Choose a firm cloud before it fall, and in it

Catch, ere she change, the Cynthia of this minute.

Epistle ii. Line 19.

Epistle ii. Line 43

Fine by defect, and delicately weak.

With too much quickness ever to be taught; With too much thinking to have common thought. Epistle ii. Line 97.

To heirs unknown descends th' unguarded store, Or wanders, heaven-directed, to the poor.

Epistle ii. Line 149.

Virtue she finds too painful an endeavor,
Content to dwell in decencies forever.

Epistle ii. Line 163.

Men, some to business, some to pleasure take;
But every woman is at heart a rake.

Epistle ii. Line 215.

See how the world its veterans rewards!
A youth of frolics, an old age of cards.

Epistle ii. Line 243.

Oh! blessed with temper, whose unclouded ray Can make to-morrow cheerful as to-day.

Epistle ii. Line 257.

She who ne'er answers till a husband cools,
Or, if she rules him, never shows she rules.

Epistle ii. Line 261.

Epistle ii. Line 268.

And mistress of herself, though china fall.

Woman's at best a contradiction still.

Epistle ii. Line 270.

Who shall decide, when doctors disagree,
And soundest casuists doubt, like you and me?
Epistle iii. Line 1.

Blest paper-credit! last and best supply!
That lends corruption lighter wings to fly.

Epistle iii. Line 39.

But thousands die without or this or that,
Die, and endow a college or a cat.

Epistle iii. Line 95.

The ruling passion, be it what it will,
The ruling passion conquers reason still.

Epistle iii. Line 153.

Extremes in nature equal good produce.

Epistle iii. Line 161.

Rise, honest muse! and sing the man of Ross.

Epistle iii. Line 250.

Who builds a church to God, and not to fame,
Will never mark the marble with his name.

Epistle iii. Line 285.

Good sense, which only is the gift of Heaven,
And though no science, fairly worth the seven.

Epistle iv. Line 43.

To rest, the cushion and soft dean invite,
Who never mentions hell to ears polite.*

Epistle iv. Line 149.

* In the reign of Charles II. a certain worthy divine at Whitehall thus addressed himself to the auditory at the conclusion of his sermon: "In short, if you don't live up to the precepts of the gospel, but abandon yourselves to your irregular appetites, you must expect to receive your reward in a certain place, which 't is not good manners to mention here." Tom Brown. Laconics.

1

AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM.

'Tis with our judgments as our watches, none Go just alike, yet each believes his own.

One science only will one genius fit;
So vast is art, so narrow human wit.

*

Part i. Line 9.

Part i. Line 60.

And snatch a grace beyond the reach of art.

Part i. Line 153.

Pride, the never failing vice of fools.

Part ii. Line 4.

A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring : †
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.

Part ii. Line 16.

Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise.

Part ii. Line 32.

Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see,

Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be. ‡

Part ii. Line 53.

*But as when an authentic watch is shown,

Each man winds up and rectifies his own,

So in our very judgments, &c.

Suckling. Epilogue to Aglaura.

† A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion. Lord Bacon, Essay on Atheism.

"High characters," cries one, and he would see

Things that ne'er were, nor are, nor e'er will be.
Suckling. Epilogue to The Goblins.

True wit is nature to advantage dressed,

What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed. Part ii. Line 97.

Words are like leaves; and where they most

abound,

Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.

Part ii. Line 109

Such labored nothings, in so strange a style.

part ii. Line 126.

In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold,
Alike fantastic, if too new or old :
Be not the first by whom the new are tried,
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.

Part ii. Line 133.

These equal syllables alone require,
Though oft the ear the open vowels tire,
While expletives their feeble aid do join,
And ten low words oft creep in one dull line.
Part ii. Line 144.

A needless Alexandrine ends the song,
That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length
Part ii. Line 156.

along.*

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learned to dance.
Part ii. Line 162.

The sound must seem an echo to the sense:
Soft is the strain when zephyr gently blows,

* Solvuntur, tardosque trahit sinus ultimus orbes.

VIRGIL. Georgics, Lib. iii. 424.

And the smooth stream in smoother numbers

flows;

But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,
The hoarse rough verse should like the torrent

roar.

When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to

throw,

The line too labors, and the words move slow;
Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the

main.

Part ii. Line 165.

For fools admire, but men of sense approve.

Part ii. Line 191.

Envy will merit as its shade pursue,

But like a shadow, proves the substance true.

To err is human, to forgive divine.

Part ii. Line 266.

Part ii. Line 325.

All seems infected that th' infected spy,
As all looks yellow to the jaundiced eye.

Part ii. 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.
Part iii. Line 15.

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

Part iii. Line 53.