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Some few in that, but numbers err in this;
Ten censure wrong for one who writes amiss.
A fool might once himself alone expose;
Now one in verse makes many more in prose.
CRITICS. Servile.

Some ne'er advance a judgment of their own,
But catch the spreading notions of the town;
They reason and conclude from precedent,

And own stale notions which they ne'er invent.
Some judge of authors' names, not works; and then
Nor praise nor blame the writings, but the men.
Of all the servile herd, the worst is he,
That in proud dulness joins with quality;
A constant critic at the great man's board,
To fetch and carry nonsense for my lord:
What useful stuff this madrigal would be,
In some starv'd hackney sonnetteer or me!
But let a lord once own the happy lines,
How the wit brightens! how the style refines!
CROMWELL. Age of, Characterized.

Pope.

Pope.

When Cromwell fought for pow'r, and while he reign'd,
The proud protector of the pow'r he gain'd,
Religion harsh, intolerant, austere,
Parent of manners, like herself severe,
Drew a rough copy of the Christian face,
Without the smile, the sweetness of the grace;
The dark and sullen humours of the time
Judg'd ev'ry effort of the muse a crime:
Verse, in the finest mould of fancy cast,
Was lumber in an age so void of taste.

CURATE. Distress of a poor one.

Pity! a man so good, so mild, so meek,
At such an age, should have his bread to seek ;

Согорет.

And all those rude and fierce attacks to dread,

That are more harrowing than the want of bread.
Ah! who shall whisper to that misery peace!
And say that want and insolence shall cease?
"But why not publish?"-those who know too well,
Dealers in Greek, are fearful 'twill not sell;
Then he himself-is timid, troubled, slow,
Nor likes his labours nor his griefs to show;
The hope of fame may in his heart have place.
But he has dread and horror of disgrace;
Nor has he that confiding, easy way,
That might his learning and himself display;
But to his work he from the world retreats,
And frets and glories o'er the favourite sheets.

CURIOSITY. Effects of.

Crabbe.

Witness the sprightly joy when aught unknown Strikes the quick sense, and wakes each active power To brisker measures: witness the neglect

Of all familiar prospects, though beheld
With transport once; the fond attentive gaze
Of young astonishment; the sober zeal

Of age, commenting on prodigious things.

For this the daring youth

Breaks from his weeping mother's anxious arms,
In foreign climes to rove; the pensive sage,
Heedless of sleep or midnight's harmful damp,
Hangs o'er the sickly taper; and untir'd
The virgin follows, with enchanted step,
The mazes of some wild and wond'rous tale.-

Hence, finally, by night

The village matron round the blazing hearth
Suspends the infant audience with her tales,
Breathing astonishment! of witching rhymes,
And evil spirits of the death-bed call

Of him who robb'd the widow, and devour'd
The orphan's portion; of unquiet souls

Risen from the grave to ease the heavy guilt
Of deeds in life conceal'd; of shapes that walk
At dead of night, and clank their chains, and wave
The torch of hell around the murderer's bed.
At every solemn pause, the crowd recoil,
Gazing each other speechless, and congeal'd
With shivering sighs; till, eager for the event,
Around the beldame all erect they hang,

Each trembling heart with grateful terrors quell'd.

CURSE. Pronounced on Adam.

Aikenside.

On Adam last thus judgment he pronounc'd. "Because thou hast hearken'd to the voice of thy wife, And eaten of the tree concerning which

I charg'd thee, saying, "Thou shalt not eat thereof.
Curs'd is the ground for thy sake; thou in sorrow
Shalt eat thereof all the days of thy life;

Thorns also and thistles it shall bring thee forth
Unbid; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field.
In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread,
Till thou return unto the ground; for thou
Out of the ground was taken: know thy birth,
For dust thou art, and shalt to dust return."
DARKNESS.

Let Indians, and the gay, like Indians, fond
Of feather'd fopperies, the sun adore :

Darkness has more divinity for me!

It strikes thought inward, it drives back the soul
To settle on herself, our point supreme!
There lies our theatre; there sits our judge.
Darkness the curtain drops o'er life's dull scene;

Milton.

'Tis the kind hand of Providence stretch'd out
'Twixt man and vanity; 'tis reason's reign,
And virtue's too; these tutelary shades
Are man's asylum from the tainted throng.

DEAD. The mighty recalled.

What triumphs! toils imperial! arts divine! In wither'd laurels, glide before my sight! What lengths of far-fam'd ages, billow'd high, With human agitation, roll along

In unsubstantial images of air!

The melancholy ghosts of dead renown,
Whisp'ring faint echoes of the world's applause,
With penitential aspect, as they pass,

All point at earth, and hiss at human pride.

DEATH. Fancy adds to the Horrors of.
Why start at death? where is he? death arriv'd,
Is past: not come, or gone, he's never here.
Ere hope, sensation fails, black boding man
Receives, not suffers, death's tremendous blow.
The knell, the shroud, the mattock, and the grave;
The deep damp vault, the darkness, and the worm;
These are the bugbears of a winter's eve,
The terrors of the living, not the dead.
Imagination's fool, and error's wretch,
Man makes a death which nature never made;
Then on the point of his own fancy falls;
And feels a thousand deaths, in fearing one.

DEATH. Hamlet's Soliloquy on.

To be, or not to be, that is the question :-
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind, to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune;
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And, by opposing, end them?—To die,-To sleep,

Young.

Young.

Young.

No more :-and, by a sleep, to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to,-'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die ;-to sleep ;-
To sleep! perchance to dream,-ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life:

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The
pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life;
But that the dread of something after death,
That undiscover'd country, from whose bourne
No traveller returns,-puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of!
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.

DEATH. Lurks in Pleasures.

Shakspeare.

Where is not Death? sure as night follows day, Death treads in pleasure's footsteps round the world, When pleasure treads the paths which reason shuns, When, against reason riot shuts the door,

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