tongue, that an echo must wait till she dies, before it can catch her last words.

Speed. ITEM, she is slow in words.

CONGREVE.

Launce. O villain, that set this down among her vices! To be slow in words, is a woman's only virtue: I pray thee, out with't; and place it for her chief virtue.

Speed. Item, she is proud.

Laun. Out with that, too; it was Eve's legacy, and cannot be ta'en from her.

Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act II.

THERE is the same difference between their tongues as between the hour and the minute hand, one goes ten times as fast, and the other signifies ten times as much.

SIDNEY SMITH. Letters.

WHO, inattentive to answers accumulates questions, means not to be informed, and he who means not to be informed acts like a fool.

AN IDLE PRATTLER.

LAVATER.

O BEAR with him; an' he should lack matter and words too, 'twere pitiful.

BEN JONSON. Every Man out of his Humour.

VIRTUE.

PEACE, brother; be not over exquisite

To cast the fashion of uncertain evils,

For grant they be so; while they rest unknown,
What need a man forestall his date of grief,
And run to meet what he would most avoid?
Or, if they be but false alarms of fear,

How bitter is such self delusion!

I do not think my sister so to seek,

Or so unprincipled in virtue's book,

And the sweet peace that goodness bosoms ever,
As that the single want of light and noise

(Not being in danger, as I trust she is not)

Could stir the constant mood of her calm thoughts,

And put them into misbecoming plight.

Virtue could see to do what virtue would*

By her own radiant light, though sun and moon
Were in the flat sea sunk. And wisdom's self
Oft seeks to sweet retired solitude;

Where with her best nurse, contemplation,
She plumes her feathers and lets grow her wings,
That in the various bustle of resort

Were all too ruffled, and sometimes impair'd.
He that has light within his own clear breast,
May sit i' the centre, and enjoy bright day:
But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts,
Benighted walks under the mid-day sun,
Himself is his own dungeon.

SWEET day, so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky;
The dews shall weep thy fall to-night;
For thou must die.

Sweet rose, whose hue, angry and brave
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye,

Thy root is ever in its grave,

And thou must die.

Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie,
My music shows ye have your closes,
And all must die.

Only a sweet and virtuous soul,

Like season'd timber, never gives;

But though the whole world turns to coal,

Then chiefly lives.

Comus.

G. HERBERT.

Ir is one, and not the least, of the many trials which virtue has to encounter, that she is liable to be seduced from her more

*

His goodness sets not, but in dark can run;

The sun to others writeth laws,

And is their virtue: virtue is his sun.

Court-virtues bear, like gems, the highest rate,

G. HERBERT.

Born where heaven's influence scarce can penetrate:
In life's low vale, the sort the virtues like,
They please as beauties, here as wonders strike.

tranquil, but happier path, by the imposing bustle, the entertaining whims, the everchanging, careless, animating revelry, which may generally be found in the haunts of her most fatal enemies.

SMYTH. Lectures on Modern History, Lecture 19.

MORTALS that would follow me,

Love virtue; she alone is free:

She can teach ye how to climb
Higher than the sphery clime;
Or if virtue feeble were

Heaven itself would stoop to her.

Comus.

Ir is pleasant to be virtuous and good, because that is to excel many others; it is pleasant to grow better, because that is to excel ourselves: it is pleasant to mortify and subdue our lusts, because that is victory: it is pleasant to command our appetites and passions, and to keep them in due order within the bounds of reason and religion, because this is empire.

TILLOTSON.

AUTUMN.

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness!
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun,
Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,

For Summer has o'er brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,",
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Though the same sun, with all-diffusive rays,
Blush in the rose, and in the diamond blaze,
We prize the effort of the stronger pow'r,
And justly set the gem above the flow'r.

POPE.

Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;

Or by a cider-press, with patient look

Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ah, where are they?
Think not of them: thou hast thy music, too,
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies!
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

How splendid all the sky! how still!
How mild the dying gale!

How soft the whispers of the rill
That winds along the dale!
So tranquil nature's works appear,

It seems the Sabbath of the year;

As if, the Summer's labour past, she chose
This season's sober calm for blandishing repose.

Such is of well-spent life the time,

When busy days are past,

KEATS.

Man verging gradual from his prime,
Meets sacred peace at last!

His flowery Spring of pleasure's o'er,

And Summer's full-blown pride no more,

He gains pacific Autumn, meek and bland,

And dauntless braves the stroke of Winter's palsied hand. FRANCIS FAWKES. An Autumnal Ode.

CALM.

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,—
Fresh as if day again were born,
Again upon the lap of morn!

When the bright blossoms, rudely torn
And scatter'd at the whirlwind's will,
Hang fleeting in the pure air still,
Filling it all with precious balm
In gratitude for this sweet calm ;-
And every drop the thunder-showers
Have left upon the grass and flowers
Sparkles, as 't were that lightning-gem,
Whose liquid flame is born of them.

MOORE. Lalla Rookh.

THE wond'rous boat scant touch'd the troubled main,
But all the sea still, hush'd, and quiet was ;*
Vanish'd the clouds, ceased the wind and rain,
The threaten'd storm did overblow and pass:
A gentle breathing air made ev'n and plain
The azure face of Heaven's transparent glass;
And Heaven itself smil'd from the skies above,
With a calm clearness, on the earth, his love.

FAIRFAX' TASSO. Book XV.

*

And sage Hippotades their answer brings,
That not a blast was from his dungeon stray'd.

The air was calm, and on the level brine

Sleek Panope with all her sisters play'd.

LYCIDAS.