From the Letter on Italy.

For wheresoe'er I turn my ravished eyes,
Gay gilded scenes and shining prospects rise;
Poetic fields encompass me around,

And still I seem to tread on classic ground.*

Ode.

The spacious firmament on high,
With all the blue ethereal sky,

And spangled heavens, a shining frame,

Their great Original proclaim.

Soon as the evening shades prevail,

The moon takes up the wondrous tale,
And nightly to the listening earth
Repeats the story of her birth;

While all the stars that round her burn,

And all the planets in their turn

Confirm the tidings as they roll,

And spread the truth from pole to pole.

For ever singing, as they shine,

The hand that made us is divine.

*Malone states that this was the first time the phrase classic

ground, since so common, was ever used.

JONATHAN SWIFT.

1667-1745.

Imitation of Horace. B. ii. Sat. 6.

I've often wished that I had clear,
For life, six hundred pounds a year,
A handsome house to lodge a friend,
A river at my garden's end.

Poetry, a Rhapsody.

So geographers, in Afric maps,

With savage pictures fill their gaps,
And o'er unhabitable downs

Place elephants for want of towns.

So, naturalists observe, a flea

Has smaller fleas that on him prey;

And these have smaller still to bite 'em.
And so proceed ad infinitum.

WILLIAM CONGREVE.

1669-1729.

The Mourning Bride.

Act i. Sc. 1.

Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast,

To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.

By magic numbers and persuasive sound.

Act iii. Sc. 1.

Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned,
Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.

The Mourning Bride.

Act v. Sc. xii.

For blessings ever wait on virtuous deeds,
And though a late, a sure reward succeeds.

Way of the World.

Act iii. Sc. 12.

If there's delight in love, 't is when I see
The heart which others bleed for, bleed for me.

Love for Love.

Act ii. Sc. 1.

Ferdinand Mendez Pinto was but a type of thee, thou liar of the first magnitude.

NICHOLAS ROWE.

1673-1718.

The Fair Penitent.

Act ii. Sc. i.

Is she not more than painting can express,
Or youthful poets fancy when they love?

Act v. Sc. 1.

Is this that haughty, gallant, gay Lothario?

THOMAS SOUTHERN.

1659-1746.

Oroonoka.

Act ii. Sc. 1.

Pity's akin to love.

DANIEL DEFOE.

1661-1731.

The True-Born Englishman.

Part i.. Line 1.

Wherever God erects a house of prayer,*
The Devil always builds a chapel there;
And 't will be found upon examination,
The latter has the largest congregation.

LOUIS THEOBALD.

.1744.

The Double Falsehood.

None but himself can be his parallel.

*No sooner is a Temple built to God, but the Devil builds a Chapel hard by. Jacula Prudentum. GEORGE HERBERT.

Where God hath a Temple the Devil will have a Chapel.

Burton's Anatomy.of Melancholy. Pt. 3. Sec. iv. M. 1. Subs. 1.

MATTHEW PRIOR.

1664-1721.

An English Padlock.

Be to her virtues very kind;

Be to her faults a little blind.

Henry and Emma.

That air and harmony of shape express,
Fine by degrees, and beautifully less.

The Thief and the Cordelier.

Now fitted the halter, now traversed the cart,
And often took leave; but was loth to depart.

Epilogue to Lucius.

And the gray mare will prove the better horse.*

Imitations of Horace.

Of two evils I have chose the least.

Epitaph on Himself.

Here lies what once was Matthew Prior;

The son of Adam and of Eve:

Can Bourbon or Nassau claim higher?

*

The graye mare will be the better horse. The Marriage of Wit and Science, 1569. See also Hudibras, Part ii. Canto ii. line 698. Mr. Macaulay thinks that this proverb originated in the preference generally given to the gray mares of Flanders over the finest coach-horses of England. History of England, Vol. I. Ch. 3.