Who o'er the herd would wish to reign,
Fantastic, fickle, fierce, and vain--
Vain as the leaf upon the stream,
And fickle as a changeful dream;
Fantastic as a woman's mood,
And fierce as Frenzy's fevered blood.
Thou many-headed monster thing,
O, who would wish to be thy king!
_Lady of the Lake, Canto V_. SIR W. SCOTT.
I have bought
Golden opinions from all sorts of people.
_Macbeth, Act i. Sc. 7_. SHAKESPEARE.
He that depends
Upon your favors swims with fins of lead,
And hews down oaks with rushes. Hang ye! Trust ye?
With every minute you do change a mind;
And call him noble that was now your hate,
Him vile that was your garland.
_Coriolanus, Act i. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
The scum
That rises upmost when the nation boils.
_Don Sebastian_. J. DRYDEN.
Rumor is a pipe
Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures,
And of so easy and so plain a stop
That the blunt monster with uncounted heads,
The still-discordant wavering multitude,
Can play upon it.
_King Henry IV., Pt. II. Act i. Induction_. SHAKESPEARE.
The people's voice is odd,
It is, and it is not, the voice of God.
_To Augustus_. A. POPE.
Through all disguise, form, place or name,
Beneath the flaunting robes of sin,
Through poverty and squalid shame,
Thou lookest on the man within.
On man, as man, retaining yet,
Howe'er debased, and soiled, and dim,
The crown upon his forehead set--
The immortal gift of God to him.
_Democracy_. J.G. WHITTIER.