And he gave it for his opinion, that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together.

Gulliver's Travels.

Bread is the staff of life.

Tale of a Tub.

WILLIAM CONGREVE. 1669-1729.

MUSIC hath charms to soothe the savage breast,

To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.

The Mourning Bride. Acti. Sc. 1.

By magic numbers and persuasive sound.

Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned,

Ibid.

Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned. Ibid. Act iii. Sc. 8.

For blessings ever wait on virtuous deeds,
And though a late, a sure reward succeeds.

Ibid. Act v. Sc. 12.

If there's delight in love, 't is when I see
That heart, which others bleed for, bleed for me.

The Way of the World. Act iii. Sc. 12.

Ferdinand Mendez Pinto was but a type of thee, thou liar of the first magnitude. Love for Love. Act ii. Sc. 5.

Is

NICHOLAS ROWE. 1673-1718.

S she not more than painting can express,
Or youthful poets fancy when they love?

The Fair Penitent.

Is this that haughty, gallant, gay Lothario?

Act ii. Sc. 1.

Ibid. Act v. Sc. 1.

ALEXANDER POPE. 1688-1744.

ESSAY ON MAN.

AWAKE, my St. John! leave all meaner things

To low ambition, and the pride of kings.

Let us (since life can little more supply
Than just to look about us, and to die)
Expatiate free o'er all this scene of man ;
A mighty maze! but not without a plan.

- Epistle i. Line 1.

Eye Nature's walks, shoot folly as it flies,
And catch the manners living as they rise;
Laugh where we must, be candid where we can,
But vindicate the ways of God to man.

*

Epistle i. Line 13.

Heaven from all creatures hides the book of Fate.

Epistle i. Line 77.

*And justify the ways of God to men.

Paradise Lost, B. i. L. 26.

Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food,
And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood.

Epistle i. Line 83.

Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,
Atoms or systems into ruin hurled,
And now a bubble burst, and now a world.

Epistle i. Line 87.

Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never is, but always to be blest.
The soul, uneasy, and confin’d from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.
Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutored mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind.

Far as the solar walk or milky way.

Epistle i. Line 95.
Epistle i. Line 102.

But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.

Epistle i. Line 111.

In pride, in reasoning pride, our error lies;
All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies.
Pride still is aiming at the blessed abodes,
Men would be angels, angels would be gods.

Epistle i. Line 123.

Die of a rose in aromatic pain.

Epistle i. Line 200.

The spider's touch how exquisitely fine!

Feels at each thread, and lives along the line.*

Epistle i. Line 217.

Much like a subtle spider which doth sit,
In middle of her web, which spreadeth wide;

M

What thin partitions sense from thought divide.*

Epistle i. Line 226.

All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul.

Epistle i. Line 267.

As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns,
As the rapt seraph that adores and burns.

Epistle i. Line 277.

All nature is but art, unknown to thee;
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;
All discord, harmony not understood;

All partial evil, universal good;

And spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,
One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right.

Epistle i. Line 289.

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;

The proper study of mankind is man.* Epistle ii. Line 1.

If ought do touch the utmost thread of it

She feels it instantly on every side.

Sir JOHN DAVIES (1570-1626). Immortality of the Soul.

Our souls sit close and silently within,

And their own web from their own entrails spin;

And when eyes meet far cff, our sense is such,

That, spider-like, we feel the tenderest touch.

DRYDEN. Marriage à la Mode. Act ii. Sc. 1.

Great wits are sure to madness near allied,
And thin partitions do their bounds divide.

DRYDEN, ante, p. 158.

'Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiæ fuit.' Seneca, De Tranquillitate Animi, xvii. 10, quotes this from Aristotle, who gives as one of his Problemata (xxx. r), Διὰ τί πάντες ὅσοι περιττοὶ γεγόνασιν ἄνδρες ἢ κατὰ φιλοσοφίαν ἢ πολιτικὴν ἢ ποίησιν ἤ τέχνας φαίνονται μελαγχολικοὶ ὄντες.

From Charron (de la Sargesse) :-'La vraye science et le vray étude de l'homme c'est l'homme.'

Chaos of thought and passion, all confused;
Still by himself abused or disabused;
Created half to rise, and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled;
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world.*

Epistle . Line 13.

Fix'd like a plant on his peculiar spot,
To draw nutrition, propagate, and rot. Epistle ¡¡. Line 63.

On life's vast ocean diversely we sail,
Reason the card, but passion is the gale.

Epistle . Line 107

And hence one master-passion in the breast,
Like Aaron's serpent, swallows up the rest.

Epistle. Line 131

The young disease, that must subdue at length,
Grows with his growth, and strengthens with his

strength.

Epistle . Line 135.

Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,+
As, to be hated, needs but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.

Epistle ii. Line 217.

Virtuous and vicious every man must be,
Few in th' extreme, but all in the degree.

Epistle . Line 231.

* Quelle chimère est-ce donc que l'homme quelle nouveauté, quel chaos, quel sujet de contradiction! Juge de toutes choses, imbécile ver de terre, dépositaire du vrai, amas d'incertitude, gloire et rebut de l'univers.-PASCAL. Systèmes des Philosophes, xxv.

For truth has such a face and such a mien,

As to be loved needs only to be seen.

DRYDEN. The Hind and Panther.