Quote: True wit is Nature to advantage dress'd, What oft was thought, but ne'...

Vice is a monster so frightful mien, As to be hated needs but to be seen; Yet too oft, familiar with her face, We first endure, then pity, then embrace.

What the weak head with stronger bias rules, Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools.

Vital spark of heavenly flame!

Men must be taught as if you taught them not, And things unknown proposed as things forgot.

The fool is happy that he knows no more.

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

'Tis not enough your counsel still be true; Blunt truths more mischief than nice falsehoods do.

The hungry judges soon the sentence sign, And wretches hang that jury-men may dine.

Who reasons wisely is not therefore wise; His pride in reasoning, not in acting, lies.

Mark what unvaried laws preserve each state, Laws wise as Nature, and as fixed as Fate.

Men dream in courtship, but in wedlock wake.

Music resembles poetry: In each are nameless graces which no methods teach And which a master-hand alone can reach.

Nothing is more certain than that much of the force, As well as grace, of arguments or instructions depends on their conciseness.

A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that he is wiser to-day than he was yesterday.

Some people are commended for a giddy kind of good humor, which is no more a virtue than drunkenness.

'Tis not a lip, or eye, we beauty call, But the joint force and full result of all.

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

Order is Heavens' first law.

See dying vegetables life sustain, See life dissolving vegetate again; All forms that perish other forms supply; By turns we catch the vital breath and die.

Slave to no sect, who takes no private road, But looks through Nature up to Nature's God.

Of Manners gentle, of Affections mild; In Wit a man; Simplicity, a child.

Here am I, dying of a hundred good symptoms.

Here thou, great Anna! whom three realms obey, Dost sometimes counsel take - and sometimes tea.

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.

Yes, I am proud; I must be proud to see Men not afraid of God, afraid of me.

The people' voice is odd, It is, and it is not, the voice of God.

Know then myself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of Mankind is Man.

True friendship's laws are by this rule expressed, Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest.

A Wit's a feather, and a Chief a rod; An honest Man's the noblest work of God.

While pensive Poets painful vigils keep, Sleepless themselves, to give their readers sleep.

Not louder shrieks to pitying heaven are cast, When husbands or when lap-dogs breathe their last.

What's fame? A fancied life in other's breath. A thing beyond us, even before our death.

What dire offence from amorous causes springs, What mighty contests rise from trivial things, I sing.

The fox obscene to gaping tombs retires, And savage howlings fill the sacred quires.

A heap of dust alone remains of thee; 'Tis all thou art, and the proud shall be!

Where London's column, pointing at the skies, Like a tall bully, lifts the head, and lies.

You purchase pain with all that joy can give, And die of nothing but a rage to live.

I am his Highness' dog at Kew; Pray, tell me sir, whose dog are you?

Chaste to her husband, frank to all beside, A teeming Mistress, but a barren bride.

Men, some to business, some to pleasure take; But every woman is at heart a rake: Men, some to quiet, some to public strife; But every lady would be queen for life.

And he, whose fustian's so sublimely bad, It is not poetry, but prose run mad.

Laugh where we must, be candid where we can; But vindicate the ways of God to man.

The ruling Passion, be it what it will, The ruling Passion conquers Reason still.

Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor shall be.

As some to church repair, Not for the doctrine but the music there.

Good-nature and good-sense must ever join; To err is human, to forgive, divine.

Some have at first for Wits then Poets past, Turned Critics next, and proved plain fools at last.

True Wit is nature to advantage dressed, What oft was thought, bet ne'er so well expressed.

Words are like leave; and where they most abound; Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.

Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer; Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike.

Hell was built on spite, and Heaven on pride.

Fixed like a plant on his peculiar spot, To draw nutrition, propagate and rot.

Who combats bravely is not therefore brave: He dreads a deathbed like the meanest slave.

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

He's armed without that's innocent within.

He knows to live who keeps the middle state.

He who tells a lie is not sensible how great a task he undertakes; for he must invent twenty more to maintain that one.

Envy, to which the ignoble mind's a slave, Is emulation in the learned or brave.

Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate.

For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight, His can't be wrong whose life is in the right.

Honour and shame from no condition rise; Act well your part, there all the honour lies.

If I am right, Thy grace impart, Still in the right to stay; If I am wrong, O teach my heart to find that better way!

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.

It is with our judgments as our watches, none go just alike, yet each believes his own.

Just as the twig is bent the tree is inclined.

An honest man's the noblest work of God.

Health consists with Temperance alone.

But as the world, harmoniously confused, Where order in variety we see; And where, tho' all things differ, all agree.

And binding nature fast in fate, Left free the human will.

And what is Fame? the Meanest have their Day, The Greatest can but blaze, and pass away.

Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll; charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.

Behold the child, by nature's kindly law, pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw.

Love, free as air, at sight of human ties, Spreads his light wings, and in a moment flies.

Like bubbles on the sea of matter borne, They rise, they break, and to that sea return.

Learning is like mercury, one of the most powerful and excellent things in the world in skillful hands; in unskillful, the most mischievous.

Envy will merit, as its shade pursue, But like a shadow, proves the substance true.

But blind to former as to future fate, What mortal knows his pre-existent state?

But honest instinct comes a volunteer; Sure never to o'er-shoot, but just to hit, While still too wide or short in human wit.

But Satan now is wiser than of yore, And tempts by making rich, not making poor.

Laugh at your friends, and if your friends are sore; So much the better, you may laugh the more.

Know then this truth, enough for man to know Virtue alone is happiness below.

If to her share some female errors fall, Look on her face, and you'll forget them all.

To err is human, to forgive, divine.

How shall I lose the sin, yet keep the sense, And love th'offender, yet detest th'offence?

For forms of government let fools contest; Whate'er is best administer'd is best. For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight; His can't be wrong whose life is in the right. In faith and hope the world will disagree, But all mankind's concern is charity.

Persons of genius, and those who are most capable of art, are always most fond of nature: as such are chiefly sensible, that all art consists in the imitation and study of nature.

Of manners gentle, of affections mild, In wit a man, simplicity a child.

Genuine religion is not so much a matter of feeling as a matter of principle.

She moves a goddess, and she looks a queen.

Ask you what provocation I have had? The strong antipathy of good to bad.

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

Wise wretch! with pleasures too refined to please; With too much spirit to be eer at ease With too much quickness ever to be taught; With too much thinking to have common thought. You purchase pain with all that joy can give, And die of nothing but a rage to live.

Is not absence death to those who love?

Let me tell you I am better acquainted with you for a long absence, as men are with themselves for a long affliction: absence does but hold off a friend, to make one see him the truer.

To pardon those absurdities in ourselves which we condemn in others, is neither better nor worse than to be more willing to be fools ourselves than to have others so.

Not always actions show the man; we find Who does a kindness is not therefore kind.

Fools admire, but men of sense approve.

When men grow virtuous in their old age, they only make a sacrifice to God of the devils leavings.

Ambition first sprung from your blest abodes; The glorious fault of Angels and of Gods.

Men would be angels, angels would be gods.

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.

What dire offence from amorous causes springs! What mighty contests rise from trivial things!

When much dispute has past, we find our tenets just the same at last.

Die of a rose in aromatic pain.

An atheist is but a mad, ridiculous derider of piety, but a hypocrite makes a sober jest of God and religion; he finds it easier to be upon his knees than to rise to a good action.

Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.

Fair tresses man's imperial race insnare, And beauty draws us with a single hair.

Some are bewildered in the maze of schools, And some made coxcombs nature meant but fools.

Vital spark of heav'nly flame! Quit, oh quit, this mortal frame: Trembling, hoping, ling'ring, flying, Oh the pain, the bliss of dying!

Heaven from all creatures hides the book of Fate, All but the page prescrib'd, their present state.

A brave man struggling in the storms of fate, And greatly falling with a falling state.

Who breaks a butterfly on a wheel?

By foreign hands thy dying eyes were closed, By foreign hands thy decent limbs composed, By foreign hands thy humble grave adorned, By strangers honored, and by strangers mourned!

Some praise at morning what they blame at night, But always think the last opinion right.

Honor and shame from no condition rise; Act well your part, there all the honor lies.

Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.

Coffee, which makes the politician wise, And see through all things with his half-shut eyes.

Conceit is to nature what paint is to beauty; it is not only needless, but it impairs what it would improve.

Content if hence th' unlearn'd their wants may view, The learn'd reflect on what before they knew.

True politeness consists in being easy one's self, and in making every one about one as easy as one can.

Is it, in Heav'n, a crime to love too well? To bear too tender, or too firm a heart To act a lover's or a Roman's part? Is there no bright reversion in the sky, For those who greatly think, or bravely die?

And make each day a critic on the last.

On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore, Which Jews might kiss and infidels adore.

A person who is too nice as an observer of the business of the crowd, like one who is too curious in observing the labor of bees, will often be stung for his curiosity.

Good God! how often are we to die before we go quite off this stage? In every friend we lose a part of ourselves, and the best part.

The wrath of Peleus' son, the direful spring Of all the Grecian woes, O goddess sing! Another version: Achilles' wrath, to Greece the direful spring Of woes unnumbered, heavenly goddess, sing!

Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.

Who shall decide when doctors disagree?

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

You eat, in dreams, the custard of the day.

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance. 'T is not enough no harshness gives offence, The sound must seem an echo to the sense.

Tis education forms the common mind: Just as the twig is bent the trees inclined.

Those oft are stratagems which errors seem Nor is it Homer nods, but we that dream;

Blessed is the man who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.

False happiness is like false money; it passes for a time as well as the true, and serves some ordinary occasions; but when it is brought to the touch, we find the lightness and alloy, and feel the loss.

What's fame? a fancy'd life in other's breath. A thing beyond us, even before our death.

Nor Fame I slight, nor for her favors call; She comes unlooked for, if she comes at all .

Dear, damned, distracting town, farewell! Thy fools no more I'll tease: This year in peace, ye critics, dwell, Ye harlots, sleep at ease!

Luxurious lobster-nights, farewell, For sober, studious days!

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.

Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see, Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be.

Nay, fly to altars; there theyll talk you dead; For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

From vulgar bounds with brave disorder part, And snatch a grace beyond the reach of art.

Soft is the strain when zephyr gently blows, 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 labours, and the words move slow: Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain, Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main.

Thou wert my guide, philosopher, and friend.

Reason's whole pleasure, all the joys of sense, Lie in three words,health, peace, and competence.

But let a lord once own the happy lines, How the wit brightens! how the style refines!

Here hills and vales, the woodland and the plain Here earth and water seem to strive again, Not chaos-like together crushed and bruised, But, as the world, harmoniously confused: Where order in variety we see, And where, though all things differ, all agree.

The soul's calm sunshine and the heartfelt joy.

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

Happy the man whose wish and care A few paternal acres bound, Content to breathe his native air In his own ground.

A wit 's a feather, and a chief a rod; An honest man 's the noblest work of God.

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.

Hope travels through, nor quits us when we die.

But where's the man who counsel can bestow, Still pleased to teach, and yet not proud to know?

Careless of censure, nor too fond of fame, Still pleased to praise, yet not afraid to blame, Averse alike to flatter or offend, Not free from faults, nor yet too vain to mend.

The bookful blockhead ignorantly read, With loads of learned lumber in his head, With his own tongue still edifies his ears, And always list'ning to himself appears. All books he reads, and all he reads assails.

Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor'd mind Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind; His soul proud Science never taught to stray Far as the solar walk or milky way.

Fix'd like a plan on his peculiar spot, To draw nutrition, propagate, and rot.

You beat your Pate, and fancy Wit will come: Knock as you please, there's no body at home.

Jove, thou regent of the skies.

Some judge of authors' names, not works, and then Nor praise nor blame the writings, but the men.

It is with our judgments as with our watches: no two go just alike, yet each believes his own.

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man.

The same ambition can destroy or save, And makes a patriot as it makes a knave.

Such labour'd nothings, in so strange a style, Amaze th' unlearn'd and make the learned smile.

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

Some people will never learn anything, for this reason, because they understand everything too soon.

Absent or dead, still let a friend be dear.

How do we know that we have a right to kill creatures that we are so little above, as dogs, for our curiosity or even for some use to us?

The light of Heaven restore; Give me to see, and Ajax asks no more.

For he lives twice who can at once employ The present well, and evn the past enjoy.

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; Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled, The glory, jest, and riddle of the world.

And if I lose thy love, I lose my all.

How vast a memory has Love!

Histories are more full of examples of the fidelity of dogs than of friends.

No, make me mistress to the man I love; If there be yet another name more free More fond than mistress, make me that to thee!

Behold the child, by Nature's kindly law, Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw; Some livelier plaything gives his youth delight, A little louder, but as empty quite; Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his riper stage, And beads and prayer-books are the toys of age. Pleased with this bauble still, as that before, Till tired he sleeps, and life's poor play is o'er.

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!

While man exclaims, 'See all things for my use!' 'See man for mine!' replies a pamper'd goose.

Tell me, Muse, of the man of many wiles.

They dream in courtship, but in wedlock wake.

And hence one master-passion in the breast, Like Aaron's serpent, swallows up the rest.

Lulled in the countless chambers of the brain, our thoughts are linked by many a hidden chain; awake but one, and in, what myriads rise!

In men, we various ruling passions find; In women, two almost divide the kind Those, only fixed, they first or last obey, The love of pleasure, and the love of sway.

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

The hungry judges soon the sentence sign, And wretches hang that jurymen may dine.

Teach me to feel anothers woe, To hide the fault I see; That mercy I to others show, That mercy show to me.

See skulking Truth to her old cavern fled, Mountains of Casuistry heap'd o'er her head! Philosophy, that lean'd on Heav'n before, Shrinks to her second cause, and is no more. Physic of Metaphysic begs defence, And Metaphysic calls for aid on Sense! See Mystery to Mathematics fly!

Why has not man a microscopic eye? For this plain reason,man is not a fly.

But when to mischief mortals bend their will, How soon they find fit instruments of ill!

And mistress of herself, though china fall.

Who combats bravely is not therefore brave, He dreads a death-bed like the meanest slave: Who reasons wisely is not therefore wise, His pride in reasoning, not in acting lies.

It is with narrow-souled people as with narrow-necked bottles; the less they have in them, the more noise they make in pouring out.

I believe it is no wrong Observation, that Persons of Genius, and those who are most capable of Art, are always fond of Nature, as such are chiefly sensible, that all Art consists in the Imitation and Study of Nature. On the contrary, People of the common Level of Understanding are principally delighted with the Little Niceties and Fantastical Operations of Art, and constantly think that finest which is least Natural.

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.

Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in Night, God said, Let Newton be! And all was Light.

The fate of all extremes is such Men may be read, as well as books, too much. To observations which ourselves we make, We grow more partial for th' observer's sake.

And love the offender, yet detest the offence.

At ev'ry trifle scorn to take offense.

One thought of thee puts all the pomp to flight, Priests, tapers, temples, swim before my sight.

Fire in each eye and papers in each hand, They rave, recite, and madden round the land.

Order is Heaven's first law.

Order is natures first law.

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

Oh name forever sad! forever dear! Still breathed in sighs, still ushered with a tear.

Party-spirit, which at best is but the madness of many for the gain of a few.

Fondly we think we honour merit then, When we but praise ourselves in other men.

In pride, in reasoning pride, our error lies; All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies. Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes: Men would be angels, angels would be gods. Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell, Aspiring to be angels, men rebel.

Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes; Men would be angels, angels would be gods. Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell, Aspiring to be angels, men rebel.

Of all the causes which conspire to blind Man's erring judgment, and misguide the mind; What the weak head with strongest bias rules, Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools.

Not to go back is somewhat to advance, and men must walk, at least, before they dance.

Some to church repair, Not for the doctrine, but the music there. These equal syllables alone require, Though oft the ear the open vowels tire; While expletives their feeble aid to join, And ten low words oft creep in one dull line.

Remembrance and reflection how allied! What thin partitions sense from thought divide!

At every word a reputation dies.

She who neer answers till a husband cools, Or, if she rules him, never shows she rules; Charms by accepting, by submitting, sways, Yet has her humor most, when she obeys.

Satire's my weapon, but I'm too discreet To run amuck, and tilt at all I meet.

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

Trust not yourself, but your defects to know, make use of every friend and every foe.

A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.

Many men have been capable of doing a wise thing, More a cunning thing, but very few a generous thing.

He best can paint them who shall feel them most.

'With ev'ry pleasing, ev'ry prudent part, Say, what can Chloe want?'She wants a heart.

Oft, as in airy rings they skim the heath, The clamtrous lapwings feel the leaden death; Oft, as the mounting larks their notes prepare They fall, and leave their little lives in air.

Be silent always when you doubt your sense.

Then, at the last and only couplet fraught With some unmeaning thing they call a thought, A needless Alexandrine ends the song, That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.

Speed the soft intercourse from soul to soul, And waft a sigh from Indus to the Pole.

Let spades be trumps! she said, and trumps they were.

The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine! Feels at each thread, and lives along the line.

In lazy apathy let stoics boast Their virtue fix'd: 't is fix'd as in a frost; Contracted all, retiring to the breast; But strength of mind is exercise, not rest.

To observations which ourselves we make, We grow more partial for th' observer's sake.

Here thou, great Anna!* whom three realms obey Dost sometimes counsel takeand sometimes tea. * Queen Anne

Let such teach others who themselves excel And censure freely who have written well.

Choose a firm cloud before it fall, and in it Catch, ere she change, the Cynthia of this minute.

What woeful stuff this madrigal would be, In some starved hackney sonneteer, or me! But let a lord once own the happy lines, How the wit brightens! how the style refines!

Years following years steal something every day; At last they steal us from ourselves away.

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

Men must be taught as if you taught them not, And things unknown propos'd as things forgot.

With too much quickness ever to be taught; With too much thinking to have common thought.

True friendship's laws are by this rule expressed Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest.

Truth needs not flowers of speech.

Like following life through creatures you dissect, You lose it in the moment you detect.

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown, Thus unlamented let me die, Steal from the world, and not a stone Tell where I lie.

Ignobly vain, and impotently great.

Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, As to be hated needs but to be seen; Yet seen to oft, familiar with her face, We first endure, then pity, then embrace.

To wake the soul by tender strokes of art, To raise the genius, and to mend the heart; To make mankind, in conscious virtue bold, Live o'er each Seene, and be what they behold: For this the Tragic Muse first trod the stage.

Now warm in love, now with'ring in my bloom Lost in a convent's solitary gloom!

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.

'Tis but a part we see, and not a whole.

What beck'ning ghost, along the moonlight shade Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade?

Whatever is, is right.

Where'er you walk, cool gales shall fan the glade, Trees, where you sit, shall crowd into a shade: Whereer you tread, the blushing flow'rs shall rise, And all things flourish where you turn your eyes.

Plays round the head, but comes not to the heart. One self-approving hour whole years outweighs Of stupid starers and of loud huzzas; And more true joy Marcellus exil'd feels Than Cæsar with a senate at his heels. In parts superior what advantage lies? Tell (for you can) what is it to be wise? 'T is but to know how little can be known; To see all others' faults, and feel our own.

True wit is Nature to advantage dress'd, What oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd.

Woman's at best a contradiction still.

Most women have no characters at all.

As some to church repair, Not for the doctrine, but the music there. 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.

Words are like leaves; and where they most abound, Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot! The world forgetting, by the world forgot.

Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow; The rest is all but leather or prunello.

The young disease, that must subdue at length, Grows with his growth, and strengthens with his strength.

All gardening is landscape painting.

Fix'd like a plant on his peculiar spot, To draw nutrition, propagate, and rot.

How loved, how honored once, avails thee not, To whom related, or by whom begot A heap of dust alone remains of thee 'Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be!

Judge not of actions by their mere effect; Dive to the center, and the cause detect. Great deeds from meanest springs may take their course, And smallest virtues from a mighty source.

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan, The proper study of mankind is man.

Manners with fortunes, humours turn with climes, Tenets with books, and principles with times.

Never elated when one man 's oppress'd; Never dejected while another 's bless'd.

O happiness! our being's end and aim! Good, pleasure, ease, content! whate'er thy name: That something still which prompts the eternal sigh, For which we bear to live, or dare to die.

On life's vast ocean diversely we sail, Reason the card, but passion is the gale.

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

One who is too wise an observer of the business of others, like one who is too curious in observing the labor of bees, will often be stung for his curiosity.

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

Say first, of God above or man below, What can we reason but from what we know?

Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise; My footstool earth, my canopy the skies.

So perish all who do the like again.

Statesman, yet friend to truth! of soul sincere, In action faithful, and in honour clear; Who broke no promise, serv'd no private end, Who gain'd no title, and who lost no friend.

T'is education forms the common mind: Just as the twig is bent the tree's inclined.

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

The meeting points the sacred hair dissever From the fair head, forever, and forever! Then flashed the living lightning from her eyes, And screams of horror rend th' affrighted skies.

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

Together let us beat this ample field, Try what the open, what the covert yield.

Truths would you teach, or save a sinking land? All fear, none aid you, and few understand.

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

Virtuous and vicious every man must be, Few in the extreme, but all in the degree.

Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees.

What can ennoble sots or slaves or cowards? Alas! not all the blood of all the Howards.

Why has not man a microscopic eye? For this plain reason: man is not a fly.

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