Books cannot always please, however good;
Minds are not ever craving for their food.

CRABBE. Books should to one of these four ends conduce: For wisdom, piety, delight, or use.

SIR J. DENHAM. Fixt and contemplative their looks, Still turning over nature's books.

SIR J. DENHAM.

Yet vainly most their age in study spend:
No end of writing books, and to no end.
SIR J. DENHAM.

Let moths through pages eat their way,
Your wars, your loves, your praises be forgot,
And make of all an universal blot.

DRYDEN. Whate'er these booklearn'd blockheads say, Solon's the veriest fool in all the play.

DRYDEN. How pure the joy when first my hands unfold The small, rare volume, black with tarnish'd gold.

FERRIAR: Bibliomania.

The princeps copy, clad in blue and gold. FERRIAR: Bibliomania.

Now cheaply bought for thrice their weight in gold.

FERRIAR: Bibliomania.

That place that does

Contain my books, the best companions, is
To me a glorious court, where hourly I
Converse with the old sages and philosophers.
FLETCHER.

Whence is thy learning? Hath thy toil O'er books consumed the midnight oil?

That we to them our solitude may give,
And make time present travel that of old.
Our life, fame pieceth longer at the end,
And books it farther backward doth extend.
SIR THOMAS OVERBURY.

Studious he sate, with all his books around, Sinking from thought to thought, a vast profound;

Plunged for his sense, but found no bottom there;
Then wrote, and flounder'd on in mere despair.
POPE.

Next o'er his books his eyes began to roll
In pleasing memory of all he stole.

POPE.

GAY.

Volumes on shelter'd stalls expanded lie, And various science lures the learned eye.

GAY.

Uncertain and unsettled he remains,
Deep versed in books, and shallow in himself.

To love an altar built
Of twelve vast French romances neatly gilt.
POPE.

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.

POPE.

MILTON.

My only books

I, fond of my well-chosen seat,
My pictures, medals, books complete.

Were woman's looks,

PRIOR.

And folly's all they taught me.

MOORE.

Books are part of man's prerogative;

In formal ink they thought and voices hold,

My favourite books and pictures sell;
Kindly throw in a little figure,
And set the price upon the bigger.

PRIOR.

Love yields at last, thus combated by pride, And she submits to be the Roman's bride. GRANVILLE. She smiled, array'd With all the charms of sunshine, stream, and glade,

New drest and blooming as a bridal maid. WALTER HARTE.

She turn'd-and her mother's gaze brought back
Each hue of her childhood's faded track:

Oh, hush the song, and let her tears
Flow to the dream of her early years!
Holy and pure are the drops that fall

When the young bride goes from her father's hall;

She goes unto love yet untried and new:
She parts from love which hath still been true.
MRS. HEMANS.
Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky,
Sweet dews shall weep thy fall to-night:
For thou must die!

GEORGE HERBERT.

The amorous bird of night Sung spousal, and bid haste the ev'ning star On his hill-top to light the bridal lamp.

MILTON.

Your ill-meaning politician lords,
Under pretence of bridal friends and guests,
Appointed to await me thirty spies.

MILTON.

Yet here and there we grant a gentle bride, Whose temper betters by the father's side; Unlike the rest that double human care, Fond to relieve, or resolute to share.

PARNELL.