Men, dying, make their wills, but wives
Escape a work so sad;
Why should they make what all their lives
The gentle dames have had?

John G. Saxe.

You wrote a line too much, my sage,
Of seers the first, and first of sayers;
For only half the world's a stage,
And only all the women players.

James Kenneth Stephen.

Ah! Matt, old age has brought to me
Thy wisdom, less thy certainty;
The world's a jest, and joy's a trinket;
I knew that once,—but now I think it.

James Kenneth Stephen.

You beat your pate, and fancy wit will come:
Knock as you please, there's nobody at home.

Alexander Pope.

Sir, I admit your general rule,
That every poet is a fool,
But you yourself may serve to show it,
That every fool is not a poet.

Alexander Pope.

Jem writes his verses with more speed
Than the printer's boy can set 'em;
Quite as fast as we can read,
And only not so fast as we forget 'em.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

What? rise again with all one's bones,
Quoth Giles, I hope you fib:
I trusted, when I went to Heaven,
To go without my rib.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

In KÖln, a town of monks and bones,
And pavements fanged with murderous stones,
And rags, and hags, and hideous wenches,
I counted two-and-seventy stenches,
All well defined, and separate stinks!
Ye nymphs that reign o'er sewers and sinks,
The river Rhine, it is well known,
Doth wash your city of Cologne;
But tell me, nymphs, what power divine
Shall henceforth wash the river Rhine?

Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Your poem must eternal be,
Dear sir, it can not fail,
For 'tis incomprehensible,
And wants both head and tail.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Swans sing before they die:—'twere no bad thing,
Should certain persons die before they sing.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Sly Beelzebub took all occasions
To try Job's constancy and patience.
He took his honor, took his health;
He took his children, took his wealth,
His servants, horses, oxen, cows,—
But cunning Satan did not take his spouse.
But Heaven, that brings out good from evil,
And loves to disappoint the devil,
Had predetermined to restore
Twofold all he had before;
His servants, horses, oxen, cows—
Short-sighted devil, not to take his spouse!

Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

If all be true that I do think,
There are five reasons we should drink;
Good wine—a friend—or being dry—
Or lest we should be by and by—
Or any other reason why.

Dr. Henry Aldrich.

All smatterers are more brisk and pert
Than those that understand an art;
As little sparkles shine more bright
Than glowing coals, that give them light.

Samuel Butler.

Hypocrisy will serve as well
To propagate a church, as zeal;
As persecution and promotion
Do equally advance devotion:
So round white stones will serve, they say,
As well as eggs to make hens lay.

Samuel Butler.

When men a dangerous disease did 'scape,
Of old, they gave a cock to Æsculape;
Let me give two, that doubly am got free;
From my disease's danger, and from thee.

Ben Jonson.

I sent for Ratcliffe; was so ill,
That other doctors gave me over:
He felt my pulse, prescribed his pill,
And I was likely to recover.
But when the wit began to wheeze,
And wine had warm'd the politician,
Cured yesterday of my disease,
I died last night of my physician.

Matthew Prior.

Lord Erskine, at women presuming to rail,
Calls a wife "a tin canister tied to one's tail";
And fair Lady Anne, while the subject he carries on,
Seems hurt at his Lordship's degrading comparison.
But wherefore degrading? consider'd aright,
A canister's useful, and polish'd, and bright:
And should dirt its original purity hide,
That's the fault of the puppy to whom it is tied.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan.

The honey-moon is very strange.
Unlike all other moons the change
She regularly undergoes.
She rises at the full; then loses
Much of her brightness; then reposes
Faintly; and then ... has naught to lose.

Walter Savage Landor.

When Dido found Æneas would not come,
She mourn'd in silence, and was Di-do-dum(b).

Richard Parson.

A lovely young lady I mourn in my rhymes:
She was pleasant, good-natured, and civil sometimes.
Her figure was good: she had very fine eyes,
And her talk was a mixture of foolish and wise.
Her adorers were many, and one of them said,
"She waltzed rather well! It's a pity she's dead!"

George John Cayley.

"Come, come," said Tom's father, "at your time of life,
There's no longer excuse for thus playing the rake.—
It is time you should think, boy, of taking a wife."—
"Why, so it is, father,—whose wife shall I take?"

Thomas Moore.

Between Adam and me the great difference is,
Though a paradise each has been forced to resign,
That he never wore breeches till turn'd out of his,
While, for want of my breeches, I'm banish'd from mine.

Thomas Moore.

Some ladies now make pretty songs,
And some make pretty nurses;
Some men are great at righting wrongs
And some at writing verses.

Frederick Locker-Lampson.

He cannot be complete in aught
Who is not humorously prone;
A man without a merry thought
Can hardly have a funny-bone.

Frederick Locker-Lampson.

I cannot praise the Doctor's eyes;
I never saw his glance divine;
He always shuts them when he prays,
And when he preaches he shuts mine.

George Outram.

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

John Dryden.

In all thy humors, whether grave or mellow,
Thou 'rt such a touchy, testy, pleasant fellow;
Hast so much wit, and mirth, and spleen about thee,
There is no living with thee, nor without thee.

Joseph Addison.

"God bless the King! God bless the faith's defender!
God bless—no harm in blessing—the Pretender.
But who pretender is, and who is king,
God bless us all, that's quite another thing."

John Byrom.

"Immortal Newton never spoke
More truth than here you'll find;
Nor Pope himself e'er penn'd a joke
More cruel on mankind.
"The picture placed the busts between,
Gives satire all its strength;
Wisdom and Wit are little seen—
But Folly at full length."

Lord Chesterfield.

"Had Cain been Scot, God would have changed his doom;
Nor forced him wander, but confined him home."

Cleveland.

See yonder goes old Mendax, telling lies
To that good easy man with whom he's walking;
How know I that? you ask, with some surprise;
Why, don't you see, my friend, the fellow's talking.

Lessing.

So slowly you walk, and so quickly you eat,
You should march with your mouth, and devour with your feet.

Lessing.

Quest.—Why is a Pump like Viscount Castlereagh?
Answ.—Because it is a slender thing of wood,
That up and down its awkward arm doth sway,
And coolly spout, and spout, and spout away,
In one weak, washy, everlasting flood!

Thomas Moore.

Of all the men one meets about,
There's none like Jack—he's everywhere:
At church—park—auction—dinner—rout—
Go when and where you will, he's there.
Try the West End, he's at your back—
Meets you, like Eurus, in the East—
You're call'd upon for "How do, Jack?"
One hundred times a day, at least.
A friend of his one evening said,
As home he took his pensive way,
"Upon my soul, I fear Jack's dead—
I've seen him but three times to-day!"

Thomas Moore.

While Butler, needy wretch, was yet alive,
No generous patron would a dinner give.
See him, when starved to death and turn'd to dust,
Presented with a monumental bust.
The poet's fate is here in emblem shown—
He ask'd for bread, and he received a stone.

Rev. Samuel Wesley.

Which is of greater value, prythee, say,
The Bride or Bridegroom?—must the truth be told?
Alas, it must! The Bride is given away—
The Bridegroom's often regularly sold.

Unknown.