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A THOUSAND THOUGHTS

FROM

VARIOUS AUTHORS.

ACTOR.

His was the spell o'er hearts
Which only acting lends—
The youngest of the sister arts,
Where all their beauty blends:

For ill can Poetry express

Full many a tone of thought sublime;
And Painting, mute and motionless,
Steals but a glance of Time.
But by the mighty Actor brought,

Illusion's perfect triumphs come—

Verse ceases to be airy thought,

And Sculpture to be dumb.

Campbell, Valedictory Stanzas to 7. P. Kemble.

ACTOR.

THE Painter dead, yet still he charms the eye;
While England lives his fame can never die :
But he who struts his hour upon the stage
Can scarce extend his fame for half an age :
Nor pen nor pencil can the Actor save,
The art and artist share one common grave.
13.

Garrick, Prologue to The Clandestine Marriage.'

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ACTOR.

THE Actor only shrinks from Time's award;
Feeble tradition is his memory's guard;

By whose faint breath his merits must abide,
Unvouched by proof-to substance unallied!
E'en matchless Garrick's art, to heaven resigned,
No fixed effect, no model leaves behind!
The grace of action-the adapted mien
Faithful as nature to the varied scene;

The expressive glance-whose subtle comment draws
Entranced attention and a mute applause;
Gesture that marks, with force and feeling fraught,

A sense in silence, and a will in thought;
Harmonious speech, whose pure and liquid tone
Gives verse a music scarce confessed its own;
As light from gems assumes a brighter ray,

And clothed with orient hues, transcends the day!
Passion's wild break-and frown that awes the sense,
And every charm of gentler eloquence—

All perishable! like the electric fire,

But strike the frame-and as they strike expire;
Incense too pure a bodied flame to bear,

Its fragrance charms the sense, and blends with air.

Sheridan, Verses to the Memory of Garrick.

ACTOR.

POETS to ages yet unborn appeal,

And latest times the eternal nature feel.

Though blended here the praise of bard and player,
While more than half becomes the actor's share,

Relentless Death untwists the mingled fame,

And sinks the player in the poet's name.

The pliant muscles of the various face,

The mien that gave each sentence strength and grace, The tuneful voice, the eye that spoke the mind,

Are gone, nor leave a single trace behind.

R. Lloyd, The Actor.

AFFECTION.

To soothe thy sickness, watch thy health,
Partake, but never waste thy wealth,
Or stand with smiles unmurmuring by,
And lighten half thy poverty;
Do all but close thy dying eye,

For that I could not live to try;
To these alone my thoughts aspire;
More can I do, or thou require?

Byron, Bride of Abydos.

AFFLICTION.

It is pleasant to consider, that whilst we are lamenting our particular afflictions to each other, and repining at the inequality of condition, were it possible to throw off our present miserable state, we cannot name the person whose condition in every particular we would embrace and prefer, and an impartial inquiry into the pride, ill-nature, ill-health, guilt, spleen, or particularity of behaviour of others, generally ends in a reconciliation to our dear selves.

Steele, Guardian, No. 54.

AFFLICTION.

In such a world, so thorny, and where none
Finds happiness unblighted, or, if found,
Without some thistly sorrow at its side,
It seems the part of wisdom, and no sin
Against the law of love, to measure lots
With less distinguished than ourselves, that thus
We may with patience bear our moderate ills,
And sympathise with others suffering more.

Cowper, Winter Evening.

.AFFLICTION.

ANGELIC forms, and happy spirits, are
Above the malice of perplexing care :
But that's a blessing too sublime, too high,
For those who bend beneath mortality.

Pomfret, To his Friend in Affliction.

AFFLICTION.

THE great, in affliction, bear a countenance more princely than they are wont; for it is the temper of the highest hearts, like the palm tree, to strive most upwards when it is most burthened.

Sir P. Sidney, Arcadia, bk. iv.

AGITATORS.

HE that goeth about to persuade a multitude that they are not so well governed as they ought to be shall never want attentive and favourable hearers; because they know the manifold defects whereunto every kind of regiment is subject, but the secret lets and difficulties, which in public proceedings are innumerable and inevitable, they have not ordinarily the judgment to consider.

AGITATORS.

Hooker, Ecclesiastical Polity.

BECAUSE half-a-dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field; that of course they are many in number; or that, after all, they are other than the little, shrivelled, meagre, hopping, though loud and troublesome, insects of the hour.

Edmund Burke, Reflections on Revolution in France...

AGRICULTURE.

THE antiquity of this art is certainly not to be contested with any other. The three first men in the world were a gardener, a ploughman, and a grazier; and if any man object that the second of these was a murderer, I desire he would consider that, as soon as he was so, he quitted our profession and turned builder. We are all born to this art, and taught by nature to nourish our bodies by the same earth out of which they were made, and to which they must return, and pay at last for their sustenance. Behold the original and primitive nobility of all these great persons, who are too proud now, not only to till the ground, but almost to tread upon it! We may talk what we please of lilies and lions rampant, and spread eagles, in fields d'or or d'argent ; but if heraldry were guided by reason, a plough in a field arable would be the most noble and ancient arms.

Cowley, Essay on Agriculture.

ALPS.

ABOVE me are the Alps,

The palaces of Nature, whose vast walls Have pinnacled in clouds their snowy scalps, And throned Eternity in icy halls

Of cold sublimity, where forms and falls The avalanche-the thunderbolt of snow ! All that expands the spirit, yet appals,

Gather around these summits, as to show

How Earth may pierce to Heaven, yet leave vain man below.

Byron, Childe Harold, canto iii. st. 62.

ALPS.

WHO first beheld those everlasting clouds,
Seed-time and harvest, morning, noon, and night,
Still where they were, steadfast, immovable;
Who first beholds the Alps-that mighty chain

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