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The first artificer of death; the shrewd
Contriver, who first sweated at the forge,
And forced the blunt and yet unblooded steel
To a keen edge, and made it bright for war.
Him Tubal named, the Vulcan of old times,
The sword and falchion their inventor claim;
And the first smith was the first murderer's son.

And by the law of arms—

What law is that?

'Tis not the law of God, nor yet above it.

Cowper.

Henry Taylor. Who is the happy warrior? who is he That every man in arms should wish to be? -It is the generous spirit who hath wrought Among the plans of real life;

'Tis he whose law is reason; who depends Upon that law as on his best of friends; Who, if he rise to stations of command, Rises by open means;

-Who comprehends his trust, and to the same Keeps faithful, with a singleness of aim.

The army, like a lion from his den,

Wordsworth.

Marched forth with nerve and sinews bent to slay, A human hydra issuing from its fen,

To breathe destruction in its winding way.-Byron,

ARROGANCE.

PRIDE hath no other glass

To show itself but pride; for supple knees

Feed arrogance, and are the proud man's fees.

Our poet may

Himself admire the fortune of his play;

And arrogantly, as his fellows do,

Shakspere.

Think he writes well because he pleases you.-Dryden.

Who not content

With fair equality, fraternal state,

Will arrogate dominion undeserved
Over his brethren.

Milton.

ART-ARTIST.

THE art of our necessities is strange,
That can make vile things precious.

Shakspere.

In framing artists, art hath thus decreed,
To make some good, but others to exceed.

Shakspere.
Rich with the spoils of many a conquered land,
All art and artists Theseus could command,
Who sold for hire or wrought for better fame,
The master painters and the carvers came.-Dryden.

Blest with each grace of nature and of art.

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Even copious Dryden wanted, or forgot,
The last and greatest art, the art to blot.

Pope.

Tir'd at first sight with what the muse imparts,
In fearless youth we tempt the heights of arts,
While from the bounded level of our mind
Short views we take, nor see the length behind;
But, more advanced, behold with strange surprise,
New distant scenes of endless science rise.

Yet 't is not to adorn and gild each part,
That shows more cost than art;

Jewels at nose and lip but ill appear;

Rather than all things art, let none be there.
Several lights will not be seen,

If there be nothing else between.

Pope.

Men doubt because they stand so thick i' the sky,

If those be stars which paint the galaxy.

Ah! the artist's life

Is pilgrimage. He may not tarry on

Cowley.

One spot of earth; he is drawn for aye towards
A jewel, which he aye pursues, and ever
Beholds before him, yet can ne'er attain.

Herder.

Perhaps this cruel nymph well knows to feign
Forbidding speech, coy looks, and cold disdain,
To raise his passion: such are female arts,
To hold in safer snares inconstant hearts.

Gay.

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What thing a right line is, the learned know;
But how avails that him, who in the right,
Of life and manners doth desire to grow?
What are all these human arts and lights
But seas of error? in whose depths who sound,
Of truth find only shadows, and no ground.
Then if our arts want power to make us better,
What fool will think they can us wiser make.
Life is the wisdom, art is but the letter,
Or shell, which men oft for the kernel take;
In moods and figures moulding up deceit,
To make each science rather hard than great.
Lord Brooke.
Such is the strength of art, rough things to shape,
And of rude commons rich enclosures make.

James Howell.

For though I must confess an artist can
Contrive things better than another man,
Yet when the task is done, he finds his pains
Sought but to fill his belly with his brains.
Is this the guerdon due to liberal arts,
T'admire the head and then to starve the parts?
Timely prevention though discreetly used
Before the fruits of knowledge were abused.
When learning has incurr'd a fearful damp,
To save our oil, 't is good to quench the lamp.
Lady Alimony.
Immortal art! where'er the rounded sky
Bends o'er the cradle where thy children lie,
Their home is earth, their herald every tongue.
* Art is wondrous long,
Yet to the wise her paths are ever fair,
And patience smiles though genius may despair.
O. W. Holmes.

*

*

In vain with love our bosoms glow,
Can all our tears, can all our sighs,

New lustre to those charms impart?
Can cheeks, where living roses blow,
Where nature spreads her richest dies,
Require the borrowed gloss of art?

Sir William Jones, from the Persian.

ARTIFICE.

WHY I can smile, and murder while I smile,
And cry content, at that which grieves my heart,
And wet my cheek with artificial tears.-Shakspere.

He soon aware,

Each perturbation smoothed with outward calm,
Artificer of fraud! and was the first

That practised falsehood under saintly show.-Milton.

Shallow artifice begets suspicion,

And, like a cobweb veil, but thinly shades
The face of thy design; alone disguising

What should have ne'er been seen; imperfect mischief!
Thou, like the adder, venomous and deaf,

Hast stung the traveller; and after hear'st
Not his pursuing voice; e'en when thou think'st
To hide, the rustling leaves and bended grass

Confess, and point the path which thou hast crept.
O fate of fools! officious in contriving;

In executing-puzzled, lame, and lost.

A man of sense can artifice disdain,

As men of wealth may venture to go plain;

I find the fool when I behold the screen,

Congreve.

For 't is the wise man's interest to be seen.-Young.

ASCEND-ASCENSION.

THEN rising from His grave,

Spoiled principalities, and powers triumphed
In open show; and, with ascension bright,

Captivity led captive.

*

*

*

Then to the heaven of heavens shall He ascend

With victory, triumphing through the air
Over His foes and thine.

What star I know not, but some star I find,

Milton.

Has given thee an ascendant o'er my mind.-Dryden.

No land but Italy erects the sight

To such a vast ascent, or swells to such a height.

Addison.

60

ASKANT.

ASPIRATIONS.

ASKANT-ASLANT.

SOME say he bid his angels turn askance
The poles of earth twice ten degrees and more,
From the sun's axle: they with labour pushed
Oblique the centric globe.

Since the space that lies on either side
The solar orb, is without limits wide,
Grant that the sun had happened to prefer
A foot askant, but one diameter;

Lost to the light by that unhappy space,
This globe had lain a frozen lonesome mass.

Milton.

Blackmore.

There is a willow grows aslant a brook
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream.

Shakspere.

ASPIRATIONS.

THERE is betwixt that smile we would aspire to,
That sweet aspect of princes and our ruin,
More pangs and fears than war or women have.
Shakspere.

Hence springs that universal strong desire
Which all men have of immortality:
Not some few spirits unto this aspire,
But all men's minds in this united be.

Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell,
Aspiring to be angels, men rebel.

Sir J. Davies.

Pope.

Longings sublime, and aspirations high.

Byron.

The high-born soul

Disdains to rest her heaven-aspiring wing
Beneath its native quarry. Tired of earth
And this diurnal scene, she springs aloft
Through fields of air; pursues the flying storm;
Rides on the vollied lightnings through the heavens;
Or yoked with whirlwinds and the northern blast,

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