Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief.
Hamlet, Act ii. Sc. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
And I oft have heard defended,
Little said is soonest mended.
The Shepherd's Hunting. G. WITHER.
Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear.
Venus and Adonis. SHAKESPEARE.
Delivers in such apt and gracious words,
That aged ears play truant at his tales,
And younger hearings are quite ravished,
So sweet and voluble is his discourse.
Love's Labor's Lost, Act ii. Sc. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
COQUETRY.
Or light or dark, or short or tall,
She sets a springe to snare them all:
All's one to her—above her fan
She'd make sweet eyes at Caliban.
Quatrains. Coquette. T.B. ALDRICH.
Such is your cold coquette, who can't say "No."
And won't say "Yes," and keeps you on and off-ing
On a lee-shore, till it begins to blow,
Then sees your heart wrecked, with an inward scoffing.
Don Juan, Canto XII. LORD BYRON.
And still she sits, young while the earth is old
And, subtly of herself contemplative,
Draws men to watch the bright net she can weave,
Till heart and body and life are in its hold.
Lilith. D.G. ROSSETTI.
How happy could I be with either,
Were t' other dear charmer away!
But while ye thus tease me together,
To neither a word will I say.
Beggar's Opera, Act ii. Sc. 2. J. GAY.
Ye belles, and ye flirts, and ye pert little things,
Who trip in this frolicsome round,
Pray tell me from whence this impertinence springs,
The sexes at once to confound?
Song for Ranelagh. P. WHITEHEAD.