HORACE.

Each change of many-colour'd life he drew, Exhausted worlds, and then imagined new: Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign, And panting Time toil'd after him in vain. DR. S. JOHNSON.

From Marlborough's eyes the streams of dotage flow,

And Swift expires a driveller and a show.
DR. S. JOHNSON: Vanity of Human Wishes.

Martial, thou gav'st far nobler epigrams
To thy Domitian than I can my James;
But in my royal subject I pass thee,
Thou flattered'st thine, mine cannot flatter'd be.
BEN JONSON.

Soule of the Age!

The applause! delight! the wonder of our
Stage!

My Shakespeare, rise; I will not lodge thee by
Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lye
A little further, to make thee a roome:
Thou art a Monument, without a tombe,
And art aliue still, while thy Booke doth liue,
And we haue wits to read, and praise to giue.
BEN JONSON: Preface to First Folio, 1622.

And half had stagger'd that stout Stagirite.

LAMB.

How rays are confused, or how particles fly Through the medium refined of a glance or a sigh?

Love warms our fancy with enliv'ning fires, Refines our genius, and our verse inspires; From him Theocritus, on Enna's plains, Learnt the wild sweetness of his Doric strains;

Virgil by him was taught the moving art,

Is there one who but once would not rather have known it

Each staunch polemic, stubborn as a rock, Each fierce logician still expelling Locke, Came whip and spur.

POPE.

Thee, bold Longinus, all the Nine inspire, And bless their critic with a poet's fire.

POPE.

If Mævius scribble in Apollo's spite, There are who judge still worse than he can write.

POPE.

Milton's strong pinion now no heaven can bound,

Now, serpent-like, in prose he sweeps the ground.

POPE.

Now times are changed, and one poetic itch Has seized the court and city, poor and rich: Sons, sires, and grandsires, all will wear the bays,

Plutarch, that writes his life,

Tells us that Cato dearly loved his wife.

POPE.

Why did I write? what sin to me unknown
Dipp'd me in ink? my parents' or my own?
As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame,
I lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came.
POPE.

Exact Racine and Corneille's noble fire
Taught us that France had something to admire.
POPE.

Silence, ye wolves, while Ralph to Cynthia howls,
And makes night hideous; answer him, ye owls.
POPE.

Roscommon not more learn'd than good,
With manners gen'rous as his noble blood;
To him the wit of Greece and Rome was known,
And ev'ry author's merit but his own.

POPE.

POPE.

Superior beings, when of late they saw
A mortal man unfold all nature's law,
Admired such wisdom in a mortal shape,
And show'd a Newton as we show an ape.

POPE.

Nature and nature's laws lay hid in nightGod said, "Let Newton be!" and all was light. POPE.

Here swells the shelf with Ogiiby the great; There, stamp'd with arms, Newcastle shines complete.

POPE.

Otway fail'd to polish or refine,
And fluent Shakspeare scarce effaced a line.
POPE.
Recall those nights that closed thy toilsome days;
Still hear thy Parnell in his living lays.

POPE.

Then future ages with delight shall see
How Plato's, Bacon's, Newton's, looks agree;
Or in fair series laurell'd bards be shown,
A Virgil there, and here an Addison.

POPE.

Go soar with Plato to th' empyreal sphere, To the first good, first perfect, and first fair. POPE.