It often falls, in course of common life, That right long time is overborne of wrong, Through avarice or power, or guile or strife, That weakens her, and makes her party strong: But justice, though her doom she do prolong, Yet at the last she will her own cause right. Spenser's Fairy Queen. We must not make a scarecrow of the law, Setting it up to fear the birds of prey, And let it keep one shape, till custom make it Their perch, and not their terror.
Shaks. Mea. for Mea. We have strict statutes, and most biting laws, (The needful bits and curbs to headstrong steeds) Which for these fourteen years we have let sleep; Even like an overgrown lion in a cave, That goes not out to prey.
The good needs fear no law;
It is his safety, and the had man's awe.
Massinger, Middleton, and Rowley's Old Law We are of the condition of some great Men in office; that desire execution
Of the laws, not so much to correct offences And reform the commonwealth, as to thrive By their punishment, and grow rich and fat With a clear conscience.
Shirley's St. Patrick for Ireland. Strict laws are like steel bodice, good for growing limbs;
But when the joints are knit, they are not helps, But burdens.
Fane's Love in the Dark
He that with injury is griev'd, And goes to law to be reliev'd, Is sillier than a sottish chouse,
Shaks. Mea. for Mea. Who, when a thief has robb'd his house, Applies himself to cunning men, To help him to his goods again.
Dead to infliction, to themselves are dead; And liberty plucks justice by the nose.
Shaks. Mea. for Mea. Law does not put the least restraint
There is no power in Venice
Can alter a decrec established:
Twill be recorded for a precedent;
And many an error, by the same example, Will rush into the state: it cannot be.
Shaks. Merchant of Venice. Till thou canst rail the seal from off my bond, Thou but offend'st thy lungs to speak so loud. Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
It pleases time and fortune to lie heavy Upon a friend of mine, who, in hot blood, Hath stept into the law, which is past depth To those that without heed do plunge into it. Shaks. Timon of Athens. Multitude of laws are signs either of Much tyranny in the prince, or much Rebellious disobedience in the subject.
This wretch, that lov'd, before his food, his strife, Do not your juries give their verdict
This punishment falls even with his life;
His pleasure was vexation, all his bliss
The torment of another:
Their hurt his health, their starved hope his store; Who so loves law, dies either mad or poor. Middleton's Phonix.
If we offend the law, The law may punish us; which only strives To take away excess, not the necessity Or use of what's indifferent: and is made Or good or bad by 'ts use.
Nabb's Covent Garden.
As if they felt the cause, not heard it? And as they please, make matter of fact Run all on one side, as they're pack'd.
Each state must have its policies; Kingdoms have edicts, cities have their charters. Ev'n the wild outlaw, in his forest walk, Keeps yet some touch of civil discipline. For not since Adam wore his verdant apron, Hath man with man in social union dwelt, But laws were made to draw that union closer Old Play
Mark what unvary'd laws preserve each state, Laws wise as nature, and as fix'd as fate. In vain thy reason finer webs shall draw, Entangle justice in her net of law, And right, too rigid, harden into wrong; Still for the strong too weak, the weak too strong. Pope.
Once (says an author, where I need not say) Two trav'llers found an oyster in their way: Both fierce, both hungry, the dispute grew strong, While, scale in hand, dame Justice pass'd along. Before her each with clamour pleads the laws, Explain'd the matter, and would win the cause. Dame justice weighing long the doubtful right, Takes, opens, swallows it, before their sight. The cause of strife remov'd so rarely well, There take, (says Justice) take you each a shell, We thrive at Westminster on fools like you: "T was a fat oyster-live in peace - adicu.
The hungry judges soon the sentence sign, And wretches hang that jurymen may dine. Pope's Rape of the Lock. Or, in a mortgage, prove a lawyer's share, Or, in a jointure, vanish from the heir; Or in pure equity (the case not clear) The chancery takes your rents for twenty year.
There was on both sides much to say:
He'd hear the cause another day.
And so he did; and then a third
He heard it there, he kept his word; But with rejoinders or replics, Long bills, and answers stuff'd with lics, Demur, imparlance, and essoign, The parties ne'er could issue join: For sixteen years the cause was spun, And then stood where it first begun.
Swift's Cadenus and Vanessa. The laws have cast me off from every claim, Of house and kindred, and within my veins Turn'd noble blood to baseness and reproach: I'll cast them off; why should they be to me A bar, and no protection.
Learning was first made pilot to the world, And in the chain of contemplation, Many degrees above the burning clouds He'd in his hands the nic-leaf'd marble book, Drawn full of silver lines and golden stars. Day's Law Tricks.
For mystic learning wondrous able In magic talisman and cabal, Whose primitive tradition reaches
As far as Adam's first green breeches.
In mathematics he was greater Than Tycho Brahe, or Erra Pater; For he by geometric scale, Could take the size of pots of ale; Resolve, by sines and tangents, straight, If bread or butter wanted weight; And wisely tell what hour o' th' day The clock does strike, by algebra.
We grant, although he had much wit,
H' was very shy of using it,
As being loath to wear it out,
And therefore bore it not about: Unless on holiday or so,
As men their best apparel do.
Besides 't is known he could speak Greek As naturally as pigs do squeak; That Latin was no more difficile, Than to a black-bird 't is to whistle.
Learning, that cobweb of the brain Profane, erroneous and vain; A trade of knowledge as replete, As others are with fraud and cheat; An art t' incumber gifts and wit, And render both for nothing fit.
But you are learn'd; in volumes deep you sit; In wisdom shallow: pompous ignorance!
Young's Night Thoughts.
You scorn what lies before you in the page Of nature and experience, moral truth; And dive in science for distinguish'd names, Sinking in virtue as you rise in fame.
Young's Night Thoughts.
A little learning is a dang'rous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, And drinking largely sobers us again.
Pope's Essay on Criticism,
By learning unrefin'd
That oft enlightens to corrupt the mind.
Falconer's Shipwreck.
Whose modest wisdom, therefore, never aims To find the longitude, or burn the Thames. Dr. Wolcot's Peter Pindar.
Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes, And pause awhile from letters to be wise; There mark what ills the scholar's life assail, Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the jail; See nations slowly wise and meanly just, To buried merit raise the tardy bust.
Dr. Johnson's Vanity of Human Wishes. Au reste, (as we say,) the young lad 's well enough, Only talks much of Athens, Rome, virtue, and stuff Moore's Fudge Family
Where yonder humble spire salutes the eye, Its vane slow-turning in the liquid sky, Where, in light gambols, healthy striplings sport, Ambitious Learning builds her outer court.
Her book of light here learning spread;
Butler's Hudibras. Here the warm breast of youth
Nothing goes for sense or light, That will not with old rules jump right; As if rules were not in the schools Deriv'd from truth, but truth from rules.
Some for renown on scraps of learning date, And think they grow immortal as they quote. To patch-work learn'd quotations are ally'd, But strive to make our poverty our pride. Young's Love of Fame. Yet proud of parts, with prudence some dispense, And play the fool because they're men of sense. Young's Epistle to Pope.
How empty learning, and how vain is art, But as it mends the life, and guides the heart. Young's Last Day.
Here are a few of the unpleasant'st words That ever blotted paper!
Skaks. Merchant of Venice. Do you like letter-reading? If you do,
I have some twenty dozen very pretty ones: Gay, sober, rapturous, solemn, very true,
And very lying stupid ones, and witty ones; On gilt-edged paper, blue perhaps, or pink, And frequently in fancy-coloured ink.
Through her tears she gazed upon them, Records of that brief bright dream! And she clasped them closer-closer For a message they would seem,
Shaks. Henry V. Coming from the lips now silent,
Coming from a hand now cold, And she felt the same emotion They had thrill'd her with of old.
Lucio.-Whence comes this restraint?
"Tis not to stalk about, and draw fresh air From time to time, or gaze upon the sun:
Claudio.-From too much liberty, my Lucio, "T is to be free. When liberty is gone,
As surfeit is the father of much fast,
So every scope by the immoderate use Turns to restraint: our natures do pursue (Like rats that ravin down their proper bane,) A thirsty evil; and when we drink we die. Shaks. Mea. for Mea. O happy men born under good stars, Where what is honest you may freely think, Speak what you think, and write what you do speak; Not bound to servile soothings.
The greatest glory of a free-born people, Is to transmit that freedom to their children. Havard's Regulus.
Marston's Fawn. Converse familiar with th' illustrious dead: With great examples of old Greece or Rome; Enlarge thy free-born heart, and bless kind heaven That Britain yet enjoys dear liberty,
When we have lost the substance, is best kept, By seeming not to understand those faults, Which we want power to mend.
May's Cleopatra. If we retain the glory of our ancestors, Whose ashes will rise up against our dulness, Shake off our tameness, and give way to courage; We need not doubt, inspir'd with a just rage, To break the necks of those that would yoke ours. Tatham's Distracted State.
I love my freedom: yet strong prisons can Vex but the bad, and not the virtuous man.
Still I should long to leap the crystal walls. Dryden's Don Sebastian.
The love of liberty with life is given, And life itself th' inferior gift of heaven. Dryden's Palamon and Arcite. Oh, liberty, thou goddess, heavenly bright, Profuse of bliss, and pregnant with delight! Eternal pleasures in thy presence reign, And smiling plenty leads thy wanton train; Fas'd of her load, subjection grows more light, And poverty looks cheerful in thy sight; Thou mak'st the gloomy face of nature gay, Giv'st beauty to the sun, and pleasure to the day. Addison's Italy.
A day, an hour of virtuous liberty, Is worth a whole eternity in bondage.
That balm of life, that sweetest blessing, cheap Tho' purchased with our blood.
What are fifty, what a thousand slaves, Match'd to the sinew of a single arm That strikes for liberty?
Brooke's Gustavus Vasa
Oh could I worship aught beneath the skies, That earth hath seen or fancy can devise, Thine altar, sacred liberty, should stand, Built by no mercenary vulgar hand, With fragrant turf, and flowers as wild and fair As ever dress'd a bank or scented sunimer air. Cowper's Charity.
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