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Her flaming brand thro' all the realms of Greece: '
And the whole race expire in pangs like mine.

Murphy's Grecian Daughter.

Go, virtuous dame, to thy most happy lord,
And Bertram's image taint your kiss with poison.
Maturin's Bertram.

But no, I will not curse them thro' the world
A curse will follow them, like the black plague
Tracking their footsteps ever,-day and night-
Morning and eve, summer and winter-ever.

Proctor's Mirandola, a. 4, s. 2.

May the swords And wings of fiery cherubim pursue him, By day and night-snakes spring up in his pathEarth's fruit be ashes in his mouth-the leaves On which he lays his head to sleep be strew'd With scorpions! May his dreams be of his victim His waking a continual dread of death!

Byron's Cain, a. 3, s. 1. May the grass wither from thy feet! the woods Deny thee shelter! earth a home! the dust A grave! the sun his light! and heaven her God!

CUSTOM.

Custom forms us all ;

Ibid.

Our thoughts, our morals, our most fix'd belief
Are consequences of our place of birth. Hill's Zara.

Custom, 'tis true, a venerable tyrant

O'er servile man extends her blind dominion.

Thomson's Tancred and Sigismunda.

Such dupes are men to custom, and so prone
To rev'rence what is ancient, and can plead
A course of long observance for its use,

That even servitude, the worst of ills,
Because deliver'd down from sire to son,
Is kept and guarded as a sacred thing.

D.

DEATH.

Cowper's Task, b. 5.

Let no man fear to die: we love to sleep all,
And death is but the sounder sleep.

Beaumont's Humorous Lieutenant.

Death is not dreadful to a mind resolv'd;

It seems as nat'ra as to be born.

Groans, and convulsions, and discolour'd faces, Friends weeping round us, blacks, and obsequies, Make death a dreadful thing. The pomp of death Is far more terrible than death itself.

Lee's Lucius Junius Brutus.

The dead are only happy, and the dying:
The dead are still, and lasting slumbers hold 'em.
He who is near his death, but turns about,
Shuffles awhile to make his pillow easy,
Then slips into his shroud and rests for ever.

Lee's Casar Borgia.

Oh! that I less could fear to lose this being!
Which, like a snow-ball in my coward hand,
The more 'tis grasp'd, the faster melts away.

Dryden's All for Love.

Poor abject creatures! how they fear to die
Who never knew one happy hour in life,
Yet shake to lay it down. Is load so pleasant?
Or has heav'n hid the happiness of death,

That man may dare to live. Dryden's Don Sebastian.

I feel death rising higher still and higher
Within my bosom; every breath I fetch
Shuts up my life within a shorter compass :
And, like the vanishing sound of bells, grows less
And less each pulse, till it be lost in air.

Dryden's Rival Ladies.

The reconciling grave

Swallows distinction first, that made us foes,
That all alike lie down in peace together.

"Southern's Fatal Marriage.

She's gone! for ever gone! The king of terrors
Lays his rude hands upon her lovely limbs,
And blasts her beauties with his icy breath.

Dennis's Appius and Virginia.

O death ! thou gentle end of human sorrows,
Still must my weary eye-lids vainly wake,
In tedious expectation of thy peace :

Why stand thy thousand, thousand doors still open,
To take the wretched in, if stern religion

Guards ev'ry passage, and forbids my entrance?

Rowe's Tamerlane.

There life gave way, and the last rosy breath
Went in that sigh; death like a brutal victor
Already ent'red, with rude haste defaces
The lovely frame he's master'd.

Rowe's Jane Shore.

'Tis but to die,

"Tis but to venture on that common hazard
Which many a time in battle I have run;
'Tis but to do, what, at that very moment,
In many nations of the peopled earth,
A thousand and a thousand shall do with me.

Ibid, a. 4, s. 1.

Death is the privilege of human nature;
And life without it were not worth our taking.

Thither the poor, the pris'ner, and the mourner,
Fly for relief, and lay their burdens down.
Rowe's Fair Penitent.

Thus o'er the dying lamp th' unsteady flame
Hangs quivering on the point, leaps off by fits,
And falls again, as loth to quit its hold.

Let guilt, or fear

Addison's Cato.

Disturb man's rest, Cato knows neither of them;
Indifferent in his choice, to sleep, or die.

Now every splendid object of ambition,

Which lately, with their various glosses, play'd
Upon my brain, and fool'd my idle heart,

Are taken from me by a little mist,

Ibid.

And all the world is vanish'd. Young's Busiris, a. 5.

The death of those distinguish'd by their station,
But by their virtue more, awakes the mind
To solemn dread, and strikes a saddening awe.
Not that we grieve for them, but for ourselves,
Left to the toil of life. And yet the best
Are, by the playful children of this world,
At once forgot, as they had never been.

Thomson's Tancred and Sigismunda, a. 1, s. 1.

To die, I own

Is a dread passage-terrible to nature,

Chiefly to those who have, like me, been happy. Thomson's Edward and Eleanora.

How pale appear

Those clay-cold cheeks where grace and vigour glow'd'! O dismal spectacle!-How humble now

Lies that ambition which was late so proud!

Smollett's Regicide.

Death, thou dread of guilt,

Thou wish of innocence, affliction's friend,
Tir'd nature calls thee-Come, in mercy come,
And lay me pillow'd in eternal rest.

Murphy's Grecian Daughter.

I fear to die. And were it in my power,
By suffering of the keenest racking pains,
To keep upon me still these weeds of nature,
I could such things endure, that thou wouldst marvel,
And cross thyself to see such coward-bravery.

For oh! it goes against the mind of man

To be turn'd out from its warm wonted home,
Ere yet one rent admits the winter's chill.

Joanna Baillie's Rayner, a. 4, s. 1.

Since, howe'er protracted, death will come, Why fondly study with ingenious pains, To put it off!-To breathe a little longer Is to defer our fate, but not to shun it. Small gain! which wisdom with indiff'rent eye Beholds. Hannah More's David and Goliah, p. 4,

And then I dived,

In my lone wanderings, to the caves of death,
Searching its cause in its effect; and drew

From wither'd bones, and skulls, and heap'd up dust,
Conclusions most forbidden.

Byron's Manfred, a. 2, s. 2.

her cheek;

Can this be death? there's bloom upon
But now I see it is no living hue,
But a strange hectic-like the unnatural red
Which Autumn plants upon the perish'd leaf.
It is the same! Oh, God! that I should dread
To look upon the same-Astarte ! Ibid, s. 4.

I know no evil death can show, which life
Has not already shown to those who live

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