What is danger

COWARDICE.

More than the weakness of our apprehensions?
A poor cold part o' th' blood. Who takes it hold of?
Cowards and wicked livers: valiant minds
Were made the masters of it.
Chances.

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

Alike reserved to blame, or to commend,
A timorous foe, and a suspicious friend;
Dreading even fools, by flatteries besieged,
And so obliging that he ne'er obliged.
Satires: Prologue.

Cowards are cruel, but the brave
Love mercy, and delight to save.

Fables, Pt. I. Fable Ï.

When desp❜rate ills demand a speedy cure, Distrust is cowardice, and prudence folly. Irene, Act iv. Sc. 1.

A. POPE.

J. GAY.

DR. S. JOHNSON.

He

That kills himself to avoid misery, fears it,
And, at the best, shows but a bastard valor.
This life's a fort committed to my trust,
Which I must not yield up, till it be forced :
Nor will I. He's not valiant that dares die,
But he that boldly bears calamity.

Maid of Honor, Act iv. Sc. 1.

Thou slave, thou wretch, thou coward!
Thou little valiant, great in villany!

P. MASSINGER.

Thou ever strong upon the stronger side!

Thou Fortune's champion, that dost never fight
But when her humorous ladyship is by

To teach thee safety!

King John, Act iii. Sc. 1.

SHAKESPEARE.

For he who fights and runs away
May live to fight another day;
But he who is in battle slain

Can never rise and fight again.

The Art of Poetry on a New Plan.

O. GOLDSMITH.

Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.

But Faith, fanatic Faith, once wedded fast
To some dear falsehood, hugs it to the last.
Lalla Rookh: Veiled Prophet of Khorassan. T. MOORE.

For fools are stubborn in their way,
As coins are hardened by th' allay;
And obstinacy 's ne'er so stiff
As when 't is in a wrong belief.
Hudibras, Pt. III. Canto II.

You can and you can't,
You will and you won't;
You'll be damned if you do,
You'll be damned if you don't.

Chain (Definition of Calvinism).

S. BUTLER.

L. DOW.

They believed-faith, I 'm puzzled-I think I may call
Their belief a believing in nothing at all,

Or something of that sort; I know they all went
For a general union of total dissent.

A Fable for Critics.

J. R. LOWELL.

We are our own fates. Our own deeds

Are our doomsmen. Man's life was made
Not for men's creeds,

But men's actions.

Lucile, Pt. II. Canto V. LORD LYTTON (Owen Meredith).

Go put your creed into your deed,

Nor speak with double tongue.

Ode: Concord, July 4, 1857.

CRIME.

R. W. EMERSON.

There is a method in man's wickedness,

It grows up by degrees.

A King and no King, Act v. Sc. 4.

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

Foul deeds will rise,

SHAKESPEARE.

Though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes. Hamlet, Act i. Sc. 2.

Tremble, thou wretch,

That has within thee undivulged crimes,
Unwhipped of justice.

King Lear, Act iii. Sc. 2.

SHAKESPEARE.

But many a crime deemed innocent on earth Is registered in Heaven; and these no doubt Have each their record, with a curse annexed. The Task, Bk. VI.

W. COWPER.

CRITICISM.

And finds, with keen, discriminating sight, Black 's not so black;-nor white so very white. New Morality.

G. CANNING.

In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold,
Alike fantastic if too new or old:
Be not the first by whom the new are tried,
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.

Essay on Criticism, Pt. II.

A. POPE.

Poets lose half the praise they should have got,
Could it be known what they discreetly blot.
Upon Roscommon's Translation of Horace's De Arte
Poetica.

Vex not thou the poet's mind
With thy shallow wit:

Vex not thou the poet's mind;
For thou canst not fathom it.

E. WALLER.

The Poet's Mind.

CUSTOM.

A. TENNYSON.

Man yields to custom, as he bows to fate,
In all things ruled-mind, body, and estate.

Tale III., Gentleman Farmer.

G. CRABBE.

The slaves of custom and established mode,
With pack-horse constancy we keep the road
Crooked or straight, through quags or thorny dells,
True to the jingling of our leader's bells.

Tirocinium.

Assume a virtue, if you have it not.

W. COWPER.

That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat,
Of habits devil, is angel yet in this,
That to the use of actions fair and good

He likewise gives a frock or livery,

That aptly is put on.

Hamlet, Act iii. Sc. 4.

SHAKESPEARE.

Custom calls me to 't:

What custom wills, in all things should we do't,

The dust on antique time would lie unswept,
And mountainous error be too highly heapt

For truth to o'erpeer.

Coriolanus, Act ii. Sc. 3.

SHAKESPEARE.

Such is the custom of Branksome Hall.

The Lay of the Last Minstrel, Canto I. SIR W. SCOTT.

The tyrant custom, most grave senators,
Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war
My thrice-driven bed of down.

Othello, Act i. Sc. 3.

SHAKESPEARE.

But to my mind, -though I am native here,
And to the manner born,-it is a custom

More honored in the breach, than the observance.

Hamlet, Act i. Sc. 4.

Day!

DAY.

Faster and more fast,

O'er night's brim, day boils at last;

SHAKESPEARE.

Boils, pure gold, o'er the cloud-cup's brim.

Pippa Passes: Introduction.

How troublesome is day!

It calls us from our sleep away;

R. BROWNING.

It bids us from our pleasant dreams awake,

And sends us forth to keep or break

Our promises to pay.

How troublesome is day!

Death calls ye to the crowd of common men.

Cupid and Death.

A worm is in the bud of youth, And at the root of age. Stanza subjoined to a Bill of Mortality.

J. SHIRLEY.

W.COWPER.

The tall, the wise, the reverend head
Must lie as low as ours.

A Funeral Thought, Bk. II. Hymn 63.

DR. I. WATTS.

Comes at the last, and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall, and--farewell king!
K. Richard II., Act iii. Sc. 2.

SHAKESPEARE.

And though mine arm should conquer twenty worlds,
There's a lean fellow beats all conquerors.
Old Fortunatus.

T. DEKKER.

Men must endure

Their going hence, even as their coming hither:
Ripeness is all.

SHAKESPEARE.

This fell sergeant, death,

King Lear, Act v. Sc. 2.

That we shall die we know; 't is but the time
And drawing days out, that men stand upon.

Julius Cæsar, Act iii. Sc. 1.

SHAKESPEARE.

Our days begin with trouble here,

Our life is but a span,

And cruel death is always near,

So frail a thing is man.

New England Primer.

Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,

It seems to me most strange that men should fear;

Seeing that death, a necessary end,

Will come when it will come.

Julius Cæsar, Act ii. Sc. 2.

SHAKESPEARE.

The hour concealed, and so remote the fear,

Death still draws nearer, never seeming near.

Essay on Man, Epistle III.

The tongues of dying men

A. POPE.

Enforce attention, like deep harmony:
When words are scarce, they 're seldom spent in vain ;
For they breathe truth that breathe their words in pain.

K. Richard II., Act ii. Sc. 1.

A death-bed 's a detector of the heart:

SHAKESPEARE.

Here tired dissimulation drops her mask,
Through life's grimace that mistress of the scene;

Here real and apparent are the same.

Night Thoughts, Night II.

DR. E. YOUNG.

The chamber where the good man meets his fate
Is privileged beyond the common walk

Of virtuous life, quite in the verge of heaven.

Night Thoughts, Night II.

DR. E. YOUNG.