Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

He who would not be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things ought himself to be a true poem.

Apology for Smectymnuus.

Litigious terms, fat contentions, and flowing Tractate of Education.

fees.

I shall detain you no longer in the demonstration of what we should not do, but strait conduct ye to a hillside, where I will point ye out the right path of a virtuous and noble education; laborious indeed at the first ascent, but else so smooth, so green, so full of goodly prospect, and melodious sounds on every side, that the harp of Orpheus was not more charming.

Ibid.

In those vernal seasons of the year, when the air is calm and pleasant, it were an injury and sullenness against Nature not to go out and see her riches, and partake in her rejoicing with heaven and earth.

Ibid.

Enflamed with the study of learning and the admiration of virtue; stirred up with high hopes of living to be brave men and worthy patriots, dear to God, and famous to all ages.

Ibid.

As good almost kill a man as kill a good book; who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book kills reason itself. Areopagitica.

A good book is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life. Areopagitica.

I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and seeks her adversary. Ibid.

Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks; methinks I see her as an eagle mewing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam.

Ibid.

Who ever knew truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter?

Ibid.

By this time, like one who had set out on his way by night, and travelled through a region of smooth and idle dreams, our history now arrives on the confines, where daylight and truth meet us with a clear dawn, representing to our view, though at far distance, true colours and shapes.

History of England. Book i. ad fin.

Men of most renowned virtue have sometimes by transgressing most truly kept the law. Tetrarchordon.

For such kind of borrowing as this, if it be not bettered by the borrower, among good authors is accounted Plagiarè. Iconoclastes, xxiv. ad fin.

THOMAS FULLER.

1608-1661.

THE HOLY AND THE PROFANE STATE.

Ed. Nichols, 1841.

Drawing near her death, she sent most pious thoughts as harbingers to heaven; and her soul saw a glimpse of happiness through the chinks of her sickness-broken body.1

The Life of Monica.

But our captain counts the image of God, nevertheless his image, cut in ebony as if done in ivory.

The Good Sea-Captain.

The lion is not so fierce as painted.2

Of Expecting Preferment.

Their heads sometimes so little, that there is no room for wit; sometimes so long, that there is no wit for so much room.

Of Natural Fools.

The Pyramids themselves, doting with age, have forgotten the names of their founders.

Of Tombs.

Learning hath gained most by those books by which the printers have lost. Of Books.

They that marry ancient people, merely in expectation to bury them, hang themselves, in hope that one will come and cut the halter.

1 Cf. Waller, p. 167.

Of Marriage.

2 The lion is not so fierce as they paint him. - Herbert, Jacula Prudentum.

N

[Fuller continued.

To smell to a turf of fresh earth is wholesome for the body; no less are thoughts of mortality cordial to the soul. The Court Lady.

Often the cockloft is empty, in those whom Nature hath built many stories high.1

Andronicus. Ad. fin. 1.

FRANCIS DUC DE ROCHEFOUCAULD. 1613-1680.

Philosophy triumphs easily over past, and over future evils, but present evils triumph over philosophy.2 Maxim 23.

Hypocrisy is a sort of homage that vice pays. to virtue.

Maxim 227.

In the adversity of our best friends we often find something which does not displease us.3 Maxim 245.

1 My Lord St. Albans said that wise nature did never put her precious jewels into a garret four stories high, and therefore that exceeding tall men had ever very empty heads. Bacon, Apothegm, No 17.

2 This same philosophy is a good horse in the stable, but an arrant jade on a journey. — Goldsmith, The GoodNatured Man, Act i.

8 I am convinced that we have a degree of delight and that no small one in the real misfortunes and pains of others. Burke, The Sublime and Beautiful. Pt. 1, Sec. 14, 15.

WILLIAM BASSE. 1613-1648.

Renowned Spenser, lie a thought more nigh
To learned Chaucer, and rare Beaumont lie
A little nearer Spenser, to make room

For Shakespeare in your threefold, fourfold tomb.'

On Shakespeare.

HENRY VAUGHAN. 1621–1695.

I see them walking in an air of glory
Whose light doth trample on my days ;
My days which are at best but dull and hoary,
Mere glimmering and decays.

They are all gone.

Dear beauteous death, the jewel of the just.

Ibid.

And yet, as angels in some brighter dreams
Call to the soul when man doth sleep,
So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted

themes,

And into glory peep.

1 I will not lodge thee by

Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie

A little further, to make thee a room.

Ibid.

Jonson, To the Memory of Shakespeare.

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »