JONATHAN SWIFT. 1067-1745.

I've often wished that I had clear,
For life, six hundred pounds a year,
A handsome house to lodge a friend,
A river at my garden's end.

Imitation of Horace. B. ii. Sat. 6

*

So geographers, in Afric maps,*
With savage pictures fill their gaps,
And o'er unhabitable downs
Place elephants for want of towns.
So, naturalists observe, a flea

Has smaller fleas that on him prey;

And these have smaller still to bite 'em.

And so proceed ad infinitum.

Poetry, a Rhapsody.

And he gave it for his opinion, that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together. Gulliver's Travels.

*As geographers crowd into the edges of their maps, parts of the world which they do not know about, adding notes in the margin to the effect, that beyond this lies nothing but sandy deserts full of wild beasts and unapproachable bogs. Plutarch. Theseus.

WILLIAM CONGREVE. 1G69-1720.

Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast, To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.

The Mourning Bride. Act i. Sc. L

By magic numbers and persuasive sound.

Ibid.

Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.

Ibid. Act iii, Sc. 1.

For blessings ever wait on virtuous deeds,
And though a late, a sure reward succeeds.

Ibid. Act v. Sc. 12.

If there's delight in love, 't is when I see
That heart, which others bleed for, bleed for me.
The Way of the World. Act iii, Sc. 12
Ferdinand Mendez Pinto was but a type of
thee, thou liar of the first magnitude.

Love for Love. Act ii. Sc. 1.

NICHOLAS ROWE. 1673-1718.

Is she not more than painting can express,
Or youthful poets fancy when they love?

The Fair Penitent. Act ii. Sc. 1

Is this that haughty, gallant, gay Lothario?

Ibid. Act v. Sc. 1

ALEXANDER POPE. 1688-1744.

ESSAY ON MAN.

Awake, my St. John! leave all meaner things
To low ambition, and the pride of kings.
Let us (since life can little more supply
Than just to look about us, and to die,)
Expatiate free o'er all this scene of man;
A mighty maze! but not without a plan.

Epistle i. Line 1.

Eye Nature's walks, shoot folly as it flies,
And catch the manners living as they rise;
Laugh where we must, be candid where we can,
But vindicate the ways of God to man.

*

Epistle i. Line 13.

Heaven from all creatures hides the book of Fate.

Epistle i. Line 77.

Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food, And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood.

Epistle i. Line 83.

Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,

Atoms or systems into ruin hurled,

And now a bubble burst, and now a world.

Epistle i. Line 87.

Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never is, but always to be blest.

*And justify the ways of God to men.

Paradise Lost, B. i. L. 26.

The soul, uneasy, and confin'd from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.
Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutored mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind.

Epistle i. Line 95.

Far as the solar walk or milky way.

Epistle i. Line 102.

But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.

Epistle i. Line 111.

In pride, in reasoning pride, our error lies ;
All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies.
Pride still is aiming at the blessed abodes,
Men would be angels, angels would be gods.

Die of a rose in aromatic pain.

Epistle i. Line 123.

Epistle i. Line 200.

The spider's touch how exquisitely fine!

Feels at each thread, and lives along the line.*

Epistle i. Line 217.

Much like a subtle spider which doth sit,
In middle of her web, which spreadeth wide;
If ought do touch the utmost thread of it

She feels it instantly on every side.

Sir John Davies. (1570-162G.) Immortality of the Soul.
Our souls sit close and silently within,

and their own web from their own entrails spin ;
And when eyes meet far off, our sense is such,
That spider like, we feel the tenderest touch.

Dryden. Marriage a la Mode. Act ii. Sc. 1.

What thin partitions sense from thought divide.*

Epistle i. Line 226.

All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul.

Epistle i. Line 267.

As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns,
As the rapt seraph that adores and burns.

Epistle i. Line 277.

All nature is but art, unknown to thee;

All chance, direction, which thou canst not see; All discord, harmony not understood;

All partial evil, universal good;

And spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,
One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right.

Epistle i. Line 289.

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;

The proper study of mankind is man.†

Epistle ii. Line 1.

Chaos of thought and passion, all confused;
Still by himself abused or disabused;
Created half to rise, and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;

*Great wits are sure to madness near allied, And thin partitions do their bounds divide. Dryden, ante, p. 139. "Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiæ fuit." Seneca, De Tranquillitate Animi, xvii. 12, quotes this from Aristotle, who gives as one of his Problemata (xxx. 1), ▲ù τί πάντες ὅσοι περιττοὶ γεγόνασιν ἄνδρες ἢ κατὰ φιλοσοφίαν ἢ πολιτικὴν ἢ ποίησιν ἤ τέχνας φαίνονται μελαγχολικοὶ ὄντες.

† From Charron (de la Sagesse): -"La vraye science et Le vray étude de l'homme c'est I'homme."