Samuel Madden

Words are men's daughters, but God's sons are things.

Samuel Madden (23 December 1686 - 31 December 1765) was an Irish author. His works include Themistocles; The Lover of His Country, Reflections and Resolutions Proper for the Gentlemen of Ireland, and Memoirs Of the Twentieth Century. Dr. Samuel Johnson wrote of him, "His was a name which Ireland ought to honour".

Quotes

• Some write their wrongs in marble: he more just,
  Stoop’d down serene and wrote them in the dust,—
  Trod under foot, the sport of every wind,
  Swept from the earth and blotted from his mind.
  There, secret in the grave, he bade them lie,
  And grieved they could not ’scape the Almighty eye.
  • Boulter's Monument (1745), dedicated to Frederick, Prince of Wales, who had been Madden's student.

• Words are men’s daughters, but God’s sons are things.
  • Boulter's Monument (1745). At Madden's request, the poem was revised for publication by Samuel Johnson, some authorities hold that and that this line was an insertion by Johnson; however Johnson's own account was that he had merely "blotted out" unnecessary lines of the poem. See James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: Comprehending an Account of His Studies (1791) p. 175. Compare: "Words are women, deeds are men", George Herbert, Jacula Prudentum.

Attributed

• In an orchard there should be enough to eat, enough to lay up, enough to be stolen, and enough to rot on the ground.
  • Recounted by Samuel Johnson.

External links

• Encyclopedic article on Samuel Madden on Wikipedia
• Media related to Samuel Madden on Wikimedia Commons
• Works related to Author:Samuel Madden on Wikisource
• Samuel Madden at libraryireland.com
• A history of the Madden family