[172-7] It is not strength, but art, obtains the prize.--POP_Familiar Quotations A Collection of Passages, Phrases, and Proverbs Traced to Their Sources in Ancient and Modern Literature

_The Iliad, book xxiii. line 383._

[172-8] Some undone widow sits upon mine arm.--MASSINGER: _A New

Way to pay Old Debts, act v. sc. 1._

[172-9] For drames always go by contraries.--LOVER: _The Angel's

Whisper._

[172-10] Spick and span new.--FORD: _The Lover's Melancholy, act

i. sc. 1._ FARQUHAR: _Preface to his Works._

[172-11] Plain as a pike-staff.--_Terence in English_ (1641).

BUCKINGHAM: _Speech in the House of Lords, 1675._ _Gil Blas_

(Smollett's translation), _book xii. chap. viii._ BYROM: _Epistle

to a Friend._

[173-1] See Shakespeare, page 51.

[173-2]

So for a good old gentlemanly vice,

I think I must take up with avarice.

BYRON: _Don Juan, canto i. stanza 216._

[173-3] There is no love lost between us.--CERVANTES: _Don

Quixote, book iv. chap. xxiii._ GOLDSMITH: _She Stoops to Conquer,

act iv._ GARRICK: _Correspondence, 1759._ FIELDING: _The Grub

Street Opera, act i. sc. 4._

[173-4] See Shakespeare, page 123.

[173-5] These lines are introduced into _Macbeth, act iv. sc. 1._

According to Steevens, "the song was, in all probability, a

traditional one." Collier says, "Doubtless it does not belong to

Middleton more than to Shakespeare." Dyce says, "There seems to be

little doubt that 'Macbeth' is of an earlier date than 'The

Witch.'"

[173-6] See Chaucer, page 5.

[173-7] He 'as had a stinger.--BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER: _Wit without

Money, act iv. sc. 1._

[173-8] See Shakespeare, page 69.

[174-1] _A Health to the Gentlemanly Profession of Servingmen_

(1598). Turn over a new leaf.--DEKKER: _The Honest Whore, part

ii. act i. sc. 2._ BURKE: _Letter to Mrs. Haviland._

[174-2] See Shakespeare, page 128.

[174-3] A happy accident.--MADAME DE STAËL: _L' Allemagne, chap.

xvi._ CERVANTES: _Don Quixote, book iv. part ii. chap. lvii._

SIR HENRY WOTTON. 1568-1639.

How happy is he born or taught,

That serveth not another's will;

Whose armour is his honest thought,

And simple truth his utmost skill!

_The Character of a Happy Life._

Who God doth late and early pray

More of his grace than gifts to lend;

And entertains the harmless day

With a religious book or friend.

_The Character of a Happy Life._

Lord of himself, though not of lands;

And having nothing, yet hath all.[174-4]

_The Character of a Happy Life._

You meaner beauties of the night,

That poorly satisfy our eyes

More by your number than your light;

You common people of the skies,--

What are you when the moon[174-5] shall rise?

_On his Mistress, the Queen of Bohemia._[174-6]

He first deceased; she for a little tried

To live without him, liked it not, and died.

_Upon the Death of Sir Albert Morton's Wife._

I am but a gatherer and disposer of other men's stuff.

_Preface to the Elements of Architecture._

Hanging was the worst use a man could be put to.

_The Disparity between Buckingham and Essex._

An ambassador is an honest man sent to lie abroad for the

commonwealth.[175-1]

_Reliquiæ Wottonianæ._

The itch of disputing will prove the scab of churches.[175-2]

_A Panegyric to King Charles._

FOOTNOTES:

[174-4] As having nothing, and yet possessing all things.--_2

Corinth. vi. 10._

[174-5] "Sun" in _Reliquiæ Wottonianæ_ (eds. 1651, 1654, 1672,

1685).

[174-6] This was printed with music as early as 1624, in Est's

"Sixth Set of Books," etc., and is found in many MSS.--HANNAH:

_The Courtly Poets._

[175-1] In a letter to Velserus, 1612, Wotton says, "This merry

definition of an ambassador I had chanced to set down at my

friend's, Mr. Christopher Fleckamore, in his Album."

[175-2] He directed the stone over his grave to be inscribed:--

Hic jacet hujus sententiæ primus author:

DISPUTANDI PRURITUS ECCLESIARUM SCABIES.

Nomen alias quære

(Here lies the author of this phrase: "The itch for disputing is

the sore of churches." Seek his name elsewhere).

WALTON: _Life of Wotton._

RICHARD BARNFIELD. ---- -1570.

As it fell upon a day

In the merry month of May,

Sitting in a pleasant shade

Which a grove of myrtles made.

_Address to the Nightingale._[175-3]

FOOTNOTES:

[175-3] This song, often attributed to Shakespeare, is now

confidently assigned to Barnfield; it is found in his collection

of "Poems in Divers Humours," published in 1598.--ELLIS:

_Specimens, vol. ii. p. 316._

SIR JOHN DAVIES. 1570-1626.

Much like a subtle spider which doth sit

In middle of her web, which spreadeth wide;

If aught do touch the utmost thread of it,

She feels it instantly on every side.[176-1]

_The Immortality of the Soul._

Wedlock, indeed, hath oft compared been

To public feasts, where meet a public rout,--

Where they that are without would fain go in,

And they that are within would fain go out.[176-2]

_Contention betwixt a Wife, etc._

FOOTNOTES:

[176-1]

Our souls sit close and silently within,

And their own webs from their own entrails spin;

And when eyes meet far off, our sense is such

That, spider-like, we feel the tenderest touch.

DRYDEN: _Mariage à la Mode, act ii. sc. 1._

The spider's touch--how exquisitely fine!--

Feels at each thread, and lives along the line.

POPE: _Epistle i. line 217._

[176-2] 'T is just like a summer bird-cage in a garden: the birds

that are without despair to get in, and the birds that are within

despair and are in a consumption for fear they shall never get

out.--WEBSTER: _The White Devil, act i. sc. 2._

Le mariage est comme une forteresse assiégée: ceux qui sont dehors

veulent y entrer, et ceux qui sont dedans veulent en sortir

(Marriage is like a beleaguered fortress: those who are outside

want to get in, and those inside want to get out).--QUITARD:

_Études sur les Proverbes Français, p. 102._

It happens as with cages: the birds without despair to get in, and

those within despair of getting out.--MONTAIGNE: _Upon some Verses

of Virgil, chap. v._

Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the

beginning of the world, that such as are in the institution wish

to get out, and such as are out wish to get in?--EMERSON:

_Representative Men: Montaigne._

MARTYN PARKER. ---- -1630.

Ye gentlemen of England

That live at home at ease,

Ah! little do you think upon

The dangers of the seas.

_Song._

When the stormy winds do blow.[176-3]

_Song._

FOOTNOTES:

[176-3]

When the battle rages loud and long,

And the stormy winds do blow.

CAMPBELL: _Ye Mariners of England._

DR. JOHN DONNE. 1573-1631.

He was the Word, that spake it:

He took the bread and brake it;

And what that Word did make it,

I do believe and take it.[177-1]

_Divine Poems. On the Sacrament._

We understood

Her by her sight; her pure and eloquent blood

Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought

That one might almost say her body thought.

_Funeral Elegies. On the Death of Mistress Drury._

She and comparisons are odious.[177-2]

_Elegy 8. The Comparison._

Who are a little wise the best fools be.[177-3]

_The Triple Fool._

FOOTNOTES:

[177-1] Attributed by many writers to the Princess Elizabeth. It

is not in the original edition of Donne, but first appears in the

edition of 1654, p. 352.

[177-2] See Fortescue, page 7.

[177-3] See Bacon, page 166.

BEN JONSON.[177-4] 1573-1637.

It was a mighty while ago.

_Every Man in his Humour. Act i. Sc. 3._

Hang sorrow! care 'll kill a cat.[177-5]

_Every Man in his Humour. Act i. Sc. 3._

As he brews, so shall he drink.

_Every Man in his Humour. Act ii. Sc. 1._

Get money; still get money, boy,

No matter by what means.[177-6]

_Every Man in his Humour. Act ii. Sc. 3._

Have paid scot and lot there any time this eighteen years.

_Every Man in his Humour. Act iii. Sc. 3._

It must be done like lightning.

_Every Man in his Humour. Act iv. Sc. v._

There shall be no love lost.[178-1]

_Every Man out of his Humour. Act ii. Sc. 1._

Still to be neat, still to be drest,

As you were going to a feast.[178-2]

_Epicoene; Or, the Silent Woman. Act i. Sc. 1._

Give me a look, give me a face,

That makes simplicity a grace;

Robes loosely flowing, hair as free,--

Such sweet neglect more taketh me

Than all the adulteries of art:

They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.

_Epicoene; Or, the Silent Woman. Act i. Sc. 1._

That old bald cheater, Time.

_The Poetaster. Act i. Sc. 1._

The world knows only two,--that 's Rome and I.

_Sejanus. Act v. Sc. 1._

Preserving the sweetness of proportion and expressing itself

beyond expression.

_The Masque of Hymen._

Courses even with the sun

Doth her mighty brother run.

_The Gipsies Metamorphosed._

Underneath this stone doth lie

As much beauty as could die;

Which in life did harbour give

To more virtue than doth live.

_Epitaph on Elizabeth, L. H._

Whilst that for which all virtue now is sold,

And almost every vice,--almighty gold.[178-3]

_Epistle to Elizabeth, Countess of Rutland._

Drink to me only with thine eyes,

And I will pledge with mine;

Or leave a kiss but in the cup,

And I 'll not look for wine.[179-1]

_The Forest. To Celia._

Soul of the age,

The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage,

My Shakespeare, rise! I will not lodge thee by

Chaucer or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie

A little further, to make thee a room.[179-2]

_To the Memory of Shakespeare._

Marlowe's mighty line.

_To the Memory of Shakespeare._

Small Latin, and less Greek.

_To the Memory of Shakespeare._

He was not of an age, but for all time.

_To the Memory of Shakespeare._

For a good poet 's made as well as born.

_To the Memory of Shakespeare._

Sweet swan of Avon!

_To the Memory of Shakespeare._

Underneath this sable hearse

Lies the subject of all verse,--

Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother.

Death, ere thou hast slain another,

Learn'd and fair and good as she,

Time shall throw a dart at thee.

_Epitaph on the Countess of Pembroke._[179-3]

Let those that merely talk and never think,

That live in the wild anarchy of drink.[180-1]

_Underwoods. An Epistle, answering to One that asked to be sealed of the

Tribe of Ben._

Still may syllabes jar with time,

Still may reason war with rhyme,

Resting never!

_Underwoods. Fit of Rhyme against Rhyme._

In small proportions we just beauties see,

And in short measures life may perfect be.

_Underwoods. To the immortal Memory of Sir Lucius Cary and Sir Henry

Morison. III._

What gentle ghost, besprent with April dew,

Hails me so solemnly to yonder yew?[180-2]

_Elegy on the Lady Jane Pawlet._

FOOTNOTES:

[177-4] O rare Ben Jonson!--SIR JOHN YOUNG: _Epitaph._

[177-5] Hang sorrow! care will kill a cat.--WITHER: _Poem on

Christmas._

[177-6]

Get place and wealth,--if possible, with grace;

If not, by any means get wealth and place.

POPE: _Horace, book i. epistle i. line 103._

[178-1] There is no love lost between us.--CERVANTES: _Don

Quixote, part ii. chap. xxxiii._

[178-2] A translation from Bonnefonius.

[178-3] The flattering, mighty, nay, almighty gold.--WOLCOT: _To

Kien Long, Ode iv._

Almighty dollar.--IRVING: _The Creole Village._

[179-1] Emoi de monois propine tois ommasin. . . . Ei de boulei,

tois cheilesi prospherousa, plêrou philêmatôn to ekpôma, kai outôs

didou

(Drink to me with your eyes alone. . . . And if you will, take the

cup to your lips and fill it with kisses, and give it so to me).

PHILOSTRATUS: _Letter xxiv._

[179-2]

Renowned Spenser, lie a thought more nigh

To learned Chaucer, and rare Beaumont lie

A little nearer Spenser, to make room

For Shakespeare in your threefold, fourfold tomb.

BASSE: _On Shakespeare._

[179-3] This epitaph is generally ascribed to Ben Jonson. It

appears in the editions of his Works; but in a manuscript

collection of Browne's poems preserved amongst the Lansdowne MS.

No. 777, in the British Museum, it is ascribed to Browne, and

awarded to him by Sir Egerton Brydges in his edition of Browne's

poems.

[180-1]

They never taste who always drink;

They always talk who never think.

PRIOR: _Upon a passage in the Scaligerana._

[180-2]

What beckoning ghost along the moonlight shade

Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade?

POPE: _To the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady._

JOHN WEBSTER. ---- -1638.

I know death hath ten thousand several doors

For men to take their exit.[180-3]

_Duchess of Malfi. Act iv. Sc. 2._

'T is just like a summer bird-cage in a garden,--the birds that

are without despair to get in, and the birds that are within

despair and are in a consumption for fear they shall never get

out.[180-4]

_The White Devil. Act i. Sc. 2._

Condemn you me for that the duke did love me?

So may you blame some fair and crystal river

For that some melancholic, distracted man

Hath drown'd himself in 't.

_The White Devil. Act iii. Sc. 2._

Glories, like glow-worms, afar off shine bright,

But look'd too near have neither heat nor light.[181-1]

_The White Devil. Act iv. Sc. 4._

Call for the robin-redbreast and the wren,

Since o'er shady groves they hover,

And with leaves and flowers do cover

The friendless bodies of unburied men.

_The White Devil. Act. v. Sc. 2._

Is not old wine wholesomest, old pippins toothsomest, old wood

burns brightest, old linen wash whitest? Old soldiers,

sweetheart, are surest, and old lovers are soundest.[181-2]

_Westward Hoe. Act ii. Sc. 2._

I saw him now going the way of all flesh.

_Westward Hoe. Act ii. Sc. 2._

FOOTNOTES:

[180-3] Death hath so many doors to let out life.--BEAUMONT AND

FLETCHER: _The Customs of the Country, act ii. sc. 2._

[180-4] See Davies, page 176.

[181-1] The mountains, too, at a distance appear airy masses and

smooth, but when beheld close they are rough.--DIOGENES LAERTIUS:

_Pyrrho._

Love is like a landscape which doth stand

Smooth at a distance, rough at hand.

ROBERT HEGGE: _On Love._

We 're charm'd with distant views of happiness,

But near approaches make the prospect less.

YALDEN: _Against Enjoyment._

As distant prospects please us, but when near

We find but desert rocks and fleeting air.

GARTH: _The Dispensatory, canto iii. line 27._

'T is distance lends enchantment to the view,

And robes the mountain in its azure hue.

CAMPBELL: _Pleasures of Hope, part i. line 7._

[181-2] See Bacon, page 171.

THOMAS DEKKER. ---- -1641.

A wise man poor

Is like a sacred book that 's never read,--

To himself he lives, and to all else seems dead.

This age thinks better of a gilded fool

Than of a threadbare saint in wisdom's school.

_Old Fortunatus._

And though mine arm should conquer twenty worlds,

There 's a lean fellow beats all conquerors.

_Old Fortunatus._

The best of men

That e'er wore earth about him was a sufferer;

A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit,

The first true gentleman that ever breathed.[182-1]

_The Honest Whore. Part i. Act i. Sc. 12._

I was ne'er so thrummed since I was a gentleman.[182-2]

_The Honest Whore. Part i. Act iv. Sc. 2._

This principle is old, but true as fate,--

Kings may love treason, but the traitor hate.[182-3]

_The Honest Whore. Part i. Act iv. Sc. 4._

We are ne'er like angels till our passion dies.

_The Honest Whore. Part ii. Act i. Sc. 2._

Turn over a new leaf.[182-4]

_The Honest Whore. Part ii. Act ii. Sc. 1._

To add to golden numbers golden numbers.

_Patient Grissell. Act i. Sc. 1._

Honest labour bears a lovely face.

_Patient Grissell. Act i. Sc. 1._

FOOTNOTES:

[182-1] Of the offspring of the gentilman Jafeth come Habraham,

Moyses, Aron, and the profettys; also the Kyng of the right lyne

of Mary, of whom that gentilman Jhesus was borne.--JULIANA

BERNERS: _Heraldic Blazonry._

[182-2] See Shakespeare, page 78.

[182-3] Cæsar said he loved the treason, but hated the

traitor.--PLUTARCH: _Life of Romulus._

[182-4] See Middleton, page 174.

BISHOP HALL. 1574-1656.

Moderation is the silken string running through the pearl chain

of all virtues.

_Christian Moderation. Introduction._

Death borders upon our birth, and our cradle stands in the

grave.[182-5]

_Epistles. Dec. iii. Ep. 2._

There is many a rich stone laid up in the bowels of the earth,

many a fair pearl laid up in the bosom of the sea, that never was

seen, nor never shall be.[182-6]

_Contemplations. Book iv. The veil of Moses._

FOOTNOTES:

[182-5]

And cradles rock us nearer to the tomb.

Our birth is nothing but our death begun.

YOUNG: _Night Thoughts, night v. line 718._

[182-6]

Full many a gem of purest ray serene

The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear.

GRAY: _Elegy, stanza 14._

JOHN FLETCHER. 1576-1625.

Man is his own star; and the soul that can

Render an honest and a perfect man

Commands all light, all influence, all fate.

Nothing to him falls early, or too late.

Our acts our angels are, or good or ill,[183-1]

Our fatal shadows that walk by us still.

_Upon an "Honest Man's Fortune."_

All things that are

Made for our general uses are at war,--

Even we among ourselves.

_Upon an "Honest Man's Fortune."_

Man is his own star; and that soul that can

Be honest is the only perfect man.[183-2]

_Upon an "Honest Man's Fortune."_

Weep no more, nor sigh, nor groan,

Sorrow calls no time that 's gone;

Violets plucked, the sweetest rain

Makes not fresh nor grow again.[183-3]

_The Queen of Corinth. Act iii. Sc. 2._

O woman, perfect woman! what distraction

Was meant to mankind when thou wast made a devil!

_Monsieur Thomas. Act iii. Sc. 1._

Let us do or die.[183-4]

_The Island Princess. Act ii. Sc. 4._

Hit the nail on the head.

_Love's Cure. Act ii. Sc. 1._

I find the medicine worse than the malady.[184-1]

_Love's Cure. Act iii. Sc. 2._

He went away with a flea in 's ear.

_Love's Cure. Act iii. Sc. 3._

There 's naught in this life sweet,

If man were wise to see 't,

But only melancholy;

O sweetest Melancholy![184-2]

_The Nice Valour. Act iii. Sc. 3._

Fountain heads and pathless groves,

Places which pale passion loves.

_The Nice Valour. Act iii. Sc. 3._

Drink to-day, and drown all sorrow;

You shall perhaps not do 't to-morrow.

_The Bloody Brother. Act ii. Sc. 2._

And he that will to bed go sober

Falls with the leaf still in October.[184-3]

_The Bloody Brother. Act ii. Sc. 2._

Three merry boys, and three merry boys,

And three merry boys are we,[184-4]

As ever did sing in a hempen string

Under the gallows-tree.

_The Bloody Brother. Act iii. Sc. 2._

Hide, oh, hide those hills of snow

Which thy frozen bosom bears,

On whose tops the pinks that grow

Are of those that April wears!

But first set my poor heart free,

Bound in those icy chains by thee.[184-5]

_The Bloody Brother. Act v. Sc. 2._

Something given that way.

_The Lover's Progress. Act i. Sc. 1._

Deeds, not words.[185-1]

_The Lover's Progress. Act iii. Sc. 4._

FOOTNOTES:

[183-1] Every man hath a good and a bad angel attending him in

particular all his life long.--BURTON: _Anatomy of Melancholy,

part i. sect. 2, memb. 1, subsect. 2._ Burton also quotes Anthony

Rusca in this connection, v. xviii.

[183-2] An honest man's the noblest work of God.--POPE: _Essay on

Man, epistle iv. line 248._ BURNS: _The Cotter's Saturday Night._

[183-3]

Weep no more, Lady! weep no more,

Thy sorrow is in vain;

For violets plucked, the sweetest showers

Will ne'er make grow again.

PERCY: _Reliques. The Friar of Orders Gray._

[183-4] Let us do or die.--BURNS: _Bannockburn._ CAMPBELL:

_Gertrude of Wyoming, part iii. stanza 37._

Scott says, "This expression is a kind of common property, being

the motto, we believe, of a Scottish family."--_Review of

Gertrude, Scott's Miscellanies, vol. i. p. 153._

[184-1] See Bacon, page 165.

[184-2] Naught so sweet as melancholy.--BURTON: _Anatomy of

Melancholy. Author's Abstract._

[184-3] The following well-known catch, or glee, is formed on this

song:--

He who goes to bed, and goes to bed sober,

Falls as the leaves do, and dies in October;

But he who goes to bed, and goes to bed mellow,

Lives as he ought to do, and dies an honest fellow.

[184-4] Three merry men be we.--PEELE: _Old Wives' Tale, 1595._

WEBSTER (quoted): _Westward Hoe, 1607._

[184-5] See Shakespeare, page 49.

[185-1] Deeds, not words.--BUTLER: _Hudibras, part i. canto i.

line 867._

ROBERT BURTON. 1576-1640.

Naught so sweet as melancholy.[185-2]

_Anatomy of Melancholy._[185-3] _The Author's Abstract._

I would help others, out of a fellow-feeling.[185-4]