I am the wind to blow him to the bursting: choak'd, strangled? I can do't and save a halter: would you break down his doors? Behold an earthquake: open and enter them? A battering ram: will you sit down to supper? I'm your guest, your very Fly to enter without bidding: would you move off? You'll move a well as soon: I'm for all work, and though the job were stabbing, betraying, false-accusing, only say, Do this! and it is done: I stick at nothing; they call me Thunder-bolt for my dispatch ; friend of my friends am I let actions speak me; I'm much too modest to commend myself. R. CUMBERLAND 16 THE RIGHT USE OF RICHES WEAK is the vanity, that boasts of riches, could they be yours to all succeeding time, and purchase friends; 'twill be more lasting treasure, R. CUMBERLAND 17 HOMO ES F you, O Trophimus, and you alone IF of all your mother's sons have Nature's charter for privilege of pleasures uncontrolled, with full exemption from the strokes of fortune, you then with cause may vent your loud reproach, 18 19 but, if you live and breathe the common air you are a man, and, though by nature weak, R. CUMBERLAND PEACE-THE SOVEREIGN GOOD PHILOSOPHERS consume much time and pain, to seek the sovereign good; nor is there one who yet hath struck upon it: Virtue some, and prudence some contend for, whilst the knot grows harder by their struggle to untie it. I, a mere clown, in turning up the soil have dug the secret forth:-All-gracious Jove! tis Peace, most lovely and of all beloved; peace is the bounteous goddess, who bestows weddings and holidays and joyous feasts, relations, friends, wealth, plenty, social comforts and pleasures, which alone make life a blessing. R. CUMBERLAND RETORT FROM A MAN OF LOW BIRTH TO AN OLD GOOD if you lavegies to me? OOD gossip, if you love me, prate no more; Away to those, who have more need of them! You call the Scythians barbarous, and despise them; yet Anacharsis was a Scythian born; and every man of a like noble nature, tho' he were moulded from an Ethiop's loins, R. CUMBERLAND 20 VIRTUE ALONE IS TRUE NOBILITY IS only title thou disdain'st in her, the which is it, our bloods, of colour, weight and heat, poured all together, all that is virtuous, (save what thou dislik'st of virtue for the name: but do not so: from lowest place where virtuous things proceed, is good, without a name: vileness is so: the property by what it is should go not by the title. She is young, wise, fair; in these to nature she's immediate heir; and these breed honour: that is honour's scorn, where dust and damned oblivion is the tomb W. SHAKESPEARE NOTES § 9 two stanzas from the Fountain, a Conversation. § 10 from Old Mortality. § 13 from lines composed at Grasmere; the Author having just read of the dissolution of Fox being hourly expected. § 19 from Heart of Mid Lothian: 1. 4, comp. Minucius Felix Apolog. 1. 36, § 6: ut qui viam terit, eo felicior, quo levior incedit, ita beatior in hoc itinere vivendi qui paupertate se sublevat, non sub divitiarum onere suspirat: Lactantius, Div. Inst. VII. 1, § 20. $ 29 written by Queen Elizabeth, while prisoner at Woodstock, with charcoal on a shutter: See Percy's Reliques. § 35 Scripseram prius hoc de poesi morali caput,' says Sir William Jones in his Lectures on Asiatic poetry, p. 350, 'quam scirem unde fabulam hanc quæ ab Addisono nostro etiam citatur sumsisset Chardinus: sed legi eam nuperrime in Sadii opere perfectissimo, quod Bustan seu Hortus inscribitur, et a Sadio ipso, poeta, si quis alius, ingenioso, inventam puto: ipsius itaque elegantes versus citabo cum mea qualiscunque sit versione: and after quoting the original with a literal Latin translation, he paraphrases thus: Rigante molles imbre campos Persidis e nube in æquor lapsa pluvia guttula est, "Quid hoc loci, inquit, quid rei misella sum? docens, sit humili quanta laus modestia. § 70 from the Saint's Tragedy. § 92 from the Cresphontes. § 94 1. 3, an πείθει ποτὶ πλόον? 1. 4, πολλὸς βυθοἳ Ahrens, $ 98 1. 3, comp. Eurip. Fr. apud Stobæum, p. 185: ὅταν δ ̓ ἴδῃς πρὸς ὕψος ᾐρμένον τινὰ, λαμπρῷ τε πλούτῳ καὶ γένει γαυρούμενον § 106 1. 3, the trew fayre, the true beauty: comp. PART 1, § 203, 1. 10: The indiscriminate use of substantives and adjectives was common in the older poetry: traces of it may be found in such colloquial expressions as the dark for darkness. § 107 1. 1, culver, dove. § 112 1. 8, fondly, foolishly: prevent, forestall. § 114 1.6, bill, voice, note: 1. 9, bird of hate, cuckoo. 115 1. 10, Emathian conqueror: the story is told of Alexander the Great by Ælian Var. Hist. XIII. 7; and by Pliny Nat. Hist. VII. 29. § 119 1. 12, to poison, compared to poison. § 174 1. 3, nae gowans glint, no daisies peep out: 1. 4, cleeding, clothing: 1. 8, burnie, little rivulet: 1. 9, brae, declivity: 1. 12, cranreuch, hoar-frost. § 196 1. 1, bravery, finery. $ 200 1. 17, lightning-gem, the precious stone, ceraunium, so called because it was supposed to be found where thunder had fallen. § 210 1. I, jo, sweetheart: 1. 4, brent, smooth: 1. 7, pow, head: 1. 10, thegither, together: 1. 11, cantie, cheerful. § 215 on the Lady Mary Villiers, compare § 80. § 220 1. 3, birks, birches: 1. 7, siller saughs, silver willows: 1. 10, breckans, ferns: 1. 13, jouks, runs low. § 224 1. 7, maunds, baskets. $ 225. 1. 15, wonned, lived. $249 1. 11, eild, eld, old age: buss, bush: bield, shelter. § 280 Mrs Elizabeth Tollet, daughter of George Tollet, commissioner of the Navy in the reigns of King William and Queen Anne, and friend of Sir Isaac Newton, was authoress of a volume of poems, English and Latin, which were not published till after her death in 1754. See Nichols' Select Collection, vol. VI. p. 64. $323 from the Secular Masque: 1. 4, wexing, waxing. $ 325 1.9, leal, faithful: 1. 23, fain, happy. § 327 the second stanza has been suppressed in the later editions of Wordsworth's poems. The first four verses in the earlier editions ran thus: Though by a sickly taste betrayed that she is healthful, fleet and strong. |