St is the strain when zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
B:: when loud surges lash the sounding shore,
Thoarse rough verse should like the torrent roar.
When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line too labours, and the words move slow;
No so when swift Camilla scours the plain,

Fs o'er the unbending corn, and skims along the main.
Essay on Criticism. Part ii. Line 166.

For fools admire, but men of sense approve.

Fat let a lord once own the happy lines,

Line 191.

How the wit brightens! how the style refines! Line 220.

Fay will merit as its shade pursue,

Bat, like a shadow, proves the substance true. Line 266.

to orr is human, to forgive divine.

All seems infected that the infected spy,

Line 325.

As all looks yellow to the jaundiced eye.

Line 358.

And make each day a critic on the last. Part iii. Line 12.

Men must be taught as if you taught them not,
And things unknown proposed as things forgot. Line 15.

The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read,
With loads of learned lumber in his head.

Line 53.

1 Wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch. Shakespeare, Richard III., Act i. Sc. 3.

Content if hence the unlearned their wants may view, The learned reflect on what before they knew.1

Essay on Criticism. Part iii. Line 180. What dire offence from amorous causes springs, What mighty contests rise from trivial things.

The Rape of the Lock. Canto i. Line 1.

And all Arabia breathes from yonder box.

On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore,
Which Jews might kiss, and infidels adore.

Line 134.

Canto ii. Line 7.

If to her share some female errors fall,
Look on her face, and you'll forget them all.

Fair tresses man's imperial race insnare,
And beauty draws us with a single hair.2

Line 17.

Line 27.

Here thou, great Anna! whom three realms obey,
Dost sometimes counsel take-and sometimes tea.

At every word a reputation dies.

Canto iii. Line 7.

Line 16.

The hungry judges soon the sentence sign,
And wretches hang that jurymen may dine.

Line 21.

Coffee, which makes the politician wise,
And see through all things with his half-shut eyes.

The meeting points the sacred hair dissever
From the fair head, for ever, and for ever!
Sir Plume, of amber snuff-box justly vain,
And the nice conduct of a clouded cane.

Line 117.

Line 153.

Canto iv. Line 123.

1 Indocti discant et ament meminisse periti. This Latin hexameter, which is commonly ascribed to Horace, appeared for the first time as an epigraph to President Hénault's Abrégé Chronologique, and in the preface to the third edition of this work Hénault acknowledges that he had given it as a translation of this couplet.

2 Compare Dryden, Persius, Satire v. Page 228.

Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.
The Rape of the Lock. Canto v. Line 34.

Shut, shut the door, good John! fatigued, I said;
Tie up the knocker, say I'm sick, I'm dead.

Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. Prologue to the Satires. Line 1.

Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand,
They rave, recite, and madden round the land.
E'en Sunday shines no sabbath day to me.
Is there a parson much bemused in beer,
A maudlin poetess, a rhyming peer,
A clerk foredoomed his father's soul to cross,
Who pens a stanza when he should engross?

Friend to my life, which did not you prolong,
The world had wanted many an idle song.
Obliged by hunger and request of friends.

Line 5.

Line 12.

Line 15.

Line 27.

Line 44.

Fired that the house rejects him, "'Sdeath! I'll print it, And shame the fools.'

Line 61.

No creature smarts so little as a fool.

Line 84.

Destroy his fib, or sophistry-in vain!

The creature 's at his dirty work again.

Line 91.

As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame,
I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came.

Line 127.

Pretty in amber to observe the forms
Of hairs, or straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms!
The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare,
But wonder how the devil they got there.

Line 169.

Means not, but blunders round about a meaning;
And he whose fustian 's so sublimely bad,
It is not poetry, but prose run mad.

Line 186.

Should such a man, too fond to rule alone,

Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne.1
Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. Prologue to the Satires. Line 197.
Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
And without sneering teach the rest to sneer; 2
Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,
Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike.

By flatterers besieged,

Line 201.

And so obliging that he ne'er obliged;
Like Cato, give his little senate laws,

And sit attentive to his own applause.

Line 207.

Who but must laugh, if such a man there be?
Who would not weep, if Atticus were he?

Line 213.

Line 218.

On wings of winds came flying all abroad.3
Cursed be the verse, how well so e'er it flow,
That tends to make one worthy man my foe.

Satire or sense, alas! can Sporus feel?
Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?

Eternal smiles his emptiness betray,

Line 283.

Line 307.

As shallow streams run dimpling all the way. Line 315.

Wit that can creep, and pride that licks the dust.

Line 333.

That not in fancy's maze he wandered long,
But stooped to truth, and moralized his song. Line 340.

1 Compare Denham. Page 171.

2 When needs he must, yet faintly then he praises;

Somewhat the deed, much more the means he raises:

So marreth what he makes, and praising most, dispraises.
P. Fletcher, The Purple Island, Canto vii.

3 See Sternhold. Page 7.

4 See Spenser, Faerie Queene. Page 10.

Me let the tender office long engage
To rock the cradle of reposing age,

With lenient arts extend a mother's breath,

Make languor smile, and smooth the bed of death,
Explore the thought, explain the asking eye,
And keep awhile one parent from the sky.

Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. Prologue to the Satires. Line 408.

Lord Fanny spins a thousand such a day.

Satires, Epistles, and Odes of Horace. Satire i. Book ii. Line 6.

Satire 's my weapon, but I'm too discreet
To run amuck, and tilt at all I meet.

Line 69.

But touch me, and no minister so sore;
Whoe'er offends at some unlucky time
Slides into verse, and hitches in a rhyme,
Sacred to ridicule his whole life long,
And the sad burden of some merry song.

Line 76.

Bare the mean heart that lurks behind a star. Line 110.

There St. John mingles with my friendly bowl,
The feast of reason and the flow of soul.

For I, who hold sage Homer's rule the best,
Welcome the coming, speed the going guest.1

Give me again my hollow tree,
A crust of bread, and liberty.

1

Line 127.

Satire ii. Book ii. Line 159.

Satire vi. Book ii. Line 220.

Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.

Epilogue to the Satires. Dialogue i. Line 136.

To Berkeley every virtue under heaven.

Dialogue ii. Line 73.

When the brisk minor pants for twenty-one.

Epistle i. Book i. Line 38.

1 Compare Pope, The Odyssey, Book xv. Page 291.