Familiar Quotations Part 66

Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope; who expect that age will perform the promises of youth, and that the deficiencies of the present day will be supplied by the morrow; attend to the history of Ra.s.selas, Prince of Abyssinia.

_Epitaph on Robert Levett_.

In Misery's darkest cavern known, His useful care was ever nigh, Where hopeless Anguish poured his groan, And lonely Want retired to die.

_Epitaph on Claudius Phillips, the Musician_.

Phillips, whose touch harmonious could remove The pangs of guilty power or hapless love; Rest here, distressed by poverty no more, Here find that calm thou gav'st so oft before; Sleep, undisturbed, within this peaceful shrine, Till angels wake thee with a note like thine.

LORD LYTTELTON 1709-1773.

_Prologue to Thomson's Coriola.n.u.s_.

For his chaste Muse employed her heaven-taught lyre None but the n.o.blest pa.s.sions to inspire, Not one immoral, one corrupted thought, One line, which dying he could wish to blot.

_Epigram_.

None without hope e'er loved the brightest fair, But love can hope where reason would despair.

_Soliloquy on a Beauty in the Country_.

Where none admire, 'tis useless to excel; Where none are beaux, 'tis vain to be a belle.

_Song_.

Alas! by some degree of woe We every bliss must gain; The heart can ne'er a transport know, That never feels a pain.

EDWARD MOORE.

1712-1757.

_Fable IX. The Farmer, the Spaniel, and the Cat_.

Can't I another's face commend, And to her virtues be a friend, But instantly your forehead lowers, As if _her_ merit lessened _yours_?

_Fable X. The Spider and the Bee_.

The maid who modestly conceals Her beauties, while she hides, reveals; Give but a glimpse, and fancy draws Whate'er the Grecian Venus was.

But from the hoop's bewitching round, Her very shoe has power to wound.

_The Happy Marriage_.

Time still, as he flies, adds increase to her truth, And gives to her mind what he steals from her youth.

_The Gamester_. Act iii. Sc. 4.

'Tis now the summer of your youth: time has not cropt the roses from your cheek, though sorrow long has washed them.

WILLIAM SHENSTONE.

1714-1763.

_Written on the Window of an Inn_.

Whoe'er has traveled life's dull round, Where'er his stages may have been, May sigh to think he still has found His warmest welcome at an inn.

_Jemmy Dawson_.

For seldom shall you hear a tale So sad, so tender, and so true.