ART-ARTIFICE - ASTONISHMENT.
War-music, bursting out from time to time,
With gong and tymbalon's tremendous chime;
Or, in the pause, when harsher sounds are mute,
The mellow breathings of some horn or flute
That far off, broken by the eagle note
Of th' Abyssinian trumpet, swell and float!
Moore's Lalla Rookh.
The army, like a lion from his den,
March'd forth with nerve and sinews bent to slay, Of the dear star-light of thy haunting eyes!
Tir'd at first sight, with what the muse imparts,
In fearless youth we tempt the heights of arts,
While from the bounded level of our mind
Short views we take, nor see the length behind;
But, more advanced, behold with strange surprise,
New distant scenes of endless science rise.
Pope.
A human hydra issuing from its fen
To breathe destruction on its winding way,
Whose heads were heroes, which, cut off in vain,
Immediately in others grew again.
They left the ploughshare in the mould,
The flocks and herds without a fold;
The sickle in the unshorn grain,
The corn half garner'd on the plain,
And muster'd in their simple dress,
For wrongs to seek a stern redress;
To right those wrongs, come weal, come woe,
To perish-or o'ercome the foe.
They call'd me vain, some mad—I heeded not,
If not to win, to feel more worthy thee.
But still toil'd on, hoped on, for it was surest,
Bulwer's Lady of Lyons.
Immortal art! where'er the rounded sky
Bends o'er the cradle where thy children lie,
Their home is earth, their herald every tongue.
O. W. Holmes.
-Art is wondrous long;
Yet to the wise her paths are ever fair,
And patience smiles, tho' genius may despair.
In framing artists, art hath thus decreed,
To make some good, but others to exceed.
Shaks. Pericles.
What thing a right line is, the learned know;
But how avails that him, who in the right,
Of life and manners doth desire to grow?
What are all these human arts and lights
But seas of error? in whose depths who sound,
Of truth find only shadows, and no ground.
Then if our arts want power to make us better,
What fool will think they can us wiser make.
Life is the wisdom, art is but the letter,
Or shell, which men oft for the kernel take;
In moods and figures moulding up deceit,
To make each science rather hard than great.
Shallow artifice begets suspicion,
And like a cobweb veil but thinly shades
The face of thy design: alone disguising
What should have ne'er been seen; imperfect
Thou, like the adder, venomous and deaf,
Hast stung the traveller; and, after, hear'st
Not his pursuing voice; e'en when thou think'st
To hide, the rustling leaves and bended grass
Confess and point the path which thou hast crept.
O fate of fools! officious in contriving;
In executing, puzzled, lame, and lost.
What's the bent brow, or neck in thought reclin'd?
The body's wisdom to conceal the mind.
A man of sense can artifice disdain,
Such is the strength of art, rough things to shape, And be this truth eternal ne'er forgot,
As men of wealth may venture to go plain;
And of rude commons rich enclosures make.
For though I must confess an artist can
ont-ive things better than another man,
Yet when the task is done, he finds his pains
Sought but to fill his belly with his brains.
Is this the guerdon due to liberal arts,
Tadmire the head and then to starve the parts?
Timely prevention though discreetly used
Before the fruits of knowledge were abused.
When learning has incurr'd a fearful damp
Tc save our oil, 't is good to quench the lamp.
Solemnity's a cover for a sot.
I find the fool when I behold the screen;
For 'tis the wise man's interest to be seen.
The fatal trespass done by Eve, amaz'd
Astonish'd stood and blank, while horror chili
Ran through his veins and all his joints relax'd;
From his slack hand the garland wreath'd for Eve,
Down dropp'd, and all the faded roses shed:
Speechless he stood and pale.
Much thou hast said, which I know when
And where thou stol'st from other men;
Milton's Paradise Lost. Whereby 'tis plain thy light and gifts,
Are all but plagiary shifts.
With wild surprise,
As if to marble struck devoid of sense,
A stupid moment motionless she stood.
Thomson's Seasons.
But who can paint the lover, as he stood,
Pierced by severe amazement, hating life,
Speechless and fix'd in all the death of woe!
So, faint resemblance! on the marble tomb,
The well dissembled mourner stands,
For ever silent and for ever sad.
Thomson's Seasons.
Hear it not, ye stars!
And thou, pale moon! turn paler at the sound. Young's Night Thoughts.
When prejudice and strong aversions work,
All whose opinions we dislike are atheists.
Now 't is a term of art, a bug-bear word,
The villain's engine, and the vulgar's terror.
The man who thinks and judges for himself,
Unsway'd by aged follics, reverend crrors,
Grown holy by traditionary dulness
Of school authority, he is an atheist.
The man who, hating idle noise, preserves
A pure religion seated in his soul,
He is a silent dumb dissembling atheist!
Sewell's Sir Walter Raleigh.
Virtue in distress, and vice in triumph,
Make atheists of mankind.
Some write, confin'd by physic; some by debt;
Some, for 'tis Sunday; some, because 't is wet;
Another writes because his father writ,
And proves himself a bastard by his wit.
Young's Epistle to Mr. Pope
Authors are judg'd by strange capricious rules,
The great ones are thought mad, the small ones
fools;
Yet sure the best are most severely fated,
For fools are only laugh'd at- wits are hated.
Blockheads with reason men of sense abhor;
But fool 'gainst fool is barb'rous civil war.
Why on all authors then should critics fall?
Since some have writ, and shown no wit at all.
None but an author knows an author's cares,
Or fancy's fondness for the child she bears.
Cowper's Progress of Erro.
By custom safe, the poet's numbers flow,
Free as the light and air some years ago.
Dryden's Cleomenes. No statesman e'er will find it worth its pains,
To tax our labours, and excise our brains.
Burthens like these will earthly blessings bear,
No tribute's laid on castles in the air.
How many great ones may remember'd be,
Which in their days most famously did flourish,
Of whom no word we hear, nor sign now see,
But as things wip'd out with a sponge do perish,
Because they living cared not to cherish
No gentle wits, through pride or covetize
Which might their names for ever memorize!
Spenser's Ruins of Time.
Let authors write for glory or reward,
Truth is well paid, when she is sung and heard.
R. Corbet, Bishop of Norwich.
He that writes,
Or makes a feast, more certainly invites
His judges than his friends; there's not a guest
But will find something wanting, or ill drest.
Prologue to Sir R. Howard's Surprisal.
C
Some write a narrative of wars and feats,
Of heroes little known, and call the rant
An history. Describe the man, of whom
His own coevals took but little note,
And paint his person, character and views,
As they had known him from his mother's womb.
Cowper's Task.
And novels (witness every month's review)
Belie their name, and offer nothing new.
Cowper's Retirement.
One hates an author that's all author, fellows
In foolscap uniforms turn'd up with ink,
So very anxious, clever, fine, and jealous,
One do n't know what to sav to them, or think.
Unless to puff them with a pair of bellows;
Of coxcombry's worst coxcombs, e'en the pink
Are preferable to these shreds of paper,
'These unquench'd snuffings of the midnight taper.
Byron's Beppo.
'Tis pleasant sure to see one's name in print;
A book's a book, although there's nothing in 't.
Byron.
But every fool describes in these bright days,
His wondrous journey to some foreign court,
And spawns his quarto, and demands your praise;
Death to his publisher, to him 't is sport.
Byron's Don Juan. To know, when two authorities are up,
Neither supreme, how soon confusion
May enter 'twixt the gap of both, and take
The one by the other.
And makes mere sots of magistrates;
The fumes of it invade the brain,
And make men giddy, proud, and vain;
By this the fool commands the wise,
The noble with the base complics,
The sot assumes the rule of wit,
And cowards make the base submit.
Butler's Hudibras.
The monarch mind, the mystery of commanding,
The birth-hour gift, the art Napoleon,
Of winning, fettering, moulding, wielding, binding
The hearts of millions till they scem as one,
Thou hast it.
A man in authority is but as
A candle in the wind, sooner wasted
Or blown out than under a bushel.
Then came the autumne, all in yellow clad,
As though he joyed in his plenteous store,
Laden with fruits that made him laugh, full glad
That he had banish'd hunger, which to-fore
Beaumont and Fletcher's Four Plays in One. Had by the belly oft him pinched sore;
Not from grey hairs authority doth flow,
Nor from bald heads, nor from a wrinkled brow;
But our past life, when virtuously spent,
Must to our age those happy fruits present.
Autnority kept up, old age secures,
Whose dignity as long as life endures.
Upon his head a wreath that was enrold
With ears of corne of every sort, he bore,
And in his hand a sickle he did holde,
To reape the ripened fruit the which the carth
had yold.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
Whate'er the wanton spring,
When she doth diaper the ground with beautics,
Toils for; comes home to autumn; summer sweats
Either in pasturing her furlongs, reaping
The crop of bread, rip'ning the fruits for food,
Autumn's garners house them, autumn's jollities
Shaks. Mea. for Mea. Feed on them: I alone in every land
Authority bears off a credent bulk,
'That no particular scandal once can touch,
But it confounds the breather.
Traffic my useful merchandise; gold and jewels, Lordly possessions are for my commodities Mortgag'd and sold; I sit chief moderator Between the cheek-parch'd summer, and th'
Of winter's tedious frost; nay, in myself I do contain another teeming spring: Surety of health, prosperity of life Belongs to autumn.
Those few pale Autumn flowers!
How beautiful they are!
Than all that went before,
ex-Than all the Summer store,
How lovelier far!
That loveliness ever in motion, which plays,
Like the light upon Autumn's soft, shadowy days,
Now here and now there, giving warmth as it flies,
Ford and Decker's Sun's Darling. From the lips to the cheeks, from the cheek to the
And greedy avarice by him did ride
Upon a camell loaden all with gold;
Philips's Cider. Two iron coffers hang on either side,
Fled is the blasted verdure of the fields;
And, shrunk into their beds, the flowery race
Their sunny robes resign. Even what remain'd
Of stronger fruits falls from the naked tree;
And woods, fields, gardens, orchards, all around
The desolated prospect thrills the soul.
Thomson's Seasons.
Again the year's decline, midst storms and floods
The thundering chase, the yellow fading woods,
Invite my song; that fain would boldly tell
Of upland coverts, and the echoing dell,
By turns resounding loud at eve and morn
The swineherd's hallow or the shepherd's horn.
Bloomfield's Farmer Boy.
Oh, Autumn! why so soon
Depart the hues that make thy forest glad; Thy gentle wind and thy fair sunny noon, And leave thee wild and sad!
Ah! 't were a lot too blest
For ever in thy colour'd shades to stray;
Amid the kisses of the soft southwest
To rove and dream for ayc.
With precious metall full as they might hold
And in his lap an heap of coin he told;
For of his wicked pelf his god he made,
And unto hell himself for money sold;
Accursed usury was all his trade,
And right and wrong ylike in equall balance
waide,
His life was nigh unto death's dore yplaste;
And thred-bare cote and cobbled shoes he ware,
He scarce good morsell all his life did taste,
But both from backe and belly still did spare,
To fill his bags, and richesse to compare :
Yet child ne kinsman living had he none,
To leave them to; but thorough daily care
To get, and nightly feare to lose his owne.
He led a wretched life unto himselfe unknowne,
Most wretched wight whom nothing might suffice,
Whose greedy lust did lack in greatest store,
Whose need had end, but no end covetise.
Whose wealth was want, whose plenty made him
poor,
Who had enough, yet wished evermore.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
And in his lap a masse of coyne he told
And turned upside downe, to feede his eye
And covetous desire with his huge treasury.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
See!
The difference 'twixt the covetous and the prodigal.
The covetous man never has money,
And the prodigal will have none shortly!
Johnson's Staple of News.
When all sins are old in us,
And go upon crutches, covetousness
Does but then lie in her cradle.
Gross nurtur'd slaves, who force their wretched souls
To crouch to profit; nay, for trash and wealth, Doat on some crooked or misshapen form, Hugging wise nature's lame deformity, Begetting creatures ugly as themselves.
John Ford's Love Sacrifice.
When I was blind, my son, I did miscall
My sordid vice of avarice, true thrift.
But now forget that lesson, I prithee do,
That cos'ning vice, although it seems to keep
Our wealth, debars us from possessing it,
And makes us more than poor.
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In ever burning floods of liquid gold,
And be his avarice the fiend that damns him.
Murphy's Alzuma.
To cram the rich was prodigal expense,
And who would take the poor from Providence?
Like some lone chartreux stands the good old hall,
Silence without and fasts within the wall;
No rafter'd roofs with dance and tabor sound,
No noon-tide bell invites the country round:
Tenants with sighs the smokeless towers survey,
And turn th' unwilling steeds another way;
Benighted wanderers, the forest o'er,
Curs'd the sav'd candle, and unopening door;
While the gaunt mastiff growling at the gate,
Affrights the beggar whom he longs to cat.
'Tis strange the miser should his cares employ
To gain those riches he can ne'er enjoy;
Is it less strange the prodigal should waste
His wealth to purchase what he ne'er can taste?
Pope's Moral Essays.
Riches, like insects, when conceal'd they lie,
Wait but for wings, and in their season fly;
Who sees pale Mammon pine amidst his store
Sees but a backward steward for the poor;
This year a reservoir, to keep and spare;
The next a fountain, spouting through his heir,
In lavish streams to quench a country's thirst,
And men and dogs shall drink him till they burst.
Pope's Moral Essays.
Wealth in the gross is death, but life diffus'd;
As poison heals, in just proportions us'd;
In heaps, like ambergris, a sink it lies,
And well dispers'd, is incense to the skies.
Pope's Moral Essays
"I give and I devise," (Old Euclio said,
And sigh'd,) "my lands and tenements to Ned."
Your money, sir?" My money, sir, what, all?
Why, if I must" (then wept), "I give it Paul."
The manor, sir?-"The manor! hold," he cried,
"Not that I cannot part with that," and died.
Pope's Moral Essays.
The lust of gold succeeds the lust of conquest:
The lust of gold, unfeeling and remorseless!
The last corruption of degenerate man.
Dr. Johnson's Irene. Some, o'er-cnamour'd of their bags, run mad, Groan under gold, yet weep for want of bread. Young's Night Thoughts.
O cursed love of gold; when for thy sake
The fool throws up his interest in both worlds,
First starv'd in this, then damn'd in that to come.
Blair's Grave.
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