PROVIDENCE.

485

PROVIDENCE-continud.

Yet sure the gods are good: I would think so,
If they would give me leave!

But virtue in distress, and vice in triumph,
Make atheists of mankind.

O murmur not, my love, at providence!
Heaven is too wise and good to punish us
Without a cause; nor let us rashly dare

Dryden.

To censure what we cannot comprehend. Heywood, F. Captive.

'Tis the curse of mighty minds oppress'd,

To think what their state is, and what it should be :

Impatient of their lot, they reason fiercely,

And call the laws of providence unequal.

Rowe.

The holy power that clothes the senseless earth
With woods, with fruits, with flowers, and verdant plains,
Whose bounteous hand feeds the whole brute creation,

Knows all our wants, and has enough to give us. Ib. Fa. Pen.

The ways of heaven are dark and intricate;
Puzzled in mazes, and perplex'd with errors,
Our understanding traces them in vain,
Lost and bewilder'd in the fruitless search,
Nor sees with how much art the windings run,
Nor where the regular confusion ends.

Addison, Cato.

If piety be thus debarr'd access
On high; and of good men, the very best
Be singled out to bleed, and bear the scourge, -
What is reward P-and what is punishment?
But who shall dare to tax eternal justice. Congreve, M. Bride.

Mark, mark, Ulysses! how the gods preserve
The men they love, even in their own despite!
They guide us, and we travel in the dark;
But when we most despair to hit the way,
And least expect, we find ourselves arrived!

How just is Providence in all its works!
How swift to overtake us in our crimes!

Let cavillers deny

Lansdowne.

Ib. Heroic Love.

That brutes have reason; sure 'tis something more,

'Tis heaven directs, and stratagems inspire,

Beyond the short extent of human thought. Somervile, Cha. 111.

Heaven to mankind impartial we confess,

If all are equal in their happiness;

But mutual wants this happiness increase

All nature's difference keeps all nature's peace.

Pope, E. M. IV. 53.

Who finds not Providence all good and wise,

Alike in what it gives, and what denies ? Pope, Е. М. 1. 205.

All nature is but art, unknown to thee,

All chance, direction which thou canst not see;

All discord, harmony not understood

All partial evil, universal good;

;

And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,

One thing is clear, whatever is, is right. Pope, E. M. 1. 289.

Whatever is, is right, says Pope,

So said a learned thief,

But when his fate required a rope,

He varied his belief.

This is thy work, almighty Providence !

Whose power, beyond the stretch of human thought,

Revolves the orbs of empire; bids them sink

Anon.

Deep in the dead'ning night of thy displeasure,
Or rise majestic o'er a wondering world. Thomson, Cor. II. 5.

The gods take pleasure oft, when haughty mortals

On their own pride erect a mighty fabric,

By slightest means, to lay their towering schemes

Low in the dust, and teach them they are nothing. Ib. Cor.111.3.

There is a power

Unseen that rules the illimitable world,

That guides its motions, from the brightest star
To the least dust of this sin-tainted mould;

While man, who madly deems himself the lord

Of all, is nought but weakness and dependence. Ib. Cor. 11. 5.

Wondrous chance!

Or rather wondrous conduct of the gods!

By mortals, from their blindness, chance misnam'd.

Thomson, Agamemnon, III. 1.

O eternal Providence, whose course,

Amidst the various maze of life, is fix'd

By boundless wisdom and by boundless love,
I follow Thee, with resignation, hope,
With confidence and joy ; for Thou art good,
And of thy rising goodness is no end.

Sink not beneath imaginary sorrows;
Call to your aid your courage and your wisdom :
Think on the sudden change of human scenes;
Think on the various accidents of war;

Think on the mighty power of awful virtue;

Thomson.

Think on that Providence which guards the good. Dr.Johnson.

PROVIDENCE-PRUDENCE.

PROVIDENCE-continued.

How heaven, in scorn of human arrogance,
Commits to trivial chance the fate of nations!
While with incessant thought laborious man
Extends his mighty schemes of wealth and power,
And towers and triumphs in ideal greatness,
Some accidental gust of opposition
Blasts all the beauties of his new creation,

O'erturns the fabric of presumptuous reason,

487

And whelms the swelling architect beneath it. Dr. Johnson. Happy the man who sees a God employ'd

In all the good and ill that chequer life! Cowper, Task, 11. 161.

Of joys I cannot paint, and I am bless'd,

In all that I conceive, whatever is, is best.

Crabbe, Tales of the Hall, vi.

Yes, Thou art ever present, Power supreme!

Not circumscrib'd by time, nor fix'd to space,
Confin'd to altars, nor to temples bound.

In wealth, in want, in freedom, or in chains,

In dungeons or on thrones, the faithful find thee!

Hannah More, Belshazzar, 1, 1.

One adequate support

For the calamities of mortal life
Exists-one only; an assured belief
That the procession of our fate, howe'er
Sad or disturb'd, is order'd by a Being
Of infinite benevolence and power,

Whose everlasting purposes embrace
All accidents, converting them to good.

PRUDENCE-see Conduct, Discretion, Feasting.

When we mean to build,

We first survey the plot, then draw the model;
And when we see the figure of the house,

Then must we rate the cost of the erection

Which if we find outweighs ability,

What do we then but draw anew the model

In fewer offices; or, at least, desist

To build at all P

Wordsworth.

Henceforth his might we know, and know our own,

So as not either to provoke, or dread

New war, provok'd.

Sh. Hen. IV. 2, 1. 3.

Milton, P. L. 1. 643.

Prudence! thou vainly in our youth art sought,
And, with age purchas'd, art too dearly bought:

We're past the use of wit, for which we toil,

Late fruit, and planted in too cold a soil.

Dryden.

488

PRUDENCE-PUNISHMENT.

PRUDENCE-continued.

He knows the compass, sail, and oar,
Or never launches from the shore;
Before he builds computes the cost,
And in no proud pursuit is lost.

Gay, Fable 5, part 2.

To doubtful matters do not headlong run,
What's well left off were better not begun. Thomas Randolph.

Prudence protects and guides us, wit betrays, -
A splendid source of ill ten thousand ways,
A certain snare to miseries immense,

A gay prerogative from common sense,-
Unless strong judgment that wild thing can tame,

And break to paths of virtue and of fame.

PRUDERY.

The honour of a prude is rage and storm,
'Tis ugliness in its most frightful form;
Fiercely it stands, defying gods and men,
As fiery monsters guard a giant's den.
Yon ancient prude, whose wither'd features show
She might be young some forty years ago;
Her elbows pinion'd close upon her hips;
Her head erect, her fan upon her lips;
Her eyebrows arch'd, her eyes both gone astray
To watch yon amorous couple in their play;

With bony and unkerchief'd neck defies
The rude inclemency of wintry skies,

And sails, with lappit head and mincing airs.

Young.

Sh. Poems.

Duly at chink of bell to morning prayers. Cowper, Truth, 133.

PUBLIC VOICE-see Mob, People, Rabble.

The public voice!

There's not an arrant rogue but calls

The wretched raving of his paltry gang

"The public voice;" nay, those who dare not speak

Above their breath, for fear of punishment,

Will whisper forth that voice, if you believe

Their timid accents.

PUNNING-see Character, Mirth.

I see a chief who leads my chosen sons,
All armed with points, antitheses, and puns.

PUNISHMENT-see Knavery.

He's a bad surgeon that for pity spares

The part corrupted till the gangrene spread,
And all the body perish: he that's merciful

Unto the bad, is cruel to the good.

Haynes.

Pope.

Randolph, Muses' Looking-Glass.

PUNISHMENT-continued.

Nor custom, nor example, nor vast numbers
Of such as do offend, make less the sin;
For each particular crime a strict account
Will he exacted; and that comfort, which
The damn'd pretend, follows in misery,
Takes nothing from their torments: every one

Must suffer in himself the measure of

His wickedness.

Massinger, Picture.

Justice awake, and Rigour take her time,

For lo! our mercy is become our crime.
While halting Punishment her stroke delays,
Our sovereign right, heaven's sacred trust, decays !
Right lives by law, and law subsists by power;

Disarm the shepherd, wolves the flock devour.

Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel, 11. 733.

PURITANS-see Presbyterians.

Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous,
There shall be no more cakes and ale?

A

lawless linsey-woolsey brother, Half of one order, half another; A creature of amphibious nature, On land a beast, a fish in water, That alway preys on grace or sin, A sheep without, a wolf within.

PURITY-see Probity.

Sh. T. Ni. 11. 3.

Butler, Hud. 1, 111. 1227.

A spirit pure as hers,
If always pure even while it errs-
As sunshine, broken in the rill,
Though turned astray, is sunshine still.

A lovelier nymph the pencil never drew;
For the fond graces formed her easy mien,
And heaven's soft azure in her eye was seen.

Around her shone

Thomas Moore.

The light of love, the purity of grace,
The mind, the music breathing from her face;
The heart whose softness harmonized the whole;

And, oh! that eye was in itself a soul!

'Tis said the lion will turn and flee

Hayley.

Byron.

From a maid in the pride of her purity. Byron, Siege of Cor.