Know then this truth (enough for man to know), 'Virtue alone is happiness below.'

Essay on Man. Epistle iv. Line 309.

Never elated when one man's oppressed;
Never dejected while another's blessed.

Line 323.

Slave to no sect, who takes no private road,
But looks through nature up to nature's God.' Line 331.

Formed by thy converse, happily to steer
From grave to gay, from lively to severe.2

Say, shall my little bark attendant sail,
Pursue the triumph, and partake the gale?

Line 379.

Line 385.

Thou wert my guide, philosopher, and friend. Line 390.
That virtue only makes our bliss below,
And all our knowledge is ourselves to know.

To observations which ourselves we make,
We grow more partial for the observer's sake.

Line 397.

Moral Essays. Epistle i. Line 11. Like following life through creatures you dissect, You lose it in the moment you detect.

Line 29.

Half our knowledge we must snatch, not take. Line 40.

'T is from high life high characters are drawn ; A saint in crape is twice a saint in lawn.

"T is education forms the common mind: Just as the twig is bent the tree 's inclined.

Line 135.

Line 149.

1 You will find that it is the modest, not the presumptuous inquirer, who makes a real and safe progress in the discovery of divine truths. One follows nature and nature's God, — that is, he follows God in his works and in his word. - Bolingbroke, Letter to Mr. Pope.

2 Compare Dryden, The Art of Poetry. Page 227.

Manners with fortunes, humours turn with climes,
Tenets with books, and principles with times.1
Moral Essays. Epistle i. Line 172.
'Odious! in woollen! 't would a saint provoke,'
Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke. Line 246.

And you, brave Cobham! to the latest breath
Shall feel your ruling passion strong in death. Line 262.
Whether the charmer sinner it or saint it,

If folly grow romantic, I must paint it. Epistle ii. Line 15.

Choose a firm cloud before it fall, and in it

Catch, ere she change, the Cynthia of this minute.

Fine by defect, and delicately weak.2

Line 19.

Line 43.

With too much quickness ever to be taught;

With too much thinking to have common thought.

Line 97.

Atossa, cursed with every granted prayer,

Childless with all her children, wants an heir;

To heirs unknown descends the unguarded store,
Or wanders, heaven-directed, to the poor.

Line 147.

Virtue she finds too painful an endeavour,
Content to dwell in decencies for ever.

Line 163.

Men, some to business, some to pleasure take;
But every woman is at heart a rake.

Line 215.

See how the world its veterans rewards!
A youth of frolics, an old age of cards.

Line 243.

O, blest with temper, whose unclouded ray

Can make to-morrow cheerful as to-day!

Line 257.

1 Omnia mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis. Matthias Borbonius, in the Delicia Poetarum Germanorum,

i. 685.

2 Fine by degrees, and beautifully less.- Prior, Henry and Emma.

She who ne'er answers till a husband cools,
Or, if she rules him, never shows she rules.

Moral Essays. Epistle ii. Line 261.

And mistress of herself, though china fall.
Woman's at best a contradiction still.

Who shall decide, when doctors disagree,
And soundest casuists doubt, like you and me?

Line 268.

Line 270.

Epistle iii. Line 1.

Blest paper-credit! last and best supply!
That lends corruption lighter wings to fly.
But thousands die without or this or that,
Die, and endow a college or a cat.
The ruling passion, be it what it will,
The ruling passion conquers reason still.

Line 39.

Line 95.

Line 153.

Extremes in nature equal good produce;
Extremes in man concur to general use.

Line 161.

Rise, honest muse! and sing The Man of Ross. Line 250.

Ye little stars! hide your diminished rays.1

Line 282.

Who builds a church to God, and not to fame,
Will never mark the marble with his name.

Line 285.

In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half hung.

Line 299.

Where London's column, pointing at the skies,
Like a tall bully, lifts the head and lies.

Good sense, which only is the gift of Heaven,
And though no science, fairly worth the seven.

Line 339.

Epistle iv. Line 43.

1 Compare Milton, Paradise Lost. Page 187.

To rest, the cushion and soft dean invite,
Who never mentions hell to ears polite.1

Moral Essays. Epistle iv. Line 149.

Statesman, yet friend to truth! of soul sincere,
In action faithful, and in honour clear;
Who broke no promise, served no private end,
Who gained no title, and who lost no friend.

Epistle to Mr. Addison. Line 67.

"T is with our judgments as our watches, none Go just alike, yet each believes his own.2

Essay on Criticism. Part i. Line 9.

One science only will one genius fit;
So vast is art, so narrow human wit.

From vulgar bounds with brave disorder part,
And snatch a grace beyond the reach of art.
Those oft are stratagems which errors seem,
Nor is it Homer nods, but we that dream.

Of all the causes which conspire to blind
Man's erring judgment, and misguide the mind,
What the weak head with strongest bias rules,
Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools.

Line 60.

Line 152.

Line 177.

Part ii. Line 1.

A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.

8

Line 15.

1 In the reign of Charles II. a certain worthy divine at Whitehall thus addressed himself to the auditory at the conclusion of his sermon: "In short, if you don't live up to the precepts of the Gospel, but abandon yourselves to your irregular appetites, you must expect to receive your reward in a certain place which 't is not good manners to mention here."-Tom Brown, Laconics.

2 Compare Suckling, Epilogue to Aglaura. Page 163. 3 Compare Bacon, Essay xvi., Atheism. Page 138.

Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise!
Essay on Criticism. Part ii. Line 32.

Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see,

Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be.1

Line 53.

True wit is nature to advantage dressed,
What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed.

Line 97.

Words are like leaves; and where they most abound, Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.

Line 109.

Such laboured nothings, in so strange a style,
Amaze the unlearned, and make the learned smile.

Line 126.

In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold,
Alike fantastic if too new or old:

Be not the first by whom the new are tried,
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.

Line 133.

Some to church repair,

Not for the doctrine, but the music there.
These equal syllables alone require,
Though oft the ear the open vowels tire,
While expletives their feeble aid do join,

And ten low words oft creep in one dull line. Line 142.

A needless Alexandrine ends the song,

That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.2

Line 156.

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learned to dance.
'T is not enough no harshness gives offence;
The sound must seem an echo to the sense.

Line 162.

1 Compare Suckling, Epilogue to The Goblins. Page 163. Sheffield, Essay on Poetry. Page 236.

2 Solvuntur, tardosque trahit sinus ultimus orbes.

Virgil, Georgics, Lib. iii. 424.