Let us prize death as the best gift of nature,

As a safe inn, where weary travellers,

When they have journey'd through a world of cares, May put off life, and be at rest for ever.

Threnodia Augustalis, Part 1.-GOLDSMITH.

Men of wit and parts need never be driven to indirect

courses.

WISDOM.

The Cheats of Scapin, Act III. Scene I.
T. OTWAY.

Endurance of

Some there are,

By their good works exalted, lofty minds.

And meditative, authors of delight

And happiness, which to the end of time.

Will live, and spread, and kindle; minds like these, In childhood, from this solitary being,

This helpless wanderer have perchance received
(A thing more precious far than all that books.
Or the solicitudes of love can do!)

That first mild touch of sympathy and thought,
In which they found their kindred with a world
Where want and sorrow were.

The Old Cumberland Beggar.-W. WORDSWORTH.

WISDOM Viewing Mankind.

Wisdom contemplating mankind leads but to the two results-Compassion or Disdain. He who believes in other worlds can accustom himself to look on this as

the naturalist on the revolutions of an ant-hill, or of a leaf. What is the earth to infinity—what its duration to the Eternal! Oh, how much greater is the soul of one man than the vicissitudes of the whole globe! Child of heaven, and heir of immortality, how from some star hereafter wilt thou look back on the ant-hill and its commotions, from Clovis to Robespierre, from Noah to the Final Fire. The spirit that can contemplate, that lives only in the intellect, can ascend to its star, even from the midst of the burial-ground called earth, and while the sarcophagus called life immures in its clay the Everlasting. Zanoni, Book I. Chap. V.

WISH. A

E. B. LYTTON.

Not for a moment may you stray,
From truth's secure unerring way!

May no delights decoy !

O'er roses may your footsteps move,
Your smiles be ever smiles of love,
Your tears be tears of joy!

WOES.

To the Earl of Clare.—BYRON.

Woes cluster: rare are solitary woes:

They love a train; they tread each other's heel.
Night Thoughts, III. Line 62.-EDWARD YOUNG.

WOMAN.

But once beguiled—and evermore beguiling.

The Bride of Abydos, Canto I. Verse vi.
LORD BYRON.

WOMAN.

Think not of beauty;-when a maid you meet,
Turn from her view and step across the street;
Dread all the sex: their looks create a charm :
A smile should fright you and a word alarm.

WOMAN.

The Borough, Letter XIX.-G. CRABBE.

Value of a Good

Nothing is to man so dear

As woman's love in good manner.
A good woman is man's bliss,
Where her love right and stedfast is.
There is no solace under heaven,
Of all that a man may neven,
That should a man so much glew,
As a good woman that loveth true:
Ne dearer is none in God's hurd

Than a chaste woman with lovely wurd.

From the Handling of Sins.

ROBERT OF GLOUCESTER.

WOMAN.

Man less honourable than

There is a vile dishonest trick in man,

More than in woman. All the men I meet
Appear thus to me; are all harsh and rude;

And have a subtilty in every-thing,

Which love could never know. But we fond women

Harbour the easiest and the smoothest thoughts,

And think, all shall go so! It is unjust

That men and women should be match'd together.

The Maid's Tragedy, Act. v.

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

WOMAN. No trust to be placed in

I will sooner trust the wind

With feathers, or the troubled sea with pearl,
Than her with any thing.

Philaster, Act. v.--BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

WOMAN. Instability of

The man who sets his heart upon a woman
Is a chameleon, and doth feed on air;
From air he takes his colours,-holds his life,-
Changes with every wind,-grows lean or fat;
Rosy with hope, or green with jealousy,
Or pallid with despair-just as the gale

Varies from north to south-from heat to cold!
Oh, woman! woman! thou should'st have few sins
Of thine own to answer for! Thou art the author

Of such a book of follies in a man,

That it would need the tears of all the angels

To blot the record out.

The Lady of Lyons, Act. v. Scene I.-E. B. LYTTON.

WOMAN. Falsity of

Woman, that fair and fond deceiver,

How fond are striplings to believe her!

How throbs the pulse when first we view
The eye that rolls in glossy blue,
Or sparkles black, or mildly throws
A beam from under hazel brows!
How quick we credit every oath,
And hear her plight the willing troth!
Fondly we hope 'twill last for aye,
When, lo! she changes in a day.
This record will for ever stand,

"Woman! thy vows are traced in sand."

To Woman.-BYRON.

WOMAN. Man conceals the virtues of

will take

Oh, women! that some one of you
An everlasting pen into your hands,
And grave in paper [which the writ shall make
More lasting than the marble monuments]

Your matchless virtues to posterities;

Which the defective race of envious man

Strives to conceal !

The Coxcomb, Act. v.-BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

WOMAN.

Source of the virtues in

Teach him to live unto God and unto thee; and he will discover that women, like the plants in woods, derive their softness and tenderness from the shade.

Imaginary Conversations.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDor.