Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Alexander Pope, Esq, Volume 2

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Page 315 - 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.
Page 323 - Created half to rise, and half to fall: Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all; Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl'd; The glory jest, and riddle of the world!
Page 32 - Of Lords, and Earls, and Dukes, and garter'd Knights; While the spread Fan o'ershades your closing eyes; Then give one flirt, and all the vision flies. Thus vanish sceptres, coronets...
Page 28 - Tis from high life high characters are drawn ; A saint in crape is twice a saint in lawn : A judge is just, a chancellor juster still ; A gownman learn'd ; a bishop what you will ; Wise if a minister ; but if a king, More wise, more learn'd, more just, more every thing.
Page 315 - Lives through all life, extends through all extent; Spreads undivided, operates unspent; Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part, As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart; As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns, As the rapt seraph that adores and burns: To him no high, no low, no great, no small; He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all.
Page 367 - Who wickedly is wise, or madly brave, Is but the more a fool, the more a knave. Who noble ends by noble means obtains, Or failing, smiles in exile or in chains, Like good Aurelius let him reign, or bleed Like Socrates, that man is great indeed. What's fame? a fancied life in others' breath, A thing beyond us, ev'n before our death.
Page 316 - Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar; Wait the great teacher, Death; and God adore. What future bliss, He gives not thee to know, But gives that hope to be thy blessing now. Hope springs eternal in the human breast: Man never Is, but always To be blest. The soul, uneasy, and confined from home, Rests and expatiates in a life to come.
Page 323 - The proper study of mankind is Man. Plac'd on this isthmus of a middle state, A being darkly wise and rudely great: With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side, With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride, He hangs between, in doubt to act or rest; In doubt to deem himself a God or Beast; In doubt his mind or body to prefer; Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err...
Page 235 - As Fancy opens the quick springs of Sense, We ply the Memory, we load the brain, Bind rebel Wit, and double chain on chain; Confine the thought, to exercise the breath; And keep them in the pale of Words till death.
Page 326 - Two principles in human nature reign; Self-love, to urge, and reason, to restrain; Nor this a good, nor that a bad we call, Each works its end, to move or govern all: And to their proper operation still Ascribe all good; to their improper, ill.