  Prior, says Leigh Hunt, wrote one truly loving verse, if no other. It is in his Solomon. The monarch is speaking of a female slave, who had a real affection for him— And when I called another, Abra came. Coleridge says that Noah’s Ark affords a fine image of the world at large, as containing a very few men, and a great number of beasts. The boxes which govern the world are the cartridge-box, the ballot-box, the jury-box, and the band-box. There are certain things upon which even a wise man must be content to be ignorant. “I cannot fiddle,” said Themistocles, “but I can take a city.” Sir Thomas Overbury said of a man who boasted of his ancestry, that he was like a potato—the best thing belonging to him was under the ground. “Go and see Carlini” (the famous Neapolitan comedian), said a physician to a patient, who came to consult him upon habitual depression of spirits. “I am Carlini,” said the man. The words Abstemiously and Facetiously contain all the vowels in consecutive order. When Mr. Pitt’s enemies objected to George III. that he was too young, his Majesty answered: “That is an objection the force of which will be weakened every day he lives.” Prayer moves the hand That moves the universe. The Mexicans say to their new-born offspring, “Child, thou art come into the world to suffer. Endure, and hold thy peace.” Balzac makes mention of a man who never uttered his own name without taking off his hat, as a mark of reverence for the exalted appellation. Gibbon says: As long as mankind shall continue to bestow more liberal applause on their destroyers than on their benefactors the thirst of military glory will ever be the vice of the most exalted characters. In the works of Prof. Thomas Cooper it is said,—Mankind pay best, 1. Those who destroy them, heroes and warriors. 2. Those who cheat them, statesmen, priests and quacks. 3. Those who amuse them, as singers, actors, dancers and novel writers. But least of all, those who speak the truth, and instruct them. Wax-lights, though we are accustomed to overlook the fact, and rank them with ordinary commonplaces, are true fairy tapers,—a white metamorphosis from the flowers, crowned with the most intangible of all visible mysteries—fire. An illustration of false emphasis is supplied by the verse, (I. Kings xiii. 27,) “And he spoke to his sons, saying, Saddle me the ass. And they saddled him.” Shakspeare, in the compass of a line, has described a thoroughly charming girl:— Pretty, and witty; wild, and yet, too, gentle. Buckingham’s Epitaph on Thomas Lord Fairfax:— He might have been a King, But that he understood How much it is a meaner thing To be unjustly great, than honorably good. A favorite exclamation of the Parisian mob, who must always have a “vive” something or other, became during the Revolution, “vive la mort!” Alphonso, King of Aragon, in his judgment of human life, declared that there were only four things in this world worth living for: “Old wine to drink, old wood to burn, old books to read, and old friends to converse with.” David refers to a good old form of salutation and valediction in Psalm cxxix. 8:— “The blessing of the Lord be upon you; we bless you in the name of the Lord.” An eastern sage being desired to inscribe on the ring of his Sultan a motto, equally applicable to prosperity or adversity, returned it with these words engraved upon the surface: “And this, too, shall pass away.” Oliver Cromwell’s grace before dinner:— Some have meat, but cannot eat, And some can eat, but have not meat, And so—the Lord be praised. |
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