FRAILTY.

Let but your honour know,

All exposed to.

(Whom I believe to be most strait in virtue,)

That, in the working of your own affections,
Had time coher'd with place, or place with wishing,
Or that the resolute acting of your blood

Could have attain'd the effect of your own purpose,
Whether you had not sometime in your life

Err'd in this point which now you censure him,

And pull'd the law upon you.

Shakspeare.

Gay sprightly land of mirth and social ease,
Pleas'd with thyself, whom all the world can please
How often have 1 led thy sportive choir,

With tuneless pipe, beside the murmuring Loire !
Where shading elms along the margin grew,
And freshen'd from the wave the zephyr flew;
And haply, though my harsh touch, falt'ring still,
But mock'd all tune, and marr'd the dancer's skill:
Yet would the village praise my wond'rous pow'r,
And dance, forgetful of the noontide-hour;
Alike all ages. Dames of ancient days

Have led their children through the mirthful maze,
And the gray grandsire, skill'd in gestic lore,
Has frisk'd beneath the burden of threescore.

So bright a life these thoughtless realms display;
Thus idly busy rolls their world away;

Theirs are those arts that mind to mind endear,
For honour forms the social temper here.
Honour, that praise which real merit gains,
Or ev❜n imaginary worth obtains,

Here passes current; paid from hand to hand
It shifts in splendid traffic round the land;

From courts to camps, to cottages it strays,
And all are taught an avarice of praise;

They please, are pleas'd, they give to get esteem,

"Till, seeming bless'd, they grow to what they seem.
But while this softer art their bliss supplies,
It gives their follies also room to rise;
For praise too dearly lov'd, or warmly sought,
Enfeebles all internal strength of thought
And the weak soul, within itself unblest,
Leans for all pleasure on another's breast,
Hence ostentation here, with tawdry art,
Pants for the vulgar praise which fools impart;
Here vanity assumes her pert grimace,
And trims her robes of frieze with copper lace;
Here beggar pride defrauds her daily cheer,
To boast one splendid banquet once a-year;
The mind still turns were shifting fashion draws,
Nor weighs the solid worth of self-applause. Goldsmith.
FRENCHMAN. Character of

Born in a climate softer far than ours,

Nor form'd, like us, with such Herculean pow'rs,

The Frenchman, easy, debonair, and brisk,
Give him his lass, his fiddle and his frisk,
Is always happy, reign whoever may,
And laughs the sense of mis'ry far away.
He drinks his simple bev'rage with a gust;
And, feasting on an onion and a crust;
We never feel th' alacrity and joy,
With which he shouts and carols Vive le Roy,
Fill'd with as much true merriment and glee,
As if he heard his king say-slave, be free.

Cowper.

FRIBBLE. Critical one described.

With that low cunning, which in fools supplies,
And amply too, the place of being wise,
Which Nature, kind, indulgent parent, gave

To qualify the blockhead for a knave;

With that smooth falsehood, whose appearance charms,
And reason of each wholesome doubt disarms,
Which to the lowest depths of guile descends,
By vilest means pursues the vilest ends,
Wears Friendship's mask for purposes of spite,
Fawns in the day, and butchers in the night;
With that malignant envy, which turns pale,
And sickens, even if a friend prevail,
Which merit and success pursues with hate,
And damns the worth it cannot imitate;
With the cold caution of a coward's spleen,
Which fears not guilt, but always seeks a screen.
-A motley figure of the fribble tribe,

Which heart can scarce conceive, or pen describe,
Came simpering on; to ascertain whose sex
Twelve sage impannell'd matrons would perplex.
Nor male, nor female; neither, and yet both;
Of neuter gender, though of Irish growth;
A six-foot suckling, mincing in its gait;
Affected, peevish, prim, and delicate;
Fearful it seem'd, though of athletic make,
Lest brutal breezes should too roughly shake
Its tender form, and savage notion spread,
O'er its pale cheeks, the horrid manly red.

Much did it talk, in its own pretty phrase,
Of genius and of taste, of play'rs and plays;
Much too of writings, which itself had wrote,
Of special merit, though of little note,

FRIENDSHIP.

For fate, in a strange humour, had decreed
That what it wrote, none but itself should read;
Much too it chatter'd of dramatic laws,
Misjudging critics, and misplaced applause;
Then, with a self-complacent jutting air,
It smil'd, it smirk'd, it wriggled to the chair.
FRIEND. A convenient onc.

He chooses company, but not the squire's,
Whose wit is rudeness, whose good-breeding tires;
Nor yet the parson's, who would gladly come,
Obsequious when abroad, though proud at home.
Nor can he much affect the neighb'ring peer,
Whose toe of emulation treads too near;
But wisely seeks a more convenient friend,
With whom, dismissing forms, he may unbend!
A man, whom marks of condescending grace
Teach, while they flatter him, his proper place;
Who comes when call'd, and at a word withdraws
Speaks with reserve, and listens with applause;
Some plain mechanic, who, without pretence
To birth or wit, not gives nor takes offence;
On whom he rests well pleas'd his weary pow'rs.
And talks and laughs away his vacant hours.

Cowper.

FRIENDSHIP. Female, in their early days,
Is all the counsel that we too have shar'd,
The sisters' vows, the hours that we have spent,.
When we have chid the hasty footed time
For parting us,- O, and is all forgot?

All school-day's friendship, childhood innocence?
We, Hermia, like two artificial gods,

Have with our needles created both one flower,
Both in one sampler, sitting on one cushion,
Both warbling of one song, both in one key;

As if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds,
Had been incorporate. So we grew together,
Like to a double cherry, seeming parted.

FRIENDSHIP. School Friendship.

Shakspeare.

Besides, school-friendships are not always to be found, Though fair in promise, permanent and sound;

The most disint'rested and virtuous minds,
In early years connected, time unbinds
New situations give a diff'rent cast
Of habit, inclination, temper, taste;

And he, that seem'd our counterpart at first,
Soon shows the strong similitude revers'd.

Young heads are giddy, and young hearts are warm,
And make mistakes for manhood to reform.

Boys are at best but pretty buds unblown,

Whose scent and hues are rather guess'd than known;
Each dreams that each is just what he appears,
But learns his error in maturer years,

When disposition like a sail unfurl'd,

Shows all its rents and patches to the world.

FRIENDSHIP. Uncertainty of.

Согорет.

O world, thy slippery turns! Friends now fast sworn, Whose double bosoms seem to wear one heart,

Whose hours, whose bed, whose meal, and exercise,
Are still together, who twin, as 'twere, in love

Unseparable, shall within this hour,

On a dissension of a doit, break out
To bitterest enmity: So fellest foes,

Whose passions and whose plots have broke their sleep
To take the one the other, by some chance,

Some trick not worth an egg, shall grow dear friends,
And interjoin their issues.

Shakspeare.