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Learn to live well, or fairly make your will;

You've play'd, and lov'd, and ate, and drank your fill,
Walk sober off, before a sprightlier age

Comes titt'ring on, and shoves you from the stage:
Leave such to trifle with more grace and ease,
Whom folly pleases, and whose follies please.
95
Pope: Im. of Horace. Bk. ii. Epis. 2. Line 322
What folly can be ranker? Like our shadows,
Our wishes lengthen as our sun declines.

96

Young: Night Thoughts. Night v Line 661 We see time's furrows on another's brow. How few themselves in that just mirror see!

97

Young: Night Thoughts. Night v. Line 627.

O, sir! I must not tell my age.
They say women and music should never be dated.
Goldsmith: She Stoops to Con. Act iii

98

An age that melts with unperceived decay,
And glides in modest innocence away;
Whose peaceful Day benevolence endears,
Whose Night congratulating conscience cheers;
The general favorite as the general friend:
Such age there is, and who shall wish its end?
99
Yet time, who changes all, had altered him
In soul and aspect as in age: years steal
Fire from the mind as vigor from the limb:
And life's enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim.
100
Byron: Ch. Harold. Canto iii. St. 8

Dr. Johnson: Vanity of H. W. Line 293.

What is the worst of woes that wait on age?
What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow?
To view each loved one blotted from life's page,
And be alone on earth as I am now.

101 AGGRESSION.

Byron: Ch. Harold. Canto ii. St. 98.

You take my house, when you do take the prop
That doth sustain my house; you take my life,
When you do take the means whereby I live.

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Shaks.: M. of Venice. Act iv. Sc. 1.

- see Promptitude.

A willing heart adds feather to the heel,
And makes the clown a winged Mercury.

103 ALARM.

Joanna Baillie: De Monfort. Act iii. Sc. 2.

What's the business,

That such a hideous trumpet calls to parley,
The sleepers of the house?- Speak, speak!

104

Shaks.: Macbeth. Act ii. Sc. 3.

ALEXANDRINE.

A needless Alexandrine ends the song,

That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along. Pope: E. on Criticism. Part ii. Line 156

105

AMAZEMENT —see Astonishment, Surprise.

In arguing, too, the parson own'd his skill,
For e'en though vanquish'd, he could argue still;
While words of learned length and thund'ring sound
Amazed the gaping rustics ranged around;

And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew,
That one small head could carry all he knew.
106
Goldsmith: The Deserted Village. Line 211.
But look! Amazement on thy mother sits;
O step between her and her fighting soul:
Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works.
107

Shaks.: Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 4.

They spake not a word;
But, like dumb statues, or breathing stones,
Star'd on each other, and look'd deadly pale.
108

AMBER.

Shaks.: Richard III. Act iii. Sc. 7.

Pretty! in amber to observe the forms

Of hairs, or straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms!
The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare,

But wonder how the devil they got there.

109 AMBITION

Pope: Epis. to Arbuthnot. Line 169.

see Fame, Glory, Pride.

Fain would I climb, but that I fear to fall.

110

Sir Walter Raleigh: Written in a Window.
Fling away ambition;

By that sin fell the angels: how can man then,
The image of his Maker, hope to win by it?

111

Shaks.: Henry VIII. Act iii. Sc. 2

I have ventur'd

Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders,
This many summers in a sea of glory.

But far beyond my depth; my high-blown pride
At length broke under me.

Shaks.: Henry VIII. Act iii. Sc. 2.

112 Men at some time are masters of their fates: The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings. 113

Shaks.: Jul. Cæsar. Act i. Sc. 2.

I have no spur

To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself,
And falls on the other.

114

Shaks.: Macbeth. Acti. Sc. 7.

Lowliness is young ambition's ladder,

Whereto the climber upward turns his face;
But when he once attains the utmost round,
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend.

115

Shaks.: Jul. Cæsar. Act ii. Sc. 1.

Shaks.: Richard III. Act i. Sc. 3.

They that stand high, have many blasts to shake them;
And if they fall, they dash themselves to pieces.
116
Reign, and keep life in this our deep desire –
Our only greatness is that we aspire.

117

Jean Ingelow: A Snow Mountain

Ambition has but one reward for all:
A little power, a little transient fame,
A grave to rest in, and a fading name.
118
To reign is worth ambition, though in hell:
Better to reign in hell, than serve in heaven.
119

William Winter: Queen's Domain

Milton: Par. Lost. Bk. i. Line 262.

But what will not Ambition and Revenge
Descend to? Who aspires, must down as low
As high he soar'd, obnoxious, first or last,

To basest things. Revenge, at first though sweet,
Bitter ere long, back on itself recoils.

Milton: Par. Lost. Bk. ix. Line 168.

120
What various wants on power attend!
Ambition never gains its end.
Who hath not heard the rich complain
Of surfeits, and corporeal pain?
He, barr'd from every use of wealth,
Envies the ploughman's strength and health.
121

Gay: Pt. ii. Fable 15.

Ambition is an idol, on whose wings
Great minds are carry'd only to extreme;
To be sublimely great, or to be nothing.
122

Southerne: Loyal Brothers.

The fiery soul abhorr'd in Catiline,
In Decius charms, in Curtius is divine:
The same ambition can destroy or save,
And makes a patriot, as it makes a knave.
123
Oh, sons of earth! attempt ye still to rise,
By mountains pil'd on mountains, to the skies?
Heaven still with laughter the vain toil surveys,
And buries madmen in the heaps they raise.

Pope: Essay on Man. Epis. ii. Line 199

124

Pope: Essay on Man. Epis. iv. Line 74

Fame is the shade of immortality,

And in itself a shadow. Soon as caught,
Contemn'd, it shrinks to nothing in the grasp.

126

Young: Night Thoughts. Night vii. Line 355.
Dream after dream ensues,

And still they dream that they shall still succeed,

And still are disappointed.

131

Joanna Baillie: Ethwald. Act v. Sc. 5.

ANCESTRY - see Pedigree.

The sap which at the root is bred

In trees, through all the boughs is spread;
But virtues which in parents shine
Make not like progress through the line.
134

Waller: To Zelinda.

Nobler is a limited command

Given by the love of all your native land,
Than a successive title, long and dark,

Drawn from the mouldy rolls of Noah's ark.

135 Dryden: Absalom and Achitophel. Pt. i. Line 299. Nor does it follow, 'cause a herald

Can make a gentleman scarce a year old,

To be descended of a race

Of ancient kings in a small space,
That we should all opinions hold
Authentic, that we can make old.

136
Butler: Hudibras. Pt. ii. Canto iii. Line 669,
What can ennoble sots, or slaves, or cowards?
Alas! not all the blood of all the Howards.
137
Pope: Essay on Man. Epis. iv. Line 215.
He stands for fame on his forefathers' feet,
By heraldry, proved valiant or discreet!

138 ANGELS.

Young: Love of Fame. Satire i. Line 123

Heaven bless thee!

Thou hast the sweetest face I ever looked on;
Sir, as I have a soul, she is an angel.

139

Shaks.: Henry VIII. Act iv. Sc. 1.

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

140
The angels come and go, the messengers of God.
Nor, though they fade from us, do they depart —
It is the childly heart:

Pope: E. on Criticism. Pt. iii. Line 66.

We walk as heretofore,

Adown their shining ranks, but see them nevermore.
Heaven is not gone, but we are blind with tears,
Groping our way along the downward slope of Years.
R. H. Stoddard: Hymn to the Beautiful.

141

Cease, every joy, to glimmer on my mind,

But leave, oh! leave the light of hope behind!
What though my winged hours of bliss have been,
Like angel-visits, few and far between.

142

Campbell: Pl. of Hope. Pt. ii. Line 375.

ANGER-see Passion, Rage, Temper.
Anger's my meat; I sup upon myself,
And so shall starve with feeding.

143

Shaks.: Coriolanus. Act iv. Sc. 2

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