30

AUTHORITY-AUTHORS.

AUTHORITY-continued.

Authority intoxicates,

And makes mere sots of magistrates;
The fumes of it invade the brain,
And make men giddy, proud and vain :
By this the fool commands the wise,
The noble with the base complies,
The sot assumes the rule of wit,
And cowards make the brave submit.
AUTHORS-see Books.

Butler, Misc. Th.

How many great ones may remember'd be,
Which in their days most famously did flourish,
Of whom no word we hear, nor sign now see,
But as things wip'd out with a sponge do perish.

Spenser, Ruins of Time.

Let authors write for glory or reward,
Truth is well paid, when she is sung and heard.
Much thou hast said, which I know when
And where thou stol'st from other men;
Whereby 'tis plain thy light and gifts
Are all but plagiary shifts.

No author ever spared a brother;
Wits are gamecocks to one another.

Bp.Corbet.

Butler, Hudibras.

Authors are judg'd by strange capricious rules,

Gay, Fable 10.

The great ones are thought mad, the small ones fools;
Yet sure the best are more severely fated,

Pope.

Pope, Apol. 27.

For fools are only laughed at-wits are hated.
Blockheads with reason men of sense abhor;
But fool 'gainst fool is barb'rous civil war.
Why on all authors then should critics fall,
Since some have writ and shewn no wit at all?
Authors alone, with more than savage rage,
Unnatural war with brother authors wage.
An author! 't is a venerable name!
How few deserve it, and what numbers claim!
Unblest with sense above their peers refined,
Who shall stand up, dictators to mankind?
Nay, who dare shine, if not in virtue's cause,
That sole proprietor of just applause ?
Some write, confin'd by physic; some, by debt;
Some, for 'tis Sunday; some, because 'tis wet;
Another writes because his father writ,
And proves himself a bastard by his wit.

Young.

Young, Ep. to Pope, c. 1.

AUTHORS-continued.

AUTHORS-AUTHORSHIP.

Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes,
And pause awhile from letters to be wise,
There mark what ills the scholar's life assail,
Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the jail;
See nations slowly wise, and meanly just,

31

To buried merit raise the tardy bust. Johnson, V. H. W. 159. We that live to please, must please to live.

Dr. Johnson, Prologue.

Some write a narrative of wars and feats,
Of heroes little known, and call the rant
An history. Describe the man, of whom
His own coevals took but little note,
And paint his person, character and views,
As they had known him from his mother's womb.

Cowper, Task, 111. 139.

None but an author knows an author's cares,
Or fancy's fondness for the child she bears.

Cowper, Prog. of E. 516.

Byron, Don Juan.

Without, or with, offence to friends or foes,
I sketch the world exactly as it goes.
'Tis pleasant, sure, to see one's name in print;
A book's a book, although there's nothing in 't.
AUTHORSHIP-see Poems.

He that writes,

Byron, Eng. B. 51.

Or makes a feast, more certainly invites
His judges than his friends; there's not a guest
But will find something wanting, or ill-drest.

Howard, Surpr. Prologue.

Of all those arts in which the wise excel,
Nature's chief masterpiece is writing well.

Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, E. P.

Let authors write for glory or reward,

Truth is well paid, when she is sung and heard. Bp. Corbet.

This I hold

A secret worth its weight in gold

To those who write as I write now;

Not to mind where they go, or how,

Through ditch, through bog, o'er hedge and stile;

Make it but worth the reader's while,

And keep a passage fair and plain,

Always to bring him back again.

Churchill.

32

AUTHORSHIP-AUTUMN.

AUTHORSHIP-continued.

One hates an author that's all author, fellows
In foolscap uniform turn'd up with ink;
So very anxious, clever, fine and jealous,
One don't know what to say to them, or think,
Unless to puff them with a pair of bellows;
Of coxcombry's worst coxcombs, e'en the pink
Are preferable to these shreds of

paper,

These unquench'd snuffings of the midnight taper. Beppo, 75. But every fool describes in these bright days,

His wondrous journey to some foreign court,

And spawns his quarto, and demands your praise ;

Death to his publisher, to him 'tis sport. Byron, D. J. v. 52.

Our doctor thus, with stuff'd sufficiency

Of all omnigenous omnisciency,

Began (as who would not begin,
That had like him so much within ?)
To let it out in books of all sorts,

Folios, quartos, large and small sorts.

Some steal a thought,

And clip it round the edge, and challenge him
Whose 'twas to swear to it.

AUTUMN.

Moore.

Bailey, Festus.

Donne.

Not Spring or Summer's beauty hath such grace
As I have seen in one autumnal face.

Thrice happy time,

Best portion of the various year, in which
Nature rejoiceth, smiling on her works,
Lovely, to full perfection wrought.

'Tis past! no more the Summer blooms!
Ascending in the rear,

Behold, congenial Autumn comes,
The Sabbath of the year!

What time thy holy whispers breathe,
The pensive evening shade beneath,
And twilight consecrates the floods ;
While nature strips her garment gay,

Phillips, Cider, b. 2.

And wears the verdure of decay,

O, let me wander through the sounding woods!

Logan.

Season of mist and mellow fruitfulness!

Close bosom friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core.

Keats.

AVARICE-see Covetousness.

AVARICE.

When all sins are old in us,

And go upon crutches, covetousness

Does but then lie in her cradle.

33

Dekker, Honest Wh. p. 2.

The rule, get money, still get money, boy,

No matter by what means. Ben Jonson, Every Man, 11. 3.
What less than fool is man to prog and plot,
And lavish out the cream of all his care,

To gain poor seeming goods which, being got,
Make firm possession but a thoroughfare

;

Or, if they stay, they furrow thoughts the deeper;

And being kept with care, they lose their careful keeper.

That cos'ning vice, although it seems to keep
Our wealth, debars us from possessing it,
And makes us more than poor.

Quarles.

May, Old Couple.

But the base miser starves amidst his store,
Broods o'er his gold, and griping still at more,
Sits sadly pining, and believes he's poor.
And hence one master passion in the breast,

Dryden.

Like Aaron's serpent, swallows up the rest. Pope, E. M.11.131. Riches, like insects, when conceal'd they lie,

Wait but for wings, and in their season fly. Pope, M.E..169.

Wealth in the gross is death, but life diffus'd,

As poison heals, in just proportion us'd;

In heaps, like ambergris, a stink it lies,

But well dispers'd, is incense to the skies. Pope, M.E.111.234.

'Tis strange the miser should his cares employ

To gain those riches he can ne'er enjoy ;

Is it less strange the prodigal should waste

His wealth to purchase what he ne'er can taste? Pope, M.E.xv.3.

Some, o'er-enamour'd of their bags, run mad,

Groan under gold, yet weep for want of bread.

Oh cursed lust of gold! when for thy sake

The fool throws up his interest in both worlds;

Young, N.1.

First starv'd in this, then damn'd in that to come. Blair, Grave.

Dr. Johnson, Irene.

The lust of gold succeeds the lust of conquest:
The lust of gold, unfeeling and remorseless!
The last corruption of degenerate man.
Who, lord of millions, trembles for his store,
And fears to give a farthing to the poor;
Proclaims that penury will be his fate
And, scowling, looks on charity with hate.

Peter Pindar.

D

34

AVARICE-AWKWARDNESS.

AVARICE-continued.

May his soul be plung'd

In ever-burning floods of liquid gold,

And be his avarice the fiend that damns him! Murphy, Alzuma.
A thirst for gold,

The beggar's vice, which can but overwhelm
The meanest soul.

So for a good old-gentlemanly vice,
I think I must take up with avarice.

Byron Vis. of J.

Byron, Don J. 1. 216.

The love of gold, that meanest rage,

And latest folly of man's sinking age,
Which, rarely venturing in the van of life,
While nobler passions wage their heated strife,
Comes skulking last, with selfishness and fear,
And dies, collecting lumber in the rear!
AVERSION-see Dislike.

As well the noble savage of the field
Might tamely couple with the fearful ewe;
Tigers engender with the timid deer;

Wild muddy boars defile the cleanly ermine,

E. Moore.

Or vultures sort with doves; as I with thee. Lee, Mithridates. AWKWARDNESS.

What's a fine person, or a beauteous face,

Unless deportment gives them decent grace?
Bless'd with all other requisites to please,

Some want the striking elegance of ease;

The curious eye their awkward movement tires;

They seem like puppets led about by wires. Churchill, Rosc.
Awkward, embarrass'd, stiff, without the skill

Of moving gracefully, or standing still,
One leg, as if suspicious of his brother,
Desirous seems to run away from t'other.

Ib. Rosciad.