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What is the mind of man? A restless scene
Of vanity and weakness; shifting still,
As shift the lights of our uncertain knowledge;
Or as the various gale of passion breathes.

Thomson's Coriolanus a. 4, s. 1. Men are machines, with all their boasted freedom, Their movements turn upon some fav'rite passion; Let art but find the latent foible out,

We touch the spring, and wind them at our pleasure.
Brooke's Gustavus Vasa.

I have toil'd, and till'd, and sweaten in the sun
According to the curse:-must I do more?
For what should I be gentle ? for a war
With all the elements ere they will yield
The bread we eat? For what must I be grateful?
For being dust, and grovelling in the dust,
Till I return to dust? If I am nothing-
For nothing shall I be an hypocrite,

And seem well-pleased with pain?

Byron's Cain, a. 3, s. 1.

That which I am, I am; I did not seek

For life, nor did I make myself.

Ibid.

Born to be plough'd with years, and sown with cares,

And reap'd by Death, lord of the human soil.

Byron's Heaven and Earth, pt. 1, s. 3.

His fair large front, and eye sublime declar'd,
Absolute rule; and hyacinthine locks
Round from his parted forelock manly hung
Clustering, but not beneath his shoulders broad.

Milton's Paradise Lost, b. 4.

Man hath his daily work or body or mind
Appointed, which declares his dignity,
And the regard of Heav'n on all his ways;
While other animals unactive range,
And of their doings God takes no account.

Ibid.

In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread,
Till thou return unto the ground; for thou
Out of the ground wast taken, know thy birth,
For dust thou art, and shalt to dust return.

Milton's Paradise Lost, b. 10.

How poor, how rich, how abject, how august,
How complicate, how wonderful, is man!
How passing wonder he, who made him such!
Who centred in our make such strange extremes !
From diff'rent natures marvellously mixt,
Connexion exquisite of distant worlds!
Distinguisht link in being's endless chain !
Midway from nothing to the Deity!
A beam ethereal, sully'd, and absorpt!
Tho' sully'd, and dishonour'd, still divine!
Dim miniature of greatness absolute !
An heir of glory! a frail child of dust!
Helpless immortal! insect infinite!

A worm a God! Young's Night Thoughts, n. 1.
O what a miracle to man is man,

Triumphantly distress'd! what joy! what dread!
Alternately transported, and alarm'd!

What can preserve my life! or what destroy!
An angel's arm can't snatch me from the grave;
Legions of angels can't confine me there.

All promise is poor dilatory man,

And that thro' ev'ry stage: when young, indeed,
In full content, we, sometimes, nobly rest,
Unanxious for ourselves; and only wish,
As duteous sons, our fathers were more wise.
At thirty man suspects himself a fool;
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan;
At fifty chides his infamous delay,
Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve;
In all the magnanimity of thought

Ibid.

Resolves; and re-resolves; then dies the same. Ibid.

Heav'n's sov'reign saves all beings, but himself,
That hideous sight, a naked human heart.

Young's Night Thoughts, n. 1.

Man! know thyself. All wisdom centres there:

To none man seems ignoble, but to man. Ibid, n. 4.

'Tis vain to seek in men for more than man..

Tho' proud in promise, big in previous thought,
Experience damps our triumph.

We wisely strip the steed we mean to buy:
Judge we, in their caparisons, of men?

Thus they rejoice, nor think

Ibid. n. 5.

Ibid. n. S.

That, with to-morrow's sun, their annual toil

Begins again the never-ceasing round.

Thomson's Seasons-Autumn.

Then what is man? And what man seeing this,
And having human feelings, does not blush

And hang his head, to think himself a man.

Cowper's Task, b. 2.

The million flit as gay

As if created only like the fly

That spreads his motley wings in th' eye of noon
To sport their season, and be seen no more.

Ibid. b. 3.

Ah, why, all righteous father, didst thou make

This creature, man? Why wake the unconscious

dust

To life and wretchedness?

O better far

Still had he slept in uncreated night

If this the lot of being! Was it for this
Thy breath divine kindled within his breast

The vital flame? For this was thy fair image
Stampt on his soul in godlike lineaments ?
For this dominion given him abolute

O'er all thy works, only that he might reign
Supreme in woe?

Porteus's Death.

I remember as her bier

lark

Went to the grave, a
sprung up aloft,
And soar'd amid the sunshine carolling
So full of joy, that to the mourner's ear
More mournfully than dirge or passing bell,
His joyful carol came, and made us feel
That of the multitude of beings, none
But man was wretched!

Southey's Joan of Arc.

MARRIAGE.

Marriage to maids, is like a war to men;
The battle causes fear, but the sweet hopes
Of winning at the last, still draws 'em in.

Lee's Mithridates.

O horror! horror! after this alliance,

Let tygers match with hinds, and wolves with sheep; And every creature couple with its foe.

Dryden's Spanish Friar.

When you
would give all worldly plagues a name,
Worse than they have already, call 'em wife!
But a new married wife's a teeming mischief,
Full of herself: why, what a deal of horror

Has that poor wretch to come, that married yesterday!

Otway's Orphan.

Oh! for a curse upon the cunning priest,

Who conjur'd us together in a yoke,

That galls me now.

Southern's Disappointment.

Are we not one? Are we not join'd by Heav'n ?
Each interwoven with the other's fate?

Are we not mix'd like streams of meeting rivers,
Whose blended waters are no more distinguish'd,
But roll into the sea one common flood?

Rowe's Fair Penitent.

O marriage! marriage! what a curse is thine,
Where hands alone consent and hearts abhor!

Hill's Alzira.

Wedded love is founded on esteem,
Which the fair merits of the mind engage,
For those are charms that never can decay;
But time, which gives new whiteness to the swan,
Improves their lustre.

Fenton's Mariamne.

Oh, we do all offend

There's not a day of wedded life, if we

Count at its close the little, bitter sum

Of thoughts, and words, and looks unkind and froward, Silence that chides and woundings of the eye

But prostrate at each others' feet, we should

Each night forgiveness ask.

Maturin's Bertram, a. 4, s. 2.

Here love his golden shafts employ, here lights
His constant lamp, and waves his purple wings,
Reigns here and revels; not in the bought smile
Of harlots, loveless, joyless, unendear'd,
Casual fruition; nor in court amours,
Mix'd dance, or wanton mask, or midnight ball,
Or serenade, which the starv'd lover sings
To his proud fair, best quitted with disdain.

Milton's Paradise Lost, b. 4.

Our Maker bids increase; who bids abstain
But our destroyer, foe to God and man.

Ibid.

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