Chapter XLVI: A domestic picture is given, an interior, with the (14)

Could but our tempers more like this machine,
Not urged by passion, nor delayed by spleen,
And true to Nature’s regulating power,
By virtuous acts distinguish every hour;
Then health and joy would follow as they ought
The laws of motion, and the laws of thought;
Sweet health to pass the present moment o’er,
And everlasting joy when time shall be no more.

SUN-DIAL INSCRIPTIONS.

Sine sole sileo.
(Without sunlight I give no information.)

Scis horas; nescis horam.
(You know the hours; you know not the hour [of death].)

Afflictis lentæ, celeres gaudentibus horæ.
(The hours pass slowly for the afflicted, rapidly for the joyous.)

Vado e vegno giorno;
Ma tu andrai senza ritorno.

(I go and come every day;
But thou shalt go without return.)

May the dread book at our last trial,
When open spread, be like this dial;
May Heaven forbear to mark therein
The hours made dark by deeds of sin;
Those only in that record write
Which virtue like the sun makes bright.

If o’er the dial glides a shade, redeem
The time, for lo! it passes like a dream;
But if ’tis all a blank, then mark the loss
Of hours unblest by shadows from the cross.

INSCRIPTION OVER A SPRING.

Whoe’er thou art that stays’st to quaff
The streams that here from waters dim
Arise to fill thy cup and laugh
In sparkling beads about the brim,
In all thy thoughts and words as pure
As these sweet waters mayst thou be;
To all thy friends as firm and sure,
As prompt in all thy charity.

INSCRIPTIONS ON AN ÆOLIAN HARP.

AT THE ENDS.

Fingent Æolio carmine nobilem. (Hor. iv. 3.)

Partem aliquam, oh venti, divum referatis ad aures. (Virg. Buc. 3.)

ON THE SIDE.

Hail, heavenly harp, where Memnon’s skill is shown,
That charm’st the ear with music all thy own!
Which, though untouched, canst rapturous strains impart.
Oh, rich of genuine nature, free from art!
Such the wild warblings of the chirping throng,
So simply sweet the untaught virgin’s song.

Mr. Longfellow’s admirers will remember his beautiful little poem commencing:—

I like that ancient Saxon phrase which calls
The burial-ground _God’s acre_.

This “Saxon phrase” is not obsolete. It may be seen, for instance, inscribed over the entrance to a modern cemetery at Basle—

=Gottes Acker.=

Over a gateway near the church of San Eusebio, Rome:—

Tria sunt mirabilia;
Trinus et unus,
Deus et homo,
Virgo et mater.

Over the door of the house in which Selden was born, Salvington, Sussex:—

Gratus, honesti, mihi; non claudar, inito sedeq’.
Fur, abeas; non su’ facta soluta tibi.

Thus paraphrased:—

Thou’rt welcome, honest friend; walk in, make free;
Thief, get thee gone; my doors are closed to thee.

HOUSE INSCRIPTIONS.

On the Town-house Wittenberg:—

Ist’s Gottes Werk, so wird’s bestehen;
Ist’s Menschens, so wird’s untergehen.

(If God’s work, it will aye endure;
If man’s, ’tis not a moment sure.)

Over the gate of a Casino, near Maddaloni:—

AMICIS—
Et ne paucis pateat,
Etiam fictis.

(My gate stands open for my friends;
But lest of these too few appear,
Let him who to the name pretends
Approach and find a welcome here.)

On a west-of-England mansion:—

Welcome to all through this wide-opening gate;
None come too early, none depart too late.

Fuller (_Holy and Profane State_) and Walton (_Life of George Herbert_) notice a verse engraved upon a mantelpiece in the Parsonage House built by George Herbert at his own expense. The faithful minister thus counsels his successor:—

If thou dost find
A house built to thy mind,
Without thy cost,
Serve thou the more
§God§ and the poor:
My labor is not lost.

The following is emblazoned around the banqueting hall of Bulwer’s ancestral home, Knebworth:—

Read the Rede of the Old Roof Tree.
Here be trust fast. Opinion free.
Knightly Right Hand. Christian knee.
Worth in all. Wit in some.
Laughter open. Slander dumb.
Hearth where rooted Friendships grow,
Safe as Altar even to Foe.
And the sparks that upwards go
When the hearth flame dies below,
If thy sap in them may be,
Fear no winter, Old Roof Tree.

On a pane of glass in an old window in the coffee-room of the White Lion, Chester, England:—

Right fit a place is window glass
To write the name of bonny lass;
And if the reason you should speir,
Why both alike are brittle geir,
A wee thing dings a lozen lame—
A wee thing spoils a maiden’s fame.

Tourist’s wit on a window pane at Lodore:—

When I see a man’s name
Scratched upon the glass,
I know he owns a diamond,
And his father owns an ass.

On a pane of the Hotel des Pays-Bas, Spa, Belgium:—

1793.
I love but one, and only one;
Oh, Damon, thou art he.
Love thou but one and only one,
And let that one be me.

MEMORIALS.

An English gentleman, who, in 1715, spent some time in prison, left the following memorial on the windows of his cell. On one pane of glass he wrote:—

That which the world miscalls a jail,
A private closet is to me;
Whilst a good conscience is my bail,
And innocence my liberty.

On another square he wrote, _Mutare vel timere sperno_, and on a third pane, _sed victa Catoni_.[31]

Footnote 31:

Lucan’s Pharsalia. (Lib. 1.)

A Mr. Barton, on retiring with a fortune made in the wool-trade, built a fair stone house at Holme, in Nottinghamshire, in the window of which was the following couplet,—an humble acknowledgment of the means whereby he had acquired his estate:—

I thank God, and ever shall;
It is the sheep hath paid for all.

FRANCKE’S ENCOURAGING DISCOVERY.

It is said that when Francke was engaged in the great work of erecting his world-known Orphan-House at Halle, for the means of which he looked to the Lord in importunate prayer from day to day, an apparently accidental circumstance made an abiding impression on him and those about him. A workman, in digging a part of the foundation, found a small silver coin, with the following inscription:—

“Jehova, Conditor, Condita Coronide Coronet.”
(May Jehovah, the builder, finish the building.)

GOLDEN MOTTOES.

A vain man’s motto,— Win gold and wear it.
A generous man’s motto,— Win gold and share it.
A miser’s motto,— Win gold and spare it.
A profligate’s motto,— Win gold and spend it.
A broker’s motto,— Win gold and lend it.
A fool’s motto,— Win gold and end it.
A gambler’s motto,— Win gold and lose it.
A sailor’s motto,— Win gold and cruise it.
A wise man’s motto,— Win gold and use it.

POSIES FROM WEDDING-RINGS.

_Portia._ A quarrel, ho, already! What’s the matter?

_Gratiano._ About a hoop of gold, a paltry ring
That she did give me: whose posy was
For all the world like cutler’s poetry
Upon a knife:[32] _Love me, and leave me not._—
_Merchant of Venice_, Act V.

Footnote 32:

Knives were formerly inscribed, by means of aqua-fortis, with short
sentences in distich.

_Hamlet._ Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?—
_Hamlet_, Act III. sc. 2.

_Jacques._ You are full of pretty answers: have you not been
acquainted with goldsmiths’ wives, and conned them out of rings?—

_As You Like It_, Act III. sc. 2.

The following posies were transcribed by an indefatigable collector, from old wedding-rings, chiefly of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The orthography is, in most cases, altered:—

Death never parts
Such loving hearts.

Love and respect
I do expect.

No gift can show
The love I owe.

Let him never take a wife
That will not love her as his life.

In loving thee
I love myself.

A heart content
Can ne’er repent.

In God and thee
Shall my joy be.

Love thy chaste wife
Beyond thy life. 1681.

Love and pray
Night and day.

Great joy in thee
Continually.

My fond delight
By day and night.

Pray to love;
Love to pray. 1647.

In thee, my choice,
I do rejoice. 1677.

Body and mind
In thee I find.

Dear wife, thy rod
Doth lead to God.

God alone
Made us two one.

Eternally
My love shall be.

All I refuse,
And thee I choose.

Worship is due
To God and you.

Love and live happy. 1689.

Joy day and night
Be our delight.

Divinely knit by Grace are we;
Late two, now one; the pledge here see. 1657.

Endless my love
As this shall prove.

Avoid all strife
’Twixt man and wife.

Joyful love
This ring doth prove.

In thee, dear wife,
I find new life.

Of rapturous joy
I am the toy.

In thee I prove
The joy of love.

In loving wife
Spend all thy life. 1697.

In love abide
Till death divide.

In unity
Let’s live and die.

Happy in thee
Hath God made me.

Silence ends strife
With man and wife.

None can prevent
The Lord’s intent.

God did decree
Our unity.

I kiss the rod
From thee and God.

In love and joy
Be our employ.

Live and love;
Love and live.

God above
Continue our love.

True love will ne’er forget.

Faithful ever,
Deceitful never.

As gold is pure,
So love is sure.

Love, I like thee,
Sweet, requite me.

God sent her me,
My wife to be.

Live and die
In constancy.

My beloved is mine,
And I am hers.

Within my breast
Thy heart doth rest.

God above
Increase our love.

Be true to me
That gives it thee.

Both heart and hand
At your command.

My heart you have,
And yours I crave.

Christ and thee
My comfort be.

As God decreed,
So we agreed.

No force can move
Affixed love.

For a kiss
Take this.

The want of thee
Is grief to me.

I fancy none
But thee alone.

One word for all,
I love and shall.

Your sight,
My delight.

God’s blessing be
On thee and me.

I will be yours
While breath endures.

Love is sure
Where faith is pure.

Thy friend am I,
An so will die.

God’s appointment
Is my contentment.

Knit in one
By Christ alone.

My dearest Betty
Is good and pretty.

Sweetheart, I pray
Do not say nay.

Parting is pain
While love doth remain.

Hurt not that heart
Whose joy thou art.

Thine eyes so bright
Are my delight.

Take hand and heart,
I’ll ne’er depart.

If you consent,
You’ll not repent.

’Tis in your will
To save or kill.

As long as life,
Your loving wife.

If you deny,
Then sure I die.

Thy friend am I,
And so will die.

Let me in thee
Most happy be.

God hath sent
My heart’s content.

You and I
Will lovers die.

Thy consent
Is my content.

I wish to thee
All joy may be.

In thee my love
All joy I prove.

Beyond this life
Love me, dear wife.

Love and joy
Can never cloy.

The pledge I prove
Of mutual love.

I love the rod
And thee and God.

Desire, like fire,
Doth still inspire.

My heart and I,
Until I die.

This ring doth bind
Body and mind.

Endless as this
Shall be our bliss.—§Thos. Bliss.§ 1719.

I do rejoice
In thee my choice.

Love him in heart,
Whose joy thou art.

I change the life
Of maid to wife.

Endless my love
For thee shall prove.

Not Two, but One.
Till life be gone.

Numbers, vi. 24, 25, 26.

In its circular continuity, the ring was accepted as a type of eternity, and, hence, the stability of affection.

Constancy and Heaven are round,
And in this the Emblem’s found.

This is love, and worth commending,
Still beginning, never _ending_.

Or, as Herrick says,—

And as this round
Is nowhere found
To flaw or else to sever,
So let our love
As endless prove,
And pure as gold forever.

LADY KATHERINE GREY’S WEDDING-RING.

The ring received by this excellent woman, who was a sister of Lady Jane Grey, from her husband, the Earl of Hertford, at their marriage, consisted of five golden links, the four inner ones bearing the following lines, of the earl’s composition:—

As circles five by art compact shewe but one ring in sight,
So trust uniteth faithfull mindes with knott of secret might,
Whose force to breake but greedie Death noe wight possesseth power,
As time and sequels well shall prove. My ringe can say no more.

Parallel Passages.

INCLUDING IMITATIONS, PLAGIARISMS, AND ACCIDENTAL COINCIDENCES.

_Pretensions to originality are ludicrous._—§Byron’s§ _Letters_.

_An apple cleft in two is not more twin
Than these two creatures._—_Twelfth Night, V. 1._

_Milton “borrowed” other poets’ thoughts, but he did not borrow as
gipsies borrow children, spoiling their features that they may not be
recognized. No, he returned them improved. Had he “borrowed” your
coat, he would have restored it with a new nap upon it!_—§Leigh Hunt.§

* * * * *

Man wants but little here below,
Nor wants that little long.—§Goldsmith§: _Hermit_.

Evidently stolen from §Dr. Young§:—

Man wants but little, nor that little long.—_Night Thoughts._

* * * * *

Be wise to-day: ’tis madness to defer.—_Night Thoughts._

But §Congreve§ had said, not long before,—

Defer not till to-morrow to be wise;
To-morrow’s sun to thee may never rise.—_Letter to Cobham._

* * * * *

Like angels’ visits, few and far between.—§Campbell§: _Pleasures of
Hope_.

Copied from §Blair§:—

——like an ill-used ghost
Not to return;—or if it did, its visits,
Like those of angels, short and far between.—_Grave._

But this pretty conceit originated with §Norris§, of Bemerton, (died 1711,) in a religious poem:—

But those who soonest take their flight
Are the most exquisite and strong:
_Like angels’ visits, short and bright_,
Mortality’s too weak to bear them long.—_The Parting._

* * * * *

Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes,
Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart.—§Gray’s§ _Bard_.

§Gray§ himself points out the imitation in §Shakspeare§:—

You are my true and honorable wife;
As dear to me as are the ruddy drops
That visit my sad heart.—_Julius Cæsar_, Act II. Sc. 1.

§Otway§ also makes Priuli exclaim to his daughter,—

Dear as the vital warmth that feeds my life, Dear as these eyes that weep in fondness o’er thee.—_Venice Preserved._

* * * * *

And leave us leisure to be good.—§Gray§: _Ode to Adversity_.

And know, I have not yet the leisure to be good.—§Oldham.§

* * * * *

Thou tamer of the human breast,
Whose iron scourge and torturing hour
The bad affright, afflict the best.—§Gray§: _Ode to Adversity_.

When the scourge
Inexorably, and the torturing hour,
Calls us to penance.—§Milton§: _Paradise Lost_.

* * * * *

Lo, where the rosy-bosomed hours,
Fair Venus’ train, appear!—§Gray§: _Ode to Spring_.

The graces and the rosy-bosomed hours
Thither all their bounties bring.—§Milton§: _Comus_.

En hic in roseis latet papillis.—§Catullus.§

* * * * *

Full many a gem, of purest ray serene,
The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear;
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.—§Gray§: _Elegy_.

There kept my charms concealed from mortal eye, Like roses that in deserts bloom and die.—§Pope§: _Rape of the Lock_.

In distant wilds, by human eye unseen,
She rears her flowers and spreads her velvet green;
Pure gurgling rills the lonely desert trace,
And waste their music on the savage race.—§Young.§

And, like the desert’s lily, bloom to fade.—§Shenstone§: _Elegy IV._

* * * * *

Nor waste their sweetness on the desert air.—§Churchill§, _Gotham_.

Which else had wasted in the desert air.
§Lloyd§: _Ode at Westminster School_.

* * * * *

And leaves the world to darkness and to me.—§Gray§: _Elegy_.

And left the world to wretchedness and me.—§Moss§: _Beggar’s Petition_.

* * * * *

The swallow oft beneath my thatch
Shall twitter from her clay-built nest, &c.—_The Wish._

Doubtless suggested to §Rogers§ by the lines in §Gray’s§ Elegy:—

The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,
The swallow twittering from her straw-built shed, &c.

* * * * *

The bloom of young desire and purple light of love.—§Gray.§

Lumenque juventæ purpureum.—§Virgil.§ _Æn._ I. 590.

And quaff the _pendent vintage_ as it grows.
§Gray§: _Alliance of Education and Government_.

For this expression §Gray§ was indebted to §Virgil§:—

Non eadem arboribus _pendet vindemia_ nostris, &c.—_Georg._ ii. 89.

* * * * *

The attic warbler pours her throat.—§Gray§: _Ode to Spring_.

Is it for thee the linnet pours her throat?—§Pope§: _Essay on Man_.

§Gray§ says concerning the blindness of Milton,—

He passed the flaming bounds of space and time:
The living throne, the sapphire blaze,
Where angels tremble while they gaze,
He saw; but, blasted with excess of light,
Closed his eyes in endless night.

(§Dr. Johnson§ remarks that if we suppose the blindness caused by study in the formation of his poem, this account is poetically true and happily imagined.)

* * * * *

§Hermias§, a Galatian writer of the second century, says of Homer’s blindness,—

When Homer resolved to write of Achilles, he had an exceeding desire
to fill his mind with a just idea of so glorious a hero: wherefore,
having paid all due honors at his tomb, he entreats that he may obtain
a sight of him. The hero grants his poet’s petition, and rises in a
glorious suit of armor, which cast so insufferable a splendor that
Homer lost his eyes while he gazed for the enlargement of his notions.

(§Pope§ says if this be any thing more than mere fable, one would be apt to imagine it insinuated his contracting a blindness by too intense application while he wrote the Iliad.)

* * * * *

§Hume’s§ sarcastic fling at the clergy in a note to the first volume of his history is not original. He says,—

The ambition of the clergy can often be satisfied only by promoting
ignorance, and superstition, and implicit faith, and pious frauds; and
having got what Archimedes only wanted,—another world on which he
could fix his engine,—no wonder they move this world at their
pleasure.

In §Dryden’s§ _Don Sebastian_, Dorax thus addresses the Mufti:—

Content you with monopolizing Heaven,
And let this little hanging ball alone;
For, give you but a foot of conscience there,
And you, like Archimedes, toss the globe.

§Dryden§ says of the Earl of Shaftesbury,—

David for him his tuneful harp had strung,
And Heaven had wanted one immortal song.—_Absalom and Achitophel._

§Pope§ adopts similar language in addressing his friend Dr. Arbuthnot:—

Friend of my life! which did not you prolong,
The world had wanted many an idle song.

For truth has such a face and such a mien,
As to be loved needs only to be seen.—§Dryden.§

Vice is a monster of such hideous mien,
As to be hated needs but to be seen.—§Pope.§

* * * * *

Great wits to madness nearly are allied.—§Dryden§: _Abs. and Achit._

§Seneca§ said, eighteen centuries ago,—

Nullum magnum ingenium absque mistura dementiæ est:—_De Tranquil._;

and Aristotle had said it before him (_Problemata_).

* * * * *

Praise undeserved is satire in disguise.—§Pope§: _Imit. Horace_.

§Sir Walter Scott§ says in his _Woodstock_,—in the scene where Alice Lee, in the presence of Charles II. under the assumed name of Louis Kerneguy, describes the character she supposes the king to have:—

Kerneguy and his supposed patron felt embarrassed, perhaps from a
consciousness that the real Charles fell far short of his ideal
character as designed in such glowing colors. In some cases
_exaggerated or inappropriate praise becomes the most severe satire_.

* * * * *

Ye little stars, hide your diminished rays.—§Pope§: _Epistle to
Bathurst_.

At whose sight all the stars
Hide their diminished heads.—§Milton.§

* * * * *

Laugh where we must, be candid where we can,
But vindicate the ways of God to man.—§Pope§: _Essay on Man_.

And justify the ways of God to man.—§Milton§: _Paradise Lost_.

* * * * *

On Butler who can think without just rage, The glory and the scandal of the age?—§Oldham§: _Satire against Poetry_.

Probably borrowed by §Pope§ in the following lines:—

At length Erasmus, that great injured name,
The glory of the priesthood and the shame.—_Essay on Criticism._

* * * * *

And more true joy Marcellus, exiled, feels,
Than Cæsar with a senate at his heels.—§Pope§: _Essay on Man_.

Drawn from §Bolingbroke§, who plagiarized the idea from §Seneca§, who says,—

O Marcellus, happier when Brutus approved thy exile than when the
commonwealth approved thy consulship.

* * * * *

For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight:
He can’t be wrong whose life is in the right—§Pope§: _Essay on Man_.

Taken from §Cowley§:—

His faith perhaps in some nice tenets might
Be wrong: his life, I’m sure, was in the right.

* * * * *

Is it, in heaven, a crime to love too well?—§Pope§: _Elegy_.

Imitated from §Crashawe’s§ couplet:—

And I,—what is my crime? I cannot tell,
Unless it be a crime to have loved too well.

§Lamartine§, in his _Jocelyn_, has the same expression:—

Est-ce un crime, O mon Dieu, de trop aimer le beau?

* * * * *

A wit with dunces, and a dunce with wits.—_Dunciad._

This smart piece of antithesis §Pope§ borrowed from §Quinctilian§, who says,—

Qui stultis eruditi videri volunt; cruditi stulti videntur.

§Dr. Johnson§ also hurled this missile at Lord Chesterfield, calling him “A lord among wits, and a wit among lords.” The earl had offended the rugged lexicographer, whose barbarous manners in company Chesterfield holds up, in his _Letters to his son_, as things to be avoided.

* * * * *

Fair tresses man’s imperial race ensnare,
And beauty draws us with a single hair.—§Pope§: _Rape of the Lock_.

This has a strong affinity with a passage in §Howell’s§ _Letters_:—

’Tis a powerful sex: they were too strong for the first, for the
strongest, and for the wisest man that was: they must needs be strong,
when _one hair of a woman can draw more than a hundred pair of oxen_.

* * * * *

Princes and lords may flourish or may fade; A breath can make them, as a breath has made.—§Goldsmith§: _Deserted Vil._

Probably from §De Caux§, an old French poet, who says,—

———————— C’est un verre qui luit,
Qu’un souffle peut détruire, et qu’un souffle a produit.

* * * * *

Kings are like stars,—they rise and set,—_they have
The worship of the world, but no repose_.—§Shelley§: _Hellas_.

Stolen from §Lord Bacon§:—

Princes are like to heavenly bodies, which cause good or evil times,
and _which have much veneration, but no rest_.—_Of Empire._

§Burke§, in speaking of the morals of France prior to the Revolution, says,—

Vice itself lost half its evil by losing all its grossness.

This statement—the falsity of which is apparent—is disproved by a score of contradictions. Let Lord Bacon suffice:—

Another [of the Rabbins] noteth a position in moral philosophy, that
men abandoned to vice do not so much corrupt manners as those that are
half good and half evil.—_Advancement of Learning._

Things not to be trusted:—

A bright sky,
A smiling master,
The cry of a dog,
A harlot’s sorrow.
_Howitt’s Literature and Romance of Northern Europe._

Grant I may never be so fond
To trust man in his oath or bond,
Or a harlot for her weeping,
Or a dog that seems a-sleeping.
_Apemantus’ Grace._—_Timon of Athens._

The collocation of dogs and harlots in both passages is very remarkable.

* * * * *

All human race, from China to Peru,
Pleasure, howe’er disguised by art, pursue.
§Warton§: _Universal Love of Pleasure_, 1748.

Let observation, with extensive view,
Survey mankind, from China to Peru.
§Dr. Johnson§: _Vanity of Human Wishes_, 1749.

* * * * *

§Shakspeare’s§ dreamy Dane says,—

Man delights not me, nor woman neither.

A sentiment very nearly expressed in §Horace’s§ Ode to Venus:—

Me nec femina, nec puer,
Jam nec spes animi credula mutui.
Nec certare juvat mero, &c.—_Lib. IV._

(As for me, neither woman, nor youth, nor the fond hope of mutual
inclination, &c. delight me.)

* * * * *

The world’s a theatre, the earth a stage,
Which God and nature do with actors fill;
Kings have their entrance with due equipage,
And some their parts play well, and others ill.
§Thomas Heywood§: _Apology for Actors_, 1612.

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his life plays many parts.
§Shakspeare§: _As You Like It_.

§Palladas§, a Greek poet of the third century, has the following, translated by Merivale:—

This life a theatre we well may call,
Where every actor must perform with art,
Or laugh it through and make a farce of all,
Or learn to bear with grace his tragic part.

§Pythagoras§, who lived nearly two centuries later, also said,—

This world is like a stage whereon many play their parts.

* * * * *

Among the epigrams of §Palladas§ may be found the original of a modern saw, the purport of which is that an ignoramus, by maintaining a prudent silence, may pass for a wise man:—

Πᾶς τις ἀπαιδευτος φρονιμώτατος ἔστι σιωπῶν.

§Shakspeare§ uses it in the _Merchant of Venice_:—

O my Antonio, I do know of these
That therefore only are reputed wise
For saying nothing.—_Act I. Sc. 1._

* * * * *

We come crying hither:
Thou knowest the first time that we smell the air
We wawl and cry.——
When we are born, we cry that we are come
To this great stage of fools.—_King Lear, IV. 6._

Tum porro puer,——
Vagituque locum lugubri complet, ut æquum est
Cui tantum in vita restet transire malorum.
§Lucretius§: _De Rer. Nat._

* * * * *

The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns.—_Hamlet, Act III._

Qui nunc it per iter tenebricosum
Illuc unde negant redire quemquam.—§Catullus.§

A similar form of expression occurs in the Book of Job, x. 21, and xvi. 22; but it is probable, from this and other passages, that Shakspeare’s acquaintance with the Latin writers was greater than has been generally supposed. One of the commentators on Hamlet, in pointing out the similarity of ideas in the lines commencing, “The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,” &c. (_Act I._) and the hymn of St. Ambrose in the Salisbury collection,—

Preco diei jam sonat,
Noctis profundæ pervigil;
Nocturna lux viantibus,
A nocte noctem segregans.
Hoc excitatus Lucifer,
Solvit polum caligine;
Hoc omnis errorum chorus
Viam nocendi deserit.
Gallo canente spes redit, &c.,

has the following remark. “Some future Dr. Farmer may, perhaps, show how Shakspeare became acquainted with this passage, without being able to read the original; for the resemblance is too close to be accidental. But this, with many other passages, and especially his original Latinisms of phrase, give evidence enough of a certain degree of acquaintance with Latin,—doubtless not familiar nor scholar-like, but sufficient to give a coloring to his style, and to open to him many treasures of poetical thought and diction not accessible to the merely English reader. Such a degree of acquirement might well appear low to an accomplished Latinist like Ben Jonson, and authorize him to say of his friend,—

Though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek;—

yet the very mention of his ‘small Latin’ indicates that Ben knew that he had some.”

Mr. Fox, the orator, remarked on one occasion that Shakspeare must have had some acquaintance with Euripides, for he could trace resemblances between passages of their dramas: e.g. what Alcestis in her last moments says about her servants is like what the dying Queen Katharine (in _Henry the Eighth_) says about hers, &c.

That Shakspeare “may often be tracked in the snow” of §Terence§, as Dryden remarks of Ben Jonson, is evident from the following:—

Master, it is no time to chide you now:
Affection is not rated from the heart.
If love hath touched you, naught remains but so,—
_Redime te captum quam queas minimo_.—_Taming of the Shrew, I. 1._

The last line is manifestly an alteration of the words of Parmeno in _The Eunuch_ of §Terence§:—

Quid agas, nisi ut _te redimas captum quam queas minimo_?—_Act I. Sc.
1._

In another play §Terence§ says,—

Facile omnes, cum valemus, recta consilia, ægrotis damus;
Tu si hic sis, aliter censeas.—_Andrian XI. 1._

§Shakspeare§ has it,—

Men
Can counsel and give comfort to that grief
Which they themselves not feel; but, tasting it,
Their counsel turns to passion.

.tb

’Tis all men’s office to speak patience
To those that wring under the load of sorrow;
But no man’s virtue, nor sufficiency,
To be so moral when he shall endure
The like himself.—_Much Ado about Nothing, V. 1._

Apropos of this sentiment, §Swift§ says,—

I never knew a man who could not bear the misfortunes of others with
the most Christian resignation.—_Thoughts on Various Subjects._

And §La Rochefoucauld§,—

We have all of us sufficient fortitude to bear the misfortunes of
others.—_Max. 20._

* * * * *

Falstaff says, in 1 Henry IV. ii. 4,—

For though the camomile, the more it is trodden on, the faster it
grows, yet youth, the more it is wasted, the sooner it wears.

Shakspeare evidently here parodied an expression in §Sir John Lyly§’s _Euphues_:—

Though the camomile, the more it is trodden and pressed downe, the
more it spreadeth; yet the violet, the oftener it is handled and
touched, the sooner it withereth and decaieth.

Two verses in _Titus Andronicus_ appear to have pleased Shakspeare so well that he twice subsequently closely copied them:—

She is a woman, therefore may be wooed,
She is a woman, therefore may be won.—_Titus Andron. II. 1._

She’s beautiful, and therefore to be wooed;
She is a woman, therefore to be won.—_First Part Henry VI., V. 3._

Was ever woman in this humor wooed?
Was ever woman in this humor won?—_Richard III., I. 2._

Though Shakspeare has drawn freely from others, he is himself a mine from which many builders have quarried their materials,—a Coliseum

“from whose mass
Walls, palaces, half cities, have been reared.”

* * * * *

Honor and shame from no condition rise: Act well your part, there all the honor lies.—§Pope§: _Essay on Man_.

This is only a new rendering of the thought thus expressed by Shakspeare:—

From lowest place when virtuous things proceed, The place is dignified by the doer’s deed.—_All’s Well that Ends Well, II. 3._

* * * * *

Let rusty steel a while be sheathed,
And all those harsh and rugged sounds
Of bastinadoes, cuts, and wounds,
Exchanged to love’s more gentle style.—_Hudibras, P. II. c. 1._

Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.—_Richard III, I. 1._

* * * * *

The military figure of Shakspeare’s musical lines,—

Beauty’s ensign yet Is crimson in thy lips and on thy cheeks, And Death’s pale flag is not advanced there.—_Romeo and Juliet, V. 3_,

is closely imitated by §Chamberlain§:—

The rose had lost
His ensign in her cheeks; and tho’ it cost
Pains nigh to death, the lily had alone
Set his pale banners up.—_Pharonidas._

* * * * *

A dream
Dreamed by a happy man, while the dark cast
Is slowly brightening to his bridal morn.—§Tennyson.§

Copied from the _Merchant of Venice_:—

Then music is
As those dulcet sounds in break of day,
That creep into the dreaming bridegroom’s ear
And summon him to marriage.—III. 2.

* * * * *

How can we expect another to keep our secret if we cannot keep it
ourselves?—§La Rochefoucauld§, _Max. 90_.

Toute révélation d’un secret est la faute de celui qui l’a confié.—§La
Bruyere§: _De la Société_.

I have played the fool, the gross fool, to believe
The bosom of a friend would hold a secret
Mine own could not contain.—§Massinger§: _Unnatural Combat, V. 2_.

_Ham._—Do not believe it.

_Ros._—Believe what?

_Ham._—That I can keep your counsel, and not mine own.
§Shakspeare§: _Hamlet, IV. 2_.

* * * * *

Anger is like
A full-hot horse, who being allowed his way,
Self mettle tires him.—_Henry VIII._ I. 1.

Let passion work, and, like a hot-reined horse,
’Twill quickly tire itself.—§Massinger§: _Unnatural Combat_.

* * * * *

Is this the Talbot so much feared abroad
That with his name the mothers still their babes?—_Henry VI._ II. 3.

Nor shall Sebastian’s formidable name
Be longer used to lull the crying babe.—§Dryden§: _Don Sebastian_.

Chili’s dark matrons long shall tame
The froward child with Bertram’s name.—§Scott§: _Rokeby_.

* * * * *

It were better to be eaten to death with rust than to be scoured to
nothing by perpetual motion.—_Henry IV., Second Part_, I. 2.

Reversed by §Byron§:—

Better to sink beneath the shock
Than moulder piecemeal on the rock.—_Giaour._

* * * * *

’Tis her breathing that
Perfumes the chamber thus.—_Cymbeline._

No lips did seem so fair
In his conceit—through which he thinks doth fly
So sweet a breath that doth perfume the air.
§Marston§: _Pygmalion’s Image_.

* * * * *

Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just;
And he but naked, though locked up in steel,
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.—_2 Henry VI._ III. 2.

I’m armed with more than complete steel—
The justice of my quarrel.—§Marlowe§: _Lust’s Dominion_.

* * * * *

All that glisters is not gold.—_Merchant of Venice_, II.

Yet gold all is not that doth golden seeme.
§Spenser§: _Faerie Queene_, II.

* * * * *

Double, double, toil and trouble.—_Macbeth._

Πόνος, πόνῳ, πόνον, φέρει.—§Sophocles§: _Ajax_.

* * * * *

We shall not look upon his like again.—_Hamlet_, I.

Quando ullum inveniet parem?—§Horace.§

* * * * *

None but himself can be his parallel.—§Theobald.§

Quæris Alcidæ parem?
Nemo est nisi ipse.—§Seneca§: _Hercules Furens_.

* * * * *

The following song from §Shakspeare’s§ _Measure for Measure_, commencing as follows, is copied _verbatim_ in §Beaumont§ and §Fletcher’s§ _Bloody Brother_:—

Take, O! take those lips away,
That so sweetly were forsworn;
And those eyes, the break of day,
Lights that do mislead the morn.
But my kisses bring again,
Seals of love, but sealed in vain.

* * * * *

The following line occurs both in §Pope’s§ _Dunciad_ and §Addison’s§ _Campaign_:—

Rides on the whirlwind, and directs the storm.

* * * * *

§Ben Jonson§ borrowed his celebrated ballad _To Celia_,—

Drink to me only with thine eyes, &c.,

from §Philostratus§, a Greek poet, who flourished at the court of the Emperor Severus.

* * * * *

In §Milton’s§ description of the lazar-house occurs the following confused metaphor:—

Sight so deform what _heart of rock_ could long
_Dry-eyed_ behold?

Derived from a similar combination in §Tibullus§:—

_Flebis_; non tua sunt duro præcordia ferro
Vincta, nec in tenero stat tibi _corde silex_.—_El. I. 63._

* * * * *

When Christ, at Cana’s feast, by power divine,
Inspired cold water with the warmth of wine,
See! cried they, while in redd’ning tide it gushed,
The bashful water saw its God and blushed.—§Aaron Hill.§

Lympha pudica Deum vidit et erubuit.[33]—§Richard Crashawe.§

Footnote 33:

It is not a little singular that Mr. Arvine, in his excellent
_Cyclopædia_, gives Milton and Dryden, while boys at school, equal
credit for originating, _in the same way_, this beautiful idea.

* * * * *

Fond fool! six feet shall serve for all thy store,
And he that cares for most shall find no more.—§Hall.§

His wealth is summed, and this is all his store:
This poor men get, and great men get no more.
§G. Webster§: _Vittoria Corombona_.

* * * * *

God made the country, and man made the town.—§Cowper§: _Task_.

God the first garden made, and the first city Cain.—§Cowley.§

* * * * *

Hypocrisy, detest her as we may,
May claim this merit still,—that she admits
The worth of what she mimics with such care,
And thus gives virtue indirect applause.—§Cowper§: _Task_.

Le vice rend hommage à la vertu en s’honorant de ses
apparences.—§Massillon.§

* * * * *

Love is sweet
Given or returned. Common as light is love,
And its familiar voice wearies not ever;
They who inspire it most are fortunate,
As I am now; but those who feel it most
Are happier still.—§Shelley§: _Prometheus Unbound_.

It is better to desire than to enjoy, to love than to be loved.—

It makes us proud when our love of a mistress is returned: it ought to
make us prouder still when we can love her for herself alone, without
the aid of any such selfish reflection. This is the religion of
love.—§Hazlitt§: _Characteristics_.

* * * * *

People who are always taking care of their health are like misers, who
are hoarding up a treasure which they have never spirit enough to
enjoy.—§Sterne§: _Koran_.

Preserving the health by too strict a regimen is a wearisome
malady.—§La Rochefoucauld§: _Max. 285_.

* * * * *

The king can make a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, and a’ that,—

* * * * *

The rank is but the guinea stamp,
The man’s the gowd for a’ that.—§Burns.§

I weigh the man, not his title; ’tis not the king’s stamp can make the
metal bettor or heavier. Your lord is a leaden shilling, which you
bend every way, and debases the stamp he bears.

§Wycherly§: _Plain Dealer_.

Titles of honor are like the impressions on coin, which add no value
to gold and silver, but only render brass current.—§Sterne§: _Koran_.

Kings do with men as with pieces of money: they give them what value
they please, and we are obliged to receive them at their current, and
not at their real, value.—§La Rochefoucauld§: _Max. 160_.

§Kossuth’s§ “To him that wills, nothing is impossible,”[34] is thus expressed by §La Rochefoucauld§:—

Nothing is impossible: there are ways which lead to every thing; and
if we had sufficient will, we should always have sufficient
means.—_Max. 255._

Footnote 34:

Mirabeau’s hasty temper is well known. “Monsieur le Compte,” said his
secretary to him one day, “the thing you require is impossible.”
“Impossible!” exclaimed Mirabeau, starting from his chair: “never
again use that _foolish word_ in my presence.”

§Shelley§ gives the idea as follows:—

It is our will
That thus enchains us to permitted ill.
We might be otherwise: we might be all
We dream of, happy, high, majestical.
Where is the beauty, love, and truth we seek
But in our minds? and if we were not weak,
Should we be less in deed than in desire?
_Julian and Maddolo._

* * * * *

To most men, experience is like the stern-lights of a ship, which
illumine only the track it has passed.—§Coleridge.§

We arrive complete novices at the different ages of life, and we often
want experience in spite of the number of our years.—§La
Rochefoucauld§: _Max. 430_.

The same idea may be found in the _Adelphi_ of §Terence§, Act V. Sc. 2, v. 1–4.

* * * * *

For those that fly may fight again,
Which he can never do that’s slain.—_Hudibras._

He who fights and runs away
May live to fight another day.—§Sir John Minnes.§

But §Demosthenes§, the famous Grecian orator, had said, long before,—

Ἀνὴρ ὁ φεύγων καὶ πάλιν μαχήσεται.

* * * * *

She could love none but only such
As scorned and hated her as much.—_Hudibras._

§Horace§, in describing such a capricious kind of love, uses the following language:—

—Leporem venator ut alta In nive sectatur, positum sic tangere nolit; Cantat et apponit: meus est amor huic similis; nam Transvolat in medio posita, et fugientia captat.—_Satires_, Book I. ii.,

which is nearly a translation of the eleventh epigram of §Callimachus§.

* * * * *

What woful stuff this madrigal would be
In some starved hackney sonneteer, or me!
But let a lord once own the happy lines,
How the wit brightens! how the style refines!
§Pope§: _Essay on Criticism_.

§Molière§ has the same sentiment:—

Tous les discours sont des sottises
Partant d’un homme sans éclat;
Ce seraient paroles exquises,
Si c’était un grand qui parlat.

It may also be found in §Ennius§, §Euripides§, and other writers. The last notability who has expressed the idea is §Emerson§, who says,—

It adds a great deal to the force of an opinion to know that there is
a man of mark and likelihood behind it.

* * * * *

Others may use the ocean as their road,
Only the English make it _their abode_:—
We _tread the billows_ with a steady foot.—§Waller.§

§Campbell§ adopts the thoughts of these italicized words in the _Mariners of England_:—

Britannia needs no bulwark,
No towers along the steep:
Her march is on the mountain-waves,
Her home is on the deep.

* * * * *

Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,
And slips into the bosom of the lake;
So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip
Into my bosom, and be lost in me.—§Tennyson§: _Princess_.

And like a lily on a river floating,
She floats upon the river of his thoughts.
§Longfellow§: _Spanish Student_.

* * * * *

You must either soar or stoop,
Fall or triumph, stand or droop;
You must either serve or govern,
Must be slave or must be sovereign;
Must, in fine, be block or wedge,
Must be anvil or be sledge.—§Goethe.§

In this world a man must be either anvil or hammer.
§Longfellow§: _Hyperion_.

Lockhart says, in his Life of Sir Walter Scott, “It was on this occasion, I believe, that Scott first saw his friend’s brother Reginald (§Heber§), in after-days the Apostolic Bishop of Calcutta. He had just been declared the successful competitor for that year’s poetical prize, and read to Scott at breakfast, in Brazennose College, the MS. of his _Palestine_. Scott observed that in the verses on Solomon’s Temple one striking circumstance had escaped him, namely, that no tools were used in its erection. Reginald retired for a few minutes to the corner of the room, and returned with the beautiful lines,—

No hammer fell, no ponderous axes rung:
Like some tall palm the mystic fabric sprung.
Majestic silence!” &c.

§Cowper§ had previously expressed the same idea:—

Silently as a dream the fabric rose:
No sound of hammer nor of saw was there:
Ice upon ice, &c.—_Palace of Ice._

§Milton§ had also said,—

Anon out of the earth a fabric huge
Rose like an exhalation.—_Paradise Lost._

* * * * *

Speech is the light, the morning of the mind:
It spreads the beauteous images abroad
Which else lie furled and shrouded in the soul.—

§Dryden§ evidently had in mind the language of §Themistocles§ to the King of Persia:—

Speech is like cloth of arras opened and put abroad, whereby the
imagery doth appear in figure, whereas in thoughts they lie but in
packs (_i.e._ rolled up, or packed up).

* * * * *

_Silence_ that _spoke_, and eloquence of eyes.—§Pope§: _Homer’s Iliad_,