700

WRITE.

WRITE-WRITERS.

SOUND judgment is the ground of writing well,
And when philosophy directs your choice,
To proper subjects rightly understood,
Words from the pen will naturally flow.

Roscommon, from Horace.

The readers and the hearers like my books,
But yet some writers cannot them digest;
But what care I? for when I make a feast,
I would my guests should praise it, not the cooks.
Sir John Harrington.

'Tis the way of writing at which offence is taken, And this is the misfortune of an author,

That unless some are angry with him, none are pleased; Which puts him under this dilemma,

That he must either ruin himself or his printer.

His judges than his friends; there's not a guest
But will find something wanting, or ill drest.

Sir R. Howard.

Some write confined by physic; some, by debt;
Some, for 't is Sunday; some, because 't is wet;
Another writes because his father writ,
And proves himself a bastard by his wit.

Young.

Happy within whose honest breast concealed,
There lives a faith, no word may surer make!
Yet still a parchment, written, stamped, and sealed,
A spectre is before which all must quake,
Commit but once thy word to the goose feather,
Then must thou yield the sway to wax and leather.
Shelley, from Goethe.

WRITE.

WRONG.

701

The pen of a ready writer, whereunto shall it be

likened?

Ask of the scholar, he shall know-to the chains that bind a Proteus :

Ask of the poet, he shall say-to the sun, the lamp of heaven:

Ask of thy neighbour, he can answer to the friend that telleth my thought;

The merchant considereth it well, as a ship freighted with wares;

The divine holdeth it a miracle, giving utterance to the dumb.

It fixeth, expoundeth, and disseminateth sentiment; Chaining up a thought, clearing it of mystery, and sending it bright into the world.

To think rightly, is of knowledge; to speak fluently, is of nature;

To read with profit, is of care; but to write aptly, is of practice. Martin F. Tupper.

WRONG.

IT often falls in course of common life,

That right long time is overborne of wrong;
Through avarice, or power, or guile, or strife,
Which weakens that, and makes this power strong.

Oh, for a lodge in some vast wilderness-
Some boundless contiguity of space,

Where rumour of oppression and deceit

Spenser.

Might never reach me more! My ear is pain'd,
My soul is sick, with every day's report

Of

wrong and outrage with which earth is fill'd.

When people once are in the wrong,
Each line they add is much too long:
Who farthest walks, but walks astray,
Is only farthest from his way.

I see the right, and I approve it too;

Cowper.

Prior.

Condemn the wrong, and yet the wrong pursue.

Anon.

SEE the minutes how they run;

How many makes the hour full complete,
How many hours bring about the day,
How many days will finish up the year,

How many years a mortal man may live.-Shakspere.

God of the changeful year!-amidst the glow
Of strength and beauty, and transcendant grace,
Which on the mountain heights, or deep below,
In sheltered vales, and each sequestered place,
Thy forms of vegetable life assume;

Whether thy pines with giant arms displayed,
Brave the cold north; or, wrapt in eastern gloom,
Thy trackless forests sweep a world of shade;
Ör whether, scenting ocean's heaving breast,
Thy odoriferous isles innumerous rise,

Or under various lighter forms imprest,

Of fruits and flowers, Thy works delight our eyes, God of all life! whate'er those forms may be,

O may they all unite in praising Thee.

It seems that life is all a void,
On selfish thoughts alone employed;
That length of days is not a good,
Unless their use be understood:
While if good deeds one year engage,
That may be longer than an age:
But if a year in trifles go,

Perhaps you'll spend a thousand so;
Time cannot stay to make us wise,
We must improve it as it flies.

The pleasant, pleasant spring-time,
The summer's gorgeous dyes;
The bright and solemn autumn,
Have faded from all eyes;
I looked upon thy features,

The furrowed and the sear,
There lingers now no beauty,
Away with thee, old year.

W. Roscoe.

Jane Taylor.

Richard Howitt.

YOUTH.

YOUTH.

FOR youth no less becomes

The light and careless livery that it wears,
Than settled age his sables, and his weeds
Importing health and graveness.

Lusty youth

Is the very May-morn of delight,

703

Shakspere.

When boldest floods are full of wilful heat,
And joy to think how long they have to fight
In fancy's field, before their life take flight;
Since he which latest did the game begin,
Doth longest hope to linger still therein.-Gascoigne.

Youth is ever apt to judge in haste,
And lose the medium in the wild extreme.

Aaron Hill.

Intemperate youth, by sad experience found,
Ends in an age imperfect and unsound.

Denham.

Expand the passions of thy heart in youth;
Fight thy love battles whilst thy heart is strong,
And wounds heal kindly. An April frost
Is sharp, but kills not; sad October's storm
Strikes when the juices and the vital sap
Are ebbing from the leaf.

Henry Taylor.

Ah! who can say, however fair his view,
Through what sad scenes his path may lie?
Let careless youth its seeming joys pursue,
Soon will they learn to scan with thoughtful eye
The illusive past and dark futurity.

Kirke White.

The youth you spoke of was a glowing moth,
Born in the eve and crushed before the dawn;
He was, methinks, like that frail flower that comes
Amid the nips and gusts of churlish March,
Drinking pale beauty from sweet April's tears,
Dead in the hem of May.

Alexander Smith.

THAT sport most pleases that doth least know how;
When zeal strives to content, and the contents
Die in the zeal of that which it presents,

Their form confounded makes most form in mirth,
When great things labouring perish in their birth.

None seconded, as out of reason judg'd,
Or singular and rash.

Zeal and duty are not slow;

But on occasion's forelock watchful wait.

No seared conscience is so fell

As that which has been burnt with zeal;
For Christian charity's as well
A great impediment to zeal,

As zeal a pestilent disease

To Christian charity and peace.

Milton.

Milton.

Butler.

For virtue's self may too much zeal be had;
The worst of madmen is a saint run mad.-Pope.

-With all the zeal

Which young and fiery converts feel,
Within whose heated bosoms throngs
The memory of a thousand wrongs.

Spread out earth's holiest records here,
Of days and deeds to reverence dear;
A zeal like this what pious legends tell?

Byron.

Charles Sprague.