CAUTION-DISCRETION- PRUDENCE.

1. But now, so wise and wary was the knight, By trial of his former harms and cares, That he decry'd, and shunned still his sight:

The fish, that once was caught, new bait will hardly bite.

SPENSER'S Fairy Queen.

2. They, that fear the adder's sting, will not

Come near his hissing.

CHAPMAN.

3. Look forward what's to come, and back what's past;
Thy life will be with praise and prudence grac'd:
What loss or gain may follow, thou may'st guess;
Thou then wilt be secure of the success.

DENHAM.

4. The better part of valour is discretion.

SHAKSPEARE.

5. When clouds are seen, wise men put on their cloaks.

SHAKSPEARE.

6. Prudence! thou vainly in our youth art sought, And, with age purchas'd, art too dearly bought ;We're past the use of wit, for which we toil,

Late fruit, and planted in too cold a soil.

7. None pities him that's in the snare,

And, warn'd before, would not beware.

8. Man's caution often into danger turns,
And his guard, falling, crushes him to death.

9. He knows the compass, sail and oar,

Or never launches from the shore;
Before he builds computes the cost,
And in no proud pursuit is lost.

DRYDEN.

HERRICK.

YOUNG.

GAY's Fables.

108

CELIBACY-CHASTITY.

10. Would you, when thieves are known abroad, Bring forth your treasures in the road? Would not the fool abet the stealth,

Who rashly thus expos'd his wealth?

11. The mouse, that always trusts to one poor hole, Can never be a mouse of any soul.

GAY'S Fables.

POPE.

12. All's to be fear'd where all is to be lost.

BYRON'S Werner.

CELIBACY - CHASTITY.

1. But earlier happy is the rose distill'd,

2.

Than that, which, withering on the virgin thorn,
Grows, lives and dies in single blessedness.

Chaste as the icicle

That's curdled by the frost of purest snow,

And hangs on Dian's temple.

3. Lady, you are the cruelest she alive,

SHAKSPEARE.

SHAKSPEARE.

If you will lead those graces to the grave,
And leave the world no copy.

4. So dear to heaven is saintly chastity,

That when a soul is found sincerely so,
A thousand liv'ried angels lacquey her,
Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt.

SHAKSPEARE.

MILTON'S Comus.

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

MILTON'S Paradise Lost.

6. There swims no goose so grey, but, soon or late, She finds some honest gander for a mate.

POPE.

7. Most women's weak resolves, like reeds, will fly,
Shake with each breath, and bend with every sigh;
Mine, like an oak whose firm roots deep descend,
Nor breath of love can shake, nor sigh can bend.

8. When lovely woman stoops to folly,

And finds too late that men betray,
What charm can soothe her melancholy?
What art can wash her guilt away?—

The only way her guilt to cover,
To hide her shame from every eye,
To give repentance to her lover,
And wring his bosom-is to die.

9. If I am fair, 't is for myself alone;

GAY'S Dione.

I do not wish to have a sweetheart near me,
Nor would I call another's heart my own,
Nor have a gallant lover to revere me;

For surely I would plight my faith to none,

GOLDSMITH.

Though many an amorous cit might jump to hear me : For I have heard that lovers prove deceivers,

When once they find that maidens are believers.

10. Her bosom was a soft retreat For love and love alone,

From MICHEL ANGELO.

And yet her heart had never beat
To love's delicious tone.

It dwelt within its circle, free

From tender thoughts like these,
Waiting the little deity,

As the blossom waits the breeze,
Before it throws the leaves apart,
And trembles, like the love-touch'd heart.

MRS. AMELIA B. WELBY.

110

CEREMONY - CHANCE-FORTUNE.

11. For who would bear the whips and thorns of doubt,
The oppressor's wrong, the old maid's contumely,
The pangs of untold love, the priest's delay,
The insolence of rivals, and the sneers

That bachelors from womankind must take-
But that the dread of something after marriage,
That yet untried condition, from whose bonds
No victim can be freed, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear the life we have
Than risk another that we know not of?

J. T. WATSON.

CEREMONY.

1. Ceremony was devised at first

To set a gloss on faint deeds-hollow welcomes,
Recanting goodness, sorry e'er 't is shown;

But where there is true friendship, there needs none.

2. Then Ceremony leads her bigots forth

Prepar'd to fight for shadows of no worth;
While truths, on which eternal things depend,
Find not, or hardly find, a single friend.
As soldiers watch the signal of command,
They learn to bow, to sit, to kneel, to stand;
Happy to fill religion's vacant place

With hollow form, and gesture, and grimace.

SHAKSPEARE.

CHANCE-FORTUNE.

1. There is a tide in the affairs of men,

That, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;

Omitted, all the voyage of their life

Is bound in shallows and in miseries.

COWPER.

SHAKSPEARE.

2. Will fortune never come with both hands full,
But write her fair words still in foulest letters ?
She either gives a stomach, and no food,-
Such are the poor in health; or else a feast,
And takes away the stomach-such the rich,
That have abundance and enjoy it not.

3. An eagle, towering in his pride of place, Was by a mousing owl hawk'd at, and kill'd.

4. Fortune, the great commandress of the world,
Hath divers ways to enrich her followers:
To some she honour gives without deserving;
To other some, deserving without honour;

SHAKSPEARE.

SHAKSPEARE.

Some, wit-some, wealth—and some, wit without wealth; Some, wealth without wit-some, nor wit nor wealth.

5. Let not one look of fortune cast you down;
She were not fortune, if she did not frown:
Such as do braveliest bear her scorns awhile,
Are those on whom at last she most will smile.

CHAPMAN.

LORD ORRERY.

6. Be juster, heav'ns! such virtue punish'd thus,
Will make us think that Chance rules all above,
And shuffles, with a random hand, the lots
Which men are forc'd to draw.

7. Alas! the joys that fortune brings

Are trifling, and decay,

And those who prize the paltry things,
More trifling still than they.

DRYDEN.

GOLDSMITH.

8. Fortune in men has some small difference made:

One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade.

POPE'S Essay on Man.