Of the Court he says,

“There prosperous power sleeps long, though suitors wake.”
“Be bold, for number cancels bashfulness;
Extremes, from which a King would blushing shrink,
Unblushing senates act as no excess.”

And these lines, taken as they occur:

“Truth’s a discovery made by travelling minds.”
“Honour’s the moral conscience of the great.”
“They grow so certain as to need no hope.”
“Praise is devotion fit for mighty minds.”

I conclude with one complete stanza, of the same cast of reflection. It may be inscribed in the library of the student, in the studio of the artist, in every place where excellence can only be obtained by knowledge.

“Rich are the diligent, who can command
Time, nature’s stock! and, could his hour-glass fall,
Would, as for seed of stars, stoop for the sand,
And by incessant labour gather all!”

[325]

Can one read such passages as these without catching some of the sympathies of a great genius that knows itself?

“He who writes an heroic poem leaves an estate entailed, and he gives a greater gift to posterity than to the present age; for a public benefit is best measured in the number of receivers; and our contemporaries are but few when reckoned with those who shall succeed.

“If thou art a malicious reader, thou wilt remember my preface boldly confessed, that a main motive to the undertaking was a desire of fame; and thou mayest likewise say, I may very possibly not live to enjoy it. Truly, I have some years ago considered that Fame, like Time, only gets a reverence by long running; and that, like a river, ’tis narrowest where ’tis bred, and broadest afar off.