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Let me tell you, Cassius, you yourself
Arc much condemn'd to have an itching palm;
To sell and mart your offices for gold
To undeservers.

Shaks. Julius Cæsar. The world is not thy friend, nor the world's law: The world affords no law to make thee rich; Then be not poor, but break it and take this. Shaks. Romeo and Juliet.

Who thinketh to buy villany with gold,
Shall ever find such faith so bought-so sold.
Marston's Sophonisba.

Silver, though white,
Yet it draws black lines; it shall not rule my palm
There to mark forth his base corruption.

Middleton and Rowley's Fair Quarrel.

Petitions not sweetened With gold, are but unsavoury and oft refused; Or if received, are pocketed, not read. A suitor's swelling tears by the glowing beams Of choleric authority are dried up Before they fall, or if seen, never pitied.

Massinger.

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CALAMITY.

Do not insult calamity:

It is a barb'rous grossness, to lay on
The weight of scorn, where heavy misery
Too much already weighs men's fortunes down.

Daniel's Philotas.

Calamity is man's true touch-stone.

Beaumont and Fletcher's Four Plays in One.
How wisely fate ordain'd for human kind
Calamity which is the perfect glass
Wherein we truly see and know ourselves.
How justly it created life too short!
For being incident to many griefs,
Had it been destin'd to continue long,
Fate, to please fools, had done the wise great
wrong.

Sir W. Davenant's Law against Lovers.
Know, he that

Foretells his own calamity, and makes
Events before they come, twice over doth
Endure the pains of evil destiny.
But we must trust to virtue, not to fate;
That may protect, whom cruel stars will hate.
Sir W. Davenant's Distresses.

Thus, sometimes hath the brightest day a cloud;
And, after summer, ever more succeeds
Barren winter with his wrathful nipping cold;
So cares and joys abound, as seasons fleet.

Shaks. Henry VI.
When men once reach their autumn, sickly joys
Fall off apace, as yellow leaves from trees,
At every little breath misfortune blows;
"Till left quite naked of their happiness,
In the chill blasts of winter they expire.
This is the common lot.

Tell me no more

Young.

Of my soul's lofty gifts! Are they not vain
To quench its haunting thirst for happiness?
Have I not loved, and striven, and failed to bind
One true heart unto me, whereon my own
Might find a resting-place, a home for all
Its burden of affection? I depart
Unknown, though Fame goes with me; I must
leave

The earth unknown.

Mrs. Hemans.

I turn me back, and find a barren waste, Joyless and rayless; a few spots are there, Where briefly it was granted me to faste The tenderness of youthful love-in air The charm is broken.

Percival

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Pure was the temp'rate air, an even calm Perpetual reign'd, save what the zephyrs bland Breath'd o'er the blue expanse.

Thomson's Seasons. Gradual sinks the breeze Into a perfect calin; that not a breath I heard to quiver thro' the closing woods, Or rustling turn the many twinkling leaves Of aspen tall. The uncurling floods, diffus'd In glassy breadth, seem through delusive lapse, Forgetful of their course. "Tis silence all, And pleasing expectation.

Thomson's Seasons.

The wind breathed soft as lovers sigh, And oft renew'd seem'd oft to die, With breathless pause between.

O who with speech of war and woes, Would wish to break the soft repose Of such enchanting scene!

Scott's Lord of the Isles.

St. George's banner, broad and gay,
Now faded, as the fading ray
Less bright, and less, was flung;

The evening gale had scarce the power
To wave it on the donjon tower,
So heavily it hung.

The sea is like a silvery lake,
And o'er its calm the vessel glides
Gently as if it fear'd to wake
The slumbers of the silent tides.

Moore.

Serenely my heart took the hue of the hour,
Its passions were sleeping, were mute as the dead,
And the spirit becalm'd but remember'd their
power,

As the billow the force of the gale that was fled!
Moore.

And all was stillness, save the sca-bird's cry,
And dolphin's leap, and little billow crost
By some low rock or shelve, that made it fret
Against the boundary it scarcely wet.

Byron's Don Juan.
So calm the waters scarcely seem to stray,
And yet they glide like happiness away.

Byron's Lara.

When all the fiercer passions cease,
(The glory and disgrace of youth);
When the deluded soul in peace,

Can listen to the voice of truth;
When we are taught in whom to trust,
And how to spare, to spend, to give;
(Our prudence kind, our pity just,)
'Tis then we rightly learn to live.

Thy beauty is as undenied
As the beauty of a star;

Scott's Marmion. And thy heart beats just as equally,

'Twas one of those ambrosial eves
A day of storm so often leaves
At its calm setting-when the west
Opens her golden bowers to rest,
And a moist radiance from the skies
Shoots trembling down, as from the eyes
Of some meek penitent, whose last
Bright hours atone for dark ones past,
And whose sweet tears, o'er wrong forgiven,
Shine as they fall with light from heaven!
Moore's Lalla Rookh.

How calm,--how beautiful comes on
The stilly hour, when storms are gone,
When warring winds have died away,
And clouds, beneath the glancing ray,
Melt off and leave the land and sea,
Sleeping in bright tranquillity;-
When the blue waters rise and fall,
In sleepy sunshine mantling all;
And ev'n that swell the tempest leaves,
Is like the full and silent heaves
Of lovers' hearts, when newly blest,
To newly to be quite at rest!

Moore's Lalla Rookh.

Whate'er thy praises are; And so long without a parallel

Thy loveliness hath shone, That, followed like the tided moon, Thou movest as calmly on.

CANDOUR.

Crabbe.

Willis

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Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot
That it doth singe yourself; we may outrun,
By violent swiftness, that which we run at,
And lose by over-running. Know you not,
The fire, that mounts the liquor till it run o'er,
In seeming to augment it, wastes it? Be advis'd.
Shaks. Henry VIII.
Trust none;

A cause, in which our strength we should not For oaths are straws, men's faiths are wafer cakes,

waste

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Lady, you are the cruelest she alive,
If you will lead these graces to the grave,
And leave no copy.

Shakspeare.

Most women's weak resolves, like reeds, will fly, Shake with each breath, and bend with every sigh; Mine, like an oak whose firm roots deep descend, Nor breath of love can shake, nor sigh can bend. Gay,

CEREMONY-CHALLENGE-CHANGE.

61

If I am fair, 't is for myself alone;

I do not wish to have a sweetheart near me, Nor would I call another's heart my own, Nor have a gallant lover to revere me;

For surely I would plight my faith to none,

| Then ceremony leads her bigots forth,

Prepar'd to fight for shadows of no worth;
While truths, on which eternal things depend,
Find not, or hardly find, a single friend:
As soldiers watch the signal of command,

Though many an amorous wit might jump to They learn to bow, to kneel, to sit, to stand;

hear me;

For I have heard that lovers prove deceivers,
When once they find that maidens are believers.
From Michel Angelo.
From her lone path she never turns aside,
Though passionate worshippers before her fall;
Like some pure planet in her lonely pride,
She seems to soar and beam above them all!
Mrs. Welby.
And thus she wanders on-half sad, half blest.-
Without a mate for the pure lonely heart,
That, yearning, throbs within her virgin breast,
Never to find its lovely counterpart.

Mrs. Welby. I'm an old maid!—and though I suffer by it I Must change my style, and leave off gay society. Willis.

O many a summer's morning glow
Has lent the rose its ray,
And many a winter's drifting snow
Has swept its bloom away;
But she has kept the faithless pledge
To this, her winter hour,
And keeps it still, herself alone,
And wasted like the flower.

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O. W. Holmes.

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I seek not what chances

Have doomed us to part;

What are thy rents? What are thy comings in? I know thou hast told me

O ceremony, show me but thy worth:

What is thy toll, O adoration?

Art thou aught else but place, degree, and form,
Creating awe and fear in other men?
Wherein thou art less happy, being fear'd,
Than they in fearing.

To love thee no more, And I still must obey

Where I once did adore.

Bryant.

Tennyson.

Hoffman

In bower and garden rich and rare
There's many a cherish'd flower,
Whose beauty fades, whose fragrance flits
Within the flitting hour.
Not so the simple forest leaf,
Shaks. Henry V. Unprized, unnoticed, lying—

What drink'st thou oft, instead of homage sweet, But poison'd flattery? O be sick, great greatness, And bid thy ceremony give thee cure.

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