296

FEATURES. FEELING.

FEATURES.

THOUGH ye be the fairest of God's creatures,
Yet think that death will spoil your goodly features.

Spenser.

He lived in courts most praised, most loved,
A sample to the young'st; to the more mature
A glass that featured them.

Shakspere.

Though various features did the sisters grace,
A sister's likeness was in every face.

Your thief looks, in the crowd;

Exactly like the rest, or rather better;
'Tis only at the bar, or in the dungeon,

Addison.

That wise men know your felon by his features.

Byron.

FEELING.

THE soul of music slumbers in the shell,
Till wak'd and kindled by the master's spell,
And feeling hearts-touch them but lightly-pour
A thousand melodies unheard before.

Rogers.

Admire-exalt-despise-laugh-weep-for here
There is much matter for all feeling.

If e'er when faith had fall'n asleep,
I heard a voice-"believe no more,"
And heard an ever-breaking shore,
That tumbled in the Godless deep;
A warmth within the breast would melt
The freezing reason's colder part,

And like a man in wrath, the heart

Byron.

Stood up and answered "I have felt." Tennyson.

I felt to madness! but my full heart gave

No utterance to the ineffable within.

Words were too weak: they were unknown; but still The feeling was most poignant.

Percival.

FELLOWSHIP.

THE mind much sufferance doth o'erskip,
When grief hath mates and bearing fellowship.

Shakspere.

O love! thou sternly dost thy power maintain,
And wilt not bear a rival in thy reign;
Tyrants and thou all fellowship disdain.

Dryden.

Worth makes the man, the want of it the fellow, The rest is all but leather and prunella.

Let partial spirits still aloud complain,

Pope.

Think themselves injured that they cannot reign;
And own no liberty but where they may
Without control upon their fellows prey.

Waller.

FICKLENESS.

BEWARE of fraud, beware of fickleness,

In choice and change of thy dear loved dame.

Spenser.

Hovering dreams,

The fickle pensioners of Morpheus' train.

Milton.

How long must women wish in vain

A constant love to find?

No art can fickle man retain,

Or fix a roving mind.

Hast thou seen the down in the air,

When wanton blasts have tost it?

Or the ship on the sea,

Shadwell.

When ruder winds have crost it?

Hast thou marked the crocodiles weeping,

Or the foxes sleeping?

Or hast thou viewed the peacock in his pride,

Or the dove by his bride?

Oh! so fickle; oh! so vain; oh! so false is she!

Suckling.

298

FIRE. FIRMNESS.

FIRE.

A LITTLE fire is quickly trodden out,
Which, being suffered, rivers cannot quench.

Shakspere.

Love various heats does variously inspire,
It stirs in gentle bosoms gentle fire,
Like that of incense on the altar laid;
But raging flames tempestuous souls invade;
A fire which every windy passion blows,

With pride it mounts, and with revenge it glows,

The bold Longinus all the nine inspire,
And warm the critic with the poet's fire.

Though safe thou think'st thy treasure lies
Concealed in chests from human eyes,
A fire may come, and it may be
Buried, my friend, as far from thee.

Dryden.

Pope.

Granville.

If in some town a fire breaks out by chance,
The impetuous flames with lawless power advance;
On ruddy wings the bright destruction flies,
Followed with ruin and amazing cries:

The flaky plague spreads swiftly with the wind,
And ghastly desolation howls behind.

FIRMNESS.

THAT thou should'st my firmness doubt
To God or thee, because we have a foe
May tempt us, I expected not to hear.

Himself to be, the man the fates require;
I firmly judge, and what I judge desire.

Blackmore.

Milton.

Dryden.

The man that's resolute and just,

Firm to his principles and trust,
Nor hopes nor fears can blind.

Walsh.

Come one, come all-this rock shall fly

From its firm base as soon as I.

Scott.

FISH-FISHING.

BLEST silent groves! O may ye be
For ever mirth's best nursery!
May pure contents

For ever pitch their tents

Upon these downs, these meads, these rocks, these mountains,

And peace still slumber by these purling fountains, Which we may every year

Find when we come a-fishing here.-Sir W. Raleigh.

A day with not too bright a beam,
A warm but not a scorching sun,
A southern gale to curl the stream,
And, master, half our work is done.
There, whilst behind some bush we wait,
The scaly people to betray,

We'll prove it just, with treacherous bait,
To make the preying trout our prey.
And think ourselves, in such an hour,
Happier than those, though not so high,
Who, like leviathans devour

Of meaner men the smaller fry.-Izaak Walton.

The morning is beaming,

Its first light is streaming

On the crests of the clouds, with its beauty they glow; And soon will it brighten

Those dark cliffs, and lighten

The foam of the ocean-waves breaking below,

When it comes they will get up,

Their sails they will set up,

And o'er the wide sea steer their shallop away;
Then follow their calling

Of fishing, or trawling

In peril and hardship, the rest of the day.

A perilous life, and sad as life may be,
Hath the lone fisher on the lonely sea.

B. Barton.

Procter.

EVERY one that flatters thee,
Is no friend in misery.

Words are easy like the wind;
Faithful friends are hard to find.
Every man will be thy friend,
Whilst thou hast wherewith to spend;
But if store of crowns be scant,
No man will supply thy want,
If that one be prodigal,
Bountiful they will him call;
And with such like flattering,
"Pity but he were a king."

Shakspere.

Ben Jonson.

Of all wild beasts preserve me from a tyrant;
Of all tame-a flatterer.

Give me flattery,

Flattery the food of courts, that I may rock him, And lull him in the down of his desires.

Beaumont.

Parent of wicked, bane of honest deeds,
Pernicious flatt'ry, thy malignant seeds
In an ill hour, and by a fatal hand,
Sadly diffused o'er virtue's gleby land,
With rising pride amidst the corn appear,

And choke the hopes and harvest of the year.

Beware of flatt'ry, 't is a flow'ry weed,

Prior.

Which oft offends the very idol vice,

Whose shrine it would perfume.

Fenton.

Learn to win a lady's faith,
Nobly as the thing is high;

Bravely as for life and death,
With a loyal gravity.

Lead her from the festive boards,
Point her to the starry skies,
Guard her by your truthful words,
Pure from courtship's flatteries.

E. B. Browning.