64

ATTENDANCE.

ATTIRE.

Beware,

And govern well thy appetite, lest sin
Surprise thee and her black attendant, death.

Milton.

What can then be less in me than desire
To see Thee, and approach Thee, whom I know
Declared the Son of God, and hear attent
Thy wisdom, and behold Thy God-like deeds.

When some gracious monarch dies,

Soft whispers first and mournful murmurs rise
Among the sad attendants.

Music's force can tame the furious beast;
Can make the wolf or foaming boar restrain
His rage; the lion drop his crested mane
Attentive to the song.

Milton.

Dryden.

Prior.

ATTIRE.

LET it likewise your gentle breast inspire
With sweet infusion, and put you in mind
Of that proud maid whom now those leaves attire,
Proud Daphne.

Spenser.

Shakspere.

Thy sumptuous buildings, and thy wife's attire,
Hath cost a mass of public treasury.

I pass their form and every charming grace,
But their attire, like liveries of a kind,
All rich and rare, is fresh within my mind.

And in this coarse attire which now I wear
With God and with the Muses I confer.

Now sappy boughs

Attire themselves with blooms.

When lavish nature with her best attire
Clothes the gay spring, the season of desire.

Dryden.

Donne.

Phillips.

Waller.

But marriage is a matter of more worth,
Than to be dealt in by attorneyship.

Shakspere.

Despairing quacks with curses fled the place,
And vile attorneys, now a useless race.

Pope.

ATTRACT-ATTRACTION.
WHAT if the sun

Be centre to the world; and other stars,
By his attractive virtue, and their own,
Incited, dance about him various rounds.

So plastic nature working to this end,
The single atoms to each other tend,
Attract, attracted to the next in place,

Milton.

Formed and impelled its neighbour to embrace. Pope.
Some the round earth, cohesion to secure,
For that hard task employ magnetie power;
Remark, say they, the globe, with wonder own
Its nature like the famed attractive stone.

Blackmore.

AUCTION.

AND much more honest, to be hired, and stand
With auctionary hammer in thy hand,

Provoking to give more, and knocking thrice,

For the old household stuff of picture's price. Dryden.

Ask you why Phrine the whole auction buys;
Phrine foresees a general excise.

F

Pope.

66

AUDIT.

AUSTERITY.

AUDIT.

He took my father grossly, full of bread,

With all his crimes broad blown, and flush as May; And how his audit stands, who knows save heaven?

I can make my audit up, that all

Shakspere.

From me do back receive the flour of all,

And leave me but the bran.

Shakspere.

Yet went she not, as not with such discourse
Delighted, or not capable her ear

Of what was high; such pleasure she reserved
Adam retreating, she sole auditress.

Milton.

AUSTERITY.

АH! Luciana, did he tempt thee so?
Might'st thou perceive austerely in his eye,
That he did plead in earnest, yea or no?
Looked he or red, or pale, or sad, or merrily?
Shakspere.

My unsoiled name, the austereness of my life,
They vouch against you; and my place i' the state
Will so your accusation outweigh.

Shakspere.

What was that snaky-headed Gorgon shield
That wise Minerva wore, unconquered virgin,
Wherewith she freezed her foes to congealed stone
By rigid looks of chaste austerity,

And noble grace, that dashed brute violence
With sudden adoration and blank awe?

Milton.

The austere and ponderous juices they sublime,
Make them ascend the porous soil, and climb
The orange tree, the citron, and the lime.

Blackmore.

Let not austerity breed servile fear;

No wanton word offend her virgin ear.

Roscommon.

AUTHORS.

AUTHORS.

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, Because they living cared not to cherish

No gentle wits, through pride or covetise,

67

Which might their names for ever memorise.-Spenser.

Thou art my father, thou my author, thou
My being gav'st me; whom should I obey
But thee?

I'll never

Shakspere.

Be such a gosling to obey instinct, but stand
As if a man was author of himself,
And knew no other kin.

Let authors write for glory or reward,

Shakspere.

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

Bishop Corbet.

Authors are judg'd by strange capricious rules,
The great ones are thought mad, the small ones fools;
Yet sure the best are more severely fated,
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?

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

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,

**

Pope.

As they had known him from his mother's womb.

Cowper.

So vain some authors are to boast
Their want of ingenuity, and club
Their affidavit wits, and dub

Each other but a knight o' the post,
As false as suborned perjurers,

That vouch away all right they have to their own ears.
Butler.

Look through the world-in every other trade
The same employment's cause of kindness made,
At least appearance of good-will creates,
And every fool puffs off the fool he hates:
Cobblers with cobblers smoke away the night,
And in the common cause e'en players unite:
Authors alone, with more than savage rage,
Unnatural war with brother authors wage.

Churchill.

An author! 'tis 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?

Young.

This globe pourtrayed the race of learned men,
Still at their books and turning o'er the page
Backwards and forwards: oft they snatched the pen
As if inspired, and in a Thespian rage

Then writ and blot, as would your wrath engage.
Why, authors, all this scrawl and scribbling sore?
To lose the present, gain the future age,
Praised to be when you can hear no more, [store?
And much enriched with fame, when useless worldly

Thomson.

One hates an author that's all author, fellows
In foolscap uniform turned 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 unquenched snuffings of the midnight taper.

Byron.