A Compendium of English Literature: Chronologically Arranged, from Sir John Mandeville to William Cowper ; Consisting of Biographical Sketches of the Authors, Choice Selections from Their Works, with Notes, Explanatory and Illustrative, and Directing to the Best Editions and to Various Criticisms

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Page 597 - Th' applause of listening senates to command, The threats of pain and ruin to despise, To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, And read their history in a nation's eyes...
Page 163 - ... of business; for expert men can execute and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one ; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs, come best from those that are learned.
Page 143 - Where some, like magistrates, correct at home; Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad; Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings, Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds, Which pillage they with merry march bring home To the tent-royal of their emperor, Who, busied in his majesty, surveys The singing masons building roofs of gold, The civil...
Page 523 - How sleep the Brave who sink to rest By all their country's wishes blest! When Spring, with dewy fingers cold, Returns to deck their hallowed mould, She there shall dress a sweeter sod Than Fancy's feet have ever trod. By fairy hands their knell is rung; By forms unseen their dirge is sung; There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray, To bless the turf that wraps their clay; And Freedom shall awhile repair, To dwell a weeping hermit there!
Page 245 - And all their echoes mourn. The willows and the hazel copses green Shall now no more be seen Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays. As killing as the canker to the rose...
Page 596 - For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn Or busy housewife ply her evening care : No children run to lisp their sire's return, Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share. Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield, Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke ; How jocund did they drive their team afield ! How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke ! Let not Ambition mock their useful toil, Their homely joys, and destiny obscure ; Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile The short and...
Page 248 - Bid Amaranthus all his beauty shed, And daffadillies fill their cups with tears, To strew the laureate hearse where Lycid lies. For, so to interpose a little ease, Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise; Ay me ! whilst thee the shores and sounding seas Wash far away, where'er thy bones are hurled; Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides, Where thou perhaps under the whelming tide Visit'st the bottom of the monstrous world...
Page 519 - O'erhang his wavy bed: Now air is hush'd, save where the weak-eyed bat With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing, Or where the beetle winds His small but sullen horn, As oft he rises, 'midst the twilight path Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum...
Page 139 - Love thyself last ; cherish those hearts that hate thee : Corruption wins not more than honesty. Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace, To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not : Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's, Thy God's and truth's; then, if thou fall'st, O Cromwell, Thou fall'st a blessed martyr.
Page 512 - In happy climes the seat of innocence, Where nature guides and virtue rules, Where men shall not impose for truth and sense, The pedantry of courts and schools : " There shall be sung another golden age, The rise of empire and of arts, The good and great inspiring epic rage, The wisest heads and noblest hearts. " Not such as Europe breeds in her decay ; Such as she bred when fresh and young, When heavenly flame did animate her clay, By future poets shall be sung. " Westward the course of empire takes...

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