Where England garners up her glorious dead.
The ancient chivalry are sleeping there-
Men who sought out the Turk in Palestine,
And laid the crescent low before the cross.
The sea has sent her victories: those aisles
Wave with the banners of a thousand fights.
There, too, are the mind's triumphs-in those tombs
Sleep poets and philosophers, whose light

Is on the heaven of our intellect.

The very names inscribed on those old walls
Make the place sacred.

L. E. Landon.

WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

HERE, where the end of earthly things
Lays heroes, patriots, bards, and kings;
Where stiff the hand, and still the tongue
Of those who fought, and spoke, and sung;
Here, where the fretted aisles prolong
The distant notes of holy song,
As if some angel spoke again,

'All peace on earth, goodwill to men ;'
If ever from an English heart,

O, here let prejudice depart.

Scott, Marmion, Introduction to Canto I.

WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

THEY dreamed not of a perishable home
Who thus could build. Be mine, in hours of fear
Or grovelling thought, to seek a refuge here,
Or through the aisles of Westminster to roam,
Where bubbles burst, and folly's dancing foam
Melts, if it cross the threshold.

Wordsworth, Ecclesiastical Sonnets.

WIFE.

BELIEVE me, man, there is no greater bliss
Than in the quiet joy of loving wife;

Which whoso wants, half of himself doth miss :
Friend without change, playfellow without strife,
Food without fulness, counsel without pride,
In this sweet doubling of our single life.

Sir P. Sidney.

WIFE.

His house she enters-there to be a light
Shining within, when all without is night;
A guardian angel o'er his life presiding,
Doubling his pleasures, and his cares dividing.

CHOICE OF A WIFE.

Rogers, Human Life.

WHEN it shall please God to bring thee to man's estate, use great providence and circumspection in choosing thy wife. For from thence will spring all thy future good or evil. And it is an action of life like unto a stratagem of war, wherein a man can err but once. If thy estate be good, match near home and at leisure; if weak, far off and quickly. Inquire diligently of her disposition, and how her parents have been inclined in their youth. Let her not be poor, how generous soever; for a man can buy nothing in the market with gentility. Nor choose a base and uncomely creature altogether for wealth; for it will cause contempt in others, and loathing in thee. Neither make choice of a fool; for she will be thy continual disgrace, and it will yirke thee to hear her talk; for thou shalt find it, to thy great grief, that there is nothing more fulsome than a she-fool. Lord Burleigh.

WINE.

WHAT cannot wine perform? It brings to light
The secret soul; it bids the coward fight;
Gives being to our hopes, and from our hearts
Drives the dull sorrow, and inspires new arts.
Is there a wretch, whom bumpers have not taught

A flow of words, and loftiness of thought;

E'en in the oppressive grasp of poverty

It can enlarge, and bid the soul be free.

Francis-Horace. Epistles, b. i. v.

WINE.

WINE heightens indifference into love, love into jealousy, and jealousy into madness. It often turns the good-natured man into an idiot, and the choleric into an assassin. It gives bitterness to resentment, it makes vanity insupportable, and displays every little spot of the soul in its utmost deformity. Addison, Spectator, No. 569.

WINE.

IN the bottle, discontent seeks for comfort, cowardice for courage, and bashfulness for confidence; but who that ever asked succour from Bacchus, was able to preserve himself from being enslaved by his auxiliary?

Johnson, Life of Addison.

WINE.

WHATEVER has been said against the use of wine, upon the supposition that it enfeebles the mind, and renders it unfit for the duties of life, bears forcibly to the advantage of that delicious juice in cases where it only heightens conver

sation, and brings to light agreeable talents, which otherwise would have lain concealed under the oppression of an unjust modesty. Steele, Tatler, No. 252.

WINE.

WINE Whets the wit, improves its native force,
And gives a pleasant flavour to discourse,

By making all our spirits debonair,

Throws off the lees, the sediments of care.

Pomfret, The Choice.

WINE.

OLD port wine is more ancient to the imagination than any other, though in fact it may have known fewer years; as a broken Gothic arch has more of the spirit of antiquity about it than a Grecian temple. Port reminds us of the obscure middle ages; but hock, like the classical mythology, is always young. Talfourd, The Wine Cellar.

WIT.

SOMETIMES it lieth in pat allusion to a known story, or in seasonable application of a trivial saying, or in forging an apposite tale: sometimes it playeth in words and phrases, taking advantage from the ambiguity of their sense, or the affinity of their sound. Sometimes it is wrapped in a dress of humorous expression; sometimes it lurketh under an odd similitude; sometimes it is lodged in a sly question, in a smart answer, in a quirkish reason, in a shrewd intimation, in cunningly diverting, or cleverly retorting an objection : sometimes it is couched in a bold scheme of speech, in a tart irony, in a lusty hyperbole, in a startling metaphor, in a plausible reconciling of contradictions, or in acute nonsense : sometimes a scenical representation of persons or things, a counterfeit speech, a mimical look or gesture passeth for it :

sometimes an affected simplicity, sometimes a presumptuous bluntness, giveth it being: sometimes it riseth only from a lucky hitting upon what is strange; sometimes from a crafty wresting obvious matter to the purpose; often it consists in one knows not what, and springeth up one can hardly tell how. Its ways are unaccountable and inexplicable, being answerable to the numberless rovings of fancy and windings of language. It is, in short, a manner of speaking out of the simple and plain way-such as reason teacheth and proveth things by which by a pretty surprising uncouthness in conceit or expression doth affect and amuse the fancy, stirring in it some wonder, and breeding some delight thereto. It raiseth admiration, as signifying a nimble sagacity of apprehension, a special felicity of invention, a vivacity of spirit and reach of wit more than vulgar. It seemeth to argue a rare quickness of parts, that one can fetch in remote conceits applicable; a notable skill, that he can dexterously accommodate them to the purpose before him; together with a lively briskness of humour, not apt to damp those sportful flashes of imagination. It also procureth delight, by gratifying curiosity with its rareness or semblance of difficulty; as monsters, not for their beauty, but their rarity; as juggling tricks, not for their use, but their abstruseness, are beheld with pleasure, by diverting the mind from its road of serious thoughts; by instilling gaiety and airiness of spirit; by provoking to such dispositions of spirit in way of emulation or complaisance; and by seasoning matters, otherwise distasteful or insipid, with an unusual and thence grateful tang.

WIT.

Barrow, Sermons, xiv.

Of wit so just a share to each is sent,
That the most avaricious are content :

For none e'er thought (the due division such)
His own too little, or his friend's too much.

Rochester, To Lord Mulgrave.