Familiar Quotations / A Collection of Passages, Phrases, and Proverbs Traced to / Their Sources in Ancient and Modern Literature

by Unknown

Where ignorance is bliss,

'T is folly to be wise.

Gray: Eton College, Stanza 10.

[217:2]

For angling rod he took a sturdy oak;

For line, a cable that in storm ne'er broke;

.   .   .   .   .

His hook was baited with a dragon's tail,—

And then on rock he stood to bob for whale.

From The Mock Romance, a rhapsody attached to The Loves of Hero and Leander, published in London in the years 1653 and 1677. Chambers's Book of Days, vol. i. p. 173. Daniel: Rural Sports, Supplement, p. 57.