The Works of Alexander Pope, Volume 3

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J. Balfour, 1764

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Page 272 - Night primaeval and of Chaos old ! Before her, Fancy's gilded clouds decay, And all its varying rainbows die away. Wit shoots in vain its momentary fires, The meteor drops, and in a flash expires. As one by one, at dread Medea's strain, The sick'ning stars fade off th' ethereal plain ; As Argus
Page 273 - 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! In vain! they gaze, turn giddy, rave, and die, Religion blushing veils her sacred fires, And unawares Morality expires.
Page xxiv - Boileau has so well enlarged upon in the preface to his works: that wit and fine writing doth not consist so much in advancing things that are new, as in giving things that are known an agreeable turn.
Page 190 - Silence, ye wolves ! while Ralph to Cynthia howls And makes night hideous — Answer him, ye owls ! " Sense, speech, and measure, living tongues and dead, Let all give way, and Morris may be read.
Page 237 - Or chew'd by blind old scholiasts o'er and o'er. The critic eye, that microscope of wit, Sees hairs and pores, examines bit by bit : How parts relate to parts, or they to whole, The body's harmony, the beaming soul, Are things which Kuster, Burman, Wasse shall see, When man's whole frame is obvious to a flea.
Page xxiv - As for those which are the most known, and the most received, they are placed in so beautiful a light, and illustrated with such apt allusions, that they have in them all the graces of novelty, and make the reader, who was before acquainted with them, still more convinced of their truth and solidity.
Page 239 - We only furnish what he cannot use, Or wed to what he must divorce, a muse: Full in the midst of Euclid dip at once, And petrify a genius to a dunce: Or set on metaphysic ground to prance, Show all his paces, not a step advance.
Page 228 - When Reason doubtful, like the Samian letter, Points him two ways, the narrower is the better. Plac'd at the door of Learning, youth to guide, We never suffer it to stand too wide.
Page 157 - Ditch with disemboguing streams Rolls the large tribute of dead dogs to Thames, The king of dykes ! than whom no sluice of mud With deeper sable blots the silver flood.
Page 216 - The moon-struck prophet felt the madding hour : Then rose the seed of Chaos, and of Night, To blot out order, and extinguish light, Of dull and venal a new world to mould, And bring Saturnian days of lead and gold.

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