BREVITY.

SINCE brevity's the soul of wit,

And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishesI will be brief.

Shakspere.

A play there is, my lord, some ten words long,
Which is as brief as I have known a play;
But by ten words, my lord, it is too long,
Which makes it tedious.

Shakspere.

As 't is a greater mystery, in the art
Of painting, to foreshorten any part,
Than draw it out, so 't is in books the chief
Of all perfections to be plain and brief.

For brevity is very good,

*

When we are, or are not, understood.

Life's brevity is nature's kindest boon:

**

Butler.

Made mortal, that immortal life may comeSo thou dost well, what boots to thee how soon Fate's welcome summons calls the wanderer home? Yet, dost thou sigh o'er youth's beclouded noon? Alas! woes wait on all who further roam! Fresh tempests brood, and heaven's blue face deform, But he who soundly sleeps escapes the storm.

Beattie.

BRIBES-BRIBERY.

You have condemned and noted Lucius Pella
For taking bribes here of the Sardeans.

What! shall one of us,

That struck the foremost man of all this world,
But for supporting robbers;-shall we now
Contaminate our fingers with base bribes?
And sell the mighty space of our large honour
For so much trash as may be grasped thus?
I'd rather be a dog, and bay the moon,
Than such a Roman.

Shakspere.

1.-Hark, how I'll bribe thee, 2.-How! bribe me?

1.—Aye, with such gifts, that heaven shall share with you.

2.-You had marred all else.

1. Not with fond shekels of the tested gold, Or stones whose rates are either rich or poor, As fancy values them: but with true prayers That shall be up at heaven, and enter there Ere sunrise; prayers from preserved souls; From fasting maids, whose minds are dedicate To nothing temporal. Shakspere.

There's joy when to wild will you laws prescribe;
When you bid fortune carry back her bribe.

Nor less may Jupiter to gold ascribe,
When he turned himself into a bribe.

Dryden.

Waller.

No, I'll not trust the honour of a man:
Gold is grown great, and makes perfidiousness
A most common waiter in most princes' courts:
He's in the check-roll. I'll not trust my blood:
I know none breathing but will cog a dye
For twenty thousand double pistolets.

BRIDE-BRIDAL.

NAY, we must think men are not gods,

Marston.

Nor of them look for such observance always,
As fits the bridal.

Sweet day so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky;

Sweet dews shall weep thy fall to-night,
For thou must die.

Shakspere.

Herbert.

Knit up thy spirit! Men should go faced in brass In these high unabashed bridal times.

Observe thou, when the virgin wife dawns forth Like blushing morning! Ha! look where she comes,

In sweetness, like the hawthorn buds unblown; While the proud bridegroom, like the month of May, Steps in the midst of flowers.

Procter.

They tell me, gentle lady, that they deck thee for a

bride,

That the wreath is woven for thy hair, thy bridegroom by thy side;

And I think I hear thy father's sigh, thy mother's calmer tone,

As they give thee to another's arms-their beautiful, their own;

I never saw a bridal but my eyelid hath been wet, And it always seemed to me as though a joyous crowd

were met

To see the saddest sight of all, a gay and girlish

thing,

Lay aside her maiden gladness—for a name—and for G. M. Fitzgerald.

a ring.

BRIGHTNESS.

THE blazing brightness of her beauties' beam,
The glorious light of her sun-shining face,
To tell were as to strive against the stream.

Through a cloud,

Spenser.

Drawn round about thee like a radiant shrine,
Dark, with excessive bright, thy skirts appear.

Milton.

Is she not brighter than a summer's morn,
When all the heaven is streaked with dappled fire,
And flecked with blushes like a rifled maid.

Lee.

The purple morning rising with the year,
Salutes the spring, as her celestial eyes

Adorn the world, and brighten all the skies.

Dryden.

An ecstacy that only mothers feel
Plays round my heart, and brightens all my sorrow,
Like gleams of sunshine in a low'ring sky.

Phillips.

144

BROTHERHOOD.

BROTHERHOOD.

WE few, we happy few, we band of brothers.

Shakspere.

Shakspere.

Finds brotherhood in thee no sharper spur?

1.-Why give you me this shame?

Think you I can a resolution fetch

From flow'ry tenderness? If I must die,

I will encounter darkness as a bride,

And hug it in my arms!

2.-There spake my brother; there my father's grave Did utter forth a voice.

Shakspere.

Milton.

These two are brethren, Adam, and to come

Out of thy loins.

Was ever such a brother?

Turn over all the stories of the world,

*

And search through all the memories of mankind,
And find me such a friend. It has outdone all,
Outstripped 'em sheerly. * *To die for me!
In all the blossom of his youth and beauty,
In all the fullness of his veins and wishes,
Wooed by that paradise that would catch heaven!
It startles one extremely! Thou blest ashes,
Thou faithful monument, where love and friendship
Shall, while the world is, work new miracles.
Beaumont and Fletcher.

1. He is my brother.

2. The more doubted;

For hatred hatched at home is a tame tiger,
May fawn and sport, but never leave his nature.
The jars of brothers, two such mighty ones,
Are like a small stone thrown into a river,
The breach scarce heard; but view the beaten current,
And you shall see a thousand angry rings
Rise in his face, still swelling and still growing;
So jars circle in distrusts; distrusts breed dangers,
And dangers death (the greatest extreme) shadow,
Till nothing bound 'em but the shore-their graves.
Beaumont and Fletcher.

Assailed by scandal and the tongue of strife,
His only answer was a blameless life;

And he that forged, and he that threw the dart,
Had each a brother's interest in his heart.

Though more our money than our cause,
Their brotherly assistance draws.

Children are we all

Cowper.

Denham.

Of one great Father, in whatever clime
His providence hath cast the seed of life,
All tongues-all colours. Neither after death
Shall we be sorted into languages

And tints-black, white, and tawny, Greek and Goth,
Northmen, and offspring of hot Africa,

The all-seeing Father,-He in whom we live and

move,

He, the impartial judge of all-regards

Nations, and hues, and dialects alike.

According to their works shall they be judged,

When even-handed Justice, in the scale,

Their good and evil weighs.

Then gently scan thy brother man.

Southey.

Burns.

A happy bit hame this auld warld wad be,
If men, whan they're here, would make shift to agree,
And ilk said to his neebor in cottage an' ha',
"Come gie me your hand, we are brethren a'.

Robert Nicol.

I care not whence come you, or where you may dwell, In the east or the west, or the south, or the north; Be thy skin of the darkest, thy home in the fell,

I care not, I only know manhood and worth;
Then thy hand, brother man, and oh, let us prove,
Whose heart is the strongest in brotherly love.
J. B. Syme.

My boyish days are nearly gone,
My breast is not unsullied now,
And worldly cares and woes will soon
Cut their deep furrows on my brow:

L