LORD LYTTLETON. 1709-1773.

For his chaste Muse employ'd her heaven-taught lyre
None but the noblest passions to inspire,
Not one immoral, one corrupted thought,
One line which, dying, he could wish to blot.

Prologue to Thomson's Coriolanus.

Women, like princes, find few real friends.

What is your sex's earliest, latest care,
Your heart's supreme ambition?

Advice to a Lady.

To be fair.

The lover in the husband may be lost.

How much the wife is dearer than the bride.

Ibid.

Ibid.

An Irregular Ode.

None without hope e'er lov'd the brightest fair,

But love can hope where reason would despair. Epigram.

Where none admire, 't is useless to excel;

Where none are beaux, 't is vain to be a belle.

Soliloquy on a Beauty in the Country.

Alas! by some degree of woe

We every bliss must gain;

The heart can ne'er a transport know
That never feels a pain.

Song

EDWARD MOORE. 1712-1757.

Can't I another's face commend,
And to her virtues be a friend,

But instantly your forehead lowers,
As if her merit lessen'd yours?

The Farmer, the Spaniel, and the Cat. Fable in

The maid who modestly conceals
Her beauties, while she hides, reveals;
Give but a glimpse, and fancy draws

Whate'er the Grecian Venus was.

The Spider and the Bee. Fable x

very shoe has power to wound.

But from the hoop's bewitching round,

Her

Ibid

Time still, as he flies, brings increase to her truth,
And gives to her mind what he steals from her youth.
The Happy Marriage.

I am rich beyond the dreams of avarice.1

The Gamester. Act ii. Sc. 2.

'Tis now the summer of your youth. Time has not cropt the roses from your cheek, though sorrow long has washed them.

Labour for his pains.2

Act iii. Sc. 4.

The Boy and the Rainbow.

LAURENCE STERNE. 1713-1768.

Go, poor devil, get thee gone! Why should I hurt thee? This world surely is wide enough to hold both thee and me. Tristram Shandy (orig. ed.). Vol. ii. chap. xii. Vol. iii. Chap. ix.

Great wits jump.

"Our armies swore terribly in Flanders," cried my Uncle Toby, "but nothing to this."

Chap. xi.

Of all the cants which are canted in this canting world, though the cant of hypocrites may be the worst, the cant of criticism is the most tormenting!

1 See Johnson, page 374.

2 See Shakespeare, page 101.

Chap. xii.

8 Great wits jump. - BYROM: The Nimmers. BUCKINGHAM: The Chances, act. iv. sc. 1.

Good wits jump. - CERVANTES: Don Quixote, part ii. chap. xxxviii.

The accusing spirit, which flew up to heaven's chancery with the oath, blushed as he gave it in; and the recording angel as he wrote it down dropped a tear upon the word and blotted it out forever.1

Tristram Shandy (orig. ed.). Vol. vi. Chap. viii.

Vol. vii. Chap. xi.

I am sick as a horse. "They order," said I, "this matter better in France." Sentimental Journey. Page 1.

I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba and cry, ""T is all barren!"

In the Street.

Calais.

Maria.

God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb.2

"Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery," said I,

"still thou art a bitter draught."

The Passport. The Hotel at Paris.

Sermon xvi.

The sad vicissitude of things. 3 Trust that man in nothing who has not a conscience in everything.

Sermon xxvii.

WILLIAM SHENSTONE. 1714-1763.

Whoe'er has travell'd life's dull round,
Where'er his stages may have been,
May sigh to think he still has found
The warmest welcome at an inn.*

Written on a Window of an Inn.

1 But sad as angels for the good man's sin,
Weep to record, and blush to give it in.

CAMPBELL: Pleasures of Hope, part ii. line 357.

2 Dieu mésure le froid à la brebis tondue (God measures the cold to the shorn lamb). HENRI ESTIENNE (1594): Prémices, etc. p. 47.

See Herbert, page 206.

3 Revolves the sad vicissitudes of things.-R. GIFFORD: Contemplation. 4 See Johnson, page 372.

Archbishop Leighton often said that if he were to choose a place to die in, it should be an inn. - Works, vol. i. p. 76.

So sweetly she bade me adieu,
I thought that she bade me return.

I have found out a gift for my fair;

A Pastoral. Parti

I have found where the wood-pigeons breed.
My banks they are furnish'd with bees,
Whose murmur invites one to sleep.
For seldom shall she hear a tale
So sad, so tender, and so true.

Her cap, far whiter than the driven snow,
Emblems right meet of decency does yield.

Ibid.

Part ii. Hope.

Jemmy Dawson.

The Schoolmistress. Stanza 6.

Pun-provoking thyme.

Stanza 11.

A little bench of heedless bishops here,
And there a chancellor in embryo.

Stanza 28.

JOHN BROWN. 1715-1766.

Now let us thank the Eternal Power: convinced
That Heaven but tries our virtue by affliction,
That oft the cloud which wraps the present hour
Serves but to brighten all our future days.

Barbarossa. Act v. Sc. 3.

And coxcombs vanquish Berkeley by a grin.

An Essay on Satire, occasioned by the Death of Mr. Pope.1

JAMES TOWNLEY. 1715-1778.

Kitty. Shikspur? Shikspur? Who wrote it? No, I never read Shikspur.

Lady Bab. Then you have an immense pleasure to High Life below Stairs. Act ii. Sc. 1.

come.

From humble Port to imperial Tokay.

Ibid.

1 ANDERSON: British Poets, vol. x. p. 879. See note in "Contemporary Review," September, 1867, p. 4.

THOMAS GRAY. 1716-1771.

What female heart can gold despise ?

What cat's averse to fish?

A fav'rite has no friend!

On the death of a Favourite Cat.

Ibid.

Ye distant spires, ye antique towers.

On a Distant Prospect of Eton College. Stanza 1.

Ah, happy hills! ah, pleasing shade !

Ah, fields beloved in vain!

Where once my careless childhood stray'd,
A stranger yet to pain!

I feel the gales that from ye blow
A momentary bliss bestow.

They hear a voice in every wind,

And snatch a fearful joy.

Gay hope is theirs by fancy fed,
Less pleasing when possest;
The tear forgot as soon as shed,
The sunshine of the breast.

Stanza 2.

Stanza 4.

Stanza 5.

The tender for another's pain,

Th' unfeeling for his own.

Yet ah! why should they know their fate,
Since sorrow never comes too late,