LESSON VI.—VERSE.
"Am I to set my life upon a throw,
Because a bear is rude and surly? No."—Cowper.
"Poor, guiltless I! and can I choose but smile,
When every coxcomb knows me by my style?"—Pope.
"Remote from man, with God he pass'd his days,
Prayer all his business, all his pleasure praise."—Parnell.
"These are thy blessings, Industry! rough power;
Whom labour still attends, and sweat, and pain."—Thomson.
"What ho! thou genius of the clime, what ho!
Liest thou asleep beneath these hills of snow?"—Dryden.
"What! canst thou not forbear me half an hour?
Then get thee gone, and dig my grave thyself."—Shak.
"Then palaces and lofty domes arose;
These for devotion, and for pleasure those."—Blackmore.
"'Tis very dangerous, tampering with a muse;
The profit's small, and you have much to lose."—Roscommon.
"Lucretius English'd! 't was a work might shake
The power of English verse to undertake."—Otway.
"The best may slip, and the most cautious fall;
He's more than mortal, that ne'er err'd at all."—Pomfret.
"Poets large souls heaven's noblest stamps do bear,
Poets, the watchful angels' darling care."—Stepney.
"Sorrow breaks reasons, and reposing hours;
Makes the night morning, and the noon-tide night."—Shak.
"Nor then the solemn nightingale ceas'd warbling."—Milton.
"And O, poor hapless nightingale, thought I,
How sweet thou singst, how near the deadly snare!"—Id.
"He calls for famine, and the meagre fiend
Blows mildew from between his shrivell'd lips."—Cowper.
"If o'er their lives a refluent glance they cast,
Theirs is the present who can praise the past."—Shenstone.
"Who wickedly is wise, or madly brave,
Is but the more a fool, the more a knave."—Pope.
"Great eldest-born of Dullness, blind and bold!
Tyrant! more cruel than Procrustes old;
Who, to his iron bed, by torture, fits,
Their nobler part, the souls of suffering wits."—Mallet.
"Parthenia, rise.—What voice alarms my ear?
Away. Approach not. Hah! Alexis there!"—Gay.
"Nor is it harsh to make, nor hard to find
A country with—ay, or without mankind."—Byron.
"A frame of adamant, a soul of fire,
No dangers fright him, and no labours tire."—Johnson.
"Now pall the tasteless meats, and joyless wines,
And luxury with sighs her slave resigns."—Id.
"Seems? madam; nay, it is: I know not seems—
For I have that within which passes show."—Hamlet.
"Return? said Hector, fir'd with stern disdain:
What! coop whole armies in our walls again?"—Pope.
"He whom the fortune of the field shall cast
From forth his chariot, mount the next in haste."—Id.
"Yet here, Laertes? aboard, aboard, for shame!"—Shak.
"Justice, most gracious Duke; O grant me justice!"—Id.
"But what a vengeance makes thee fly
From me too, as thine enemy?"—Butler.
"Immortal Peter! first of monarchs! He
His stubborn country tam'd, her rocks, her fens,
Her floods, her seas, her ill-submitting sons."—Thomson.
"O arrogance! Thou liest, thou thread, thou thimble,
Thou yard, three-quarters, half-yard, quarter, nail,
Thou flea, thou nit, thou winter-cricket, thou:—
Brav'd in mine own house with a skein of thread!
Away, thou rag, thou quantity, thou remnant;
Or I shall so be-mete thee with thy yard,
As thou shalt think on prating whilst thou liv'st."
SHAK.: Taming of the Shrew, Act IV, Sc 3.