Immodest words admit of no defence.
For want of decency is want of sense.

But foul descriptions are offensive still,
Either for being like or being ill.
Essay on Translated Verse.

EARL OF ROSCOMMON.

Shut, shut the door, good John! fatigued I said,

Tie up the knocker, say I'm sick, I'm dead.
The Dog-star rages! nay, 't is past a doubt,
All Bedlam, or Parnassus, is let out:
Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand,
They rave, recite, and madden round the land.
Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot: Prologue to the Satires.

A. POPE.

Why did I write? what sin to me unknown Dipped me in ink,-my parents', or my own! Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot: Prologue to the Satires.

And so I penned

A. POPE.

It down, until at last it came to be, For length and breadth, the bigness which you see. Pilgrim's Progress: Apology for his Book.

J. BUNYAN.

None but an author knows an author's cares, Or Fancy's fondness for the child she bears. The Progress of Error.

W. COWPER.

Whether the charmer sinner it, or saint it, If folly grow romantic, I must paint it. Moral Essays, Epistle II.

A. POPE.

"You write with ease, to show your breeding, But easy writing 's curst hard reading." Clio's Protest.

R. B. SHERIDAN.

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learned to dance.
'T is not enough no harshness gives offence;
The sound must seem an echo to the sense.
Soft is the strain when zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,
The hoarse rough verse should like the torrent roar.
When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw
The line too labors, and the words move slow;
Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain,

Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main.

Then, at the last and only couplet fraught

With some unmeaning thing they call a thought,

A needless Alexandrine ends the song,

That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along. Essay on Criticism, Part II.

A. POPE.

Abstruse and mystic thought you must express
With painful care, but seeming easiness;

For truth shines brightest thro' the plainest dress. Essay on Translated Verse.

It may be glorious to write

Thoughts that shall glad the two or three

W. DILLON.

High souls, like those far stars that come in sight
Once in a century.

Incident in a Railroad Car.

J. R. LOWELL.

E'en copious Dryden wanted, or forgot,
The last and greatest art-the art to blot.

Horace, Bk. II. Epistle I.

Whatever hath been written shall remain,
Nor be erased nor written o'er again;

A. POPE.

The unwritten only still belongs to thee: Take heed, and ponder well, what that shall be. Morituri Salutamus. H. W. LONGFELLOW.

BABY.

A sweet, new blossom of Humanity,

Fresh fallen from God's own home to flower on earth. Wooed and Won.

G. MASSEY.

The hair she means to have is gold,
Her eyes are blue, she 's twelve weeks old,
Plump are her fists and pinky.

She fluttered down in lucky hour
From some blue deep in yon sky bower-
I call her "Little Dinky."

Little Dinky.

F. LOCKER-LAMPSON.

As living jewels dropped unstained from heaven. Course of Time, Bk. V.

God mark thee to his grace!

R. POLLOK.

Thou wast the prettiest babe that e'er I nursed :
An I might live to see thee married once,

I have my wish.

Romeo and Juliet, Act i. Sc. 3.

SHAKESPEARE.

Suck, baby! suck! mother's love grows by giving: Drain the sweet founts that only thrive by wasting! The Gypsy's Malison.

C. LAMB.

To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet,
And talk so like a waiting gentlewoman,

And that it was great pity, so it was,

That villanous saltpetre should be digged
Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,

Which many a good tall fellow had destroyed.

K. Henry IV., Pt. I. Act i. Sc. 3.

By Heaven! it is a splendid sight to see

SHAKESPEARE.

(For one who hath no friend, no brother there) Their rival scarfs of mixed embroidery,

Their various arms that glitter in the air!

What gallant war-hounds rouse them from their lair,
And gnash their fangs, loud yelling for the prey!
All join the chase, but few the triumph share;
The grave shall bear the chiefest prize away,
And havoc scarce for joy can number their array.
Childe Harold, Canto I.

LORD BYRON.

From the glittering staff unfurled
Th' imperial ensign, which, full high advanced,
Shone like a meteor, streaming to the wind,
With gems and golden lustre rich imblazed,
Seraphic arms and trophies; all the while
Sonorous metal blowing martial sounds:
At which the universal host upsent

A shout that tore hell's concave, and beyond
Frighted the reign of Chaos and old Night.
Paradise Lost, Bk. I.

MILTON.

When Greeks joined Greeks, then was the tug of war. Alexander the Great, Act iv. Sc. 2.

That voice . . . heard so oft

N. LEE.

In worst extremes, and on the perilous edge
Of battle when it raged.

Paradise Lost, Bk. 1.

MILTON.

Fight, gentlemen of England! fight, bold yeomen! Draw, archers, draw your arrows to the head! Spur your proud horses hard, and ride in blood; Amaze the welkin with your broken staves! King Richard III., Act v. Sc. 3.

SHAKESPEARE.

We must have bloody noses and cracked crowns, And pass them current too. God 's me, my horse! King Henry IV., Pt. I. Act ii. Sc. 3.

SHAKESPEARE.

Never be it said

That Fate itself could awe the soul of Richard.
Hence, babbling dreams; you threaten here in vain ;
Conscience, avaunt, Richard 's himself again!
Hark! the shrill trumpet sounds. To horse! away!
My soul's in arms, and eager for the fray.

Shakespeare's Richard IIÏ. (Altered), Act. v. Sc. 3.

BEAUTY.

Is she not passing fair?

C. CIBBER.

Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act iv. Sc. 4. SHAKESPEARE.

And she is fair, and fairer than that word.

Merchant of Venice, Act i. Sc. 1.

SHAKESPEARE.

Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.

As You Like It, Act i. Sc. 3.

SHAKESPEARE.

Old as I am, for ladies' love unfit,
The power of beauty I remember yet.

Cymon and Iphigenia.

J. DRYDEN.

Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear.

Romeo and Juliet, Act i. Sc. 5.

SHAKESPEARE.

A rosebud set with little wilful thorns,
And sweet as English air could make her, she.
The Princess.

A. TENNYSON.

Thou who hast
The fatal gift of beauty.

Childe Harold, Canto IV.

LORD BYRON.

Yet I'll not shed her blood;
Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow,
And smooth as monumental alabaster.
Othello, Act v. Sc. 2.

SHAKESPEARE,

No longer shall thy bodice, aptly laced, From thy full bosom to thy slender waist, That air and harmony of shape express, Fine by degrees, and beautifully less. Henry and Emma.

The beautiful are never desolate ;

M. PRIOR.

But some one always loves them-God or man. If man abandons, God himself takes them. Festus: Sc. Water and Wood.

P. J. BAILEY.

There's nothing that allays an angry mind
So soon as a sweet beauty.

The Elder Brother, Act iii. Sc. 5.

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

The beautiful seems right

By force of beauty, and the feeble wrong
Because of weakness.

Aurora Leigh.

E. B. BROWNING.

How near to good is what is fair,

Which we no sooner see,

But with the lines and outward air

Our senses taken be.

We wish to see it still, and prove

What ways we may deserve;

We court, we praise, we more than love,

We are not grieved to serve.

Love Freed from Ignorance and Folly.

B. JONSON.

There's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple:
If the ill spirit have so fair a house,
Good things will strive to dwell with't.
Tempest, Act i. Sc. 2.

SHAKESPEARE.

A daughter of the gods, divinely tall,
And most divinely fair.

A Dream of Fair Women.

A. TENNYSON.

Beauty is Nature's coin, must not be hoarded,
But must be current, and the good thereof
Consists in mutual and partaken bliss,
Unsavory in th' enjoyment of itself:

If you let slip time, like a neglected rose,
It withers on the stalk with languished head.
Comus.

MILTON.