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The quality of mercy is not strained,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath it is twice blessed,
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes :
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,

Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings:
But mercy is above this sceptred sway,

It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,

It is an attribute to God himself;

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This fellow's wise enough to play the fool;
And to do that well craves a kind of wit.
Twelfth Night, Act iii. Sc. 1.
SHAKESPEARE.

GOOD NATURE AND RECKLESSNESS.

And earthly power doth then show likest God's, Care to our coffin adds a nail, no doubt,

When mercy seasons justice.

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And every grin, so merry, draws one out. Expostulatory Odes: xv. DR. WOLCOTT (Peter Pindar).

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Much Ado about Nothing, Act iii. Sc. 3.

SHAKESPEARE.

Lowliness is young ambition's ladder, The fashion wears out more apparel than the man. Whereto the climber-upward turns his face; But when he once attains the upmost round, He then unto the ladder turns his back, Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees By which he did ascend.

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Nothing exceeds in ridicule, no doubt,
A fool in fashion, but a fool that's out;
His passion for absurdity's so strong
He cannot bear a rival in the wrong.
Though wrong the mode, comply: more sense
is shown

In wearing others' follies than our own.
Night Thoughts.

DR. E. YOUNG

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My heart is drowned with grief,

SHAKESPEARE.

'Tis pride, rank pride, and haughtiness of soul; My body round engirt with misery;

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For what's more miserable than discontent?
King Henry VI., Part II. Act iii. Sc. 1. SHAKESPEARE.

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Brother of Faith! 'twixt whom and thee
The joys of Heaven and Earth divided be!
For Hope.

desire.
young
Love in a Village, Acti. Sc. 1.

Hope! let the wretch, once conscious of the joy, Hope! thou nurse of
Whom now despairing agonies destroy,
Speak, for he can, and none so well as he,
What treasures centre, what delights, in thee.

Hope.

It is to hope, though hope were lost.

Come here, fond youth

COWPER.

A. L. BARBAULD.

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A. COWLEY,

I. BICKERSTAFF.

True hope is swift, and flies with swallow's wings;
Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings.

King Richard III., Act v. sc. 2.

SHAKESPEARE.

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Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought.

King Henry IV., Part II. Activ. Sc. 4.

SHAKESPEARE.

Cease, every joy, to glimmer on my mind,
But leave oh! leave the light of Hope behind!

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Far off the massive portals of the wood,
Buttressed with shadow, misty-blue, serene,
Waited my coming. Speedily I stood

Where the dun wall rose roofed in plumy green. Dare one go in ?-Glance backward! Dusk as night Each column, fringed with sprays of amber light.

No stir nor call the sacred hush profanes;

Save when from some bare tree-top, far on high, Fierce disputations of the clamorous cranes

Fall muffled, as from out the upper sky.
So still, one dreads to wake the dreaming air,
Breaks a twig softly, moves the foot with care.

The hollow dome is green with empty shade,

Struck through with slanted shafts of afternoon; Aloft, a little rift of blue is made,

Where slips a ghost that last night was the moon. Beside its pearl a sea-cloud stays its wing,

Beneath, a tilted hawk is balancing.

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