CONNUBIAL HAPPINESS-CONSCIEnce.

CONNUBIAL HAPPINESS.

There's a bliss beyond all that the minstrel has told,
When two, that are link'd in one heavenly tie,
With heart never changing, and brow never cold,
Love on through all ills, and love on till they die!
Oh, the music and beauty of life lose their worth,
When one heart only joys in their smile;
But the union of hearts gives that pleasure its birth,
Which beams on the darkest and coldest of earth
Like the sun on his own chosen isle;

It gives to the fire-side of winter the light,

The glow and the glitter of spring

O sweet are the hours, when too fond hearts unite,

As softly they glide, in their innocent flight
Away on a motionless wing.

CONQUEST

I claim by right

Of conquest: for when kings make war,
No law betwixt two sov'reigns can decide,

85

Moore.

MS.

But that of arms, where fortune is the judge,
Soldiers the lawyers, and the bar the field.

Dryden.

Mark! where his carnage and his conquests cease!

He makes a solitude, and calls it peace! Byron, B. of A. 11. 20. CONSANGUINITY.

'Cause grace and virtue are within Prohibited degrees of kin;

And therefore no true saint allows

They shall be suffered to espouse. Butler, Hud. iii. c. i. 1293. CONSCIENCE.

Leave her to heaven,

And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge,
To prick and sting her.

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.

Sh. Ham. 1. E

Sh. Ham. III. 1.

Sh. H. VI. 3. v. 6.

Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind;
The thief doth fear each bush an officer.
Thrice is he arm'd, that hath his quarrel just;
And he but naked, though lock'd up in steel,
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.

Sh. Hen. VI. 2. III. 2.

Do breed unnatural troubles; Infected minds

To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets. Sh. Mac. v. 1.
The colour of the king doth come and go,
Between his purpose and his conscience,

Like heralds 'twixt two dreadful battles set :

His passion is so ripe, it needs must break. Sh. K. J. iv. 2.
He that has light within his own clear breast,
May sit i' the centre, and enjoy bright day;

But he that hides a dark soul, and foul thoughts,
Benighted walks under the mid-day sun;
Himself is his own dungeon.

O conscience, into what abyss of fears,

Milton, Comus, 381.

And horrors hast thou driven me; out of which

I find no way, from deep to deeper plung'd! Milton, P.L.x.842.

Why should not conscience have vacation,

As well as other courts o' the nation?
Have equal power to adjourn,
Appoint appearance, and return ?

Butler, Hud. 2, 11. 317.

The sweetest conscience we receive at last,
Is conscience of our virtuous actions past.
Here, here it lies; a lump of lead by day;

Denham.

And in my short, distracted, nightly slumbe

The hag that rides my dreams.

Dryden.

Ch power of guilt! how conscience can upbraid!
It forces her not only to reveal,

But to repeat what she would most conceal.

Dryden.

Severe decrees may keep our tongues in awe,

But to our thoughts what edict can give law?

Even you yourself to your own breast shall tell

Your crimes, and your own conscience be your hell. Dryden. Pirates and conquerors of harden'd mind,

The foes of peace and scourges of mankind,

To whom offending men are made a prey,

When Jove in vengeance gives a land away:

Even these when of their ill-got spoils possess'd,

Find sure tormentors in a guilty breast;

Some voice of God, close whispering within, "Wretch this is villainy; and this is sin!"

Pope.

CONSCIENCE-continued.

CONSCIENCE.

Some scruple rose, but thus he eas'd his thought,
I'll now give sixpence where I gave a groat;
Where once I went to church, I'll now go twice,
And am so clear too of all other vice.

87

Pope, Moral Essays.

Young, Bro.

Conscience, what art thou? thou tremendous power!
Who dost inhabit us without our leave,
And art within ourselves, another self,
A master self, that loves to domineer,
And treat the monarch frankly as the slave?
E'en grave divines submit to glittering gold!
The best of consciences are bought and sold.
But, at sixteen, the conscience rarely gnaws
So much, as when we call our old debts in
At sixty years, and draw the account of evil,
And find a deuced balance with the devil.

A quiet conscience makes one so serene!

Peter Pindar.

Byron, D. J. 1.

Christians have burnt each other, quite persuaded

That all the apostles would have done as they did. Ib. D. J. Though thy slumbers may be deep,

Yet thy spirit shall not sleep;

There are shades that will not vanish,

There are thoughts thou canst not banish. Byron, Manfred

There is no future pang

Can deal that justice on the self-condemn'd
He deals on his own soul.

Byron, Manfred.

Byron, Island.

Yet still there whispers the small voice within,
Heard through gain's silence, and o'er glory's din:
Whatever creed be taught or land be trod,
Man's conscience is the oracle of God!

Oh! conscience! conscience! man's most faithful friend,

Him canst thou comfort, ease, relieve, defend:

But if he will thy friendly checks forego,

Thou art, oh! woe for him, his deadliest foe! Crabbe, Struggl.

How awful is that hour when conscience stings
The hoary wretch who on his death-bed hears,
Deep in his soul, the thundering voice that wrings,
In one dark, damning moment, crimes of years!

'Tis ever thus

With noble minds, if chance they slide to folly;
Remorse stings deeper, and relentless conscience
Pours more of gall into the bitter cup

Of their severe repentance.

[of Consc.

Percival.

Mason, Elfrida.

88

CONSCIENCE-CONSTANCY.

CONSCIENCE- continued.

The sweetest cordial we receive at last,
Is conscience of our virtuous actions past.
Trust me, no tortures which the poets feign
Can match the fierce, th' unutterable pain
He feels, who, night and day devoid of rest,
Carries his own accuser in his breast.
Not all the glory, all the praise,
That decks the hero's prosperous days,
The shout of men, the laurel crown,
The pealing anthems of renown,

May conscience' dreadful sentence drown.

CONSENT.

She half consents who silently denies. CONSIDERATION.

What you have said,

I will consider; what you have to say,

I will with patience hear: and find a time
Both meet to hear and answer.

Consideration like an angel came,

Goffe, Orestes.

Juvenal, Gifford.

Mrs. Holford.

Ovid, Art of Love.

Sh. Jul. C. I. 2.

And whipp'd the offending Adam out of him. Sh. H. V. I. 1. CONSOLATION.

Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas'd;
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow;
Raze out the written troubles of the brain;

And, with some sweet oblivious antidote,

Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff,
Which weighs upon the heart.

CONSPIRACY.

Sh. Macb. v. 3.

Oh! think what anxious moments pass between
The birth of plots, and their last fatal periods;
Oh! 'tis a dreadful interval of time,
Fill'd up with horror, and big with death.
Conspiracies no sooner should be formed
Than executed.

Conspiracies,

Addison, Cato.

Addison, Cato.

Like thunder clouds, should in a moment form
And strike, like lightning, ere the sound is heard.

CONSTANCY.

I am constant as the northern star,
Of whose true, fix'd, and resting quality
There is no fellow in the firmament.

A. Dow, Sethona.

Sh. Jul. C. III. 1.

CONSTANCY-CONTEMPT.

CONSTANCY-continued.

O heaven! were man

But constant, he were perfect; that one error

Fills him with faults; makes him run through all sins

89

Sh. Two G. v. 4.

When all things have their trial, you shall find
Nothing is constant but a virtuous mind. Shirley, Wit. Fa.one.
Go, bid the needle its dear north forsake,

To which with trembling rev'rence it doth bend;
Go, bid the stones a journey upwards make;
Go, bid th' ambitious flames no more ascend;
And when these false to their old motions prove,
Then will I cease thee, thee alone, to love."
True constancy no time, no power can move;
He that hath known to change, ne'er knew to love. Gay, Dione.
I know thee constant.

Sooner I'll think the sun would cease to cheer
The teeming earth, and then forget to bear;
Sooner that rivers would run back, or Thames,
With ribs of ice in June, would bind his streams;

Or nature, by whose strength the world endures,

Cowley.

Would change her course before you alter yours. Dr. Johnson. Oh, the heart, that has truly lov'd, never forgets,

But as truly loves on to the close,

As the sun-flower turns on her god, when he sets,

The same look which she turn'd when he rose. Moore, Sunfl.

There is nothing but death Our affections can sever, And till life's latest breath Love shall bind us for ever. CONSUMMATION.

J. G. Percival.

'Tis a consummation

Sh. Ham. III. 1.

Devoutly to be wish'd.

CONTEMPLATION.

Fixed and contemplative their looks,
Still turning over nature's books.

Thus every object of creation

Can furnish hints for contemplation,
And from the most minute and mean,
A virtuous mind can morals glean.
CONTEMPT.

What valour were it, when a cur doth grin,
For one to thrust his hand between his teeth,
When he might spurn him with his foot away?

Denham.

Gay.

Sh. H. VI. 3. 1. 4.