Gold that buys health can never be ill spent,
Nor hours laid out in harmless merriment.
_Westward Ho, Act v. Sc. 3_. J. WEBSTER.
Merrily, merrily, shall I live now
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.
_Tempest, Act v. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
The glad circles round them yield their souls
To festive mirth, and wit that knows no gall.
_The Seasons: Summer_. J. THOMSON.
As merry as the day is long.
_Much Ado about Nothing, Act ii. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
And frame your mind to mirth and merriment,
Which bars a thousand harms and lengthens life.
_Taming of the Shrew: Induction, Sc. 2_. SHAKESPEARE.
A merrier man,
Within the limit of becoming mirth,
I never spent an hour's talk withal.
His eye begets occasion for his wit.
For every object that the one doth catch,
The other turns to a mirth-loving jest.
_Love's Labor's Lost, Act ii. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
Jog on, jog, on the footpath way,
And merrily hent the stile-a:
A merry heart goes all the day,
Your sad tires in a mile-a.
_The Winter's Tale, Act iv. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
Care to our coffin adds a nail, no doubt,
And every grin, so merry, draws one out.
_Expostulatory Odes, XV_. DR. J. WOLCOTT (_Peter Pindar_).
And yet, methinks, the older that one grows,
Inclines us more to laugh than scold, tho' laughter
Leaves us so doubly serious shortly after.
_Beppo_. LORD BYRON.
There's not a string attuned to mirth
But has its chord in melancholy.
_Ode to Melancholy_. T. HOOD.
Low gurgling laughter, as sweet
As the swallow's song i' the South,
And a ripple of dimples that, dancing, meet
By the curves of a perfect mouth.
_Ariel_. P.H. HAYNE.
Fight Virtue's cause, stand up in Wit's defence,
Win us from vice and laugh us into sense.
_On the Prospect of Peace_. T. TICKELL.
Let me play the fool;
With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come;
And let my liver rather heat with wine,
Than my heart cool with mortifying groans.
Why should a man whose blood is warm within,
Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster?
Sleep when he wakes? and creep into the jaundice
By being peevish?
_Merchant of Venice, Act i. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.