What is beauty? Alas! 'tis a jewel, a glass,

▲ bubble, a plaything, a rose,

'Tis the snow, dew, or air; 'tis so many things rare That 'tis nothing, one well may suppose,

'Tis a jewel, Love's token; glass easily broken,

A bubble that vanisheth soon;

A plaything that boys cast aside when it cloys,
A rose quickly faded and strewn.

361

There is a spirit in the kindling glance

Of pure and lofty beauty, which doth quell
Each darker passion; and as heroes fell
Before the terror of Minerva's lance

So beauty, arm'd with virtue bows the soul
With a commanding but a sweet control,
Making the heart all holiness and love,
And lifting it to worlds that shine above.
362

Bohn: Ms

Bohn: Ms.

There is beauty in the rolling clouds, and placid shingle

beach,

In feathery snows, and whistling winds, and dun electric

skies:

There is beauty in the rounded woods, dank with heavy foliage,

In laughing fields, and dinted hills, the valley and its lake: There is beauty in the gullies, beauty on the cliffs, beauty in sun and shade,

In rocks and rivers, seas and plains, - the earth is drowned in beauty.

BED.

363

Tupper: Proverbial Phil. Of Beauty.

In bed we laugh, in bed we cry,
And born in bed, in bed we die;

The near approach a bed may show

Of human bliss and human woe.

364

Isaac De Benserade: Trans. by Dr. Johnson.

Night is the time for rest;

How sweet, when labors close,

To gather round an aching breast

The curtain of repose,

Stretch the tir'd limbs and lay the head

Down to our own delightful bed.

365

BEES.

So work the honey-bees;

James Montgomery: Night

Creatures, that by a rule in nature, teach
The act of order to a peopled kingdom.

366

Shaks.: Henry V. Act i. Sc. 2

The careful insect 'midst his works I view,
Now from the flowers exhaust the fragrant dew,
With golden treasures load his little thighs,
And steer his distant journey through the skies;
Some against hostile drones the hive defend,
Others with sweets the waxen cells distend,
Each in the toil his destin'd office bears,
And in the little bulk a mighty soul appears.

367 BEGGARS

Gay: Rural Sports. Canto i. Line 88 see Bashfulness.

Well whiles I am a beggar, I will rail,
And say,
there is no sin, but to be rich;
And being rich, my virtue then shall be,
there is no vice but beggary.

To say, 368

Shaks.: King John Act ii. Sc. 2

Beggars, mounted, run their horse to death.

Shaks.: 3 Henry VI. Act i. Sc. 4

369 His house was known to all the vagrant train, He chid their wanderings but reliev'd their pain; The long remembered beggar was his guest, Whose beard descending swept his aged breast. 370

Goldsmith: Des. Village. Line 149

A beggar through the world am I,-
From place to place I wander by.
Fill up my pilgrim's scrip for me,
For Christ's sweet sake and charity.
371

RELLS.

James Russell Lowell: The Beggar

Your voices break and falter in the darkness, –
Break, falter, and are still.

372

Bret Harte: The Angelus. Last S

How soft the music of those village bells,
Falling at intervals upon the ear
In cadence sweet; now dying all away,
Now pealing loud again and louder still,
Clear and sonorous as the gale comes on;
With easy force it opens all the cells
Where memory slept.

373

Cowper: Task. Bk. vi. Ling &

There's a music aloft in the air,

As if Cherubs were humming a song,

Now it's high, now it's low, here and there,
There's a harmony floating, floating along!
While the steeples are loud in their joy,
To the tune of the bells ring-a-ding,
Let us chime in a peal, one-and-all,

For we all should be able to sing Hullabaloo.

374

Hood: Song for the Million

Dear bells! how sweet the sound of village bells
When on the undulating ear they swim!

Now loud as welcomes! faint now as farewells!
And trembling all about the breezy dells,

As fluttered by the wings of Cherubim.

375 Those evening bells! those evening bells! How many a tale their music tells

Hood: Ode to Rae Wilson, Esq. Line 159

Of youth, and home, and that sweet time, When last I heard their soothing chime! 376

Moore: Those Evening Bells

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.
Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.
377

Tennyson: In Memoriam. Pt. cv.

It is the convent bell; it rings for vespers. Let us go in; we both will pray for peace. 378

Longfellow: Michael Angelo. Pt. vii.

The Sabbath bell,

That over wood, and wild, and mountain-dell
Wanders so far, chasing all thoughts unholy
With sounds, most musical, most melancholy.
379

I heard

Samuel Rogers: Human Life.

The bells of the convent ringing
Noon from their noisy towers.

380

Longfellow: Christus. Golden Legend. Pt. li.

He heard the convent bell

Suddenly in the silence ringing

For the service of noonday.

381

Longfellow

Christus. Golden Legend. Pt. il

The bells themselves are the best of preachers;
Their brazen lips are learned teachers,

From their pulpits of stone in the upper air,
Sounding aloft, without crack or flaw,

Shriller than trumpets under the law,

Now a sermon and now a prayer.

The clangorous hammer is the tongue,

This way, that way, beaten and swung;

That from mouth of brass, as from mouth of gold

May be taught the Testaments, New and Old.

382

Longfellow: Christus. Golden Legend, Pt. iii

Church-belis at best but ring us to the door;
But go not in to mass; my bell doth more ;
It cometh into court and pleads the cause
Of creatures dumb and unknown to the laws,
And this shall make in every Christian clime
The Bell of Atri famous for all time.

383

Longfellow: T. of a Wayside Inn. Bell of Atri see Compliments. Now the fair goddess, Fortune,

BENEDICTION

Fall deep in love with thee;
Prosperity be thy page!

384

Shaks.: Coriolanus. Act i. Sc. 5.

Shaks.: Tw. Night. Act iii. Sc. 1.

The heavens rain odors on you! 385

The grace of heaven,

Before, behind thee, and on every hand,
Enwheel thee round!

386

BENEVOLENCE

Shaks.: Othello. Act ii. Sc. 1.

see Bounty.

How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world. 387

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

Is there a variance? enter but his door,
Balk'd are the courts, and contest is no more.
Despairing quacks with curses fled the place,
And vile attorneys, now an useless race.

388

Pope: Mor. Essays. Epis. iii. Line 272.

From the prayer of want and plaint of woe,

O never, never turn away thine ear!

Forlorn in this bleak wilderness below,

Ah! what were man should heaven refuse to hear!

389

BETTING-see Wagers.

Beattie: Minstrel. Bk. i. St. 29.

I've heard old cunning stagers Say, fools for arguments use wagers. 390

Butler: Hudibras. Pt. ii. Canto i. Line 297.

Most men, till by losing rendered sager,

Will back their own opinions by a wager.

391

BIBLE.

A glory gilds the sacred page,
Majestic like the sun;

It gives a light to every age;
It gives, but borrows none.
392

Byron: Beppo. St. 27.

Cowper: Olney Hymns. No. 30.

Most wondrous book! bright candle of the Lord!
Star of Eternity! The only star

By which the bark of man could navigate
The sea of life, and gain the coast of bliss
Securely.

393

Pollok: Course of Time. Bk. ii. Line 270.

Within this1 awful volume lies
The mystery of mysteries!
Happiest they of human race,
To whom God has granted grace
To read, to fear, to hope, to pray,
To lift the latch, and force the way;
And better had they ne'er been born,
Who read to doubt, or read to scorn.
394

BIGOTRY.

Scott: Monastery. Ch. xii.

Sure 'tis an orthodox opinion,
That grace is founded in dominion.
395

Butler: Hudibras. Pt. i. Canto iii. Line 1173.

Soon their crude notions with each other fought;
The adverse sect deny'd what this had taught;
And he at length the amplest triumph gain'd,
Who contradicted what the last maintain'd.
396
For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight;
His can't be wrong, whose life is in the right.
397
Pope: Essay on Man. Epis. iii. Line 305.
Christians have burnt each other, quite persuaded
That all the Apostles would have done as they did.
398
Byron: Don Juan. Canto i. St. 83
Shall I ask the brave soldier, who fights by my side
In the cause of mankind, if our creeds agree?
Shall I give up the friend I have valued and tried,
If he kneel not before the same altar with me?
From the heretic girl of my soul should I fly,
To seek somewhere else a more orthodox kiss?
No! perish the hearts and the laws that tr
Truth, valor, or love, by a standard like this.

Prior: Solomon. Bk. i. Line 717.

399

Moore: Come, Send Round the Wine

And many more such pious scraps,

To prove (what we've long prov'd perhaps)
That mad as Christians used to be
About the thirteenth century,

There's lots of Christians to be had
In this, the nineteenth, just as mad!

400

Moore: Twopenny Post Bag. Letter iv

1 Var. that ample.