What is the worst of woes that wait on age?
What stamps the wrinkle deepest on the brow?
To view each loved one blighted from life's
And be alone on earth as I am now.

AGGRESSION.

page,

Byron, Ch. H. 98.

You take my house, when you do take the prop
That doth sustain my house; you take my life,

When you do take the means whereby I live. Sh. M. V. rv. 1. ALACRITY-see Promptitude.

A willing heart adds feather to the heel, And makes the clown a winged Mercury. ALARM.

Jo. Baillie D. M. 11. 1.

What's the business,

That such a hideous trumpet calls to parley,
The sleepers of the house-Speak,-speak!

ALEXANDRINE.

A needless Alexandrine ends the song,

Sh.Mac. 11. 3.

That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along. ALLEGIANCE.

Allegiance, tempted too far, is like

Pope, E. Crit. 156.

A sword well temper'd on an anvil tried,
That press'd too hardly may in pieces fly :
An overburthen'd trust may treach'ry prove,
And be too late repented.

ALONE-see Solitude.

Alone she sat alone! that worn-out word,
So idly spoken and so coldly heard;
Yet all that poets sing, and grief hath known,
Of hope laid waste, knells in that word-alone!
ALPINE TRAVEL.

Massinger.

New Timon.

Though sluggards deem it but a foolish chase, And marvel men should quit their easy chair, The toilsome way, and long, long league to trace, Oh, there is sweetness in the mountain air, And life that bloated ease can never hope to share. ALPS. Byron, Ch. H. 1. 30.

Above me are the Alps,

The palaces of Nature, whose vast walls
Have pinnacled in clouds their snowy scalps,
And thron'd eternity in icy halls

Of cold sublimity, where forms and falls

The avalanche-the thunderbolt of snow!

All that expands the spirit, yet appals,

ALPS-AMBITION.

15

ALPS-continued.

Gather around these summits, as to show

How earth may pierce to Heaven, yet leave vain man below.

Byron, Ch. H. 111. 62.

Who first beholds the Alps,-that mighty chain

Of mountains, stretching on from east to west,
So massive, yet so shadowy, so ethereal,

As to belong rather to heaven than earth-
But instantly receives into his soul

A sense, a feeling that he loses not—

A something that informs him 't is a moment
Whence he may date henceforward and for ever.
AMAZEMENT-see Astonishment. Surprise.

But look! Amazement on my mother sits;
O step between her and her fighting soul:
Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works.

They spake not a word;

But, like dumb statues, or breathless stones,
Star'd on each other, and look'd deadly pale.

AMBER.

Pretty in amber to observe the forms

Rogers.

Sh. Ham. III. 4.

Sh. Ric. III. III. 7.

Of hairs, or straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms!
The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare.

But wonder how the devil they got there. Pope, Ep, to Arb.

AMBITION- -see Fame, Glory, Pride.

Raleigh. Fain would I climb, but that I fear to fall.

[169.

Q. El. If thy mind fail thee, do not climb at all. Scott, Ken.xvII Fling away ambition;

By that sin fell the angels: how can man then,

The image of his Maker, hope to win by't? Sh. H. VIII. III. 2.
I have ventur'd

Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders,
This many summers in a sea of glory.

But far beyond my depth; my high-blown pride
At length broke under me.

Sh. H. VIII. III. 2.

Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
Lowliness is young ambition's ladder,
Whereto the climber upward turns his face
But when he once attains the utmost round,
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend.

;

Sh. Jul. C. 1. 2.

Sh. Jul. C. 11. 1.

They that stand high, have many blasts to shake them;
And if they fall, they dash themselves to pieces. Sh. R. 111. 1. 3.
Ambition's monstrous stomach does increase
By eating, and it fears to starve, unless
It still may feed, and all it sees devour.

Davenant, Playhouse to let.

To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heav'n.

Milion, P. L. 1. 262.

But what will Ambition and Revenge
Descend to? Who aspires, must down as low
As high he soar'd, obnoxious, first or last,
To basest things. Revenge, at first though sweet,
Bitter ere long, back on itself recoils.

Milton, P. L. ix. 168.

Ambition is a lust that's never quench'd,
Grows more enflam'd, and madder by enjoyment.

Ambition is the dropsy of the soul,

Whose thirst we must not yield to, but control.
Ambition! the desire of active souls,

Otway, Cai. Ma.

Sedley.

Rowe, Am. Step.

Lilly, Midas.

That pushes them beyond the bounds of nature,
And elevates the hero to the Gods.

Ambition hath but two steps: the lowest,
Blood; the highest, envy.

Ambition hath one heel nail'd in hell,

Though she stretch her fingers to touch the heavens. Ib.

What various wants on power attend!

Ambition never gains its end.

Who hath not heard the rich complain
Of surfeit and corporeal pain?
And barr'd from every use of wealth,
Envy the ploughman's strength and health.
Ambition is an idol, on whose wings
Great minds are carry'd only to extreme;
To be sublimely great, or to be nothing.
The fiery soul abhorr'd in Catiline,
In Decius charms, in Curtius is divine:
The same ambition can destroy or save,
And make a patriot, as it makes a knave.

Gay, Fable. 5.

Southern, Loy. Bro.

Pope, Es. M.

AMBITION-continued.

AMBITION.

Oh, sons of earth! attempt ye still to rise,
By mountains pil'd on mountains, to the skies ?
Heaven still with laughter the vain toil surveys,
And buries madmen in the heaps they raise.

Ambition is a spirit in the world,

That causes all the ebbs and flows of nations,
Keeps mankind sweet by action: without that,

17

Pope, Es. M.

The world would be a filthy settled mud. Crowne, Amb. Statesm. Oh, were I seated high as my ambition,

I'd place this naked foot on necks of monarchs!

Walpole, Myst. M.

The true ambition there alone resides,
Where justice vindicates, and wisdom guides;
Where inward dignity joins outward state,
Our purpose good, as our achievement great;
Where public blessings, public praise attend,
Where glory is our motive, not our end:

Wouldst thou be famed ? have those high acts in view,

Brave men would act, though scandal would ensue.Young, L.F.

Fame is the shade of immortality,

And in itself a shadow. Soon as caught,

[VII.

Contemn'd, it shrinks to nothing in the grasp. Young, N. T.

Unnumber'd suppliants crowd preferment's gate,
Athirst for wealth, and burning to be great,
Delusive fortune hears the incessant call,
They mount, they shine, evaporate and fall.

{VII.

Johnson, V. H. W.

This sov'reign passion, scornful of restraint,
Even from the birth affects supreme command,
Swells in the breast, and with resistless force,
O'erbears each gentler motion of the mind.

Dream after dream ensues,
And still they dream that they shall still succeed,
And still are disappointed.

On the summit, see,

The seals of office glitter in his eyes;

Johnson, Ir.

Cowper, Task. III. 127.

He climbs, he pants, he grasps them. At his heels,

Close at his heels, a demagogue ascends,

And with a dext'rous jerk soon twists him down,

And wins them, but to lose them in his turn. Cowper, T. iv. 58.

Ah! who can tell how hard it is to climb

The steep where Fame's proud temple shines afar,

Beattie. Mins. 1. 1.

18

AMBITION-ANATHEMA.

AMBITION-continued.

He who ascends on mountain-tops, shall find
The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow;
He who surpasses or subdues mankind,
Must look down on the hate of those below.

Byron, Ch. H. 111. 45.

To th' expanded and aspiring soul,
To be but still the thing it long has been,
Is misery, e'en though enthron'd it were
Under the cope of high imperial state.
AMERICA.

Poor lost America, high honours missing,

Jo. Baillie, Ethw. 5.

Knows nought of smile and nod, and sweet hand-kissing; Knows nought of golden promises of kings;

Knows nought of coronets, and stars, and strings.

Who can, with patience, for a moment see

The medley mass of pride and misery,

Of whips and charters, manacles and rights,
Of slaving blacks and democratic whites.

Peter Pindar.

Moore.

Well-peace to the land! may the people at length,
Know that freedom is bliss, but that honour is strength;
That though man have the wings of the fetterless wind,
Of the wantonest air that the north can unbind,
Yet if health do not sweeten the blast with her bloom,
Nor virtue's aroma its pathway perfume,
Unblest is the freedom and dreary the flight,
That but wanders to ruin and wantons to blight!

America! half brother of the world!
With something good and bad of every land;
Greater than thee have lost their seat-
Greater scarce none can stand.

Columbia, child of Britain,-noblest child;
I praise the glowing lustre of thy youth,
And fain would see thy great heart reconciled
To love the mother of so blest a birth;
For we are one Columbia; still the same
In lineage, language, laws, and ancient fame,
The natural nobility of earth.

Thou, O, my country, hast thy foolish ways,
Too apt to purr at every stranger's praise,-
But if the stranger touch thy modes or laws,
Off goes the velvet, and out come the claws!

Moore.

Bailey, Festus.

Tupper, Lyrics.

Holmes.