flaws and

Imperfections.

She was an admirable economist,

And, without prodigality,

Dispensed plenty to every person in her family,

But

Would sacrifice their eyes to a farthing candle.

She sometimes made her husband

Happy with her good qualities,

But

Much more frequently miserable with her

Many failings.

Insomuch that in thirty years’ cohabitation,

He often lamented that,

Maugre all her virtues,

He had not on the whole enjoyed two years

Of matrimonial comfort.

At length,

Finding she had lost the affection of her husband,

as well as the regard of her neighbors,

family disputes having been

divulged by servants,

She died of vexation, July 20, 1768,

Aged 48 years.

Her worn-out husband survived her four months

and two days, and departed this life

November 22, 1768,

In the 54th year of his age.

William Bond, brother to the deceased,

Erected this stone as a

Weekly monitor to the wives of this parish,

That they may avoid the infamy of having

Their memories handed down to posterity

With a patchwork character.

THE PRINTER’S EPITAPH.

Here lies his _form_ in _pi_,

Beneath this _bank_ with _briers_ overgrown;

How many _cases_ far unworthier _lie_

’Neath some _imposing stone_!

No _column points_ our loss,

No sculptured _caps_ his history declare;

Although he lived a follower of the _cross_,

And member of the _bar_.

The golden _rule_ he prized,

And left it as a _token_ of his love;

And all his deeds, _corrected_ and _revised_,

Are _registered_ above.

The _copy_ of his wrongs,

The _proofs_ of all his _pi_-ety are there,

And the fair title, which to truth belong

Will _prove_ his _title_ fair.

Though now, in death’s _em-brace_,

A _mould_-ering _heap_ our luckless brother lies,

He’ll re-appear on Gabriel’s _royal-chase_,

And _frisk-it_ to the skies.

BREVITY.

Thorpe’s

Corpse.

The epitaph on Dr. Caius, the founder of the college which bears his

name, cannot be blamed for prolixity. Dr. Fuller remarks, “few men might

have had a longer, none ever had a shorter epitaph.”

Fui Caius

(I was Caius)

ON MR. MAGINNIS.

Finis

Maginnis.

Camden, in his _Remaines_,—a collection of fragments illustrative of the

habits, manners and customs of the ancient Britons and Saxons,—gives

examples of great men who had little epitaphs. For himself it has been

suggested that the name of the work in question would be the most

fitting:—

Camden’s Remains.

LAUDATORY.

Following the inscription to the memory of Albert, Prince Consort, on

the Cairn at Balmoral, is the following quotation from the _Wisdom of

Solomon_, iv. 13, 14.

He being made perfect in a short time,

Fulfilled a long time:

For his soul pleased the Lord;

Therefore hasted He to take

Him away from among the wicked.

* * * * *

Could he disclose who rests below,

The things beyond the grave that lie,

We more should learn than now we know.

But know no better how to die.

* * * * *

Dust to its narrow house beneath,

Soul to its place on high;

They that have seen thy look in death,

No more may fear to die.

* * * * *

His youth was innocent—his riper age

Marked with some act of goodness every day;

And watched by eyes that loved him, calm and sage,

Faded his late declining years away;

Cheerful he gave his being up, and went

To share the holy rest that waits a life well spent.

EPITAPHIUM CHEMICUM.

1791.

Here lieth to digest, macerate, and amalgamate with clay

In balneo arenæ,

stratum super stratum,

The residuum, terra damnata, and caput mortuum

OF A CHEMIST.

A man who in his earthly Laboratory

Pursued various processes to obtain

The §Arcanum Vitæ§,

Or the secret to Live;

Also the §Aurum Vitæ§, or

The Art of getting, not making, Gold.

Alchemist-like, he saw all his labor and projection,

As mercury in the fire, evaporated in fume.

When he dissolved to his first principles,

He departed as poor

As the last drops of an alembic.

Though fond of novelty, he carefully avoided

The fermentation, effervescence, and

Decrepitation of this life.

Full seventy years

His exalted essence

Was hermetically sealed in its terrene matrass;

But the radical moisture being exhausted,

The Elixir Vitæ spent,

And exsiccated to a cuticle,

He could not suspend longer in his vehicle:

But precipitated gradatim,

Per campanam,

To his original dust.

May the light above,

More resplendent than Bolognian phosphorus,

Preserve him

From the athanor, empyreuma, and

Reverberatory furnace of the other world;

Depurate him from the fæces and scoria of this;

Highly rectify and volatilize

His ethereal spirit;

Bring it safely out of the crucible of earthly trial,

Place it in a proper recipient

Among the elect of the Flowers of Benjamin;

Never to be saturated till the general resuscitation,

Deflagration, calcination,

And sublimation of all things.

MISCELLANEOUS.

ON SIR JOHN VANBRUGH, THE ARCHITECT.

Lie heavy on him, earth; for he

Laid many heavy loads on thee.—§Evans.§

THE ORATOR’S EPITAPH.

Here, reader, turn your weeping eyes,

My fate a useful moral teaches;

The hole in which my body lies

Would not contain one-half my speeches.—§Brougham.§

IN LYDFORD CHURCHYARD, NEAR DARTMOOR.

Here lies, in horizontal position,

the outside Case of

§George Routleigh§, Watchmaker;

Integrity was the Mainspring, and prudence the

Regulator,

of all the actions of his life.

Humane, generous, and liberal,

his Hand never stopped,

till he had relieved distress.

So nicely regulated were all his Motions,

that he never went wrong,

except when set a-going

by people

who did not know his Key:

Even then he was easily

set right again.

He had the art of disposing his time so well,

that his Hours kept running on

in a continual round of pleasure,

till an unlucky Minute put a stop to

his existence.

He departed this life Nov. 14, 1802, æt. 57,

in hopes of being taken in hand

by his Maker;

and of being thoroughly Cleaned, Repaired,

Wound up, and Set a-going

in the world to come.

AT KITTERY, MAINE.

I was drowned, alas! in the deep, deep seases.

The blessed Lord does as he pleases.

But my Kittery friends did soon appear,

And laid my body right down here.

ON A SAN FRANCISCO MONEY-LENDER.

Here lies old thirty-five per cent.:

The more he made, the more he lent;

The more he got, the more he craved;

The more he made, the more he shaved;

Great God! can such a soul be saved?

ON AN IMPORTUNATE TAILOR.

Here lies W. W.,

Who never more will trouble you, trouble you.

IN SOHAM CHURCHYARD, CAMBRIDGESHIRE.

A.D. 1643, Ætatis suæ 125.

Here lies Dr. Ward, whom you knew well before;

He was kind to his neighbors, good to the poor.

1 2 3 4 5 6

To God, to Prince, Wife, kindred, friend, the poor,

1 2 3 4 5 6

Religious, loyal, true, kind, stedfast, dear,

1 2 3 4 5 6

In zeal, faith, love, blood, amity, and store,

He hath so lived, and so deceased, lies here.

IN THE CHURCH OF ST. GREGORY, SUDBURY.

Viator, mirum referam.

Quo die efflavit animam Thos. Carter, prædictus,

Acus foramen transivit Camelus Sudburiensis.

Vade, et si dives sis, tu fac similiter.

Vale.

(Traveller, I will relate a prodigy. On the day whereon the aforesaid

Thos. Carter breathed out his soul, a Sudbury camel passed through the

eye of a needle. Go, and if thou art wealthy, do thou likewise.

Farewell.)

IN LLANBEBLIG, CARNARVONSHIRE.

Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.

Here lie the remains of Thomas Chambers,

Dancing Master;

Whose genteel address and assiduity

in Teaching

Recommended him to all that had the

Pleasure of his acquaintance.

ON AN INFIDEL.

From the Latin.

Beneath this stone the mouldering relics lie

Of one to whom Religion spoke in vain;

He lived as though he never were to die,

And died as though he ne’er should live again.

PROPOSED BY A FRENCH THEOLOGIAN FOR VOLTAIRE.

In poesi magnus,

In historia parvus,

In philosophia minimus,

In religione nullus.

Hume, the classic historian of England, denied the existence of matter,

and held that the whole congeries of material things are but impressions

and ideas in the mind, distinguishing an impression from an idea by its

stronger effect on the thinking faculty. Dr. Beattie sufficiently

exposed the absurdity; but his famous essay has nothing more pointed

than the witty epitaph that somebody wrote on the marble shaft that

stands over the infidel’s grave:—

Beneath this circular _idea_, vulgarly called tomb,

_Impressions_ and _ideas_ rest, which constituted Hume.

ON TOM PAINE.

Tom Paine for the Devil is surely a match.

In leaving old England he cheated Jack Ketch;

In France (the first time such a thing had been seen)

He cheated the watchful and sharp guillotine;

And at last, to the sorrow of all the beholders,

He marched out of life with his head on his shoulders.

EARTH TO EARTH.

Few persons have met with the following poem, now nearly four centuries

old; but many will recognise in some of the stanzas, particularly the

first four and the last four, the source of familiar monumental

inscriptions. The antiquary can refer to many a dilapidated stone on

which these quaint old lines can yet be traced.

Vado mori Rex sum, quid honor quid gloria mundi,

Est vita mors hominum regia—vado mori.

Vado mori miles victo certamine belli,

Mortem non didici vincere vado mori.

Vado mori medicus, medicamine non relevandus,

Quicquid agunt medici respuo vado mori,

Vado mori logicus, aliis concludere novi,

Concludit breviter mors in vado mori.

Earth out of earth is worldly wrought;

Earth hath gotten upon earth a dignity of nought;

Earth upon earth has set all his thought,

How that earth upon earth might be high brought.

Earth upon earth would be a king,

But how that earth shall to earth he thinketh no thing;

When earth biddeth earth his rents home bring,

Then shall earth from earth have a hard parting.

Earth upon earth winneth castles and towers,

Then saith earth unto earth this is all ours;

But when earth upon earth has builded his bowers,

Then shall earth upon earth suffer hard showers.

Earth upon earth hath wealth upon mould;

Earth goeth upon earth glittering all in gold,

Like as he unto earth never turn should;

And yet shall earth unto earth sooner than he would.

Why that earth loveth earth wonder I think,

Or why that earth will for earth sweat and swink.

For when earth upon earth is brought within the brink,

Then shall earth for earth suffer a foul stink.

As earth upon earth were the worthies nine,

And as earth upon earth in honor did shine;

But earth list not to know how they should incline,

And their gowns laid in the earth when death hath made his fine.

As earth upon earth full worthy was Joshua,

David, and worthy King Judas Maccabee,

They were but earth none of them three;

And so from earth unto earth they left their dignity.

Alisander was but earth that all the world wan,

And Hector upon earth was held a worthy man,

And Julius Cæsar, that the Empire first began;

And now as earth within earth they lie pale and wan.

Arthur was but earth for all his renown,

No more was King Charles nor Godfrey of Boulogne;

But now earth hath turned their nobleness upside down,

And thus earth goeth to earth by short conclusion.

Whoso reckons also of William Conqueror,

King Henry the First that was of knighthood flower,

Earth hath closed them full straitly in his bower,—

So the end of worthiness,—here is no more succor.

Now ye that live upon earth, both young and old,

Think how ye shall to earth, be ye never so bold;

Ye be unsiker, whether it be in heat or cold,

Like as your brethren did before, as I have told.

Now ye folks that be here ye may not long endure,

But that ye shall turn to earth I do you ensure;

And if ye list of the truth to see a plain figure,

Go to St. Paul’s and see the portraiture.

All is earth and shall to earth as it sheweth there,

Therefore ere dreadful death with his dart you dare,

And for to turn into earth no man shall it forbear,

Wisely purvey you before, and thereof have no fear.

Now sith by death we shall all pass, it is to us certain,

For of earth we come all, and to the earth shall turn again;

Therefore to strive or grudge it were but vain,

For all is earth and shall be earth,—nothing more certain.

Now earth upon earth consider thou may

How earth cometh to earth naked alway,

Why should earth upon earth go stout alway,

Since earth out of earth shall pass in poor array?

I counsel you upon earth that wickedly have wrought,

That earth out of earth to bliss may be brought.

BYRON’S INSCRIPTION ON THE MONUMENT OF HIS DOG.

Near this spot

Are deposited the remains of one

Who possessed beauty without vanity,

Strength without insolence,

Courage without ferocity,

And all the virtues of man without his vices.

This praise, which would be unmeaning flattery

If inscribed over human ashes,

Is but a just tribute to the memory of

Boatswain, a dog,

Who was born at Newfoundland, May, 1803,

And died at Newstead Abbey, Nov. 18, 1808.

Inscriptions.

TAVERN-SIGNS.

I’m amazed at the signs

As I pass through the town.

To see the odd mixture,—

A _magpye_ and _crown_,

The _whale_ and the _crow_,

The _razor_ and _hen_,

The _leg_ and _seven stars_,

The _axe_ and the _bottle_,

The _tun_ and the _lute_,

The _eagle_ and _child_,

The _shovel_ and _boot_.—_British Apollo, 1710._

The absurdities which tavern-signs present are often curious enough, but

may in general be traced to that inveterate propensity which the vulgar

of all countries have, to make havoc with every thing in the shape of a

proper name. What a _magpie_ could have to do with a _crown_, or a

_whale_ with a _crow_, or a _hen_ with a _razor_, it is as difficult to

conjecture as to trace the corruption of language in which the

connection more probably originated. The sign of the _leg_ and the

_seven stars_ was merely an orthographical deviation from the _league_

and _seven stars_, or seven united provinces; and the _axe_ and _bottle_

was, doubtless, a transposition of the _battle-axe_, a most appropriate

sign for warlike times. The _tun_ and _lute_ formed suitable emblems

enough of the pleasures of wine and music. The _eagle_ and _child_, too,

had meaning, though no application; but when we come to the _shovel_ and

_boot_, nonsense again triumphs, and it is in vain that we look for any

rational explanation of the affinity.

The _Swan-with-two-necks_ has long been an object of mystery to the

curious. This mystery is solved by the alteration of a single letter.

The sign, as it originally stood, was the _swan with two nicks_; the

meaning of which we find thus explained in a communication made by the

late Sir Joseph Banks to the Antiquarian Society. Sir Joseph presented

to the Society a curious parchment roll, exhibiting the marks, or nicks,

made on the beaks of swans and cygnets in all the rivers and lakes in

Lincolnshire, accompanied with an account of the privileges of certain

persons keeping swans in these waters, and the duties of the king’s

swanherd in guarding these fowls from depredation and preventing any two

persons from adopting the same figures or marks on the bills of their

swans. The number of marks contained in the parchment roll amounted to

two hundred and nineteen, all of which were different and confined to

the small extent of the bill of the swan. The outlines were an oblong

square, circular at one end, and containing dots, notches, arrows, or

suchlike figures, to constitute the difference in each man’s swans. Laws

were enacted so late as the 12th of Elizabeth, for the preservation of

the swans in Lincolnshire.

The _goat and compasses_ has been supposed to have its origin in the

resemblance between the bounding of a goat and the expansion of a pair

of compasses; but nothing can be more fanciful. The sign is of the days

of the Commonwealth, when it was fashionable to give scriptural names to

every thing and everybody, and when _God-be-praised Barebones_ preferred

drinking his tankard of ale at the _God-encompasseth-us_ to anywhere

else. The corruption from _God-encompasseth-us_ to _goat and compasses_

is obvious and natural enough.

In Richard Flecknoe’s _Enigmatical Characters_, published 1665, speaking

of the “fanatic reformers,” (the Puritans,) he observes, “As for the

§SIGNS§, they have pretty well begun their reformation already, changing

the sign of the _salutation of the angel and our lady_ into the _soldier

and citizen_, and the _Katherine Wheel_ into the _cat and wheel_; so as

there only wants then making the _dragon_ to kill _St. George_, and the

_devil_ to tweak _St. Dunstan_ by the nose, to make the reformation

complete. Such ridiculous work they make of their reformation, and so

zealous are they against all mirth and jollity, as they would pluck down

the sign of the _cat and fiddle_ too, if it durst but play so loud as

they might hear it.”

The cat and fiddle is a a corruption of Caton fidele.

The _bag of nails_, at Chelsea, is claimed by the smiths and carpenters

of the neighborhood as a house designed for their peculiar

accommodation; but, had it not been for the corruption of the times, it

would still have belonged to the _bacchanals_, who, in the time of Ben

Jonson, used to take a holiday stroll to this delightful village. But

the old inscription _satyr and bacchanals_ is now converted into Satan

and bag o’nails.

The origin of the _chequers_, which is so common an emblem of public

houses, has been the subject of much learned conjecture. One writer

supposes that they were meant to represent that the game of draughts

might be played there; another has been credibly informed that in the

reign of Philip and Mary the then Earl of Arundel had a grant to license

public-houses, and, part of the armorial bearings of that noble family

being a chequer-board, the publican, to show that he had a license, put

out that mark as part of his sign. But, unfortunately for both

solutions, unfortunately for the honors of Arundel, Sir W. Hamilton

presented, some time ago, to the Society of Antiquaries, a view of a

street in Pompeii, in which we find that shops with the sign of the

chequers were common among the Romans! The real origin of this emblem is

still involved in obscurity. The wittiest, though certainly not the most

genuine, explanation of it was that of the late George Selwyn, who used

to wonder that antiquaries should be at any loss to discover why

_draughts_ were an appropriate emblem for _drinking-houses_.

An annotator on Beloe’s _Anecdotes of Literature_ says, “I remember,

many years ago, passing through a court in Rosemary Lane, where I

observed an ancient sign over the door of an ale-house, which was called

_The Four Alls_. There was the figure of a king, and on a label, ‘I rule

all;’ the figure of a priest, motto, ‘I pray for all;’ a soldier, ‘I

fight for all;’ and a yeoman, ‘I pay all.’ About two years ago I passed

through the same thoroughfare, and, looking up for my curious sign, I

was amazed to see a painted board occupy its place, with these words

inscribed:—‘_The Four Awls_.’ In Whitechapel road is a public house

which has a written sign, ‘_The Grave Morris_.’ A painter was

commissioned to embody the inscription; but this painter had not a

poet’s eye; he could not body forth the form of things unknown. In his

distress he applied to a friend, who presently relieved him, and the

painter delineated, as well as he could, ‘_The Graafe Maurice_,’ often

mentioned in the ‘_Epistolæ Hoelinæ_’”

The Queer Door is corrupted from Cœur Doré (Golden Heart); the Pig and

Whistle, from Peg and Wassail-Bowl; the Goat in the Golden Boots, from

the Dutch Goed in der Gooden Boote (the god—Mercury—in the golden

boots).

Many signs are heraldic and represent armorial bearings. The White Heart

was peculiar to Richard II.; the White Swan to Henry IV. and Edward

III.; the Blue Boar to Richard III.; the Red Dragon to the Tudors; the

Bull, the Falcon, and the Plume of Feathers to Edward IV.; the Swan and

Antelope to Henry V.; the Greyhound and Green Dragon to Henry VII.; the

Castle, the Spread Eagle, and the Globe were probably adopted from the

arms of Spain, Germany, and Portugal, by inns which were the resort of

merchants from those countries. Many commemorate historical events;

others derive their names from some eminent and popular man. The Coach

and Horses indicated post-houses; the Fox and Goose denoted the games

played within; the Hare and Hounds, the vicinity of hunting-grounds. In

the Middle Ages, a bush was always suspended in front of the door of a

wine-shop,—whence the saying, “Good wine needs no bush.” Some of the

mediæval signs are still retained, as the Pilgrim, Cross-Keys, Seven

Stars, &c.

The following is a literal copy of the sign of a small public house in

the village of Folkesworth, near Stilton, Hants. It contains as much

poetry as perhaps the rustic Folkesworth folks are worth; and doubtless

they think it (in the Stilton vernacular) “quite the cheese.”

[A rude figure of a Fox.]

§I . ham . a . cunen . fox§

You . see . ther . his

No . harme . atched

To . me . it . is . my . Mrs.

Wish . to . place . me

here . to . let . you . no

he . sels . good . beere.

The Rawlinson of the district has deciphered this inscription, and

conjectures its meaning to be as follows:—

I am a cunning fox, you see;

There is no harm attached to me:

It is my master’s wish to place me here,

To let you know he sells good beer.

In King Street, Norwich, at the sign of “The Waterman,” kept by a man

who is a barber and over whose door is the pole, are these lines:—

Roam not from pole to pole,

But step in here;

Where nought exceeds the shaving,

But—the beer.

This was originally an impromptu of Dean Swift, written at the request

of his favorite barber.

* * * * *

Over the door of a tippling-house in Frankford, Pa., is this:—

In this Hive we’re all alive;

Good liquor makes us funny;

If you’re dry, step in and try

The flavor of our honey.

ON A TAVERN-SIGN NEAR CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND.

Rest, traveller, rest; lo! Cooper’s ready hand

Obedient brings “zwei glass” at thy command.

Rest, traveller, rest, and banish thoughts of care.

Drink to thy friends, and recommend them here.

* * * * *

PUNISHMENT FOR TREASON.

Tell them how Edward put to death a citizen,

Only for saying he would make his _son_

Heir to the _Crown_; meaning indeed his _house_,

Which, by the _sign_ thereof, was termed so.—_Rich. III._, Act iii. sc.

5.

On the sign of “The Baker and the Brewer,” in Birmingham, is the

following quatrain:—

The Baker says, “I’ve the staff of life,

And you’re a silly elf.”

The Brewer replied, with artful pride,

“Why this is life itself.”

At the King’s Head Inn, Stutton, near Ipswich, is this address to

wayworn travelers:—

Good people, stop, and pray walk in;

Here’s wine and brandy, rum and gin;

And what is more, good purl and ale

Are both sold here by old Nat Dale.

This tap-room inscription is in a wayside tavern in Northumberland,

England:—

Here stop and spend a social hour

In harmless mirth and fun;

Let friendship reign, be just and kind,

And evil speak of none.

At the Red Lion Inn, Hollins Green, an English village, is this:—

Call freely,

Drink merrily,

Pay honestly,

Part quietly.

These rules, my friends, will bring no sorrow;

You pay to-day, I’ll trust to-morrow.

In the county of Norfolk, Eng., is this singular inscription:—

More beer score clerk

For my my his

Do trust pay sent

I I must has

Shall if I brewer

What and and my[30]

Footnote 30:

Read from the bottom of the columns upward, commencing with the right.

On the sign-board of the Bull Inn at Buckland, near Dover:—

The bull is tame, so fear him not,

All the while you pay your shot;

When money’s gone, and credit’s bad,

It’s that which makes the bull run mad.

At Swainsthorpe, near Norwich, England, is a public-house known as the

Dun Cow. Under the portrait of the cow is this couplet:—

Walk in, gentlemen; I trust you’ll find

The dun cow’s milk is to your mind.

On the Basingstoke road, near Reading, England:—

This is the Whitley Grenadier,

A noted house for famous beer.

My friend, if you should chance to call,

Beware and get not drunk withal;

Let moderation be your guide,

It answers well whene’er ’tis tried.

Then use but not abuse strong beer,

And don’t forget the Grenadier.

The author of _Tavern Anecdotes_ records the following:—

_Rhyming Host at Stratford._

At the Swan Tavern, kept by Lound

The best accommodation’s found—

Wine, spirits, porter, bottled beer,

You’ll find in high perfection here.

If, in the garden with your lass,

You feel inclined to take a glass,

There tea and coffee, of the best,

Provided is for every guest;

Or, if disposed a pipe to smoke,

To sing a song, or crack a joke,

You may repair across the green,

Where nought is heard, though much is seen;

Then laugh, and drink, and smoke away,

And but a moderate reckoning pay.

BEER-JUG INSCRIPTION.

Come, my old friend, and take a pot,

But mark me what I say:

Whilst thou drink’st thy neighbor’s health.

Drink not thy own away.

For it too often is the case,

Whilst we sit o’er a pot,

And while we drink our neighbor’s health,

Our own is quite forgot.

INSCRIPTIONS ON INN WINDOW-PANES.

SHENSTONE’S, AT HENLEY.

Whoe’er has travelled life’s dull round,

Where’er his journeys may have been,

May sigh to think he still has found

His warmest welcome at an inn.

A gentleman who stopped at an inn at Stockport, in 1634, left this

record of his bad reception on a window of the inn:—

If, traveller, good treatment be thy care,

A comfortable bed, and wholesome fare,

A modest bill, and a diverting host,

Neat maid, and ready waiter,—quit this coast.

If dirty doings please, at Stockport lie:

The girls, O frowsy frights, here with their mistress vie.

Yet Fynes Moryson, in his _Itinerary_, thus speaks of English inns in

the olden time:—

As soon as a passenger comes to an inne, the servants run to him, and

one takes his horse and walkes him about till he be cool, then rubs

him down, and gives him meat; another servant gives the passenger his

private chamber and kindles his fire; the third pulls off his bootes

and makes them cleane; then the host and hostess visit him, and if he

will eate with the hoste or at a common table with the others, his

meale will cost him sixpence, or in some places fourpence; but if he

will eate in his chamber, he commands what meat he will, according to

his appetite; yea, the kitchen is open to him to order the meat to be

dressed as he likes beste. After having eaten what he pleases, he may

with credit set by a part for next day’s breakfast. His bill will then

be written for him, and should he object to any charge, _the host is

ready to alter it_.

“Tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis!”

ON A WINDOW-PANE OF THE HOTEL SANS SOUCI, BADEN-BADEN.

Venez ici, sans souci. Vous

Partirez d’ici sans six sous.

THREE TRANSLATIONS WHICH FOLLOW.

You come to this city plumed with felicity,

You’ll flutter from this city plucked to mendicity.

With plenty of tin, purse-proud you come in.

You’ll go a sad _ninkum_ from outgo of income!

Not a bit pensive, you come here expensive.

Soon you’ll go hence with a _curse the expense_.

INSCRIPTIONS ON BELLS.

Vivos voco—Mortuos plango—Fulgura frango.

I call the living—I mourn the dead—I break the lightning.

This brief and impressive announcement—the motto of Schiller’s

ever-memorable Song of the Bell—was common to the church-bells of the

Middle Ages, and may still be found on the bell of the great Minster of

Schaffhausen, and on that of the church near Lucerne. Another and a

usual one, which is, in fact, but an amplification of the first, is this

Funera plango—Fulgura frango—Sabbato pango.

Excito lentos—Dissipo ventos—Paco cruentos.

I mourn at funerals—I break the lightning—I proclaim the Sabbath.

I urge the tardy—I disperse the winds—I calm the turbulent.

The following motto may still be seen on some of the bells that have

swung in their steeples for centuries. It will be observed to entitle

them to a sixfold efficacy.

Men’s death I tell by doleful knell,

Lightning and thunder I break asunder,

On Sabbath all to church I call,

The sleepy head I raise from bed,

The winds so fierce I do disperse,

Men’s cruel rage I do assuage.

On the famous alarm-bell called Roland, in the belfry-tower of the once

powerful city of Ghent, is engraved the subjoined inscription, in the

old Walloon or Flemish dialect:—

Mynen naem is Roland; als ik klep is er brand,

and als ik luy is er victorie in het land.

_Anglicé._ My name is Roland; when I toll there is fire,

and when I ring there is victory in the land.

On others may be found these inscriptions:—

Deum verum laudo, plebem voco, clerum congrego,

Defuncto ploro, pestum fugo, festa decoro.

I praise the true God, call the people, convene the clergy,

I mourn for the dead, drive away pestilence, and grace festivals.

Gaudemus gaudentibus,

Dolemus dolentibus.

Let us rejoice with the joyful, and grieve with the sorrowful.

INSCRIPTIONS ON THE BELLS OF ST. MICHAEL’S, COVENTRY, CAST IN 1774.

I.

Although I am both light and small,

I will be heard above you all.

II.

If you have a judicious ear,

You’ll own my voice is sweet and clear.

III.

Such wondrous power to music’s given,

It elevates the soul to heaven.

IV.

While thus we join in cheerful sound,

May love and loyalty abound.

V.

To honour both of God and king,

Our voices shall in concert sing.

VI.

Music is a medicine to the mind.

VII.

Ye ringers all, that prize your health and happiness,

Be sober, merry, wise, and you’ll the same possess.

VIII.

Ye people all that hear me ring,

Be faithful to your God and king.

IX.

In wedlock’s bands all ye who join,

With hands your hearts unite;

So shall our tuneful tongues combine

To laud the nuptial rite.

X.

I am and have been called the common bell,

To ring, when fire breaks out, to tell.

There is in the abbey church at Sherborne, in Dorsetshire, a fire-bell

confined exclusively to alarms in case of conflagrations. The motto

around the rim or carrel runs thus:—

1652.

Lord, quench this furious flame;

Arise, run, help, put out the same.

The books of the Roman Catholic faith contain a ritual for the baptism

of bells, which decrees that they be named and anointed,—a ceremonial

which was supposed to insure them against the machinations of evil

spirits.

On the largest of three bells placed by Edward III. in the Little

Sanctuary, Westminster, are these words:—

King Edward made me thirtie thousand weight and three;

Take me down and wey me, and more you shall find me.

The Great Tom of Oxford was cast after two failures, April 8, 1680, from

the metal of an old bell, on which was the following curious

inscription, whence its name:—

In Thomæ laude resono _bim bom_ sine fraude.

On a bell in Durham Cathedral is inscribed,—

To call the folk to church in time,

I chime.

When mirth and pleasure’s on the wing,

I ring.

And when the body leaves the soul,

I toll.

On a bell at Lapley, in Staffordshire:—

I will sound and resound to thee, O Lord,

To call thy people to thy word.

On a bell in Meivod Church, Montgomeryshire:—

I to the church the living call,

And to the grave do summon all.

On Independence bell, Philadelphia, from Lev. xxv. 10:—

Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants

thereof.

In St. Helen’s Church, Worcester, England, is a chime of bells cast in

the time of Queen Anne, with names and inscriptions commemorative of

victories gained during her reign:—

1. §Blenheim.§

First is my note, and Blenheim is my name;

For Blenheim’s story will be first in fame.

2. §Barcelona.§

Let me relate how Louis did bemoan

His grandson Philip’s flight from Barcelon.

3. §Ramillies.§

_Deluged in blood, I, Ramillies, advance

Britannia’s glory on the fall of France._

4. §Menin.§

Let Menin on my sides engraven be;

And Flanders freed from Gallic slavery.

5. §Turin.§

When in harmonious peal I roundly go,

Think on Turin, and triumphs on the Po.

6. §Eugene.§

With joy I hear illustrious Eugene’s name;

Fav’rite of fortune and the boast of fame.

7. §Marlborough.§

But I, for pride, the greater Marlborough bear;

Terror of tyrants, and the soul of war.

8. §Queen Anne.§

Th’ immortal praises of Queen Anne I sound,

With union blest, and all these glories crowned.

The inscriptions are all dated 1706, except that on the seventh, which

is dated 1712.

* * * * *

On one of eight bells in the church tower of Pilton, Devon, is a modern

achievement in this kind of literature:—

Recast by John Taylor and Son,

Who tho best prize for church bells won

At the Great Ex-hi-bi-ti-on

In London, 1—8—5 and 1.

In St. John’s Cathedral, Hong Kong:—

I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles. (Acts xxii. 21.)

At Fotheringay, Northamptonshire:—

Domini laudem, non verbo sed voce resonabo.

At Hornby:—

When I do ring,

God’s praises sing;

When I do toll,

Pray heart and soul.

At Nottingham:—

I toll the funeral knell;

I hail the festal day;

The fleeting hour I tell;

I summon all to pray.

At Bolton:—

My roaring sound doth warning give

That men cannot here always live.

Distich inscribed on a bell at Bergamoz, by Cardinal Orsini, Benedict

XIII.:—

Convoco, signo, noto, compello, concino, ploro,

│ │ │ │ │ │

Arma, Dies, Horas, Fulgura, Festa, Rogos.

Similar in form is an inscription on Lindsey Court-house:—

Hæc domus

Odit amat punit conservat honorat

│ │ │ │ │

Nequitiam, pacem, crimina, jura, bonos.

On the clock of the town hall of Bala, North Wales, is the following

inscription:—

Here I stand both day and night,

To tell the hours with all my might;

Do thou example take by me,

And serve thy God as I serve thee.

FLY-LEAF INSCRIPTIONS IN BOOKS.

The following lines, formerly popular among youthful scholars, may still

be found in school-books:—

This book is mine

By right divine;

And if it go astray,

I’ll call you kind

My desk to find

And put it safe away.

* * * * *

This book is mine,—that you may know,

By letters two I will you show:

The first is J, a letter bright;

The next is S in all men’s sight.

But if you still my name should miss,

Look underneath, and here it is:—

§John Smith§.

* * * * *

Whoe’er this book, if lost, doth find,

I hope will have a generous mind,

And bring it to the owner,—me,

Whose name they’ll see page fifty-three.

The curious warning subjoined—paradoxical in view of the improbability

of any _honest_ friend pilfering—has descended to our times from the

days of black-letter printing:—

Steal not this book, my honest friend,

For fear the gallows be your end;

For if you do, the Lord will say,

Where is that book you stole away?

Another often met with is this:—

Hic liber est meus,

Testis et est Deus;

Si quis me quærit,

Hic nomen erit.

The two following admonitions are full of salutary advice to

book-borrowers:—

Neither blemish this book, or the leaves double down,

Nor lend it to each idle friend in the town;

Return it when read; or, if lost, please supply

Another as good to the mind and the eye.

With right and with reason you need but be friends,

And each book in my study your pleasure attends.

* * * * *

If thou art borrowed by a friend,

Right welcome shall he be,

To read, to study, not to lend,

But to return to me.

Not that imparted knowledge doth

Diminish learning’s store;

But books, I find, if often lent,

Return to me no more.

☞ Read slowly, pause frequently, think seriously, keep clean, =RETURN

DULY=, with the corners of the leaves not turned down.

* * * * *

Of the warning and menacing kind are the following:—

This book is one thing,

My fist is another;

Touch this one thing,

You’ll sure feel the other.

* * * * *

_Si quisquis furetur_

This little _libellum,

Per Bacchum per Jovem_!

I’ll kill him, I’ll fell him,

_In ventum illius_

I’ll stick my _scalpellum_,

And teach him to steal

My little _libellum_.

* * * * *

Ne me prend pas;

On te pendra.

* * * * *

Gideon Snooks,

Ejus liber.

Si quis furetur;

Per collum pendetur,

Similis huic pauperi animali.

Here follows a figure of an unfortunate individual suspended “in malam

crucem.”

Small is the wren,

Black is the rook;

Great is the sinner

That steals this book.

This is Thomas Jones’s book—

You may just within it look;

But you’d better not do more,

For the Devil’s at the door,

And will snatch at fingering hands;

Look behind you—there he stands!

The following macaronic is taken from a copy of the _Companion to the

Festivals and Fasts_, 1717:—

_To the Borrower of this Book._

Hic Liber est meus,

Deny it who can,

Samuel Showell, Jr.,

An honest man.

In vico corvino [locale appended]

I am to be found,

Si non mortuus sum,

And laid in the ground.

At si non vivens,

You will find an heir

Qui librum recipiet;

You need not to fear.

Ergo cum lectus est

Restore it, and then

Ut quando mutuaris

I may lend again.

At si detineas,

So let it be lost,

Expectabo Argentum,

As much as it cost (viz.: 5_s._)

_To the Finder._

If I this lose, and you it find,

Restore it me, be not unkind;

For if not so, you’re much to blame,

While as below you see my name.—[Name appended.]

Taken from an old copy-book:

All you, my friends, who now expect to see

A piece of writing, here performed by me,

Cast but a smile on this my mean endeavor,

I’ll strive to mend, and be obedient ever.

On the fly-leaf of a Bible may sometimes be seen:

Could we with ink the ocean fill,

Were every stalk on earth a quill,

And were the skies of parchment made,

And every man a scribe by trade,

To tell the love of God alone

Would drain the ocean dry;

Nor could the scroll contain the whole,

Though stretched from sky to sky.

The two following are very common in village schools:—

This is Giles Wilkinson, his book;

God give him grace therein to look;

Nor yet to look, but understand

That learning’s better than house and land;

For when both house and land are spent,

Then learning is most excellent.

* * * * *

John Smith is my name,

England is my nation,

London is my dwelling-place,

And Christ is my salvation,

And when I’m dead and in the grave,

And all my bones are rotten,

When this you see, remember me,

Though I am long forgotten.

This pretty presentation-verse is sometimes met with:—

Take it,—’tis a gift of love

That seeks thy good alone;

Keep it for the giver’s sake,

And read it for thy own.

The early conductors of the press were in the habit of affixing to the

end of the volumes they printed some device or couplet concerning the

book, with the names of the printer and proof-reader added. The

following example is from Andrew Bocard’s edition of _The Pragmatic

Sanction_, Paris, 1507:—

Stet liber, hic donec fluctus formica marinos

Ebibat; et totum testudo perambulet orbem

(May this volume continue in motion,

And its pages each day be unfurled;

Till an ant to the dregs drink the ocean,

Or a tortoise has crawled round the world.)

On the title-page of a book called _Gentlemen, Look about You_, is the

following curious request:—

Read this over if you’re wise,

If you’re not, then read it twice:

If a fool, and in the gall

Of bitterness, read not at all.

MOTTO ON A CLOCK.

Quæ lenta accedit, quam velox præterit hora!

Ut capias, patiens esto, sed esto vigil!

Slow comes the hour: its passing speed how great:

Waiting to seize it,—vigilantly wait!

WATCH-PAPER INSCRIPTION.

Onward perpetually moving,

These faithful hands are ever proving

How quick the hours fly by;

This monitory, pulse-like beating

Seems constantly, methinks, repeating,

Swift! swift! the moments fly.

Reader, be ready,—for perhaps before

These hands have made one revolution more,

Life’s spring is snapt,—you die!

Here, reader, see in youth, in age, or prime,

The stealing steps of never-standing Time:

With wisdom mark the moment as it flies;

Think what a moment is to him who dies.

Little monitor, impart

Some instruction to the heart;

Show the busy and the gay

Life is hasting swift away.

Follies cannot long endure,

Life is short and death is sure.

Happy those who wisely learn

Truth from error to discern.

Could but our tempers more like this machine,

Not urged by passion, nor delayed by spleen,

And true to Nature’s regulating power,

By virtuous acts distinguish every hour;

Then health and joy would follow as they ought

The laws of motion, and the laws of thought;

Sweet health to pass the present moment o’er,

And everlasting joy when time shall be no more.

SUN-DIAL INSCRIPTIONS.

Sine sole sileo.

(Without sunlight I give no information.)

Scis horas; nescis horam.

(You know the hours; you know not the hour [of death].)

Afflictis lentæ, celeres gaudentibus horæ.

(The hours pass slowly for the afflicted, rapidly for the joyous.)

Vado e vegno giorno;

Ma tu andrai senza ritorno.

(I go and come every day;

But thou shalt go without return.)

May the dread book at our last trial,

When open spread, be like this dial;

May Heaven forbear to mark therein

The hours made dark by deeds of sin;

Those only in that record write

Which virtue like the sun makes bright.

If o’er the dial glides a shade, redeem

The time, for lo! it passes like a dream;

But if ’tis all a blank, then mark the loss

Of hours unblest by shadows from the cross.

INSCRIPTION OVER A SPRING.

Whoe’er thou art that stays’st to quaff

The streams that here from waters dim

Arise to fill thy cup and laugh

In sparkling beads about the brim,

In all thy thoughts and words as pure

As these sweet waters mayst thou be;

To all thy friends as firm and sure,

As prompt in all thy charity.

INSCRIPTIONS ON AN ÆOLIAN HARP.

AT THE ENDS.

Fingent Æolio carmine nobilem. (Hor. iv. 3.)

Partem aliquam, oh venti, divum referatis ad aures. (Virg. Buc. 3.)

ON THE SIDE.

Hail, heavenly harp, where Memnon’s skill is shown,

That charm’st the ear with music all thy own!

Which, though untouched, canst rapturous strains impart.

Oh, rich of genuine nature, free from art!

Such the wild warblings of the chirping throng,

So simply sweet the untaught virgin’s song.

Mr. Longfellow’s admirers will remember his beautiful little poem

commencing:—

I like that ancient Saxon phrase which calls

The burial-ground _God’s acre_.

This “Saxon phrase” is not obsolete. It may be seen, for instance,

inscribed over the entrance to a modern cemetery at Basle—

=Gottes Acker.=

Over a gateway near the church of San Eusebio, Rome:—

Tria sunt mirabilia;

Trinus et unus,

Deus et homo,

Virgo et mater.

Over the door of the house in which Selden was born, Salvington,

Sussex:—

Gratus, honesti, mihi; non claudar, inito sedeq’.

Fur, abeas; non su’ facta soluta tibi.

Thus paraphrased:—

Thou’rt welcome, honest friend; walk in, make free;

Thief, get thee gone; my doors are closed to thee.

HOUSE INSCRIPTIONS.

On the Town-house Wittenberg:—

Ist’s Gottes Werk, so wird’s bestehen;

Ist’s Menschens, so wird’s untergehen.

(If God’s work, it will aye endure;

If man’s, ’tis not a moment sure.)

Over the gate of a Casino, near Maddaloni:—

AMICIS—

Et ne paucis pateat,

Etiam fictis.

(My gate stands open for my friends;

But lest of these too few appear,

Let him who to the name pretends

Approach and find a welcome here.)

On a west-of-England mansion:—

Welcome to all through this wide-opening gate;

None come too early, none depart too late.

Fuller (_Holy and Profane State_) and Walton (_Life of George Herbert_)

notice a verse engraved upon a mantelpiece in the Parsonage House built

by George Herbert at his own expense. The faithful minister thus

counsels his successor:—

If thou dost find

A house built to thy mind,

Without thy cost,

Serve thou the more

§God§ and the poor:

My labor is not lost.

The following is emblazoned around the banqueting hall of Bulwer’s

ancestral home, Knebworth:—

Read the Rede of the Old Roof Tree.

Here be trust fast. Opinion free.

Knightly Right Hand. Christian knee.

Worth in all. Wit in some.

Laughter open. Slander dumb.

Hearth where rooted Friendships grow,

Safe as Altar even to Foe.

And the sparks that upwards go

When the hearth flame dies below,

If thy sap in them may be,

Fear no winter, Old Roof Tree.

On a pane of glass in an old window in the coffee-room of the White

Lion, Chester, England:—

Right fit a place is window glass

To write the name of bonny lass;

And if the reason you should speir,

Why both alike are brittle geir,

A wee thing dings a lozen lame—

A wee thing spoils a maiden’s fame.

Tourist’s wit on a window pane at Lodore:—

When I see a man’s name

Scratched upon the glass,

I know he owns a diamond,

And his father owns an ass.

On a pane of the Hotel des Pays-Bas, Spa, Belgium:—

1793.

I love but one, and only one;

Oh, Damon, thou art he.

Love thou but one and only one,

And let that one be me.

MEMORIALS.

An English gentleman, who, in 1715, spent some time in prison, left the

following memorial on the windows of his cell. On one pane of glass he

wrote:—

That which the world miscalls a jail,

A private closet is to me;

Whilst a good conscience is my bail,

And innocence my liberty.

On another square he wrote, _Mutare vel timere sperno_, and on a third

pane, _sed victa Catoni_.[31]

Footnote 31:

Lucan’s Pharsalia. (Lib. 1.)

A Mr. Barton, on retiring with a fortune made in the wool-trade, built a

fair stone house at Holme, in Nottinghamshire, in the window of which

was the following couplet,—an humble acknowledgment of the means whereby

he had acquired his estate:—

I thank God, and ever shall;

It is the sheep hath paid for all.

FRANCKE’S ENCOURAGING DISCOVERY.

It is said that when Francke was engaged in the great work of erecting

his world-known Orphan-House at Halle, for the means of which he looked

to the Lord in importunate prayer from day to day, an apparently

accidental circumstance made an abiding impression on him and those

about him. A workman, in digging a part of the foundation, found a small

silver coin, with the following inscription:—

“Jehova, Conditor, Condita Coronide Coronet.”

(May Jehovah, the builder, finish the building.)

GOLDEN MOTTOES.

A vain man’s motto,— Win gold and wear it.

A generous man’s motto,— Win gold and share it.

A miser’s motto,— Win gold and spare it.

A profligate’s motto,— Win gold and spend it.

A broker’s motto,— Win gold and lend it.

A fool’s motto,— Win gold and end it.

A gambler’s motto,— Win gold and lose it.

A sailor’s motto,— Win gold and cruise it.

A wise man’s motto,— Win gold and use it.

POSIES FROM WEDDING-RINGS.

_Portia._ A quarrel, ho, already! What’s the matter?

_Gratiano._ About a hoop of gold, a paltry ring

That she did give me: whose posy was

For all the world like cutler’s poetry

Upon a knife:[32] _Love me, and leave me not._—

_Merchant of Venice_, Act V.

Footnote 32:

Knives were formerly inscribed, by means of aqua-fortis, with short

sentences in distich.

_Hamlet._ Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?—

_Hamlet_, Act III. sc. 2.

_Jacques._ You are full of pretty answers: have you not been

acquainted with goldsmiths’ wives, and conned them out of rings?—

_As You Like It_, Act III. sc. 2.

The following posies were transcribed by an indefatigable collector,

from old wedding-rings, chiefly of the seventeenth and eighteenth

centuries. The orthography is, in most cases, altered:—

Death never parts

Such loving hearts.

Love and respect

I do expect.

No gift can show

The love I owe.

Let him never take a wife

That will not love her as his life.

In loving thee

I love myself.

A heart content

Can ne’er repent.

In God and thee

Shall my joy be.

Love thy chaste wife

Beyond thy life. 1681.

Love and pray

Night and day.

Great joy in thee

Continually.

My fond delight

By day and night.

Pray to love;

Love to pray. 1647.

In thee, my choice,

I do rejoice. 1677.

Body and mind

In thee I find.

Dear wife, thy rod

Doth lead to God.

God alone

Made us two one.

Eternally

My love shall be.

All I refuse,

And thee I choose.

Worship is due

To God and you.

Love and live happy. 1689.

Joy day and night

Be our delight.

Divinely knit by Grace are we;

Late two, now one; the pledge here see. 1657.

Endless my love

As this shall prove.

Avoid all strife

’Twixt man and wife.

Joyful love

This ring doth prove.

In thee, dear wife,

I find new life.

Of rapturous joy

I am the toy.

In thee I prove

The joy of love.

In loving wife

Spend all thy life. 1697.

In love abide

Till death divide.

In unity

Let’s live and die.

Happy in thee

Hath God made me.

Silence ends strife

With man and wife.

None can prevent

The Lord’s intent.

God did decree

Our unity.

I kiss the rod

From thee and God.

In love and joy

Be our employ.

Live and love;

Love and live.

God above

Continue our love.

True love will ne’er forget.

Faithful ever,

Deceitful never.

As gold is pure,

So love is sure.

Love, I like thee,

Sweet, requite me.

God sent her me,

My wife to be.

Live and die

In constancy.

My beloved is mine,

And I am hers.

Within my breast

Thy heart doth rest.

God above

Increase our love.

Be true to me

That gives it thee.

Both heart and hand

At your command.

My heart you have,

And yours I crave.

Christ and thee

My comfort be.

As God decreed,

So we agreed.

No force can move

Affixed love.

For a kiss

Take this.

The want of thee

Is grief to me.

I fancy none

But thee alone.

One word for all,

I love and shall.

Your sight,

My delight.

God’s blessing be

On thee and me.

I will be yours

While breath endures.

Love is sure

Where faith is pure.

Thy friend am I,

An so will die.

God’s appointment

Is my contentment.

Knit in one

By Christ alone.

My dearest Betty

Is good and pretty.

Sweetheart, I pray

Do not say nay.

Parting is pain

While love doth remain.

Hurt not that heart

Whose joy thou art.

Thine eyes so bright

Are my delight.

Take hand and heart,

I’ll ne’er depart.

If you consent,

You’ll not repent.

’Tis in your will

To save or kill.

As long as life,

Your loving wife.

If you deny,

Then sure I die.

Thy friend am I,

And so will die.

Let me in thee

Most happy be.

God hath sent

My heart’s content.

You and I

Will lovers die.

Thy consent

Is my content.

I wish to thee

All joy may be.

In thee my love

All joy I prove.

Beyond this life

Love me, dear wife.

Love and joy

Can never cloy.

The pledge I prove

Of mutual love.

I love the rod

And thee and God.

Desire, like fire,

Doth still inspire.

My heart and I,

Until I die.

This ring doth bind

Body and mind.

Endless as this

Shall be our bliss.—§Thos. Bliss.§ 1719.

I do rejoice

In thee my choice.

Love him in heart,

Whose joy thou art.

I change the life

Of maid to wife.

Endless my love

For thee shall prove.

Not Two, but One.

Till life be gone.

Numbers, vi. 24, 25, 26.

In its circular continuity, the ring was accepted as a type of eternity,

and, hence, the stability of affection.

Constancy and Heaven are round,

And in this the Emblem’s found.

This is love, and worth commending,

Still beginning, never _ending_.

Or, as Herrick says,—

And as this round

Is nowhere found

To flaw or else to sever,

So let our love

As endless prove,

And pure as gold forever.

LADY KATHERINE GREY’S WEDDING-RING.

The ring received by this excellent woman, who was a sister of Lady Jane

Grey, from her husband, the Earl of Hertford, at their marriage,

consisted of five golden links, the four inner ones bearing the

following lines, of the earl’s composition:—

As circles five by art compact shewe but one ring in sight,

So trust uniteth faithfull mindes with knott of secret might,

Whose force to breake but greedie Death noe wight possesseth power,

As time and sequels well shall prove. My ringe can say no more.

Parallel Passages.

INCLUDING IMITATIONS, PLAGIARISMS, AND ACCIDENTAL COINCIDENCES.

_Pretensions to originality are ludicrous._—§Byron’s§ _Letters_.

_An apple cleft in two is not more twin

Than these two creatures._—_Twelfth Night, V. 1._

_Milton “borrowed” other poets’ thoughts, but he did not borrow as

gipsies borrow children, spoiling their features that they may not be

recognized. No, he returned them improved. Had he “borrowed” your

coat, he would have restored it with a new nap upon it!_—§Leigh Hunt.§

* * * * *

Man wants but little here below,

Nor wants that little long.—§Goldsmith§: _Hermit_.

Evidently stolen from §Dr. Young§:—

Man wants but little, nor that little long.—_Night Thoughts._

* * * * *

Be wise to-day: ’tis madness to defer.—_Night Thoughts._

But §Congreve§ had said, not long before,—

Defer not till to-morrow to be wise;

To-morrow’s sun to thee may never rise.—_Letter to Cobham._

* * * * *

Like angels’ visits, few and far between.—§Campbell§: _Pleasures of

Hope_.

Copied from §Blair§:—

——like an ill-used ghost

Not to return;—or if it did, its visits,

Like those of angels, short and far between.—_Grave._

But this pretty conceit originated with §Norris§, of Bemerton, (died

1711,) in a religious poem:—

But those who soonest take their flight

Are the most exquisite and strong:

_Like angels’ visits, short and bright_,

Mortality’s too weak to bear them long.—_The Parting._

* * * * *

Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes,

Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart.—§Gray’s§ _Bard_.

§Gray§ himself points out the imitation in §Shakspeare§:—

You are my true and honorable wife;

As dear to me as are the ruddy drops

That visit my sad heart.—_Julius Cæsar_, Act II. Sc. 1.

§Otway§ also makes Priuli exclaim to his daughter,—

Dear as the vital warmth that feeds my life,

Dear as these eyes that weep in fondness o’er thee.—_Venice Preserved._

* * * * *

And leave us leisure to be good.—§Gray§: _Ode to Adversity_.

And know, I have not yet the leisure to be good.—§Oldham.§

* * * * *

Thou tamer of the human breast,

Whose iron scourge and torturing hour

The bad affright, afflict the best.—§Gray§: _Ode to Adversity_.

When the scourge

Inexorably, and the torturing hour,

Calls us to penance.—§Milton§: _Paradise Lost_.

* * * * *

Lo, where the rosy-bosomed hours,

Fair Venus’ train, appear!—§Gray§: _Ode to Spring_.

The graces and the rosy-bosomed hours

Thither all their bounties bring.—§Milton§: _Comus_.

En hic in roseis latet papillis.—§Catullus.§

* * * * *

Full many a gem, of purest ray serene,

The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear;

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,

And waste its sweetness on the desert air.—§Gray§: _Elegy_.

There kept my charms concealed from mortal eye,

Like roses that in deserts bloom and die.—§Pope§: _Rape of the Lock_.

In distant wilds, by human eye unseen,

She rears her flowers and spreads her velvet green;

Pure gurgling rills the lonely desert trace,

And waste their music on the savage race.—§Young.§

And, like the desert’s lily, bloom to fade.—§Shenstone§: _Elegy IV._

* * * * *

Nor waste their sweetness on the desert air.—§Churchill§, _Gotham_.

Which else had wasted in the desert air.

§Lloyd§: _Ode at Westminster School_.

* * * * *

And leaves the world to darkness and to me.—§Gray§: _Elegy_.

And left the world to wretchedness and me.—§Moss§: _Beggar’s Petition_.

* * * * *

The swallow oft beneath my thatch

Shall twitter from her clay-built nest, &c.—_The Wish._

Doubtless suggested to §Rogers§ by the lines in §Gray’s§ Elegy:—

The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,

The swallow twittering from her straw-built shed, &c.

* * * * *

The bloom of young desire and purple light of love.—§Gray.§

Lumenque juventæ purpureum.—§Virgil.§ _Æn._ I. 590.

And quaff the _pendent vintage_ as it grows.

§Gray§: _Alliance of Education and Government_.

For this expression §Gray§ was indebted to §Virgil§:—

Non eadem arboribus _pendet vindemia_ nostris, &c.—_Georg._ ii. 89.

* * * * *

The attic warbler pours her throat.—§Gray§: _Ode to Spring_.

Is it for thee the linnet pours her throat?—§Pope§: _Essay on Man_.

§Gray§ says concerning the blindness of Milton,—

He passed the flaming bounds of space and time:

The living throne, the sapphire blaze,

Where angels tremble while they gaze,

He saw; but, blasted with excess of light,

Closed his eyes in endless night.

(§Dr. Johnson§ remarks that if we suppose the blindness caused by study

in the formation of his poem, this account is poetically true and

happily imagined.)

* * * * *

§Hermias§, a Galatian writer of the second century, says of Homer’s

blindness,—

When Homer resolved to write of Achilles, he had an exceeding desire

to fill his mind with a just idea of so glorious a hero: wherefore,

having paid all due honors at his tomb, he entreats that he may obtain

a sight of him. The hero grants his poet’s petition, and rises in a

glorious suit of armor, which cast so insufferable a splendor that

Homer lost his eyes while he gazed for the enlargement of his notions.

(§Pope§ says if this be any thing more than mere fable, one would be apt

to imagine it insinuated his contracting a blindness by too intense

application while he wrote the Iliad.)

* * * * *

§Hume’s§ sarcastic fling at the clergy in a note to the first volume of

his history is not original. He says,—

The ambition of the clergy can often be satisfied only by promoting

ignorance, and superstition, and implicit faith, and pious frauds; and

having got what Archimedes only wanted,—another world on which he

could fix his engine,—no wonder they move this world at their

pleasure.

In §Dryden’s§ _Don Sebastian_, Dorax thus addresses the Mufti:—

Content you with monopolizing Heaven,

And let this little hanging ball alone;

For, give you but a foot of conscience there,

And you, like Archimedes, toss the globe.

§Dryden§ says of the Earl of Shaftesbury,—

David for him his tuneful harp had strung,

And Heaven had wanted one immortal song.—_Absalom and Achitophel._

§Pope§ adopts similar language in addressing his friend Dr. Arbuthnot:—

Friend of my life! which did not you prolong,

The world had wanted many an idle song.

For truth has such a face and such a mien,

As to be loved needs only to be seen.—§Dryden.§

Vice is a monster of such hideous mien,

As to be hated needs but to be seen.—§Pope.§

* * * * *

Great wits to madness nearly are allied.—§Dryden§: _Abs. and Achit._

§Seneca§ said, eighteen centuries ago,—

Nullum magnum ingenium absque mistura dementiæ est:—_De Tranquil._;

and Aristotle had said it before him (_Problemata_).

* * * * *

Praise undeserved is satire in disguise.—§Pope§: _Imit. Horace_.

§Sir Walter Scott§ says in his _Woodstock_,—in the scene where Alice

Lee, in the presence of Charles II. under the assumed name of Louis

Kerneguy, describes the character she supposes the king to have:—

Kerneguy and his supposed patron felt embarrassed, perhaps from a

consciousness that the real Charles fell far short of his ideal

character as designed in such glowing colors. In some cases

_exaggerated or inappropriate praise becomes the most severe satire_.

* * * * *

Ye little stars, hide your diminished rays.—§Pope§: _Epistle to

Bathurst_.

At whose sight all the stars

Hide their diminished heads.—§Milton.§

* * * * *

Laugh where we must, be candid where we can,

But vindicate the ways of God to man.—§Pope§: _Essay on Man_.

And justify the ways of God to man.—§Milton§: _Paradise Lost_.

* * * * *

On Butler who can think without just rage,

The glory and the scandal of the age?—§Oldham§: _Satire against Poetry_.

Probably borrowed by §Pope§ in the following lines:—

At length Erasmus, that great injured name,

The glory of the priesthood and the shame.—_Essay on Criticism._

* * * * *

And more true joy Marcellus, exiled, feels,

Than Cæsar with a senate at his heels.—§Pope§: _Essay on Man_.

Drawn from §Bolingbroke§, who plagiarized the idea from §Seneca§, who

says,—

O Marcellus, happier when Brutus approved thy exile than when the

commonwealth approved thy consulship.

* * * * *

For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight:

He can’t be wrong whose life is in the right—§Pope§: _Essay on Man_.

Taken from §Cowley§:—

His faith perhaps in some nice tenets might

Be wrong: his life, I’m sure, was in the right.

* * * * *

Is it, in heaven, a crime to love too well?—§Pope§: _Elegy_.

Imitated from §Crashawe’s§ couplet:—

And I,—what is my crime? I cannot tell,

Unless it be a crime to have loved too well.

§Lamartine§, in his _Jocelyn_, has the same expression:—

Est-ce un crime, O mon Dieu, de trop aimer le beau?

* * * * *

A wit with dunces, and a dunce with wits.—_Dunciad._

This smart piece of antithesis §Pope§ borrowed from §Quinctilian§, who

says,—

Qui stultis eruditi videri volunt; cruditi stulti videntur.

§Dr. Johnson§ also hurled this missile at Lord Chesterfield, calling him

“A lord among wits, and a wit among lords.” The earl had offended the

rugged lexicographer, whose barbarous manners in company Chesterfield

holds up, in his _Letters to his son_, as things to be avoided.

* * * * *

Fair tresses man’s imperial race ensnare,

And beauty draws us with a single hair.—§Pope§: _Rape of the Lock_.

This has a strong affinity with a passage in §Howell’s§ _Letters_:—

’Tis a powerful sex: they were too strong for the first, for the

strongest, and for the wisest man that was: they must needs be strong,

when _one hair of a woman can draw more than a hundred pair of oxen_.

* * * * *

Princes and lords may flourish or may fade;

A breath can make them, as a breath has made.—§Goldsmith§: _Deserted

Vil._

Probably from §De Caux§, an old French poet, who says,—

———————— C’est un verre qui luit,

Qu’un souffle peut détruire, et qu’un souffle a produit.

* * * * *

Kings are like stars,—they rise and set,—_they have

The worship of the world, but no repose_.—§Shelley§: _Hellas_.

Stolen from §Lord Bacon§:—

Princes are like to heavenly bodies, which cause good or evil times,

and _which have much veneration, but no rest_.—_Of Empire._

§Burke§, in speaking of the morals of France prior to the Revolution,

says,—

Vice itself lost half its evil by losing all its grossness.

This statement—the falsity of which is apparent—is disproved by a score

of contradictions. Let Lord Bacon suffice:—

Another [of the Rabbins] noteth a position in moral philosophy, that

men abandoned to vice do not so much corrupt manners as those that are

half good and half evil.—_Advancement of Learning._

Things not to be trusted:—

A bright sky,

A smiling master,

The cry of a dog,

A harlot’s sorrow.

_Howitt’s Literature and Romance of Northern Europe._

Grant I may never be so fond

To trust man in his oath or bond,

Or a harlot for her weeping,

Or a dog that seems a-sleeping.

_Apemantus’ Grace._—_Timon of Athens._

The collocation of dogs and harlots in both passages is very remarkable.

* * * * *

All human race, from China to Peru,

Pleasure, howe’er disguised by art, pursue.

§Warton§: _Universal Love of Pleasure_, 1748.

Let observation, with extensive view,

Survey mankind, from China to Peru.

§Dr. Johnson§: _Vanity of Human Wishes_, 1749.

* * * * *

§Shakspeare’s§ dreamy Dane says,—

Man delights not me, nor woman neither.

A sentiment very nearly expressed in §Horace’s§ Ode to Venus:—

Me nec femina, nec puer,

Jam nec spes animi credula mutui.

Nec certare juvat mero, &c.—_Lib. IV._

(As for me, neither woman, nor youth, nor the fond hope of mutual

inclination, &c. delight me.)

* * * * *

The world’s a theatre, the earth a stage,

Which God and nature do with actors fill;

Kings have their entrance with due equipage,

And some their parts play well, and others ill.

§Thomas Heywood§: _Apology for Actors_, 1612.

All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players:

They have their exits and their entrances;

And one man in his life plays many parts.

§Shakspeare§: _As You Like It_.

§Palladas§, a Greek poet of the third century, has the following,

translated by Merivale:—

This life a theatre we well may call,

Where every actor must perform with art,

Or laugh it through and make a farce of all,

Or learn to bear with grace his tragic part.

§Pythagoras§, who lived nearly two centuries later, also said,—

This world is like a stage whereon many play their parts.

* * * * *

Among the epigrams of §Palladas§ may be found the original of a modern

saw, the purport of which is that an ignoramus, by maintaining a prudent

silence, may pass for a wise man:—

Πᾶς τις ἀπαιδευτος φρονιμώτατος ἔστι σιωπῶν.

§Shakspeare§ uses it in the _Merchant of Venice_:—

O my Antonio, I do know of these

That therefore only are reputed wise

For saying nothing.—_Act I. Sc. 1._

* * * * *

We come crying hither:

Thou knowest the first time that we smell the air

We wawl and cry.——

When we are born, we cry that we are come

To this great stage of fools.—_King Lear, IV. 6._

Tum porro puer,——

Vagituque locum lugubri complet, ut æquum est

Cui tantum in vita restet transire malorum.

§Lucretius§: _De Rer. Nat._

* * * * *

The undiscovered country, from whose bourn

No traveller returns.—_Hamlet, Act III._

Qui nunc it per iter tenebricosum

Illuc unde negant redire quemquam.—§Catullus.§

A similar form of expression occurs in the Book of Job, x. 21, and xvi.

22; but it is probable, from this and other passages, that Shakspeare’s

acquaintance with the Latin writers was greater than has been generally

supposed. One of the commentators on Hamlet, in pointing out the

similarity of ideas in the lines commencing, “The cock, that is the

trumpet to the morn,” &c. (_Act I._) and the hymn of St. Ambrose in the

Salisbury collection,—

Preco diei jam sonat,

Noctis profundæ pervigil;

Nocturna lux viantibus,

A nocte noctem segregans.

Hoc excitatus Lucifer,

Solvit polum caligine;

Hoc omnis errorum chorus

Viam nocendi deserit.

Gallo canente spes redit, &c.,

has the following remark. “Some future Dr. Farmer may, perhaps, show how

Shakspeare became acquainted with this passage, without being able to

read the original; for the resemblance is too close to be accidental.

But this, with many other passages, and especially his original

Latinisms of phrase, give evidence enough of a certain degree of

acquaintance with Latin,—doubtless not familiar nor scholar-like, but

sufficient to give a coloring to his style, and to open to him many

treasures of poetical thought and diction not accessible to the merely

English reader. Such a degree of acquirement might well appear low to an

accomplished Latinist like Ben Jonson, and authorize him to say of his

friend,—

Though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek;—

yet the very mention of his ‘small Latin’ indicates that Ben knew that

he had some.”

Mr. Fox, the orator, remarked on one occasion that Shakspeare must have

had some acquaintance with Euripides, for he could trace resemblances

between passages of their dramas: e.g. what Alcestis in her last moments

says about her servants is like what the dying Queen Katharine (in

_Henry the Eighth_) says about hers, &c.

That Shakspeare “may often be tracked in the snow” of §Terence§, as

Dryden remarks of Ben Jonson, is evident from the following:—

Master, it is no time to chide you now:

Affection is not rated from the heart.

If love hath touched you, naught remains but so,—

_Redime te captum quam queas minimo_.—_Taming of the Shrew, I. 1._

The last line is manifestly an alteration of the words of Parmeno in

_The Eunuch_ of §Terence§:—

Quid agas, nisi ut _te redimas captum quam queas minimo_?—_Act I. Sc.

1._

In another play §Terence§ says,—

Facile omnes, cum valemus, recta consilia, ægrotis damus;

Tu si hic sis, aliter censeas.—_Andrian XI. 1._

§Shakspeare§ has it,—

Men

Can counsel and give comfort to that grief

Which they themselves not feel; but, tasting it,

Their counsel turns to passion.

.tb

’Tis all men’s office to speak patience

To those that wring under the load of sorrow;

But no man’s virtue, nor sufficiency,

To be so moral when he shall endure

The like himself.—_Much Ado about Nothing, V. 1._

Apropos of this sentiment, §Swift§ says,—

I never knew a man who could not bear the misfortunes of others with

the most Christian resignation.—_Thoughts on Various Subjects._

And §La Rochefoucauld§,—

We have all of us sufficient fortitude to bear the misfortunes of

others.—_Max. 20._

* * * * *

Falstaff says, in 1 Henry IV. ii. 4,—

For though the camomile, the more it is trodden on, the faster it

grows, yet youth, the more it is wasted, the sooner it wears.

Shakspeare evidently here parodied an expression in §Sir John Lyly§’s

_Euphues_:—

Though the camomile, the more it is trodden and pressed downe, the

more it spreadeth; yet the violet, the oftener it is handled and

touched, the sooner it withereth and decaieth.

Two verses in _Titus Andronicus_ appear to have pleased Shakspeare so

well that he twice subsequently closely copied them:—

She is a woman, therefore may be wooed,

She is a woman, therefore may be won.—_Titus Andron. II. 1._

She’s beautiful, and therefore to be wooed;

She is a woman, therefore to be won.—_First Part Henry VI., V. 3._

Was ever woman in this humor wooed?

Was ever woman in this humor won?—_Richard III., I. 2._

Though Shakspeare has drawn freely from others, he is himself a mine

from which many builders have quarried their materials,—a Coliseum

“from whose mass

Walls, palaces, half cities, have been reared.”

* * * * *

Honor and shame from no condition rise:

Act well your part, there all the honor lies.—§Pope§: _Essay on Man_.

This is only a new rendering of the thought thus expressed by

Shakspeare:—

From lowest place when virtuous things proceed,

The place is dignified by the doer’s deed.—_All’s Well that Ends Well,

II. 3._

* * * * *

Let rusty steel a while be sheathed,

And all those harsh and rugged sounds

Of bastinadoes, cuts, and wounds,

Exchanged to love’s more gentle style.—_Hudibras, P. II. c. 1._

Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings,

Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.—_Richard III, I. 1._

* * * * *

The military figure of Shakspeare’s musical lines,—

Beauty’s ensign yet

Is crimson in thy lips and on thy cheeks,

And Death’s pale flag is not advanced there.—_Romeo and Juliet, V. 3_,

is closely imitated by §Chamberlain§:—

The rose had lost

His ensign in her cheeks; and tho’ it cost

Pains nigh to death, the lily had alone

Set his pale banners up.—_Pharonidas._

* * * * *

A dream

Dreamed by a happy man, while the dark cast

Is slowly brightening to his bridal morn.—§Tennyson.§

Copied from the _Merchant of Venice_:—

Then music is

As those dulcet sounds in break of day,

That creep into the dreaming bridegroom’s ear

And summon him to marriage.—III. 2.

* * * * *

How can we expect another to keep our secret if we cannot keep it

ourselves?—§La Rochefoucauld§, _Max. 90_.

Toute révélation d’un secret est la faute de celui qui l’a confié.—§La

Bruyere§: _De la Société_.

I have played the fool, the gross fool, to believe

The bosom of a friend would hold a secret

Mine own could not contain.—§Massinger§: _Unnatural Combat, V. 2_.

_Ham._—Do not believe it.

_Ros._—Believe what?

_Ham._—That I can keep your counsel, and not mine own.

§Shakspeare§: _Hamlet, IV. 2_.

* * * * *

Anger is like

A full-hot horse, who being allowed his way,

Self mettle tires him.—_Henry VIII._ I. 1.

Let passion work, and, like a hot-reined horse,

’Twill quickly tire itself.—§Massinger§: _Unnatural Combat_.

* * * * *

Is this the Talbot so much feared abroad

That with his name the mothers still their babes?—_Henry VI._ II. 3.

Nor shall Sebastian’s formidable name

Be longer used to lull the crying babe.—§Dryden§: _Don Sebastian_.

Chili’s dark matrons long shall tame

The froward child with Bertram’s name.—§Scott§: _Rokeby_.

* * * * *

It were better to be eaten to death with rust than to be scoured to

nothing by perpetual motion.—_Henry IV., Second Part_, I. 2.

Reversed by §Byron§:—

Better to sink beneath the shock

Than moulder piecemeal on the rock.—_Giaour._

* * * * *

’Tis her breathing that

Perfumes the chamber thus.—_Cymbeline._

No lips did seem so fair

In his conceit—through which he thinks doth fly

So sweet a breath that doth perfume the air.

§Marston§: _Pygmalion’s Image_.

* * * * *

Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just;

And he but naked, though locked up in steel,

Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.—_2 Henry VI._ III. 2.

I’m armed with more than complete steel—

The justice of my quarrel.—§Marlowe§: _Lust’s Dominion_.

* * * * *

All that glisters is not gold.—_Merchant of Venice_, II.

Yet gold all is not that doth golden seeme.

§Spenser§: _Faerie Queene_, II.

* * * * *

Double, double, toil and trouble.—_Macbeth._

Πόνος, πόνῳ, πόνον, φέρει.—§Sophocles§: _Ajax_.

* * * * *

We shall not look upon his like again.—_Hamlet_, I.

Quando ullum inveniet parem?—§Horace.§

* * * * *

None but himself can be his parallel.—§Theobald.§

Quæris Alcidæ parem?

Nemo est nisi ipse.—§Seneca§: _Hercules Furens_.

* * * * *

The following song from §Shakspeare’s§ _Measure for Measure_, commencing

as follows, is copied _verbatim_ in §Beaumont§ and §Fletcher’s§ _Bloody

Brother_:—

Take, O! take those lips away,

That so sweetly were forsworn;

And those eyes, the break of day,

Lights that do mislead the morn.

But my kisses bring again,

Seals of love, but sealed in vain.

* * * * *

The following line occurs both in §Pope’s§ _Dunciad_ and §Addison’s§

_Campaign_:—

Rides on the whirlwind, and directs the storm.

* * * * *

§Ben Jonson§ borrowed his celebrated ballad _To Celia_,—

Drink to me only with thine eyes, &c.,

from §Philostratus§, a Greek poet, who flourished at the court of the

Emperor Severus.

* * * * *

In §Milton’s§ description of the lazar-house occurs the following

confused metaphor:—

Sight so deform what _heart of rock_ could long

_Dry-eyed_ behold?

Derived from a similar combination in §Tibullus§:—

_Flebis_; non tua sunt duro præcordia ferro

Vincta, nec in tenero stat tibi _corde silex_.—_El. I. 63._

* * * * *

When Christ, at Cana’s feast, by power divine,

Inspired cold water with the warmth of wine,

See! cried they, while in redd’ning tide it gushed,

The bashful water saw its God and blushed.—§Aaron Hill.§

Lympha pudica Deum vidit et erubuit.[33]—§Richard Crashawe.§

Footnote 33:

It is not a little singular that Mr. Arvine, in his excellent

_Cyclopædia_, gives Milton and Dryden, while boys at school, equal

credit for originating, _in the same way_, this beautiful idea.

* * * * *

Fond fool! six feet shall serve for all thy store,

And he that cares for most shall find no more.—§Hall.§

His wealth is summed, and this is all his store:

This poor men get, and great men get no more.

§G. Webster§: _Vittoria Corombona_.

* * * * *

God made the country, and man made the town.—§Cowper§: _Task_.

God the first garden made, and the first city Cain.—§Cowley.§

* * * * *

Hypocrisy, detest her as we may,

May claim this merit still,—that she admits

The worth of what she mimics with such care,

And thus gives virtue indirect applause.—§Cowper§: _Task_.

Le vice rend hommage à la vertu en s’honorant de ses

apparences.—§Massillon.§

* * * * *

Love is sweet

Given or returned. Common as light is love,

And its familiar voice wearies not ever;

They who inspire it most are fortunate,

As I am now; but those who feel it most

Are happier still.—§Shelley§: _Prometheus Unbound_.

It is better to desire than to enjoy, to love than to be loved.—

It makes us proud when our love of a mistress is returned: it ought to

make us prouder still when we can love her for herself alone, without

the aid of any such selfish reflection. This is the religion of

love.—§Hazlitt§: _Characteristics_.

* * * * *

People who are always taking care of their health are like misers, who

are hoarding up a treasure which they have never spirit enough to

enjoy.—§Sterne§: _Koran_.

Preserving the health by too strict a regimen is a wearisome

malady.—§La Rochefoucauld§: _Max. 285_.

* * * * *

The king can make a belted knight,

A marquis, duke, and a’ that,—

* * * * *

The rank is but the guinea stamp,

The man’s the gowd for a’ that.—§Burns.§

I weigh the man, not his title; ’tis not the king’s stamp can make the

metal bettor or heavier. Your lord is a leaden shilling, which you

bend every way, and debases the stamp he bears.

§Wycherly§: _Plain Dealer_.

Titles of honor are like the impressions on coin, which add no value

to gold and silver, but only render brass current.—§Sterne§: _Koran_.

Kings do with men as with pieces of money: they give them what value

they please, and we are obliged to receive them at their current, and

not at their real, value.—§La Rochefoucauld§: _Max. 160_.

§Kossuth’s§ “To him that wills, nothing is impossible,”[34] is thus

expressed by §La Rochefoucauld§:—

Nothing is impossible: there are ways which lead to every thing; and

if we had sufficient will, we should always have sufficient

means.—_Max. 255._

Footnote 34:

Mirabeau’s hasty temper is well known. “Monsieur le Compte,” said his

secretary to him one day, “the thing you require is impossible.”

“Impossible!” exclaimed Mirabeau, starting from his chair: “never

again use that _foolish word_ in my presence.”

§Shelley§ gives the idea as follows:—

It is our will

That thus enchains us to permitted ill.

We might be otherwise: we might be all

We dream of, happy, high, majestical.

Where is the beauty, love, and truth we seek

But in our minds? and if we were not weak,

Should we be less in deed than in desire?

_Julian and Maddolo._

* * * * *

To most men, experience is like the stern-lights of a ship, which

illumine only the track it has passed.—§Coleridge.§

We arrive complete novices at the different ages of life, and we often

want experience in spite of the number of our years.—§La

Rochefoucauld§: _Max. 430_.

The same idea may be found in the _Adelphi_ of §Terence§, Act V. Sc. 2,

v. 1–4.

* * * * *

For those that fly may fight again,

Which he can never do that’s slain.—_Hudibras._

He who fights and runs away

May live to fight another day.—§Sir John Minnes.§

But §Demosthenes§, the famous Grecian orator, had said, long before,—

Ἀνὴρ ὁ φεύγων καὶ πάλιν μαχήσεται.

* * * * *

She could love none but only such

As scorned and hated her as much.—_Hudibras._

§Horace§, in describing such a capricious kind of love, uses the

following language:—

—Leporem venator ut alta

In nive sectatur, positum sic tangere nolit;

Cantat et apponit: meus est amor huic similis; nam

Transvolat in medio posita, et fugientia captat.—_Satires_, Book I. ii.,

which is nearly a translation of the eleventh epigram of §Callimachus§.

* * * * *

What woful stuff this madrigal would be

In some starved hackney sonneteer, or me!

But let a lord once own the happy lines,

How the wit brightens! how the style refines!

§Pope§: _Essay on Criticism_.

§Molière§ has the same sentiment:—

Tous les discours sont des sottises

Partant d’un homme sans éclat;

Ce seraient paroles exquises,

Si c’était un grand qui parlat.

It may also be found in §Ennius§, §Euripides§, and other writers. The

last notability who has expressed the idea is §Emerson§, who says,—

It adds a great deal to the force of an opinion to know that there is

a man of mark and likelihood behind it.

* * * * *

Others may use the ocean as their road,

Only the English make it _their abode_:—

We _tread the billows_ with a steady foot.—§Waller.§

§Campbell§ adopts the thoughts of these italicized words in the

_Mariners of England_:—

Britannia needs no bulwark,

No towers along the steep:

Her march is on the mountain-waves,

Her home is on the deep.

* * * * *

Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,

And slips into the bosom of the lake;

So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip

Into my bosom, and be lost in me.—§Tennyson§: _Princess_.

And like a lily on a river floating,

She floats upon the river of his thoughts.

§Longfellow§: _Spanish Student_.

* * * * *

You must either soar or stoop,

Fall or triumph, stand or droop;

You must either serve or govern,

Must be slave or must be sovereign;

Must, in fine, be block or wedge,

Must be anvil or be sledge.—§Goethe.§

In this world a man must be either anvil or hammer.

§Longfellow§: _Hyperion_.

Lockhart says, in his Life of Sir Walter Scott, “It was on this

occasion, I believe, that Scott first saw his friend’s brother Reginald

(§Heber§), in after-days the Apostolic Bishop of Calcutta. He had just

been declared the successful competitor for that year’s poetical prize,

and read to Scott at breakfast, in Brazennose College, the MS. of his

_Palestine_. Scott observed that in the verses on Solomon’s Temple one

striking circumstance had escaped him, namely, that no tools were used

in its erection. Reginald retired for a few minutes to the corner of the

room, and returned with the beautiful lines,—

No hammer fell, no ponderous axes rung:

Like some tall palm the mystic fabric sprung.

Majestic silence!” &c.

§Cowper§ had previously expressed the same idea:—

Silently as a dream the fabric rose:

No sound of hammer nor of saw was there:

Ice upon ice, &c.—_Palace of Ice._

§Milton§ had also said,—

Anon out of the earth a fabric huge

Rose like an exhalation.—_Paradise Lost._

* * * * *

Speech is the light, the morning of the mind:

It spreads the beauteous images abroad

Which else lie furled and shrouded in the soul.—

§Dryden§ evidently had in mind the language of §Themistocles§ to the

King of Persia:—

Speech is like cloth of arras opened and put abroad, whereby the

imagery doth appear in figure, whereas in thoughts they lie but in

packs (_i.e._ rolled up, or packed up).

* * * * *

_Silence_ that _spoke_, and eloquence of eyes.—§Pope§: _Homer’s Iliad_,