Which is as dry as the remainder-biscuit
After a voyage-he hath strange places cramm'd
With observation, the which he vents
In mangled forms.
Shaks. As you like it.
No, sir, quoth he,
Call me not fool, till heaven hath sent me fortune:
And then he drew a dial from his poke;
And, looking on it with lack-lustre eye,
Says, very wisely, it is ten o'clock:
Our wise forefathers, born in sober days,
Resign'd to fools the tart and witty phrase;
The motley coat gave warning for the jest,
Excus'd the wound, and sanctified the pest;
But we from high to low all strive to sneer,
Will all be wits, and not the livery wear.
"Out, thou silly moon-struck elf;
Back, poor fool, and hide thyself!"
This is what the wise ones say,
Should the idiot cross their way:
Thus may we see, quoth he, how the world wags: But if we would closely mark,
"T is but an hour ago since it was nine;
And after an hour more 't will be eleven;
And so, from hour to hour, we ripe, and ripe,
And then, from hour to hour, we rot, and rot,
And thereby hangs a tale. When I did hear
The motley fool thus moral on the time,
My lungs began to crow like chanticleer,
That fools should be so deep-contemplative;
And I did laugh, sans intermission,
An hour by his dial-O noble fool!
A worthy fool! motley's the only wear.
We should see him not all dark;
We should find we must not scorn
The teachings of the idiot-born.
Art thou great as man can be?
The same hand moulded him and thee.
Hast thou talent? - Taunt and jeer
Must not fall upon his ear.
Spurn him not; the blemish'd part
Had better be the head than heart.
Thou wilt be the fool to scorn
Shaks. As you like it. The teaching of the idiot-born.
I must have liberty
Withal, as large a charter as the wind,
To blow on whom I please; for so fools have:
And they that are most galled with my folly,
They most must laugh: and why, sir, must
they so?
The why is plain as way to parish church:
He, that a fool doth very wisely hit,
Doth very foolishly, although he smart,
Not to scem senseless of the bob; if not,
The wise man's folly is anatomiz'd
Even by the squand'ring glances of the fool.
Shaks. As you like it.
This fellow is wise enough to play the fool;
And, to do that well, craves a kind of wit.
And such a crafty devil as his mother
Should yield the world this ass! a woman, that
Bears all down with her brain; and this her son
Cannot take two from twenty for his heart,
And leave eighteen.
Eliza Cook. What matter though the scorn of fools be given, If the path follow'd lead us on to heaven!
Fill with Forgetfulness, fill high! yet stay
Shaks. Twelfth Night.-'T is from the past we shadow forth the land
Where smiles, long lost, again shall light our way,
-Though the past haunt me as a spirit,—yet I
ask not to forget!
Mrs. Hemans.
When I forget that the stars shine in air-
When I forget that beauty is in stars-
When I forget that love with beauty is-
Will I forget thee: till then all things else.
Bailey's Festus
If e'er I win a parting token,
"Tis something that has lost its power-
A chain that has been used and broken,
A ruin'd glove, a faded flower;
Something that makes my pleasure less,
Something that means—forgetfulness.
Nothing exceeds in ridicule, no doubt,
A fool in fashion, but a fool that's out;
His passion for absurdity's so strong,
He cannot bear a rival in the wrong.
Though wrong the mode, comply: more sense is
shown
In wearing others' follies than our own.
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O, what form of prayer Can serve any turn? Forgive me my foul murder!That cannot be; since I am still possess'd Of those effects for which I did the murder, My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen. Shaks. Hamlet.
I'll not chide thee: Le shame come when it will, I do not call it; I do not bid the thunder-bearer shoot, Nor tell tales of thee to high-judging Jove: Mend when thou cans't; be better at thy leisure. Shaks. King Lear. Yet beauty, though injurious, hath strange pow'r After offence returning, to regain Love once possess'd; nor can be easily Repuls'd, without much inward passion felt, And secret sting of amorous remorse.
Milton's Samson Agonistes. He added not, and from her turn'd; but Eve
Not so repuls'd, with tears that ceas'd not flowing,
And tresses all disorder'd, at his feet
Fell humble, and embracing them, besought
His peace.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
While yet we live, scarce one short hour perhaps,
Between us two let there be peace.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Forsake me not thus, Adam, witness heaven
What love sincere, and reverence in my heart
I bear thee, and unweeting have offended,
I'nhappily deceiv'd! thy suppliant,
I beg, and clasp thy knees; bereave me not,
Whereon I live, thy gentle looks, thy aid,
Tuy counsel in this uttermost distress,
My only strength and stay: forlorn of thee,
Whither shall I betake me, where subsist?
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Let us no more contend, nor blame Each other, blam'd enough elsewhere, but strive, In offices of love, how we may lighten Each other's burden, in our share of woe.
Fall at his feet; cling round his reverend knees, Speak to him with thy eyes; and with thy tears Melt his cold heart, and wake dead nature in him. Crush him in thy arms; torture him with thy softness:
Nor till thy prayers are granted, set him free. Otway's Venice Preserved.
Thou shalt not force me from thee: Use me reproachfully, and like a slave: Tread on me, buffet me, heap wrongs on wrongs On my poor head: I'll bear it all with patience, Shall weary out thy most unfriendly cruelty: Lie at thy feet, and kiss them, though they spurn
Do cream and mantle, like a standing pond;
And do a wilful stillness entertain,
With purpose to be drest in an opinion
Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit;
As who should say, I am sir Oracle,
And when I ope my lips, let no dog bark!
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
Lord Angelo is precise;
Stands at a guard with envy; scarce confesses
That his blood flows, or that his appetite
Is more to bread than stone.
Shaks. Mea. for Mea. Oh, I see thee old and formal, fitted to thy petty part,
With a little hoard of maxims preaching down a daughter's heart!
FORTITUDE.
Fortitude is not the appetite
Yet well thy soul hath brook'd the turning tide
With that untaught innate philosophy,
Which, be it wisdom, coldness, or deep pride,
Is gall and wormwood to an enemy.
When the whole host of hatred stood hard by, To watch and mock thee shrinking, thou hast smiled
With a sedate and all-enduring eye;
When fortune fled her spoil'd and favourite child,
He stood unbow'd beneath the ills upon him piled.
Byron's Childe Harold.
Existence may be borne, and the deep root
Of life and sufferance make its firm abode
In base and desolated bosoms: mute
The camel labours with the heaviest load,
And the wolf dies in silence: not bestow'd
In vain should such example be; if they,
Things of ignoble or of savage mood,
Endure and shrink not, we of nobler clay
May temper it to bear-it is but for a day.
Byron's Childe Harold.
-Gird your hearts with silent fortitude, Suffering yet hoping all things.
Of Nature's gifts thou may'st with lilies boast, And with the half-blown rose: but fortune, O! She is corrupted, chang'd, and won from thee. Shaks. King John
When fortune means to men most good,
She looks upon them with a threat'ning eye.
Shaks. King John.
Will fortune never come with both hands full,
But write her fair words still in foulest letters?
She either gives a stomach, and no food
Such are the poor in health; or else a feast,
And takes away the stomach-such the rich,
That have abundance, and enjoy it not.
Fortune, the great commandress of the world,
Hath divers ways to enrich her followers;
To some she honour gives without deserving;
To other some, deserving, without honour;
Some wit, some wealth, and some wit without
wealth;
Some wealth without wit; some nor wit nor wealth,
But good smock faces, or some qualities
By nature, without judgment; with the which
Shaks. Henry IV. Part II. They live in sensual acceptation,
Fortune is merry,
And in this mood will give us any thing.
Shaks. Julius Cæsar.
This accident and flood of fortune
So far exceed all instance, all discourse,
That I am ready to distrust mine eyes,
And wrangle with my reason, that persuades me
To any other trust.
For herein fortune shows herself more kind
Than is her custom: it is still her use,
To let the wretch'd man outlive his wealth,
To view with hollow eye, and wrinkled brow,
An age of poverty.
Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
Wisdom and fortune combating together:
If that the former dare but what it can,
No chance may shake it.
Shaks. Antony and Cleopatra.
How fortune plies her sports, when she begins
To practise them! pursues, continues, adds,
Confounds, with varying her empassion'd moods!
Jonson's Sejanus.
There is a tide in the affairs of men,
- Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune,
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
All human business fortune doth command
Without all order; and with her blind hand,
She, blind, bestows blind gifts, that still have nurst,
They see not who, nor how, but still the worst.
Ben Jonson.
That fortune still must be with ill maintain'd,
Which at the first with any ill is gain'd.
Lord Brook's Alaham. Oh fortune! thou art not worth my least exclaim, And plague enough thou hast in tay own name : Do thy great worst, my frienas and I have arms, Though not against thy strokes, against thy harms.
And make show only without touch of substance
Chapman's All Fools.
Fortune 's an under pow'r, that is herself
Commanded by desert. "Tis a mere vainness
Of our credulity to give her more
Than her due attribute; which is but servants
To an heroic spirit.
Nabb's Hannibal and Scipio
Wisdom, whose strong-built plots,
Leave nought to hazard, mocks thy futile pow'r ;
Industrious labour drags thee by the locks,
Bound to his toiling car, and not attending
Till thou dispense, reaches his own reward:
Only the lazy sluggard yawning lies
Before the threshold, gaping for thy dole,
And licks the easy hand that feeds his sloth;
The shallow, rash, and unadvised man
Makes thee his state, disburthens all the follies
Of his misguided actions on thy shoulders.
Carew's Calum Britannicum
Let not one look of fortune cast you down;
She were not fortune, if she still did frown:
Such as do braveliest bear her scorns awhile,
Are those on whom at last she most will smile.
Earl of Orrey's Henry V.
Fortune came smiling to my youth, and woo'd it,
And purpled greatness met my ripen'd years.
Be juster, heav'ns! Such virtue punish'd thus,
Will make us think chance rules all above,
And shuffles with a random hand the lots
Which man is forc'd to draw.
Dryden's All for Love.
What trivial influences hold dominion
O'er wise men's counsels, and the fate of empire!
The greatest schemes that human wit can forge,
Or bold ambition dares to put in practice,
Depend upon our husbanding a moment,
And the light lasting of a woman's will;
As if the Lord of nature should delight
To hang this pond'rous globe upon a hair,
And bid it dance before a breath of wind.
Rowe's Lady Jane Grey.
Look into those they call unfortunate,
And closer view'd you'll find they are unwise:
Some flaw in their own conduct lies beneath,
And 't is the trick of fools to save their credit,
Which brought another language into use.
Young's Revenge.
A trifle, a mere nothing, by itself,
In some nice situation, turns the scale
Of fate, and rules the most important actions.
Thomson's Tancred and Sigismunda.
Fortune made up of toys and impudence,
That common judge that has not common sense,
But fond of business, insolently dares
Pretend to rule, yet spoils the world's affairs;
She's fluttering up and down, her favour throws
On the next met, nor minding what she does,
Nor why, nor whom she helps, nor merit knows;
Sometimes she smiles, then like a fury raves,
And seldom truly loves but fools or knaves.
Let her love whom she will, I scorn to woo her,
While she stays with me, I'll be civil to her;
But if she offers once to move her wings,
I'll fling her back all her vain gew-gaw things.
Buckingham.
On high, where no hoarse winds nor clouds resort,
The hood-wink'd goddess keeps her partial court,
Upon a wheel of amethyst she sits,
Gives and resumes, and smiles and frowns by fits:
In this still labyrinth around her lie
Spells, philters, globes, and schemes of palmistry;
A sigil in this hand the gipsy bears,
In t' other a prophetic sieve, and shears.
Garth's Dispensary.
Heav'n has to all allotted, soon or late,
Some lucky revolution of their fate:
Whose motions if we watch and guide with skill,
(For human good depends on human will)
Our fortune rolls as from a smooth descent,
And from the first impression takes its bent;
But if unseiz'd, she glides away like wind,
And leaves repenting folly far behind;
Now, now she meets you with a glorious prize,
And spreads her locks before her as she flies.
All human projects are so faintly fram'd,
So feebly plann'd, so liable to change,
So mix'd with error in their very form,
That mutable and mortal are the same.
A hungry, lean-fac'd villain,
A mere anatomy, a mountebank,
A threadbare juggler, and a fortune-teller;
A needy, hollow-eyed, sharp-looking wretch,
A living dead man; this pernicious slave,
Forsooth, took on him as a conjurer;
And gazing in mine eyes, feeling my pulse,
And with no face, as 't were, outfacing me,
Cries out, I was possess'd.
Shaks. Comedy of Erros
Pray thee, maiden, hear him not!
Take thou warning by my lot,
Read my scroll, and mark thou all
I can tell thee of thy thrall.
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