John Dryden

John Dryden (19 August [O.S. 9 August] 1631 – 12 May [O.S. 1 May] 1700) was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who in 1668 was appointed England's first Poet Laureate.

Quotes

An horrid stillness first invades the ear,
And in that silence we the tempest fear.
- Astraea Redux (1660), ll. 7–8

All things are hush'd, as Nature's self lay dead,
The Mountains seem to nod their drowsy head;
The little Birds in dreams their Songs repeat,
And sleeping Flowers, beneath the night-dew sweat;
Even Lust and Envy sleep.
- The Indian Emperor (1667), Act III, sc. ii

But Shakespeare's magic could not copied be;
Within that circle none durst walk but he.
- The Tempest (1670), Prologue

Their heavenly harps a lower strain began,
And in soft music mourn the fall of man.
- The State of Innocence (1677), Act V, sc. i

Thespis, the first professor of our art,
At country wakes sung ballads from a cart.
- Prologue to Lee's Sophonisba (1675)

Happy who in his verse can gently steer
From grave to light, from pleasant to severe.
- The Art of Poetry (1683), Canto I, l. 75

Bold knaves thrive without one grain of sense,
But good men starve for want of impudence.
- Constantine the Great (1684), Epilogue

Wit will shine
Through the harsh cadence of a rugged line.
- To the Memory of Mr. Oldham, l. 15. Miscellany Poems (1684)

Above any Greek or Roman name.
- Upon the Death of Lord Hastings, l. 76. Miscellany Poems (ed. 1702). Cf. "Above all Greek, above all Roman fame"; Pope, Ep. I, Bk. 2, l. 26

Men met each other with erected look,
The steps were higher that they took;
Friends to congratulate their friends made haste,
And long inveterate foes saluted as they passed.
- Threnodia Augustalis (1685), ll. 124–127

Since heaven's eternal year is thine.
- To the Pious Memory of Mrs. Anne Killegrew (1686), l. 15

O gracious God! how far have we
Profaned thy heavenly gift of poesy!
- To the Pious Memory of Mrs. Anne Killegrew (1686), ll. 56–57

Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child.
- To the Pious Memory of Mrs. Anne Killegrew (1686), l. 70

Our vows are heard betimes! and Heaven takes care
To grant, before we can conclude the prayer:
Preventing angels met it half the way,
And sent us back to praise, who came to pray.
- Britannia Rediviva (1688), l. 1

And torture one poor word ten thousand ways.
- Britannia Rediviva (1688), l. 208

Three poets, in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn.
The first in loftiness of thought surpassed;
The next, in majesty; in both the last.
The force of Nature could no further go.
To make a third, she joined the former two.
- Under Mr. Milton's Picture (1688)

Fairest Isle, all isles excelling,
Seat of pleasures, and of loves;
Venus here will choose her dwelling,
And forsake her Cyprian groves.
- King Arthur (1691), Act II, sc. v, Song of Venus

Truth is the foundation of all knowledge, and the cement of all societies.
- "The Character of Polybius", in H. S.'s The History of Polybius (1692)

So softly death succeeded life in her,
She did but dream of heaven, and she was there.
- Eleonora (1692), l. 315

Thus all below is strength, and all above is grace.
- Epistle to Congreve (1693), l. 19

Genius must be born, and never can be taught.
- Epistle to Congreve (1693), l. 60

Be kind to my remains; and oh defend,
Against your judgment, your departed friend!
- Epistle to Congreve (1693), l. 72

How easie is it to call Rogue and Villain, and that wittily! But how hard to make a Man appear a Fool, a Blockhead, or a Knave, without using any of those opprobrious terms! To spare the grossness of the Names, and to do the thing yet more severely, is to draw a full Face, and to make the Nose and Cheeks stand out, and yet not to employ any depth of Shadowing. This is the Mystery of that Noble Trade, which yet no Master can teach to his Apprentice: He may give the Rules, but the Scholar is never the nearer in his practice. Neither is it true, that this fineness of Raillery is offensive. A witty Man is tickl'd while he is hurt in this manner, and a Fool feels it not. The occasion of an Offence may possibly be given, but he cannot take it. If it be granted that in effect this way does more Mischief; that a Man is secretly wounded, and though he be not sensible himself, yet the malicious World will find it for him: yet there is still a vast difference betwixt the slovenly Butchering of a Man, and the fineness of a stroke that separates the Head from the Body, and leaves it standing in its place.
- A Discourse concerning the Original and Progress of Satire (1693)

Words, once my stock, are wanting to commend
So great a poet and so good a friend.
- Epistle to Peter Antony Motteux (1698), ll. 54–55

Lord of yourself, uncumbered with a wife.
- Epistle to John Driden of Chesterton (1700), l. 18

Better to hunt in fields, for health unbought,
Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught.
The wise, for cure, on exercise depend;
God never made his work for man to mend.
- Epistle to John Driden of Chesterton (1700), ll. 92–95

He was exhaled; his great Creator drew
His spirit, as the sun the morning dew.
- On the Death of a Very Young Gentleman (1700)

Here lies my wife: here let her lie!
Now she's at rest, and so am I.
- Epitaph, intended for his wife

Annus Mirabilis (1667)

And threat'ning France, plac'd like a painted Jove,
Kept idle thunder in his lifted hand.
- Stanza 39.

By viewing Nature, Nature's handmaid Art,
Makes mighty things from small beginnings grow.
- Stanza 155

So close behind some promontory lie
The huge Leviathan to attend their prey,
And give no chance, but swallow in the fry,
Which through their gaping jaws mistake the way.

Essay of Dramatick Poesie (1668)

If confidence presage a victory, Eugenius, in his own opinion, has already triumphed over the Ancients: nothing seems more easy to him than to overcome those whom it is our greatest praise to have imitated well; for we do not only build upon their foundation, but by their models.
- p. 8

The Famous Rules which the French call, Des Trois Unités, or, The Three Unities, which ought to be observ'd in every Regular Play; namely, of Time, Place, and Action.
- p. 10

To begin then with Shakespeare; he was the man who of all Modern, and perhaps Ancient Poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All the Images of Nature were still present to him, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily: when he describes any thing, you more than see it, you feel it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted learning, give him the greater commendation: he was naturally learn'd; he needed not the spectacles of Books to read Nature; he look'd inwards, and found her there. I cannot say he is every where alike; were he so, I should do him injury to compare him with the greatest of Mankind. He is many times flat, insipid; his Comick wit degenerating into clenches; his serious swelling into Bombast. But he is alwayes great, when some great occasion is presented to him: no man can say he ever had a fit subject for his wit, and did not then raise himself as high above the rest of the Poets,
- p. 47

Tyrannick Love (1669)

Music...is inarticulate poesy.
- Preface

He who servilely creeps after sense
Is safe, but ne'er will reach an excellence.
- Prologue

All delays are dangerous in war.
- Act I, sc. i

Pains of love be sweeter far
Than all other pleasures are.
- Act IV, sc. i

The Wild Gallant (1669)

Midas me no midas.
- Act II, sc. i

Madam me no madam.
- Act II, sc. ii

The Conquest of Granada (1669–70)

I am as free as Nature first made man,
Ere the base laws of servitude began,
When wild in woods the noble savage ran.
- Pt. 1, Act I, sc. i

Forgiveness to the injured does belong;
But they ne'er pardon who have done the wrong.
- Pt. 2, Act I, sc. ii

What precious drops are those
Which silently each other's track pursue,
Bright as young diamonds in their infant dew?
- Pt. 2, Act III, sc. i

Fame then was cheap, and the first comer sped;
And they have kept it since by being dead.
- Epilogue

Marriage à la mode (1673)

We lov'd, and we lov'd, as long as we could,
Till our love was lov'd out in us both:
But our marriage is dead, when the pleasure is fled:
'Twas pleasure first made it an oath.
- Act I

Our souls sit close and silently within,
And their own web from their own entrails spin;
And when eyes meet far off, our sense is such,
That, spider-like, we feel the tenderest touch.
- Act II, sc. i

Aureng-Zebe (1676)

Death in itself is nothing; but we fear
To be we know not what, we know not where.
- Act IV, sc. i

When I consider life, 't is all a cheat.
Yet fool'd with hope, men favour the deceit;
Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay.
To-morrow 's falser than the former day;
Lies worse, and while it says we shall be blest
With some new joys, cuts off what we possest.
Strange cozenage! none would live past years again,
Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain;
And from the dregs of life think to receive
What the first sprightly running could not give.
- Act IV, sc. i

'T is not for nothing that we life pursue;
It pays our hopes with something still that's new.
- Act IV, sc. i

The Maiden Queen (1667)

Your ignorance is the mother of your devotion to me.
- Act I, sc. ii

Burn daylight.
- Act II, sc. i

I am resolved to grow fat, and look young till forty.
- Act III, sc. i

All for Love (1678)

What flocks of critics hover here to-day,
As vultures wait on armies for their prey,
All gaping for the carcase of a play!
With croaking notes they bode some dire event,
And follow dying poets by the scent.
- Prologue

He's somewhat lewd; but a well-meaning mind;
Weeps much; fights little; but is wond'rous kind.
- Prologue

A brave man scorns to quarrel once a day;
Like Hectors in at every petty fray.
- Prologue

Let those find fault whose wit's so very small,
They've need to show that they can think at all;
Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow;
He who would search for pearls, must dive below.
Fops may have leave to level all they can;
As pigmies would be glad to lop a man.
Half-wits are fleas; so little and so light,
We scarce could know they live, but that they bite.
- Prologue

Give, you gods,
Give to your boy, your Caesar,
The rattle of a globe to play withal,
This gewgaw world, and put him cheaply off;
I'll not be pleased with less than Cleopatra.
- Act II, sc. ii

The wretched have no friends.
- Act III, sc. i

Men are but children of a larger growth;
Our appetites as apt to change as theirs,
And full as craving, too, and full as vain.
- Act IV, sc. i

With how much ease believe we what we wish!
- Act IV, sc. i (Cleopatra loq.)

Œdipus (1679)

Whatever is, is in its causes just.
- Act III, sc. i

His hair just grizzled,
As in a green old age.
- Act III, sc. i

Of no distemper, of no blast he died,
But fell like autumn fruit that mellowed long —
Even wondered at, because he dropped no sooner.
Fate seemed to wind him up for fourscore years,
Yet freshly ran he on ten winters more;
Till like a clock worn out with eating time,
The wheels of weary life at last stood still.
- Act IV, sc. i

She, though in full-blown flower of glorious beauty,
Grows cold even in the summer of her age.
- Act IV, sc. i

Ovid's Epistles (1680)

It is almost impossible to translate verbally and well at the same time; for the Latin (a most severe and compendious language) often expresses that in one word which either the barbarity or the narrowness of modern tongues cannot supply in more. ... But since every language is so full of its own proprieties that what is beautiful in one is often barbarous, nay, sometimes nonsense, in another, it would be unreasonable to limit a translator to the narrow compass of his author's words; it is enough if he choose out some expression which does not vitiate the sense.
- Preface.

The Spanish Friar (1681)

There is a pleasure sure
In being mad which none but madmen know.
- Act II, sc. i

Lord of humankind.
- Act II, sc. i

Like a led victim, to my death I'll go,
And, dying, bless the hand that gave the blow.
- Act II, sc. i

Second thoughts, they say, are best.
- Act II, sc. ii

He's a sure card.
- Act II, sc. ii

They say everything in the world is good for something.
- Act III, sc. ii

As sure as a gun.
- Act III, sc. ii

Nor can his blessed soul look down from heaven,
Or break the eternal sabbath of his rest.
- Act V, sc. ii

Absalom and Achitophel (1681)

Main article: Absalom and Achitophel

Whate’er he did, was done with so much ease,
In him alone 'twas natural to please.
- Pt. I, l. 27

Plots, true or false, are necessary things,
To raise up commonwealths and ruin kings.
- Pt. I, l. 83

Great wits are sure to madness near allied,
And thin partitions do their bounds divide.
- Pt. I, l. 163

And all to leave, what with his toil he won
To that unfeathered two-legged thing, a son.
- Pt. I, ll. 169

In friendship false, implacable in hate,
Resolved to ruin, or to rule the state.
- Pt. I, l. 173

And heaven had wanted one immortal song.
But wild ambition loves to slide, not stand,
And fortune's ice prefers to virtue's land.
- Pt. I, l. 197

The people's prayer, the glad diviner's theme,
The young men's vision, and the old men's dream!
- Pt. I, l. 238

All empire is no more than power in trust.
- Pt. I, l. 411

Better one suffer, than a nation grieve.
- Pt. I, l. 416

Self-defence is nature's eldest law
- Pt. I, l. 458

Not only hating David, but the king.
- Pt. I, l. 512

But far more numerous was the herd of such,
Who think too little, and who talk too much.
- Pt. I, l. 532

A man so various, that he seem’d to be
Not one, but all mankind’s epitome;
Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,
Was everything by starts, and nothing long;
But in the course of one revolving moon
Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon.
- Pt. I, l. 545

Every man with him was God or devil.
- Pt. I, l. 557

His tribe were God Almighty's gentlemen.
- Pt. I, l. 645

Thus in a pageant-show a plot is made;
And peace itself is war in masquerade.
- Pt. I, l. 751

Nor is the people's judgment always true:
The most may err as grossly as the few.
- Pt. I, l. 781

Never was patriot yet, but was a fool.
- Pt. I, l. 967

Beware the fury of a patient man.
- Pt. I, l. 1005

Made still a blund'ring kind of melody;
Spurred boldly on, and dashed through thick and thin,
Through sense and nonsense, never out nor in.
Free from all meaning, whether good or bad,
And in one word, heroically mad.
- Pt. II, l. 413

Mac Flecknoe (1682)

All human things are subject to decay,
And, when fate summons, monarchs must obey.
- ll. 1–2

The rest to some faint meaning make pretense,
But Shadwell never deviates into sense.
Some beams of wit on other souls may fall,
Strike through and make a lucid interval;
But Shadwell's genuine night admits no ray,
His rising fogs prevail upon the day.
- ll. 19–24

Leave writing plays, and choose for thy command
Some peaceful province in acrostic land.
There thou mayst wings display and altars raise,
And torture one poor word ten thousand ways.
- ll. 205–208

Religio Laici (1682)

A man is to be cheated into passion, but to be reasoned into truth.
- Preface

Dim as the borrowed beams of moon and stars
To lonely, weary, wandering travellers
Is reason to the soul; and as on high
Those rolling fires discover but the sky
Not light us here, so reason's glimmering ray
Was lent, not to assure our doubtful way,
But guide us upward to a better day:
And as those nightly tapers disappear
When day's bright lord ascends our hemisphere,
So pale grows reason at religion's sight,
So dies, and so dissolves in supernatural light.
- ll. 1–11

More Safe, and much more modest 'tis, to say
God wou'd not leave Mankind without a way:
And that the Scriptures, though not every where
Free from Corruption, or intire, or clear,
Are uncorrupt, sufficient, clear, intire,
In all things which our needfull Faith require.
If others in the same Glass better see
'Tis for Themselves they look, but not for me:
For my Salvation must its Doom receive
Not from what others, but what I believe.
- ll. 295–304

Imitation of Horace (1685)

Main article: Imitation of Horace

Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He who can call today his own;
He who, secure within, can say,
Tomorrow, do thy worst, for I have lived today.
- Bk. III, Ode 29, ll. 65–68

Be fair, or foul, or rain, or shine,
The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine.
Not heaven itself upon the past has power;
But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.
- Bk. III, Ode 29, ll. 69–72

I can enjoy her while she's kind;
But when she dances in the wind,
And shakes the wings and will not stay,
I puff the prostitute away:
The little or the much she gave is quietly resign'd:
Content with poverty, my soul I arm;
And virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm.
- Bk. III, Ode 29, ll. 81–87; On Fortune

Sylvae (1685)

Milton's Paradise Lost is admirable; but am I therefore bound to maintain, that there are no flats amongst his elevations, when it is evident he creeps along sometimes for above an hundred lines together? Cannot I admire the height of his invention, and the strength of his expression, without defending his antiquated words, and the perpetual harshness of their sound? It is as much commendation as a man can bear, to own him excellent; all beyond it is idolatry.
- Preface (ed. 1702)

Nay, tho' our Atoms shou'd revolve by chance,
And matter leape into the former dance;
Tho' time our Life and motion cou'd restore,
And make our Bodies what they were before,
What gain to us wou'd all this bustle bring,
The new made man wou'd be another thing;
When once an interrupting pause is made,
That individual Being is decay'd.
We, who are dead and gone, shall bear no part
In all the pleasures, nor shall feel the smart,
Which to that other Mortal shall accrew,
Whom of our Matter Time shall mould anew.
- Translation of the Latter Part of the Third Book of Lucretius: "Against the Fear of Death"

A Song for St. Cecilia's Day (1687)

From harmony, from heavenly harmony,
This universal frame began:
When nature underneath a heap
Of jarring atoms lay,
And could not heave her head,
The tuneful voice was heard from high,
'Arise, ye more than dead!'
Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry,
In order to their stations leap,
And Music's power obey.
From harmony, from heavenly harmony,
This universal frame began:
From harmony to harmony
Through all the compass of the notes it ran,
The diapason closing full in Man.
- St. 1

What passion cannot Music raise and quell?
- St. 2

The trumpet's loud clangor
Excites us to arms.
- St. 3

The soft complaining flute,
In dying notes, discovers
The woes of hopeless lovers.
- St. 4

So, when the last and dreadful Hour
This crumbling Pageant shall devour,
The trumpet shall be heard on high,
The dead shall live, the living die,
And musick shall untune the Sky.
- Grand Chorus

The Hind and the Panther (1687)

She feared no danger, for she knew no sin.
- Pt. I, l. 4

And doomed to death, though fated not to die.
- Pt. I, l. 8

For truth has such a face and such a mien
As to be loved needs only to be seen.
- Pt. I, ll. 33–34

Of all the tyrannies on human kind
The worst is that which persecutes the mind.
- Pt. I, ll. 239–240

Reason to rule, mercy to forgive:
The first is law, the last prerogative.
- Pt. I, ll. 261-262

And kind as kings upon their coronation day.
- Pt. I, l. 271

Too black for heav'n, and yet too white for hell.
- Pt. I, l. 343

As long as words a different sense will bear,
And each may be his own interpreter,
Our airy faith will no foundation find;
The word's a weathercock for every wind.
- Pt. I, ll. 462–465

All have not the gift of martyrdom.
- Pt. II, l. 59

War seldom enters but where wealth allures.
- Pt. II, l. 706

Jealousy, the jaundice of the soul.
- Pt. III, l. 73

For present joys are more to flesh and blood
Than a dull prospect of a distant good.
- Pt. III, ll. 364–365

T' abhor the makers, and their laws approve,
Is to hate traitors and the treason love.
- Pt. III, ll. 706–707

Secret guilt by silence is betrayed.
- Pt. III, l. 763

Possess your soul with patience.
- Pt. III, l. 839

For those whom God to ruin has design'd,
He fits for fate, and first destroys their mind.
- Pt. III, l. 2387

The Satires of Juvenal and Persius (1693)

I am reading Jonson's verses to the memory of Shakespeare; an insolent, sparing, and invidious panegyric.
- Dedication.

Look round the habitable world: how few
Know their own good, or knowing it, pursue.
- Satire X, ll. 1–2

I well believe, thou wouldst be great as he;
For every man's a fool to that degree:
All wish the dire prerogative to kill;
Ev'n they would have the power who want the will.
- Satire X, ll. 156–159

Indulge, and to thy genius freely give;
For not to live at ease, is not to live.
Death stalks behind thee, and each flying hour
Does some loose remnant of thy life devour.
Live, while thou liv'st; for death will make us all
A name, a nothing but an old wife's tale.
- Persius, Satire V, ll. 220–225

She knows her man, and when you rant and swear,
Can draw you to her with a single hair.
- Persius, Satire V, l. 246

Amphitryon (1690)

A knockdown argument: 'tis but a word and a blow.
- Act I, sc. i

Whistling to keep myself from being afraid.
- Act III, sc. iii

The true Amphitryon is the Amphitryon where we dine.
- Act IV, sc. i

Don Sebastian (1690)

This is the porcelain clay of humankind.
- Act I, sc. i

I have a soul that like an ample shield
Can take in all, and verge enough for more.
- Act I, sc. i

Alexander's Feast (1697)

Happy, happy, happy pair!
None but the brave,
None but the brave,
None but the brave deserves the fair.
- ll. 12–15

With ravished ears
The monarch hears;
Assumes the god,
Affects the nod,
And seems to shake the spheres.
- ll. 37–41

Sound the trumpets; beat the drums...
Now give the hautboys breath; he comes, he comes.
- ll. 50–51

Bacchus, ever fair and ever young.
- l. 54

Drinking is the soldier’s pleasure;
Rich the treasure;
Sweet the pleasure;
Sweet is pleasure after pain.
- ll. 57–60

Sooth'd with the sound, the king grew vain;
Fought all his battles o'er again;
And thrice he routed all his foes, and thrice he slew the slain.
- ll. 66–70

Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen,
Fallen from his high estate,
And welt'ring in his blood;
Deserted, at his utmost need,
By those his former bounty fed,
On the bare earth exposed he lies,
With not a friend to close his eyes.
- ll. 77–83

For pity melts the mind to love.
- l. 96

Softly sweet, in Lydian measures,
Soon he soothed his soul to pleasures.
War, he sung, is toil and trouble;
Honor but an empty bubble;
Never ending, still beginning,
Fighting still, and still destroying.
If all the world be worth thy winning.
Think, oh think it worth enjoying:
Lovely Thaïs sits beside thee,
Take the good the gods provide thee.
- ll. 97–106

Sigh'd and look'd, and sigh'd again.
- l. 120

And, like another Helen, fir'd another Troy.
- l. 154

Timotheus, to his breathing flute,
And sounding lyre,
Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire.
- ll. 158–159

Let old Timotheus yield the prize,
Or both divide the crown;
He rais’d a mortal to the skies;
She drew an angel down.
- ll. 167–170

The Works of Virgil (1697)

Main article: The Works of Virgil (John Dryden)

Love conquers all, and we must yield to Love.

A Heroick Poem, truly such, is undoubtedly the greatest Work which the Soul of Man is capable to perform.
- Dedication (ed. 1709)

Love conquers all, and we must yield to Love.
- Pastoral X, ll. 98–99

My next desire is, void of care and strife,
To lead a soft, secure, inglorious life:
A country cottage near a crystal flood,
A winding valley, and a lofty wood.
- Georgic II, ll. 688–691

Love is lord of all, and is in all the same.
- Georgic III, ll. 380

Arms, and the man I sing, who, forced by Fate,
And haughty Juno's unrelenting hate,
Expell'd and exil'd, left the Trojan shore;
Long labours both by sea and land he bore.
- Aeneis, Bk. I, ll. 1–4

Can heav'nly minds such high resentment show,
Or exercise their spite in human woe?
- Aeneis, Bk. I, ll. 17–18

Endure the hardships of your present state,
Live, and reserve yourselves for better fate.
- Aeneis, Bk. I, ll. 289–290

Like you, an alien in a land unknown,
I learn to pity woes so like my own.
- Aeneis, Bk. I, ll. 889–890

The gates of hell are open night and day;
Smooth the descent, and easy is the way:
But to return, and view the cheerful skies,
In this the task and mighty labor lies.
- Aeneis, Bk. VI, ll. 192–195

Ye realms, yet unreveal'd to human sight,
Ye gods who rule the regions of the night,
Ye gliding ghosts, permit me to relate
The mystic wonders of your silent state!
- Aeneis, Bk. VI, ll. 374–377

Fate, and the dooming gods, are deaf to tears.
- Aeneis, Bk. VI, l. 512

Fables, Ancient and Modern (1700)

Main article: Fables, Ancient and Modern

A satirical poet is the check of the laymen on bad priests.
- Preface

It is sufficient to say, according to the proverb, that here is God's plenty.
- Preface

And new-laid eggs, which Baucis' busy care
Turned by a gentle fire, and roasted rare.
- Baucis and Philemon, l. 97

Art may err, but Nature cannot miss.
- The Cock and the Fox, l. 452

And that one hunting, which the Devil design'd
For one fair female, lost him half the kind.
- Theodore and Honoria, l. 227

Ill habits gather by unseen degrees,
As brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas.
- Of the Pythagorean Philosophy, ll. 155–156.

Fool, not to know that love endures no tie,
And Jove but laughs at lovers' perjury.
- Palamon and Arcite, Bk. II, l. 758

When beauty fires the blood, how love exalts the mind!
- Cymon and Iphigenia, l. 41

The Secular Masque (1700)

A very merry, dancing, drinking,
Laughing, quaffing, and unthinkable time.
- ll. 38–39

The sword within the scabbard keep,
And let mankind agree.
- ll. 61–62

Calms appear, when storms are past,
Love will have its hour at last.
- ll. 72–73

Joy rul'd the day, and Love the night.
- l. 82

All, all of a piece throughout:
Thy chase had a beast in view;
Thy wars brought nothing about;
Thy lovers were all untrue.
'Tis well an old age is out,
And time to begin a new.
- ll. 86–91

Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

Edited by S. Austin Allibone (Philadelphia, PA: J. B. Lippincott & Co)

Winds murmur’d through the leaves your short delay,
And fountains o’er their pebbles chid your stay:
But, with your presence cheer’d, they cease to mourn,
And walks wear fresher green at your return.
- "Absence", p. 17

Love reckons hours for months, and days for years;
And every little absence is an age.
- "Absence", p. 17 (Amphitryon)

His friends beheld, and pity’d him in vain,
For what advice can ease a lover’s pain?
Absence, the best expedient they could find,
Might save the fortune, if not cure the mind.
- "Absence", p. 17 (Fables)

His absence from his mother oft he’ll mourn,
And, with his eyes, look wishes to return.
- "Absence", p. 17 (Juvenal, Satire II)

Some souls we see
Grow hard and stiffen with adversity.
- "Adversity", p. 18

Old age, with silent pace, comes creeping on,
Nauseates the praise which in her youth she won,
And hates the muse by which she was undone.
- "Age", p. 20

Thus daily changing, by degrees I’d waste,
Still quitting ground by unperceived decay,
And steal myself from life, and melt away.
- "Age", p. 20

Prudence, thou vainly in our youth art sought,
And with age purchased, art too dearly bought:
We’re past the use of wit for which we toil:
Late fruit, and planted in too cold a soil.
- "Age", p. 21

Our green youth copies what grey sinners act,
When age commends the fact.
- "Age", p. 21

His youth and age
All of a piece throughout, and all divine.
- "Age", p. 21

Yet unimpair’d with labours, or with time,
Your age but seems to a new youth to climb.
- "Age", p. 21

He look’d in years, yet in his years were seen
A youthful vigor, and autumnal green.
- "Age", p. 21

You season still with sports your serious hours,
For age but tastes of pleasures, youth devours.
- "Age", p. 21

This advantage youth from age hath won,
As not to be outridden though outrun.
- "Age", p. 21

When the hoary head is hid in snow,
The life is in the leaf, and still between
The fits of falling snows appears the streaky green.
- "Age", p. 21

What, start at this! when sixty years have spread
Their grey experience o’er thy hoary head?
Is this the all observing age could gain?
Or hast thou known the world so long in vain?
- "Age", p. 21

So noiseless would I live, such death to find:
Like timely fruit, not shaken by the wind,
But ripely dropping from the sapless bough.
- "Age", p. 21

Time has made you dote, and vainly tell
Of arms imagined in your lonely cell:
Go! be the temple and the gods your care;
Permit to men the thought of peace and war.
- "Age", p. 21

Time seems not now beneath his years to stoop,
Nor do his wings with sickly feathers droop.
- "Age", p. 21

And sin’s black dye seems blanch’d by age to virtue.
- "Age", p. 21

Age has not yet
So shrunk my sinews, or so chill’d my veins,
But conscious virtue in my breast remains.
- "Age", p. 21

Were I no queen, did you my beauty weigh,
My youth in bloom, your age in its decay.
- "Age", p. 21

Now leave these joys, unsuiting to thy age,
To a fresh comer, and resign the stage.
- "Age", p. 21

Just in the gate
Dwelt pale diseases and repining age.
- "Age", p. 21

Beroe but now I left; whom, pined with pain,
Her age and anguish from these rites detain.
- "Age", p. 21

O’er whom Time gently shakes his wings of down,
Till with his silent sickle they are mown.
- "Age", p. 21

Jove, grant me length of life, and years good store
Heap on my bended back.
- "Age", p. 21

The feeble old, indulgent of their ease.
- "Age", p. 21

Thus then my loved Euryalus appears;
He looks the prop of my declining years.
- "Age", p. 21

Of no distemper, of no blast he died,
But fell like autumn fruit that mellow’d long;
Even wonder’d at, because he dropt no sooner.
Fate seem’d to wind him up for fourscore years;
Yet freshly ran he on ten winters more:
Till like a clock worn out with eating time,
The wheels of weary life at last stood still.
- "Age", p. 21 (Œdipus)

These I wielded while my bloom was warm,
Ere age unstrung my nerves, or time o’er-snow’d my head.
- "Age", p. 21

A look so pale no quartane ever gave;
My dwindled legs seem crawling to a grave.
- "Age", p. 21 (Juvenal)

These are the effects of doting age,
Vain doubts, and idle cares, and over caution.
- "Age", p. 21 (Sebastian)

No fences parted fields, nor marks nor bounds
Distinguish’d acres of litigious grounds.
- "Agriculture", p. 26

Apulian farms, for the rich soil admired,
And thy large fields, where falcons may be tired.
- "Agriculture", p. 26

Much labour is required in trees;
Well must the ground be digg’d, and better dress’d,
New soil to make, and meliorate the rest.
- "Agriculture", p. 26

Of the same soil their nursery prepare
With that of their plantation, lest the tree
Translated should not with the soil agree.
- "Agriculture", p. 26

Better gleanings their worn soil can boast
Than the crab vintage of the neighb’ring coast,
- "Agriculture", p. 26

When the Nile from Pharian fields is fled,
The fat manure with heay’nly fire is warm’d.
- "Agriculture", p. 26

That the spent earth may gather heart again,
And, better’d by cessation, bear the grain.
- "Agriculture", p. 26

Next, fenced with hedges and deep ditches round,
Exclude th’ encroaching cattle from the ground.
- "Agriculture", p. 26

The crooked plough, the share, the tow’ ring height
Of wagons, and the cart’s unwieldy weight;
These all must be prepared.
- "Agriculture", p. 26

’Tis good for arable; a glebe that asks
Tough teams of oxen; and laborious tasks.
- "Agriculture", p. 26

When the fiery suns too fiercely play,
And shriyell’d herbs on with’ring stems decay,
The wary ploughman, on the mountain’s brow,
Undams his wat’ry stores; huge torrents flow;
Temp’ring the thirsty fever of the field.
- "Agriculture", p. 26

Pales no longer swell’d the teeming grain,
Nor Phœbus fed his oxen on the plain.
- "Agriculture", p. 26

Quintius here was born,
Whose shining ploughshare was in furrows worn,
Met by his trembling wife, returning home,
And rustically joy’d, as chief of Rome.
- "Agriculture", p. 26

From ploughs and harrows sent to seek renown,
They fight in fields, and storm the shaken town.
- "Agriculture", p. 26

The royal husbandman appear’d,
And plough’d, and sow’d, and till’d;
The thorns he rooted out, the rubbish clear’d,
And blest th’ obedient field.
- "Agriculture", p. 26

Men plough with oxen of their own
Their small paternal field of corn.
- "Agriculture", p. 26

The field is spacious I design to sow,
With oxen far unfit to draw the plough.
- "Agriculture", p. 26

No plough shall hurt the glebe, no pruning-hook the vine.
- "Agriculture", p. 26

The teeming earth, yet guileless of the plough,
And unprovoked, did fruitful stores allow.
- "Agriculture", p. 26

The sweating steers unharness’d from the yoke
Bring back the crooked plough.
- "Agriculture", p. 26

An ox that waits the coming blow,
Old and unprofitable to the plough.
- "Agriculture", p. 26

Who can cease to admire
The ploughman consul in his coarse attire?
- "Agriculture", p. 26

The lab’ring swain
Scratch’d with a rake a furrow for his grain,
And cover’d with his hand the shallow seed again.
- "Agriculture", p. 26

His corn and cattle were his only care,
And his supreme delight a country fair.
- "Agriculture", p. 26

He burns the leaves, the scorching blast invades
The tender corn, and shrivels up the blades,
- "Agriculture", p. 27

Thou king of horned floods, whose plenteous urn
Suffices fatness to the fruitful corn,
Shalt share my morning song and evening vows.
- "Agriculture", p. 27

No fruitful crop the sickly fields return;
But oats and darnel choke the rising corn.
- "Agriculture", p. 27

Tough thistles choked the fields, and kill’d the corn,
And an unthrifty crop of weeds was born.
- "Agriculture", p. 27

The bearded corn ensued
From earth unask’d; nor was that earth renew’d.
- "Agriculture", p. 27

Your hay it is mow’d, and your corn it is reap’d;
Your barns will be full, and your hovels heap’d;
Come, my boys, come,
Come, my boys, come,
And merrily roar out harvest-home.
- "Agriculture", p. 27

Moist earth produces corn and grass, but both
Too rank and too luxuriant in their growth.
Let not my land so large a promise boast,
Lest the lank ears in length of stem be lost.
- "Agriculture", p. 27

Delve of convenient depth your threshing floor;
With temper’d clay then fill and face it o’er.
- "Agriculture", p. 27

In vain the hinds the threshing floor prepare,
And exercise their flails in empty air.
- "Agriculture", p. 27

If a wood of leaves o’ershade the tree,
In vain the hind shall vex the threshing floor,
For empty chaff and straw will be thy store.
- "Agriculture", p. 27

On a short pruning-hook his head reclines,
And studiously surveys his gen’rous vines.
- "Agriculture", p. 27

She in pens his flocks will fold.
- "Agriculture", p. 27

In shallow furrows vines securely grow.
- "Agriculture", p. 27

The vineyard must employ thy sturdy steer
To turn the glebe; besides thy daily pain
To break the clods, and make the surface plain.
- "Agriculture", p. 27

Some steep their seeds, and some in cauldrons boil
O’er gentle fires; the exuberant juice to drain,
And swell the flatt’ring husks with fruitful grain.
- "Agriculture", p. 27

Mark well the flow’ring almonds in the wood:
If od’rous blooms the bearing branches load,
The glebe will answer to the sylvan reign:
Great heats will follow, and large crops of grain.
- "Agriculture", p. 27

The low’ring spring, with lavish rain,
Beats down the slender stem and bearded grain.
- "Agriculture", p. 27

Oft the drudging ass is driven with toil;
Returning late and loaden home with gain
Of barter’d pitch, and handmills for the grain.
- "Agriculture", p. 27

In the sun your golden grain display,
And thrash it out and winnow it by day.
- "Agriculture", p. 27

We may know
And when to reap the grain and when to sow,
Or when to fell the furzes.
- "Agriculture", p. 27 (Virgil)

You who supply the ground with seeds of grain,
And you who swell those seeds with kindly rain.
- "Agriculture", p. 27

When continued rain
The lab’ring husband in his house restrain,
Let him forecast his work with timely care,
Which else is huddled when the skies are fair.
- "Agriculture", p. 27

And oft whole sheets descend of sluicy rain,
Suck’d by the spungy clouds from off the main:
The lofty skies at once come pouring down,
The promised crop and golden labours drown.
- "Agriculture", p. 27

She took the coleworts which her husband got
From his own ground (a small well-water’d spot);
She stripp’d the stalks of all their leaves; the best
She cull’d, and then with handy care she dress’d.
- "Agriculture", p. 27

But when the western winds with vital pow’r
Call forth the tender grass and budding flow’r,
Men, at the last, produce in open air
Both flocks, and send them to their summer’s fare.
- "Agriculture", p. 27

Begin when the slow waggoner descends,
Nor cease your sowing till midwinter ends.
- "Agriculture", p. 28

For sundry foes the rural realm surround;
The field-mouse builds her garner under ground:
For gather’d grain the blind laborious mole,
In winding mazes, works her hidden hole.
- "Agriculture", p. 28

Where the vales with violets once were crown’d,
Now knotty burs and thorns disgrace the ground.
- "Agriculture", p. 28

Most have found
A husky harvest from the grudging ground.
- "Agriculture", p. 28

For flax and oats will burn the tender field,
And sleepy poppies harmful harvests yield.
- "Agriculture", p. 28

But various are the ways to change the state,
To plant, to bud, to graft, to inoculate.
- "Agriculture", p. 28

The peasant, innocent of all these ills,
With crooked ploughs the fertile fallow tills,
And the round year with daily labour fills.
- "Agriculture", p. 28

To his county farm the fool confined;
Rude work well suited with a rustic mind.
- "Agriculture", p. 28

Thou hop’st with sacrifice of oxen slain
To compass wealth, and bribe the god of gain
To give thee flocks and herds, with large increase;
Fool! to expect them from a bullock’s grease.
- "Agriculture", p. 28

Apollo check’d my pride, and bade me feed
My fatt’ning flocks, nor dare beyond the reed.
- "Agriculture", p. 28

Let Araby extol her happy coast,
Her fragrant flow’rs, her trees with precious tears,
Her second harvests.
- "Agriculture", p. 28

Suffering not the yellow beards to rear,
He tramples down the spikes, and intercepts the ear.
- "Agriculture", p. 28

Ev’n when they sing at ease in full content,
Insulting o’er the toil they underwent,
Yet still they find a future task remain,
To turn the soil.
- "Agriculture", p. 28

To dress the vines new labour is required,
Nor must the painful husbandman be tired.
- "Agriculture", p. 28

Give me, ye gods, the product of one field,
That so I neither may be rich nor poor;
And haying just enough, not covet more.
- "Agriculture", p. 28

All was common, and the fruitful earth
Was free to give her unexacted birth.
- "Agriculture", p. 28

Their morning milk the peasants press at night;
Their evening milk before the rising light.
- "Agriculture", p. 28

The peaceful peasant to the wars is prest,
The fields lie fallow in inglorious rest.
- "Agriculture", p. 28

Where the tender rinds of trees disclose
Their shooting germs, a swelling knot there grows;
Just in that place a narrow slit we make,
Then other buds from bearing trees we take;
Inserted thus, the wounded rind we close.
- "Agriculture", p. 28

Your farm requites your pains,
Though rushes overspread the neighb’ring plains.
- "Agriculture", p. 28

Rocks lie cover’d with eternal snow;
Thin herbage in the plains, and fruitless fields.
- "Agriculture", p. 28

Uneasy still within these narrow bounds,
Thy next design is on thy neighbour’s grounds:
His crop invites, to full perfection grown;
Thy own seems thin, because it is thy own.
- "Agriculture", p. 28

T’ unload the branches, or the leaves to thin
That suck the vital moisture of the vine.
- "Agriculture", p. 28

Yet then this little spot of earth well till’d,
A num’rous family with plenty fill’d,
The good old man and thrifty housewife spent
Their days in peace and fatten’d with content;
Enjoy’d the dregs of life, and lived to see
A long descending healthful progeny.
- "Agriculture", p. 28

The soil, with fatt’ning moisture fill’d,
Is clothed with grass, and fruitful to be till’d;
Such as in fruitful vales we view from high,
Which dripping rocks, not rowling streams supply.
- "Agriculture", p. 28

First, with assiduous care from winter keep,
Well fother’d in the stalls, thy tender sheep;
Then spread with straw the bedding of thy fold,
With fern beneath, to fend the bitter cold.
- "Agriculture", p. 29

In vain the barns expect their promised load;
Nor barns at home, nor ricks are heap’d abroad.
- "Agriculture", p. 29

At harvest-home, and on the shearing day,
When he should thanks to Pan and Pales pay.
- "Agriculture", p. 29

Ah that your business had been mine,
To pen the sheep.
- "Agriculture", p. 29

Root up wild olives from thy labour’d lands.
- "Agriculture", p. 29

Nor is the profit small the peasant makes,
Who smooths with harrow, or who pounds with rakes,
The crumbling clods.
- "Agriculture", p. 29

Be mindful
With iron teeth of rakes and prongs to move
The crusted earth.
- "Agriculture", p. 29

Let thy hand supply the pruning-knife,
And crop luxuriant stragglers.
- "Agriculture", p. 29

Bid the laborious hind,
Whose harden’d hands did long in tillage toil,
Neglect the promised harvest of the soil.
- "Agriculture", p. 29

The wiser madman did for virtue toil
A thorny, or at least a barren, soil.
- "Agriculture", p. 29

Here the marshy grounds approach your fields,
And there the soil a stony harvest yields.
- "Agriculture", p. 29

While the reaper fills his greedy hands,
And binds the golden sheaves in brittle bands.
- "Agriculture", p. 29

Did we for these barbarians plant and sow,
On these, on these our happy fields bestow?
- "Agriculture", p. 29

If your care to wheat alone extend,
Let Maia with her sisters first descend,
Before you trust in earth your future hope,
Or else expect a listless, lazy crop.
- "Agriculture", p. 29

Some through ambition, or through thirst of gold,
Have slain their brothers, and their country sold.
- "Ambition", p. 33

Those who to empire by dark paths aspire,
Still plead a call to what they most desire.
- "Ambition", p. 33

One world sufficed not Alexander’s mind;
Coop’d up he seem’d, in earth and seas confined.
- "Ambition", p. 33

Too truly Tamerlane’s successors they;
Each thinks a world too little for his sway.
- "Ambition", p. 33

O diadem, thou centre of ambition,
Where all its different lines are reconciled;
As if thou wert the burning glass of glory.
- "Ambition", p. 33

No toil, no hardship can restrain
Ambitious man inured to pain;
The more confined, the more he tries,
And at forbidden quarry flies.
- "Ambition", p. 34

With joy th’ ambitious youth his mother heard,
And, eager, for the journey soon prepared;
He longs the world beneath him to survey,
To guide the chariot, and to give the day.
- "Ambition", p. 34

Why does Antony dream out his hours,
And tempts not fortune for a noble day?
- "Ambition", p. 34

To cure their mad ambition, they were sent
To rule a distant province, each alone:
What could a careful father more have done?
- "Ambition", p. 34

Leave to fathom such high points as these,
Nor be ambitious, ere the time, to please;
Unseasonably wise, till age and cares
Have form’d thy soul to manage great affairs.
- "Ambition", p. 34

Dare to be great without a guilty crown;
View it, and lay the bright temptation down:
’Tis base to seize on all.
- "Ambition", p. 34

Were virtue by descent, a noble name
Could never villanize his father’s fame;
But, as the first, the last of all the line
Would, like the sun, ev’n in descending, shine.
- "Ancestry", p. 35

Vain are their hopes who fancy to inherit,
By trees of pedigree, or fame or merit;
Though plodding heralds through each branch may trace
Old captains and dictators of their race.
- "Ancestry", p. 35

Long galleries of ancestors
Challenge nor wonder or esteem from me:
"Virtue alone is true nobility."
- "Ancestry", p. 35

Do then as your progenitors have done,
And by their virtues prove yourself their son.
- "Ancestry", p. 35

Thus, born alike, from virtue first began
The diffrence that distinguish’d man from man:
He claim’d no title from descent of blood;
But that which made him noble, made him good.
- "Ancestry", p. 35

What have I lost by my forefathers’ fault!
Why was I not the twentieth by descent
From a long restive race of droning kings?
- "Ancestry", p. 36

Please thy pride, and search the herald’s roll,
Where thou shalt find thy famous pedigree,
Drawn from the root of some old Tuscan tree,
And thou, a thousand off, a fool of long degree.
- "Ancestry", p. 36

For if the sire be faint, or out of case,
He will be copied in his famish’d race.
- "Ancestry", p. 36

So bright a splendour, so divine a grace,
The glorious Daphnis casts on his illustrious race.
- "Ancestry", p. 36

Auspicious chief! thy race, in times to come,
Shall spread the conquests of imperial Rome.
- "Ancestry", p. 36

From a mean stock the pious Decii came;
Yet such their virtues, that their loss alone
For Rome and all our regions did atone.
- "Ancestry", p. 36

Obscure! why prythee what am I? I know
My father, grandsire, and great grandsire too:
If farther I derive my pedigree,
I can but guess beyond the fourth degree.
The rest of my forgotten ancestors
Were sons of earth.
- "Ancestry", p. 36

When we behold an angel, not to fear,
Is to be impudent.
- "Angels", p. 37

That we may angels seem, we paint them elves,
And are but satires to set up ourselves.
- "Angels", p. 37

I saw th’ angelic guards from earth ascend,
Grieved they must now no longer man attend;
The beams about their temples dimly shone;
One would have thought the crime had been their own.
- "Angels", p. 37

When he knew his rival freed and gone,
He swells with wrath; he makes outrageous moan:
He frets, he fumes, he stares, he stamps the ground,
The hollow tow’r with clamours rings around.
- "Anger", p. 38

I beg the grace
You would lay by those terrors of your face;
Till calmness to your eyes you first restore,
I am afraid, and I can beg no more.
- "Anger", p. 38

If on your head my fury does not turn,
Thank that fond dotage which so much you scorn.
- "Anger", p. 38

He, like a patient angler, ere he strook,
Would let them play awhile upon the hook.
- "Angling", p. 39

Casting nets were spread in shallow brooks,
Drags in the deep, and baits were hung on hooks.
- "Angling", p. 39

Perpetual anguish fills his anxious breast,
Not stopt by business, nor composed by rest;
No music cheers him, nor no feast can please.
- "Anguish", p. 40

Some on antiquated authors pore;
Rummage for sense.
- "Antiquities", p. 40

Then thus a senior of the place replies,
Well read, and curious of antiquities.
- "Antiquities", p. 40

His pensive cheek upon his hand reclined,
And anxious thoughts revolving in his mind.
- "Anxiety", p. 41

Let this and every other anxious thought
At th’ entrance of my threshold be forgot.
- "Anxiety", p. 41

Firm Doric pillars found the solid base,
The fair Corinthian crown the higher space,
And all below is strength, and all above is grace.
- "Architecture", p. 41

His son builds on, and never is content
Till the last farthing is in structure spent.
- "Architecture", p. 41

Grant her, besides, of noble blood that ran
In ancient veins, ere heraldry began.
- "Aristocracy", p. 43

The whole division that to Mars pertains,
All trades of death that deal in steel for gains,
Were there; the butcher, armorer, and smith,
Who forges sharpen’d fauchions, or the scythe.
- "Arms", p. 43

Their wildness lose, and, quitting nature’s part,
Obey the rules and discipline of art.
- "Art", p. 43

The soldier then in Grecian arts unskill’d,
Returning rich with plunder from the field,
If cups of silver or of gold he brought
With jewels set, and exquisitely wrought,
To glorious trappings strait the plate he turn’d,
And with the glitt’ring spoil his horse adorn’d.
- "Arts", p. 44

What wonder if the kindly beams he shed,
Revived the drooping arts again;
If science raised her head,
And soft humanity, that from rebellion fled.
- "Arts", p. 44

All arts and artists Theseus could command,
Who sold for hire, or wrought for better fame.
- "Arts", p. 44

He, full of fraudful arts,
This well-invented tale for truth imparts.
- "Arts", p. 44

Live then, thou great encourager of arts!
Live ever in our thankful hearts.
- "Arts", p. 44

Unskill’d in schemes by planets to foreshow,
I neither will nor can prognosticate
To the young gaping heir his father’s fate.
- "Astrology", p. 45

The spiteful stars have shed their venom down,
And now the peaceful planets take their turn.
- "Astrology", p. 45

Such sullen planets at my birth did shine,
They threaten every fortune mixt with mine.
- "Astrology", p. 45

Sorceries to raise th’ infernal pow’rs,
And sigils framed in planetary hours.
- "Astrology", p. 45

Would I had been disposer of thy stars,
Thou shouldst have had thy wish, and died in wars.
- "Astrology", p. 45

If but a mile she travel out of town,
The planetary hour must first be known,
And lucky moment, if her eye but akes,
Or itches, its decumbiture she takes.
- "Astrology", p. 45

And much more honest to be hired, and stand
With auctionary hammer in thy hand;
Provoking to give more, and knocking thrice
For the old household stuff, or picture’s price.
- "Auction", p. 46 (Juvenal)

Noble Boyle, not less in nature seen
Than his great brother read in states and men.
- "Authors", p. 48

Great Fletcher never treads in buskins here,
Nor greater Jonson dares in socks appear.
- "Authors", p. 48

In easy dialogues is Fletcher’s praise:
He moved the mind, but had not pow’r to raise.
- "Authors", p. 48

When did his muse from Fletcher scenes purloin,
As thou whose Eth’ ridge dost transfuse to thine?
But so transfused as oil and waters flow:
His always floats above, thine sinks below.
- "Authors", p. 48

Ganfride, who couldst so well in rhyme complain
The death of Richard, with an arrow slain.
- "Authors", p. 48

Homer, whose name shall live in epic song,
While music numbers, or while verse has feet.
- "Authors", p. 48

Three poets, in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn:
The first in majesty of thought surpass’d,
The next in gracefulness; in both the last.
The force of nature could no further go:
To make a third she join’d the other two.
- "Authors", p. 48 (On Milton)

Horace, with sly insinuating grace,
Laugh’d at his friend, and look’d him in the face;
Would raise a blush where secret vice he found,
And tickle while he gently probed the wound;
With seeming innocence the crowd beguiled,
But made the desperate passes when he smiled.
- "Authors", p. 48

Nor let false friends seduce thy mind to fame
By arrogating Jonson’s hostile name;
Let father Flecknoe fire thy mind with praise,
And uncle Ogleby thy envy raise.
- "Authors", p. 48

Your Ben and Fletcher, in their first young flight,
Did no Volpone, nor no Arbaces write;
But hopp’d about, and short excursions made
From bough to bough, as if they were afraid.
- "Authors", p. 48

Lucan, content with praise, may lie at ease
In costly grots and marble palaces;
But to poor Bassus what avails a name,
To starve on compliments and empty fame?
- "Authors", p. 48

Orestes’ bulky rage,
Unsatisfied with margins closely writ,
Foams o’er the covers, and not finish’d yet.
- "Authors", p. 48

Next Petrarch follow’d, and in him we see
What rhyme, improved in all its height, can be;
At best a pleasing sound, and sweet barbarity.
- "Authors", p. 48

Saint Andre’s feet ne’er kept more equal time,
Not ev’n the feet of thy own Psyche’s rhyme;
Though they in numbers as in sense excel,
So just, so like tautology, they fell.
- "Authors", p. 48

Shadwell alone of all my sons is he
Who stands confirm’d in full stupidity.
- "Authors", p. 48

The rest to some faint meaning make pretence,
But Shadwell never deviates into sense.
- "Authors", p. 48

Some beams of wit on other souls may fall,
Strike through, and make a lucid interval;
But Shadwell’s genuine night admits no ray,
His rising fogs prevail upon the day.
- "Authors", p. 48

Anger would indite
Such woful stuff as I or Shadwell write.
- "Authors", p. 48

Shadwell till death true dulness would maintain;
And, in his father’s right and realm’s defence,
Ne’er would have peace with wit, nor truce with sense.
- "Authors", p. 48

But Shakspeare’s magic could not copied be;
Within that circle none durst walk but he.
- "Authors", p. 49 (Prologue to The Tempest)

The vain endurances of life,
And they who most perform’d, and promised less,
Ev’n Short and Hobbes, forsook th’ unequal strife.
- "Authors", p. 49

Whoe’er thou art, whose forward ears are bent
On state affairs, to guide the government;
Hear first what Socrates of old has said
To the loved youth whom he at Athens bred.
- "Authors", p. 49

Exalted Socrates! divinely brave!
Injured he fell, and dying he forgave;
Too noble for revenge.
- "Authors", p. 49

That good man, who drank the pois’nous draught
With mind serene, and could not wish to see
His vile accuser drink as deep as he.
- "Authors", p. 49

All authors to their own defects are blind;
Hadst thou but, Janus-like, a face behind,
To see the people, what splay mouths they make,
To mark their fingers pointed at thy back.
- "Authorship", p. 56

The unhappy man who once has trail’d a pen
Lives not to please himself, but other men;
Is always drudging with his life and blood,
Yet only eats and drinks what you think good.
- "Authorship", p. 56 (Prologue to Lee’s Cesar Borgia)

Such is the poet’s lot: what happier fate
Does on the works of grave historians wait!
More time they spend, in-greater toils engage:
Their volumes swell beyond the thousandth page.
- "Authorship", p. 56

If I by chance succeed
In what I write, and that’s a chance indeed,
Know I am not so stupid, or so hard,
Not to feel praise, or fame’s deserved reward.
- "Authorship", p. 56

You exclaim as loud as those that praise,
For scraps and coach-hire, a young noble’s plays.
- "Authorship", p. 56

Is it for this they study? to grow pale,
And miss the pleasures of a glorious meal?
For this, in rags accoutred are they seen,
And made the May-game of the public spleen?
- "Authorship", p. 56

The bard that first adorn’d our native tongue
Tuned to his British lyre this ancient song.
- "Authorship", p. 56

Th’ illiterate writer, empiric-like, applies
To minds diseased unsafe chance remedies:
The learn’d in schools, where knowledge first began,
Studies with care th’ anatomy of man;
Sees virtue, vice, and passions in their cause,
And fame from science, not from fortune, draws.
- "Authorship", p. 56

He was too warm on picking work to dwell,
But faggoted his notions as they fell;
And if they rhymed and rattled, all was well.
- "Authorship", p. 56

The hand and head were never lost of those
Who dealt in dogg’rel, or who punn’d in prose.
- "Authorship", p. 56

No more accuse thy pen, but charge the crime
On native sloth, and negligence of time.
- "Authorship", p. 56

His knowledge in the noblest useful arts
Was such dead authors could not give,
But habitudes with those who live.
- "Authorship", p. 56

Whatever truths
Redeem’d from error, or from ignorance,
Thin in their authors, like rich veins of ore,
Your works unite, and still discover more.
- "Authorship", p. 56

I must disclaim whate’er he can express;
His grovelling sense will show my passion less.
- "Authorship", p. 56

Gentle or sharp, according to thy choice,
To laugh at follies, or to lash at vice.
- "Authorship", p. 56

'Tis not indeed my talent to engage
In lofty trifles, or to swell my page
With wind and noise.
- "Authorship", p. 56

Yet still thy fools shall stand in thy defence,
And justify their author’s want of sense.
- "Authorship", p. 56

Thy name, to Phoebus and the muses known,
Shall in the front of ev’ry page be shown.
- "Authorship", p. 56

Every scribbling man
Grows a fop as fast as e’er he can,
Prunes up, and asks his oracle the glass
If pink or purple best become his face?
- "Authorship", p. 56

When bounteous Autumn rears his head,
He joys to pull the ripen’d pear.
- "Autumn", p. 59

Autumnal heat declines,
Ere heat is quite decay’d, or cold begun.
- "Autumn", p. 59

Autumn succeeds, a sober, tepid age,
Nor froze with fear, nor boiling into rage;
Last, Winter creeps along with tardy pace,
Sour is his front, and furrow’d is his face.
- "Autumn", p. 59

Up, up, says Avarice! thou snor’st again,
Stretchest thy limbs, and yawn’st, but all in vain:
The tyrant Lucre no denial takes;
At his command th’ unwilling sluggard wakes.
- "Avarice", p. 59

Her soul abhorring avarice,
Bounteous; but almost bounteous to a vice.
- "Avarice", p. 59

But more have been by avarice opprest,
And heaps of money crowded in the chest.
- "Avarice", p. 59

Young men to imitate all ills are prone,
But are compell'd to avarice alone;
For then in virtue's shape they follow vice.
- "Avarice", p. 59

Nor love his peace of mind destroys,
Nor wicked avarice of wealth.
- "Avarice", p. 59

Go, miser! go: for lucre sell thy soul;
Truck wares for wares, and trudge from pole to pole,
That men may say, when thou art dead and gone,
See what a vast estate he left his son!
- "Avarice", p. 59

For he who covets gain in such excess
Does by dumb signs himself as much express
As if in words at length he show’d his mind.
- "Avarice", p. 59

The base wretch who hoards up all he can
Is praised and call’d a careful thrifty man.
- "Avarice", p. 59

For should you to extortion be inclined,
Your cruel guilt will little booty find.
- "Avarice", p. 59

Like a miser ’midst his store,
Who grasps and grasps till he can hold no more.
- "Avarice", p. 59

As thy strutting bags with money rise,
The love of gain is of an equal size.
- "Avarice", p. 59

From hence the greatest part of ills descend,
When lust of getting more will have no end.
- "Avarice", p. 59

But the base miser starves amidst his store,
Broods o’er his gold, and, griping still at more,
Sits sadly pining, and believes he’s poor.
- "Avarice", p. 59

Our swords so wholly did the fates employ,
That they, at length, grew weary to destroy;
Refused the work we brought, and out of breath,
Made sorrow and despair attend for death.
- "Battle", p. 61

I fought and fell like one, but death deceived me:
I wanted weight of feeble Moors upon me,
To crush my soul out.
- "Battle", p. 61

Here Pallas urges on, and Lausus there;
Their congress in the field great Jove withstands:
Both doom’d to fall, but fall by greater hands.
- "Battle", p. 61

Why asks he what avails him not in fight,
And would but cumber and retard his flight,
In which his only excellence is placed?
You give him death that interrupt his haste.
- "Battle", p. 61

They follow their undaunted king;
Crowd through their gates; and, in the fields of light,
The shocking squadrons meet in mortal fight.
- "Battle", p. 61

Two battles your auspicious cause has won;
Thy sword can perfect what it has begun.
- "Battle", p. 61

A cloud of smoke envelops either host,
And all at once the combatants are lost:
Darkling they join adverse, and shock unseen,
Coursers with coursers justing, mén with men.
- "Battle", p. 61

Amidst whole heaps of spices lights a ball,
And now their odours arm’d against them fly:
Some preciously by shatter’d porcelain fall,
And some by aromatic splinters die.
- "Battle", p. 61

Their standard, planted on the battlement,
Despair and death among the soldiers sent.
- "Battle", p. 61

He to the town return’d,
Attended by the chiefs who fought the field,
Now friendly mix’d, and in one troop compell’d.
- "Battle", p. 61

Thus fights Ulysses, thus his fame extends;
A formidable man, but to his friends.
- "Battle", p. 61

The Grecians rally, and their powers unite;
With fury charge us, and renew the fight.
- "Battle", p. 61

Would you the advantage of the fight delay
If, striking first, you were to win the day?
- "Battle", p. 61

He with his sword unsheathed, on pain of life,
Commands both combatants to cease their strife.
- "Battle", p. 61

Quotes about Dryden

What is there in Dryden? Much, but above all this: he is the most masculine of our poets; his style and his rhythms lay the strongest stress of all our literature on the naked thew and sinew of the English language. ~ Gerard Manley Hopkins

He had made the language his study; and though he wrote hastily, and often incorrectly, and his style is not free from faults, yet there is a richness in his diction, a copiousness, ease, and variety in his expression, which has not been surpassed by any who have come after him.
- Hugh Blair, Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, Vol. I (1783), Lecture XVIII, p. 378.

Here let me bend, great Dryden, at thy shrine,
Thou dearest name to all the tuneful nine.
What if some dull lines in cold order creep,
And with his theme the poet seems to sleep?
Still, when his subject rises proud to view,
With equal strength the poet rises too:
With strong invention, noblest vigour fraught,
Thought still springs up and rises out of thought;
Numbers ennobling numbers in their course,
In varied sweetness flow, in varied force;
The powers of genius and of judgment join,
And the whole Art of Poetry is thine.
- Charles Churchill, The Apology (1761), lines 376–387

What is there in Dryden? Much, but above all this: he is the most masculine of our poets; his style and his rhythms lay the strongest stress of all our literature on the naked thew and sinew of the English language.
- Gerard Manley Hopkins, letter to Robert Bridges (6 November 1887)

Dryden may be properly considered as the father of English criticism, as the writer who first taught us to determine upon principles the merit of composition.
- Samuel Johnson, Lives of the English Poets (1781), "The Life of Dryden".

None of his prefaces were ever thought tedious. They have not the formality of a settled style, in which the first half of the sentence betrays the other. The clauses are never balanced, nor the periods modelled; every word seems to drop by chance, though it falls into its proper place. Nothing is cold or languid; the whole is airy, animated, and vigorous: what is little is gay; what is great is splendid. [...] Though all is easy, nothing is feeble; though all seems careless, there is nothing harsh; and though since his earlier works more than a century has passed they have nothing yet uncouth or obsolete.
- Samuel Johnson, Lives of the English Poets (1781), "The Life of Dryden".

Of Dryden's works it was said by Pope, that he "could select from them better specimens of every mode of poetry than any other English writer could supply." Perhaps no nation ever produced a writer that enriched his language with such variety of models. To him we owe the improvement, perhaps the completion, of our metre, the refinement of our language, and much of the correctness of our sentiments. By him we are taught "sapere et fari," to think naturally and express forcibly. [...] it may be, perhaps, maintained that he was the first who joined argument with poetry. He showed us the true bounds of a translator's liberty. What was said of Rome, adorned by Augustus, may be applied by an easy metaphor to English poetry, embellished by Dryden, "lateritiam invenit, marmoream reliquit." He found it brick, and he left it marble.
- Samuel Johnson, Lives of the English Poets (1781), "The Life of Dryden".

The rectitude of Dryden's mind was sufficiently shown by the dismission of his poetical prejudices, and the rejection of unnatural thoughts and rugged numbers. But Dryden never desired to apply all the judgment that he had. He wrote, and professed to write, merely for the people; and when he pleased others, he contented himself. He spent no time in struggles to rouse latent powers; he never attempted to make that better which was already good, nor often to mend what he must have known to be faulty. He wrote, as he tells us, with very little consideration; when occasion or necessity called upon him, he poured out what the present moment happened to supply, and, when once it had passed the press, ejected it from his mind; for, when he had no pecuniary interest, he had no further solicitude.
- Samuel Johnson, Lives of the English Poets (1781), "The Life of Pope".

Dryden's performances were always hasty, either excited by some external occasion, or extorted by domestic necessity; he composed without consideration, and published without correction. What his mind could supply at call, or gather in one excursion, was all that he sought, and all that he gave.
- Samuel Johnson, Lives of the English Poets (1781), "The Life of Pope".

Dryden taught to join
The varying verse, the full resounding line,
The long majestic march, and energy divine.
- Alexander Pope, The First Epistle of the First Book of Horace Imitated (1737), p. 16.

Even copious Dryden wanted, or forgot,
The last and greatest art, the art to blot.
- Alexander Pope, The First Epistle of the First Book of Horace Imitated (1737), p. 16.

I learned versification chiefly from Dryden's works, who has improved it much beyond any of our former poets, and would probably have brought it to its perfection, had not he been unhappily obliged to write so often in haste.
- Alexander Pope, as quoted in Observations, Anecdotes, and Characters, of Books and Men (1820) by Joseph Spence, p. 52.

Dryden has neither a tender heart nor a lofty sense of moral dignity: where his language is poetically impassioned it is mostly upon unpleasing subjects; such as the follies, vice, and crimes of classes of men or of individuals.
- William Wordsworth, letter to Walter Scott (7 November 1805).

External links

Encyclopedic article on John Dryden on Wikipedia
Media related to John Dryden on Wikimedia Commons
Works related to Author:John Dryden on Wikisource
The Works of John Dryden (weblinks)
Dryden at Project Gutenberg
The Penn State Archive of Samuel Johnson's Lives of the Poets