144

CONTENTMENT - DISCONTENT.

For who did ever yet, by honour, wealth.

Or pleasure of the sense, Contentment find!
Who ever ceas'd to wish, when he had health,
Or, having Wisdom, was not vex'd in mind?
DAVIES' Immortality of the Soul.

The lion crav'd the fox's art;

The fox the lion's force and heart;
The cock implor'd the pigeon's flight,
Whose wings were rapid, strong, and light:
The pigeon strength of wing despis'd,
And the cock's matchless valour priz'd.
The fishes wish'd to graze the plain;
The beasts to skim beneath the main.
Thus, envious of another's state,
Each blam'd the partial hand of fate.

Sour discontent, that quarrels with our fate,
May give fresh smart, but not the old abate;
The uneasy passion's disingenuous wit,
The ill reveals, but hides the benefit.

GAY'S Fables

SIR R. BLACKMORE.

He, fairly looking into life's account,
Saw frowns and favours were of like amount;
And viewing all-his perils, prospects, purse-
He said, "Content-'t is well it is no worse.'

With careless eyes he views the proud,
In splendid robes profusely drest,
Nor heeds the dull, censorious crowd,
By fortune's fickle goddess blest.

99

CRABBE.

Gentleman's Magazine

What tho' on hamely fare we dine,

Wear hodden gray, and a' that?

Gie fools their silk, and knaves their wine,
A man's a man for a' that.

BURNS

CONVERSATION - LOQUACITY, &c.

And passing rich, with forty pounds a year.

GOLDSMITH'S Deserted Village.

A country-lad is my degree,

And few there are that ken me, O; But what care I how few they be? I'm welcome to my Nannie, O.

145

BURNS.

We heeded not the cold blast, nor the winter's icy air,
For we found our climate in the heart, and it was summer

there.

The feeling of sadness and longing,

That is not akin to pain, And resembles sorrow only, As the mist resembles rain.

J. R DRAKE.

H. W. LONGFELLOW.

O! dear is my cottage, unclouded by sorrow,
And sweet is the bower my Emeline wove;
Ah! nought from the gay or the wealthy I'd borrow,
While blest with the smile of contentment and love.

"Tis said that frail, inconstant man,

Is ne'er content with what he is: Each thinks he can in others scan A happiness more pure than his.

S. RICHARDS

J. T. WATSON

CONVERSATION-LOQUACITY, &c.

What cracker is this same, that deafs our ears
With this abundance of superfluous breath?

O, he's as tedious

As a tir'd horse, a railing wife;
Worse than a smoky chimney.

SHAKSPEARE,

SHAKSPEARE

146

CONVERSATION – LOQUACITY, &c

Since brevity 's the soul of wit,

And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes-
i will be brief.

SHAKSPEARE.

A flourish trumpets!-strike alarums-drums!
Let not the heavens hear these tell-tale women
Rail-

SHAKSPEARE.

Few words shall fit the trespass best,

When no excuse can give the fault amending.

SHAKSPEARE.

Their copious stories, oftentimes begun,

End without audience and are never done.

SHAKSPEARE.

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.

I never, with important air,

In conversation overbear;

My tongue within my lips I rein,
For who talks much must talk in vain.

GAY's Fables.

But fools, to talking ever prone,
Are sure to make their follies known.

GAY's Fables.

CONVERSATION - LOQUACITY, &c.

In arguing, too, the parson own'd his skill,
For, even tho' vanquish'd, he could argue still.

GOLDSMITH'S Deserted Village

With words of learned length, and thund'ring sound.

GOLDSMITH'S Deserted Village

'Too deep for his hearers, still went on refining,

147

And thought of convincing, while they thought of dining GOLDSMITH'S Retaliation.

The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read,

With loads of learned lumber in his head,
With his own tongue still edifies his ears,
And always list'ning to himself appears.

Be silent always, when you doubt your sense,
And speak, tho' sure, with seeming diffidence.

POPE'S Essay on Criticism

A dearth of words a woman need not fear;
But 't is a task indeed to learn-to hear.
In that the skill of conversation lies;

That shows or makes you both polite and wise.

Talking, she knew not why, and car'd not what.

YOUNG

If, in talking from morning till night,
A sign of our wisdom there be,

BYRON'S Beppo.

The swallows are wiser by right,

For they prattle much faster than we.

MOORE'S Nicostratus.

And there's one rare, strange virtue in their speeches,
The secret of their mastery-they are short.

HAI LECE

148

COQUETTE

COQUETTE.

The vain coquette each suit disdains,
And glories in her lovers' pains;
With age she fades each lover flies,
Contemn'd, forlorn, she pines and dies.

Who hath not heard coquettes complain
Of days, months, years, mis-spent in vain ?
For time misus'd they pine and waste,
And love's sweet pleasures never taste.

GAY'S Fables.

GAY's Fables.

Nymph of the mincing mouth, and languid eye,
And lisping tongue so soft, and head awry,
And flutt'ring heart, of leaves of aspen made.

DR. WOLCOT's Peter Pindar.

Such is your old coquette, who can't say "No,"
And won't say "Yes ;" and keeps you on and offing

On a lee shore, till it begins to Flow;

Then sees your heart wreck'd with an inward scoffing:

This works a world of sentimental woe,

And sends new Werters yearly to their coffin.

That once could make me die for thee?

No, no!- the eye that burns on all,

Shali never more be priz'd by me!

MOORE.