Mislike me not for my complexion,

The shadowed livery of the burnished sun,
To whom I am a neighbor, and near bred.
Bring me the fairest creature northward born,
Where Phoebus' fire scarce thaws the icicles,
And let us make incision for your love,
To prove whose blood is reddest, his or mine.
Merchant of Venice, Act ii. Sc. 1.

SHAKESPEARE.

Incensed with indignation Satan stood
Unterrified, and like a comet burned,
That fires the length of Ophiucus huge
In th' arctic sky, and from his horrid hair
Shakes pestilence and war.

Paradise Lost, Bk. II.

MILTON.

Look here, upon this picture, and on this;
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
See, what a grace was seated on this brow:
Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself;
An eye like Mars, to threaten and command;
A station like the herald Mercury,
New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill;
A combination, and a form, indeed,
Where every god did seem to set his seal,
To give the world assurance of a man.
Hamlet, Act iii. Sc. 4.

Ay, every inch a king.

SHAKESPEARE.

King Lear, Act iv. Sc. 6.

ARCHITECTURE.

SHAKESPEARE.

When we mean to build,

We first survey the plot, then draw the model;
And when we see the figure of the house,
Then must we rate the cost of the erection.

Henry IV., Pt. II. Act i. Sc. 3.

SHAKESPEARE.

The hasty multitude
Admiring entered, and the work some praise,
And some the architect: his hand was known
In heaven by many a towered structure high,
Where sceptred angels held their residence,
And sat as princes.

Paradise Lost, Bk. I.

Old houses mended,

MILTON.

Cost little less than new, before they 're ended.

Prologue to the Double Gallant.

C. CIBBER.

The architect

Built his great heart into these sculptured stones,

And with him toiled his children, and their lives
Were builded, with his own, into the walls,

As offerings unto God.

The Golden Legend, Pt. III. In the Cathedral.

ARGUMENT.

H. W. LONGFELLOW.

He'd undertake to prove, by force
Of argument, a man 's no horse.
He'd prove a buzzard is no fowl,
And that a Lord may be an owl,

A calf an Alderman, a goose a Justice,
And rooks, Committee-men or Trustees.
Hudibras, Pt. I. Canto I.

S. BUTLER.

Reproachful speech from either side
The want of argument supplied;
They rail, reviled; as often ends
The contests of disputing friends.

Fables: Sexton and Earth Worm.

Be calm in arguing; for fierceness makes
Error a fault, and truth discourtesy.

The Temple: The Church Porch.

J. GAY.

G. HERBERT.

They must describe; they nothing prove.

Alma, Canto III.

One single positive weighs more,
You know, than negatives a score.

Epistle to Fleetwood Shepherd.

M. PRIOR.

M. PRIOR.

Who shall decide, when doctors disagree, And soundest casuists doubt, like you and me? Moral Essays, Epistle III.

ARISTOCRACY.

A. POPE.

How vain are all hereditary honors,
Those poor possessions from another's deeds.
Parricide.

J. SHIRLEY.

He lives to build, not boast, a generous race;
No tenth transmitter of a foolish face.

The Bastard.

R. SAVAGE.

Let wealth and commerce, laws and learning die, But leave us still our old nobility.

England's Trust, Pt. III.

LORD J. MANNERS.

Whoe'er amidst the sons

Of reason, valor, liberty, and virtue,
Displays distinguished merit, is a noble
Of Nature's own creating.

Coriolanus, Act iii. Sc. 3.

J. THOMSON.

Fond man! though all the heroes of your line
Bedeck your halls, and round your galleries shine
In proud display; yet take this truth from me—
Virtue alone is true nobility!

Satire VIII.

JUVENAL. Trans. of GIFFORD.

Boast not the titles of your ancestors, brave youth!
They're their possessions, none of yours.

Catiline.

Nobler is a limited command

B. JONSON.

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.

Absalom and Achitophel, I.

As though there were a tie,

And obligation to posterity!

J. DRYDEN.

We get them, bear them, breed and nurse.
What has posterity done for us,

That we, lest they their rights should lose,
Should trust our necks to gripe of noose?

McFingal, Canto II.

J. TRUMBULL.

They that on glorious ancestors enlarge,
Produce their debt, instead of their discharge.

Love of Fame, Satire I.

DR. E. YOUNG.

Few sons attain the praise of their great sires, and most

their sires disgrace.

Odyssey, Bk. II.

HOMER. Trans. of POPE.

He stands for fame on his forefather's feet,
By heraldry, proved valiant or discreet!

Love of Fame, Satire I.

Great families of yesterday we show,

DR. E. YOUNG.

And lords whose parents were the Lord knows who. The True-Born Englishman, Pt. I.

The Artist.

ART.

For Art is Nature made by Man
To Man the interpreter of God.

D. DEFOE.

LORD LYTTON (Owen Meredith).

In the elder days of Art,
Builders wrought with greatest care
Each minute and unseen part;

For the gods see everywhere.

The Builders.

H. W. LONGFELLOW.

It is not strength, but art, obtains the prize,
And to be swift is less than to be wise.

'T is more by art, than force of numerous strokes. Iliad, Bk. XXIII. Trans. of POPE.

HOMER.

His pencil was striking, resistless, and grand; His manners were gentle, complying, and bland; Still born to improve us in every part,

His pencil our faces, his manners our heart. Retaliation (Sir Joshua Reynolds).

O. GOLDSMITH.

Around the mighty master came
The marvels which his pencil wrought,
Those miracles of power whose fame
Is wide as human thought.

Raphael.

ASPIRATION.

J. G. WHITTIER.

Oh! could I throw aside these earthly bands
That tie me down where wretched mortals sigh-
To join blest spirits in celestial lands!

To Laura in Death.

PETRARCH.

Happy the heart that keeps its twilight hour,
And, in the depths of heavenly peace reclined,
Loves to commune with thoughts of tender power,-
Thoughts that ascend, like angels beautiful,
A shining Jacob's ladder of the mind!
Sonnet IX.

To

P. H. HAYNE.

The desire of the moth for the star,
Of the night for the morrow,
The devotion to something afar
From the sphere of our sorrow.
: One word is too often profaned.

P. B. SHELLEY.

I held it truth, with him who sings
To one clear harp in divers tones,
That men may rise on stepping-stones
Of their dead selves to higher things.
In Memoriam, I.

A. TENNYSON.

AUTHORITY.

The rule

Of the many is not well. One must be chief
In war and one the king.

Iliad, Bk. II.

Authority intoxicates,

And makes mere sots of magistrates;

The fumes of it invade the brain,

And make men giddy, proud, and vain.

Miscellaneous Thoughts.

S. BUTLER.

Thou hast seen a farmer's dog bark at a beggar,
And the creature run from the cur: There,

There, thou might'st behold the great image of authority; A dog 's obeyed in office.

King Lear, Act iv. Sc. 6.

SHAKESPEARE.

O, what authority and show of truth
Can cunning sin cover itself withal!

Much Ado about Nothing, Act iv. Sc. 1. SHAKESPEARE.

AUTHORSHIP.

But words are things, and a small drop of ink,
Falling, like dew, upon a thought, produces

That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.
Don Juan, Canto III.

LORD BYRON.

Habits of close attention, thinking heads, Become more rare as dissipation spreads, Till authors hear at length one general cry Tickle and entertain us, or we die! Retirement.

W. COWPER.

The unhappy man, who once has trailed a pen,
Lives not to please himself, but other men ;
Is always drudging, wastes his life and blood,
Yet only eats and drinks what you think good.
Prologue to Lee's Cæsar Borgia.

Lest men suspect your tale untrue
Keep probability in view.

J. DRYDEN.

The traveller leaping o'er those bounds,
The credit of his book confounds.

The Painter who pleased Nobody and Everybody.

J. GAY.