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Was destin'd― in a finer mould was wrought,

And temper'd with a purer, brighter flame.

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Forgive me, Valentine: if hearty sorrow
Be a sufficient ransom for offence,

I tender it here; I do as truly suffer
As e'er I did offend.

SHAKSPEARE

465

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High minds, of native pride and force,
Most deeply feel thy pangs, remorse:

Fear for their scourge mean villains have:
Thou art the torturer of the brave.

SCOTT's Marmion.

Remorse drops anguish from her burning eyes,
Feels hell's eternal worm, and, shuddering, dies.

CHARLES SPRAGUE

466

REPENTANCE REPORT - RUMOUR.

Pangs more corrosive and severe,

More fierce, more poignant and intense,
Than ever hostile sword or spear

Wak'd in the breast of innocence.

MRS. HOLFORD'S Margaret of Anjou

REPENTANCE.-(See REMORSE.)

REPORT - RUMOUR.

Then straight thro' all the world 'gan fame to fly;
A monster swifter none is under sun;
Increasing, as in waters we descry

The circles small, of nothing that begun,

Till of the drops, which from the skies do fall,

The circles spread and hide the waters all.

Rumour's a pipe

Mirror for Magistrates

Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures;
And of so easy and so plain a stop,

That the blunt monster with uncounted heads,
The still, discordant, wavering multitude,
Can play upon it.

SHAKSPEARE.

It must be so ; - for Thomas Brown, Esquire,
Heard Blab's wife tell the son of Mr. Smith,
(Him, that was christen'd John, after his sire —
Men often to transmit their names desire,)—

That Higgons said, while he was walking with
That charming maiden lady aged forty,

'Yclept Miss Catchem, (Higgons was her beau,)
She told him (confidentially) that naughty
And prattling gossip, Mrs. Wilkins, thought she
Heard Polly's cousin's sister's aunt say so.

J. T WATSON

REPROOF - REPUTATION, &c

467

The flying rumours gather'd as they roll'd;
Scarce
any tale was sooner heard than told,
And all who told it added something new,
And all who heard it, made enlargement too;

In every ear it spread, on every tongue it grew.

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Forbear sharp speeches to her: she's a lady
So tender of rebukes, that words are strokes,
And strokes, death to her.

Pr'ythee, forgive me;

I did but chide in jest; the best loves use it
Sometimes; it sets an edge upon affection.

SHAKSPEARE.

SHAKSPEARE.

MIDDLETON

Reprove not in their wrath incensèd men;
Good counsel comes clean out of season then:
But when their fury is appeas'd and past,
They will conceive their faults, and mend at last.

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468

REVENGE - VENGEANCE.

Thus unlamented pass the proud away,

The gaze of fools, the pageant of a day:
So perish all whose breast ne'er learn'd to glow
For others' good, or melt at others' wo.

The world's best comfort was, his doom was past-
Die when he might, he must be damn'd at last.

So fares the follower of the Muses' train;
He toils to starve, and only lives in death;
We slight him till our patronage is vain,

Then round his skeleton a garland wreathe.

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COWPER.

Rejected Addresses.

Do thou the good thy thoughts oft meditate,
And thou shalt feel the good man's peace within,
And after death his wreath of glory win.

CARLOS WILCOX.

REVENGE-VENGEANCE.

Oh, that the slave had forty thousand lives!
One is too poor, too weak for my revenge!

SHAKSPEARS.

I am disgrac'd, impeach'd, and baffled here;
Pierc'd to the soul with slander's venom'd spear;
The which no balm can cure but his heart's blood,
Which breath'd this poison.

The fairest action of our human life

Is scorning to revenge an injury;

For who forgives without a further strife,
His adversary's heart to him doth tie:

And 't is a finer conquest, truly said,
To win the heart, than overthrow the head.

Revenge, at first though sweet,

Bitter ere long, back on itself recoils.

SHAKSPEARS.

LADY E. CAREW.

MILTON'S Paradise Lost.

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