Wouldst thou unlock the door To cold despairs and gnawing pensiveness? GEORGE HERBERT.

Despair takes heart when there's no hope to speed:

The coward then takes arms and does the deed. HERRICK.

So spake th' apostate angel, though in pain; Vaunting aloud, but rack'd with deep despair. MILTON.

Some whose meaning hath at first been fair Grow knaves by use, and rebels by despair. ROSCOMMON.

If a wild uncertainty prevail,

And turn your veering heart with ev'ry gale, You lose the fruit of all your former care, For the sad prospect of a just despair.

ROSCOMMON.

My heart and my chill veins freeze with despair.
Rowe.

Oh, can your counsel his despair defer,
Who now is housed in his sepulchre?

SANDYS.

How all the other passions fleet to air,
As doubtful thoughts, and rash embraced despair!
SHAKSPEARE.

Discomfort guides my tongue, And bids me speak of nothing but despair. SHAKSPEARE.

To-morrow in the battle think on me,
And fall thy edgeless sword; despair and die.
SHAKSPEARE.

Why should he despair, that knows to court
With words, fair looks, and liberality?

SHAKSPEARE.

I will keep her ign'rant of her good,
To make her heav'nly comforts of despair,
When it is least expected.

SHAKSPEARE.

Curst be good haps, and curst be they that build Their hopes on haps, and do not make despair For all these certain blows the surest shield. SIR P. SIDNEY.

DESTINY.

Had thy great destiny but given thee skill
To know, as well as pow'r to act, her will.
SIR J. DENHAM.

141

Chance, or forceful destiny,
Which forms in causes first whate'er shall be.
DRYDEN.

The father bore it with undaunted soul,
Like one who durst his destiny control.

DRYDEN.

Far from that hated face the Trojans fly; All but the fool who sought his destiny.

DRYDEN.

How can hearts not free be tried whether they

serve

Willing or no, who will but what they must By destiny, and can no other choose?

MILTON.

He said, Dear daughter, rightly may I rue
The fall of famous children born of me;
But who can turn the stream of destiny,
Or break the chain of strong necessity,
Which fast is tied to Jove's eternal seat?
SPENSER.

DEVOTION.

Think, O my soul, devoutly think,
How, with affrighted eyes,
Thou saw'st the wide-extended deep
In all its horrors rise.

ADDISON.

In vain doth man the name of just expect,
If his devotions he to God neglect.

SIR J. DENHAM. For this, with soul devout, he thank'd the god, And, of success secure, return'd to his abode. DRYDEN.

Meantime her warlike brother on the seas
His waving streamers to the winds displays,
And vows for his return with vain devotion pays.
DRYDEN.

Grateful to acknowledge whence his good
Descends, thither with heart, and voice, and eyes
Directed to devotion, to adore

And worship God supreme, who made him chief Of all his works.

MILTON.

From the full choir when loud hosannas rise,
And swell the pomp of dreadful sacrifice,
Amid that scene, if some relenting eye
Glance on the stone where our cold reliques lie,
Devotion's self shall steal a thought from

heaven,

One human tear shall drop, and be forgiven. POPE.

high,

For acting here life's tragi-comedy,
The lookers-on will say we act not well,
Unless the last the former scenes excel.
SIR J. DENHAM.

Now you will all be wits; and he, I pray,
And you, that discommend it, mend the play.
SIR J. DENHAM.

Courts are theatres, where some men play Princes, some slaves, and all end in one day. JOHN DONNE.

Great Fletcher never treads in buskins here, Nor greater Jonson dares in socks appear; But gentle Simkin just reception finds Amidst the monuments of vanish'd minds.

Unfledged actors learn to laugh and cry.

DRYDEN.

Now luck for us, and a kind hearty pit; For he who pleases never fails of wit.

DRYDEN.

These, waving plots, found out a better way: Some god descended, and preserved the play.

DRYDEN.

'Twere well your judgments but in plays did range;

But ev'n your follies and debauches change
With such a whirl, the poets of your age
Are tired, and cannot score them on the stage.
DRYDEN.

His muse had starved, had not a piece unread,
And by a player bought, supplied her bread.
DRYDEN.

If his characters were good, The scenes entire, and freed from noise and

blood,

The action great, yet circumscribed by time,
The words not forced, but sliding into rhyme,
He thought, in hitting these, his business done.
DRYDEN.

What men of spirit nowadays
Come to give sober judgment of new plays?
GARRICK.

Here saunt'ring 'prentices o'er Otway weep.

GAY.

Po