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Philologists, who chase

A panting syllable through time and space,
Start it at home, and hunt it in the dark,
To Gaul, to Greece, and into Noah's ark.

Retirement. Line 691.

I praise the Frenchman,1 his remark was shrewd,
How sweet, how passing sweet is solitude!
But grant me still a friend in my retreat,
Whom I may whisper, solitude is sweet.
A kick that scarce would move a horse
May kill a sound divine.

I am monarch of all I survey,

My right there is none to dispute.

Line 739.

The Yearly Distress.

Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk.

O Solitude! where are the charms

That

sages have seen in thy face?

But the sound of the church-going bell
These valleys and rocks never heard,
Ne'er sighed at the sound of a knell,
Or smiled when a Sabbath appeared.

How fleet is a glance of the mind!

Compared with the speed of its flight, The tempest itself lags behind,

And the swift-winged arrows of light.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid.

There goes the parson, O illustrious spark!

On observing some Names of Little Note.

And there, scarce less illustrious, goes the clerk.

But oars alone can ne'er prevail

To reach the distant coast;

The breath of heaven must swell the sail,

Or all the toil is lost.

Human Frailty.

1 La Bruyère.

And the tear that is wiped with a little address,
May be followed perhaps by a smile.
"T is Providence alone secures
In every change both mine and yours.

I shall not ask Jean Jaques Rousseau
If birds confabulate or no.

Misses! the tale that I relate

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The Rose.

A Fable. Moral.

Pairing Time Anticipated.

Ibid.

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And Gilpin long live he;

And when he next doth ride abroad,
May I be there to see!

The path of sorrow, and that path alone,

Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown.

Ibid.

To an Afflicted Protestant Lady.

United yet divided, twain at once.

So sit two kings of Brentford on one throne.1

The Task. Book i. The Sofa. Line 77.

Nor rural sights alone, but rural sounds,

Exhilarate the spirit, and restore

The tone of languid nature.

The earth was made so various, that the mind

Of desultory man, studious of change,

Line 181.

And pleased with novelty, might be indulged. Line 506.

1 Two Kings of Brentford, from Buckingham's play of The Rehearsal.

God made the country, and man made the town.1
The Task. Book i. The Sofa. Line 749.

for a lodge in some vast wilderness,2
Some boundless contiguity of shade,
Where rumour of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,

Might never reach me more.

Book ii. The Timepiece. Line 1.

Mountains interposed

Make enemies of nations who had else,
Like kindred drops, been mingled into one.
I would not have a slave to till my ground,
To carry me, to fan me while I sleep,
And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth
That sinews bought and sold have ever earned.

Line 17.

Line 29.

Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs
Receive our air, that moment they are free;
They touch our country and their shackles fall. Line 40.

Fast-anchored isle.

Line 151.

England, with all thy faults I love thee still,

My country!4

Line 206.

Presume to lay their hand upon the ark

Line 231.

Praise enough

Of her magnificent and awful cause.

To fill the ambition of a private man,

That Chatham's language was his mother tongue.

1 Compare Bacon, Essays, Of Gardens. Page 138.

Line 235.

2 Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging-place of wayfaring men!-Jeremiah ix. 2.

3 Servi peregrini, ut primum Galliæ fines penetraverint eodem momento liberi sunt. - Bodinus, Liber i. c. 5.

4 Compare Churchill, The Farewell. Page 357.

There is a pleasure in poetic pains

Which only poets know.1

The Task. Book ii. The Timepiece. Line 285.

Transforms old print

To zigzag manuscript, and cheats the eyes.
Of gallery critics by a thousand arts.

Reading what they never wrote,

Just fifteen minutes, huddle up their work,

Line 363.

And with a well-bred whisper close the scene. Line 411.

Whoe'er was edified, themselves were not.

Line 444.

That gives it all its flavour.

Variety 's the very spice of life,

She that asks

His head,

Her dear five hundred friends.

Not yet by time completely silvered o'er,

Bespoke him past the bounds of freakish youth,
But strong for service still, and unimpaired.

Domestic happiness, thou only bliss
Of Paradise that has survived the fall!

Line 606.

Line 642.

Line 702.

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1 Compare Dryden, Spanish Friar. Page 230.

Who loves a garden, loves a greenhouse too.

The Task. Book iii. The Garden. Line 566.

I burn to set the imprisoned wranglers free,
And give them voice and utterance once again.
Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,
Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,
And while the bubbling and loud hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups,1
That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each,
So let us welcome peaceful evening in.

Book iv. Winter Evening. Line 34.

Which not even critics criticise.

And Katerfelto, with his hair on end

At his own wonders, wondering for his bread.
'T is pleasant, through the loopholes of retreat,
Το peep at such a world, - to see the stir
Of the great Babel, and not feel the crowd.
While fancy, like the finger of a clock,
Runs the great circuit, and is still at home.
O Winter, ruler of the inverted year.
With spots quadrangular of diamond form,
Ensanguined hearts, clubs typical of strife,
And spades, the emblems of untimely graves.

Line 51.

Line 86.

Line 118.

Line 120.

Line 217.

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1 Compare Bishop Berkeley, Siris. Page 260.

2 It was Cowper who gave this now common name to the migno

nette.

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