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Shall our pale, wither'd hands, be still stretch'd out,
Trembling, at once, with eagerness and age?
With av'rice, and convulsions, grasping hard?
Grasping at air; for what has earth beside ?
Man wants but little; nor that little long;
How soon must he resign his very dust,
Which frugal nature lent him for an hour!

Young's Night Thoughts, n. 4.

Ibid. n. 5.

What folly can be ranker? Like our shadows,
Our wishes lengthen as our sun declines.
Age should fly concourse, cover in retreat
Defects of judgment, and the will subdue;
Walk thoughtful on the silent, solemn shore
Of that vast ocean it must sail so soon.

Ibid. n. 5.

Though old, he still retain'd

His manly sense, and energy of mind.
Virtuous and wise he was, but not severe;
He still remember'd that he once was young:
His easy presence check'd no decent joy.
Him even the dissolute admir'd; for he
A graceful looseness when he pleas'd put on,
And laughing could instruct.

Armstrong's Art of Preserving Health, b. 4.

AGRICULTURE.

In antient times, the sacred plough employ'd
The kings, and awful fathers of mankind :
And some, with whom compar'd your insect-tribes
Are but the beings of a summer's day,

Have held the scale of empire, rul'd the storm
Of mighty war, then, with unweary'd hand,
Disdaining little delicacies, seiz'd

The plough, and greatly independent liv'd.

Thomson's Seasons-Spring.

AMBITION.

Ambition, like a torrent, ne'er looks back,
It is a swelling, and the last affection
A high mind can put off. It is a rebel
Both to the soul and reason, and enforces
All laws, all conscience; treads upon Religion,
And offers violence to Nature's self.

Ambition is like love, impatient

Both of delays and rivals.

Ben Jonson's Cataline.

Denham's Sophy.

Ambition is a lust that's never quench'd,

Grows more enflam'd, and madder by enjoyment.

Otway's Caius Marius.

Ambition is at a distance

A goodly prospect, tempting to the view;
The height delights us, and the mountain top
Looks beautiful, because 'tis nigh to heaven:
But we ne'er think how sandy's the foundation,
What storms will batter, and what tempests shake it.
Otway's Venice Preserved.

Ambition is an idol, on whose wings
Great minds are carry'd only to extreme;
To be sublimely great, or to be nothing.

Southern's Loyal Brother.

Great souls,

By nature half divine, soar to the stars,

And hold a near acquaintance with the gods.

Rowe's Royal Convert, a. 1, s. 1.

Tamerlane. The world !-'twould be too little for thy

pride :

Thou would'st scale heav'n

Bajazet.-I would:-Away! my soul

Disdains thy conference. Rowe's Tamerlane.

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What is ambition but desire of greatness?
And what is greatness but extent of power ?
But lust of power's a dropsy of the mind,
Whose thirst increases while we drink to quench it,
Till swoll'n and stretch'd by the repeated draught,
We burst and perish. Higgon's Generous Conqueror.
Why now my golden dream is out-

Ambition, like an early friend, throws back
My curtains with an eager hand, o'erjoy'd
To tell me what I dreamt is true-a crown,
Thou bright reward of ever-daring minds;
Oh! how thy awful glory fills my soul !
Nor can the means that got thee dim thy lustre ;
For, not men's love, fear pays thee adoration,
And fame not more survives from good than evil deeds.
Th' aspiring youth, that fir'd th' Ephesian dome,
Outlives, in fame, the pious fool that rais'd it.

Cibber's Richard III.

Ye Gods! what havock does ambition make
Among your works!

Addison's Cato.

The cheat ambition, eager to espouse
Dominion, courts it with a lying shew,
And shines in borrow'd pomp to serve a turn:
But the match made, the farce is at an end;

And all the hireling equipage of virtues,

Faith, honour, justice, gratitude, and friendship
Discharg'd at once.

Jeffery's Edwin.

What's all the gaudy glitter of a crown;

What, but the glaring meteor of ambition,
That leads the wretch benighted in his errors,
Points to the gulph, and shines upon destruction.

Brooke's Gustavus Vasa.

Oh! that some villager, whose early toil
Lifts the penurious morsel to his mouth,

Had claim'd my birth! ambition had not then
Thus step'd 'twixt me and Heav'n.

Brooke's Gustavus Vasa.

O dire ambition! what infernal power

Unchain'd thee from thy native depth of hell,
To stalk the earth with thy destructive train,
Murder and Lust! to waste domestic
And every heart-felt joy.

peace Browne's Barbarossa.

O false Ambition !

Thou lying phantom! whither hast thou lur'd me!
Ev'n to this giddy height; where now I stand
Forsaken, comfortless; with not a friend
In whom
my soul can trust.

This sov'reign passion, scornful of restraint,
Even from the birth affects supreme command,
Swells in the breast, and with resistless force,
O'erbears each gentler motion of the mind.

Ibid.

Dr. Johnson's Irene.

Is it delusion this?

Or wears the mind of man within itself
A conscious feeling of its destination?
What say these suddenly imposed thoughts,
Which mark such deepen'd traces in the brain
On vivid real persuasion, as do make
My nerved foot tread firmer on the earth,
And my dilating form tower on its way?

Joanna Baillie's Ethwald, a. 1, s. 2.
I am as one

Who doth attempt some lofty mountain's height,
And having gained what to the upcast eye
The summit's point appear'd, astonish'd sees
Its cloudy top, majestic and enlarged,
Towering aloft, as distant as before.
It ever is the marked propensity
Of restless and aspiring minds to look
Into the stretch of dark futurity.

Ibid, a. 2, s. 4.

Ibid, a. 4, s. 2.

To th' expanded and aspiring soul,
To be but still the thing it long has been,
Is misery, e'en though enthron'd it were
Under the cope of high imperial state.

Baillie's Ethwald, pt. 2, a. 5, s. 5.
Ay-father! I have had those earthly visions
And noble aspirations in my youth,

To make my own the mind of other men,
The enlightener of nations and to rise
I knew not whither-it might be to fall;
But fall, even as the mountain-cataract,
Which having leapt from its more dazzling height,
Even in the foaming strength of its abyss,
Lies low but mighty still.-But this is past,
My thoughts mistook themselves.

Byron's Manfred, a. 3, s. 1.

You have deeply ventured;

But all must do so who would greatly win.

Byron's Doge of Venice, a. 2, s. 1. Here we may reign secure, and in my choice To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell: Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heav'n.

Milton's Paradise Lost, b. 1.

His trust was with th' Eternal to be deem'd
Equal in strength, and rather than be less
Car'd not to be at all; with that care lost
Went all his fear: of God, or Hell, or worse
He reck'd not.

Ibid, b. 2.

Lifted up so high

Ibid, b. 4.

I 'sdain'd subjection, and thought one step higher
Would set me highest.

Therefore with manlier objects we must try
His constancy, with such that have more show
Of worth, of honour, glory, and popular praise;
Rocks whereon greatest men have oftest wreck'd.

Milton's Paradise Regained, b. 2.

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