Around the beldame all erect they hang,

Each trembling heart with grateful terrors quell'd. AKENSIDE.

CURSE. (Pronounced on Adam)

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 th' 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 wast taken : know thy birth,
For dust thou art, and shalt to dust return.

DARKNESS.

MILTON.

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;
'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)

YOUNG.

What triumphis! 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.

YOUNG.

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)

YOUNG.

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, No more :-and, by a sleep, to say we end The heart-ach, 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 bourn
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.

SHAKSPEARE.

DEATH. (Lurks in Pleasures)

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,
And gaiety supplies the place of sense.
Then foremost at the banquet and the ball,
Death leads the dance, or stamps the deadly die;
Nor ever fails the midnight bowl to crown.
Gaily carousing to his gay compeers,

Inly he laughs, to see them laugh at him,
As absent far: and when the revel burns,

When fear is banish'd, and triumphant thought,
Calling for all the joys beneath the moon,
Against him turns the key; and bids him sup
With their progenitors-He drops his mask.

YOUNG.

DEATH. (Ruling Passion strong in) A salmon's belly, Helluo, was thy fate; The doctor call'd, declares all help too late : "Mercy!" cries Helluo, "mercy on my soul ! "Is there no hope ?-Alas! then bring the jowl." The frugal crone, whom praying priests attend, Still strives to save the hallow'd taper's end, Collects her breath as ebbing life retires, For one puff more, and in that puff expires. "Odious! in woollen! 'twould a saint provoke, (Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke); "No, let a charming chintz and Brussels' lace "Wrap my cold limbs, and shade my lifeless face, "One would not, sure, be frightful when one's "dead

"And-Betty-give this cheek a little red."

The courtier smooth, who forty years had shin'd An humble servant to all human kind,

Just brought out this, when scarce his tongue could stir,

"If where I'm going-I could serve you, Sir?" "I give and I devise" (old Euclio said, And sigh’d) “ my lands and tenements to Ned." Your money, Sir ?" My money, Sir, what all? "Why-if I must-(then wept) I give it Paul." The manor, Sir?" The manor! hold," he cried, "Not that,—I cannot part with that”—and died. And you, brave Cobham, to the latest breath, Shall feel your ruling passion strong in death: Such in those moments, as in all the past, "Oh save my country, Heaven!" shall be your last.

POPE.

DEATH. (The Caprice and universal Power of)
Like other tyrants, Death delights to smite,
What smitten most proclaims the pride of power,
And arbitrary nod. His joy supreme,

To bid the wretch survive the fortunate;

The feeble wrap th' athletic in his shroud;
And weeping fathers build their children's tombs.

DEATH. (The Terrors of)

YOUNG.

Ay, but to die, and go we know not where ;
To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot :
This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice;
To be imprison'd in the viewless winds,
And blown with restless violence about
The pendant world; or to be worse than worst
Of those, that lawless and uncertain thoughts
Imagine howling!-'tis too horrible!

The weariest and most loathed worldly life,
That age, ach, penury, and imprisonment
Can lay on nature, is a paradise

To what we fear of death.

SHAKSPEARE.

DELAY. (The Folly of)

Let's take the instant by the forward top; For we are old, and on our quick'st decrees The inaudible and noiseless foot of time

Steals ere we can effect them.

DELICACY. (False)

SHAKSPEARE.

Ye well-array'd! ye lilies of our land! Ye lilies male! who neither toil nor spin;