Compitum: Or, The Meeting of the Ways at the Catholic Church, Book 4

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C. Dolman, 1850

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Page 72 - They err who count it glorious to subdue By conquest far and wide, to overrun Large countries, and in field great battles win, Great cities by assault : what do these worthies, But rob, and spoil, burn, slaughter, and enslave Peaceable nations...
Page 29 - This is the excellent foppery of the world ! that when we are sick in fortune (often the surfeit of our own behaviour), we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars : — as if we were villains by necessity ; fools, by heavenly compulsion ; knaves, thieves, and treachers, by spherical predominance ; drunkards, liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of planetary influence ; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on.
Page 346 - Most certain it is (as all our stories bear witness) that ever since their coming to the see of Canterbury, for near twelve hundred years, to speak of them in general, they have been in England to our souls a sad and doleful succession of illiterate and blind guides...
Page 117 - But what more oft in nations grown corrupt, And by their vices brought to servitude, Than to love bondage more than liberty, Bondage with ease than strenuous liberty; And to despise, or envy, or suspect Whom GOD hath of His special favour raised As their deliverer? If he aught begin, How frequent to desert him, and at last To heap ingratitude on worthiest deeds.
Page 161 - To interrupt, sidelong he works his way. As when a ship, by skilful steersman wrought, Nigh river's mouth or foreland, where the wind Veers oft, as oft so steers, and shifts her sail: So varied he, and of his tortuous train Curl'd many a wanton wreath in sight of Eve, To lure her eye...
Page 224 - Insuperable height of loftiest shade, Cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm, A sylvan scene; and as the ranks ascend Shade above shade, a woody theatre Of stateliest view.
Page 165 - And yet Time hath his revolutions ; there must be a period and an end to all temporal things— -finis rerum, an end of names and dignities, and whatsoever is terrene, and why not of De Vere ? For where is Bohun ? Where is Mowbray ? Where is Mortimer ? Nay, which is more and most of all, where is Plantagenet ? They are entombed in the urns and sepulchres of mortality. And yet let the name and dignity of De Vere stand so long as it pleaseth God!
Page 358 - We rest — a dream has power to poison sleep ; We rise — one wandering thought pollutes the day; We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep ; Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away : It is the same ! — for, be it joy or sorrow, The path of its departure still is free ; Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow ; Nought may endure but Mutability.
Page 225 - With solemn touches troubled thoughts, and chase Anguish, and doubt, and fear, and sorrow, and pain From mortal or immortal minds.
Page 368 - There is a history in all men's lives, Figuring the nature of the times deceas'd : The which observ'd, a man may prophesy, With a near aim, of the main chance of things As yet not come to life ; which in their seeds, And weak beginnings, lie intreasured. Such things become the hatch and brood of time...

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