A prison is a house of care,

A place where none can thrive,

A touchstone true to try a friend,
A grave for one alive;

Sometimes a place of right,

Sometimes a place of wrong,
Sometimes a place of rogues and thieves,
And honest men among.

Inscription on Edinburgh Tolbooth.

A prison! heav'ns, I loath the hated name, Famine's metropolis, the sink of shame, A nauseous sepulchre, whose craving womb Hourly inters poor mortals in its tomb; By ev'ry plague and ev'ry ill possess'd, Ev'n purgatory itself to thee 's a jest; Emblem of hell, nursery of vice, Thou crawling university of lice: Where wretches numberless to ease their pains, With smoke and ale delude their pensive chains. How shall I thee avoid? or with what spell Dissolve th' enchantment of thy magic cell? Ev'n Fox himself can't boast so many martyrs, As yearly fall within thy wretched quarters. Money I've none, and debts I cannot pay, Unless my vermin will those debts defray. Not scolding wife, nor inquisition's worse; Thou 'rt ev'ry mischief cramm'd into one curse. Tom Brown.

How like

A prison's to a grave! when dead, we are
With solemn pomp brought thither; and our heirs,
Masking their joy in false dissembled tears,
Weep o'er the hearse: but earth no sooner covers
The earth brought thither, but they turn away
With inward smiles, the dead no more remember'd:
So enter'd into a prison.

Massinger's Maid of Honour.

A prison is in all things like a grave, Where we no better privileges have Than dead men; nor so good. The soul once fled Lives freer now, than when she was cloist'red In walls of flesh; and though she organs want To act her swift designs, yet all will grant Her faculties more clear, now separate, Than if the same conjunction, which of late Did marry her to earth, had stood in force; Incapable of death, or of divorce; But an imprison'd mind, though living, dies, And, at one time, feels two captivities : A narrow dungeon which her body holds, But narrower body, which herself enfolds. Dr. King, Bishop Chichester They say this is the dwelling of distress, The very mansion-house of misery! To me, alas! it seems but just the same, With that more spacious jail—the busy world! Beller's Injured Innocence. They enter'd-'t was a prison room Of stern serenity and gloom.

Scott's Lady of the Lake. A felon's cellThe fittest earthly type of hell!

Whittier.

And faint not, heart of man! though years wane slow!

There have been those that from the deepest caves,
And cells of night and fastnesses below
The stormy dashing of the occan waves,
Down, farther down than gold lies hid, have nurs'd
A quenchless hope, and watch'd their time and
burst

On the bright day, like wakeners from the grave.
Mrs. Hemans

PRODIGALITY.

Th like a fever that doth shake a man
Frm strength to weakness, I consume myself:
I know this company, their custom wild,
Hated, abhorr'd of good men; yet, like a child,
By reason's rule instructed how to know
Evil from good, I to the worser go.

Wilkins's Miseries of enforced Marriage.
What is a prodigal? faith, like a brush,
That wears himself, to flourish others' clothes;
And having worn his heart ev'n to the stump,
He's thrown away like a deformed lump:
O suca am I! I have spent all the wealth
My ancestors did purchase; made others brave
In shape and riches, and myself a knave:
For tho' my wealth rais'd some to paint their door,
'Tis shut against me, saying, I am poor.

Wilkins's Miseries of enforced Marriage. What will this come to? he commands us to Provide, and give great gifts, and all out of An empty coffer: nor will he know His purse, or yield me this

To show him what a beggar his heart is,
Being of no power to make his wishes good;
His promises fly so beyond his state,
That what he speaks is all in debt; he owes for
every word.

He is so kind, that he pays interest for 't:
His lands put to their books.

Shaks. Timon of Athens.

That which made him gracious in your eyes,
And gilded over his imperfections,
Is wasted and consumed ev'n like ice,
Which by the vehemence of heat dissolves,
And glides to many rivers; so his wealth,
That felt a prodigal hand, hot in expense,
Melted within his gripe, and from his coffers
Ran like a violent stream to other men's.
Cook's Green's Tu quoque.
Liberality

In some circumstances may be allow'd;
As when it has no end but honesty;
With a respect of person, quantity,
Quality, time, and place: but this profuse,

Vain, injudicious spending makes him idiot;
And yet the best of liberality

Is to be liberal to ourselves: and thus
Your wisdom is most liberal, and knows
How fond a thig it is for discreet men
To purchase with the loss of their estate
The name of one poor virtue, liberality,
And that too, only from the mouth of beggars!
One of your judgment would not, I am sure,
Buy all the virtues at so dear a rate

Randolph's Muse's Looking-Glass.

PRODIGIES.

At my nativity,

The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,
Of burning cressets: and, at my birth,
The frame and huge foundation of the earth
Shak'd like a coward.

Shaks. Henry IV. Part
The night has been unruly: where we lay,
Our chimneys were blown down: and, as they say
Lamenting heard i' the air; strange screams of
death;

And prophesying with accents terrible,
New hatch'd to the woeful time: the obscure bird
Of dire combustion, and confus'd events,
Was feverous, and did shake.
Clamour'd the live-long night: some say the earth

Shaks. Macbeth.

The spring, the summer,
The chilling autumn, angry winter, change
Their wonted liveries, and the 'maz'd world,
By their increase, now knows not which is which.
Shaks. Midsummer Night's Dream

No 'scape of nature, no distemper'd day,
No common wind, no customed event,
But they will pluck away its natural cause,
And call them meteors, prodigies, and signs,
Abortives, presages, and tongues of heaven.
Shaks. King John

Learn'd men oft greedily pursue
Things that are rather wonderful than true,
And, in their nicest speculations, choose

To make their own discoveries strange news,
And nat'ral hist'ry rather a gazette
Of rareties stupendous and far-fet;
Believe no truths are worthy to be known
That are not strongly vast and overgrown,
And strive to explicate appearances,
Not as they're probable, but as they please
In vain endeavour nature to suborn,
And, for their pains, are justly paid with scorn
Bule