O fair undress, best dress! it checks no vein,
But every flowing limb in pleasure drowns,
And heightens ease with grace.

Castle of Indolence, Canto I.

J. THOMSON.

What a fine man
Hath your tailor made you!

City Madam, Act i. Sc. 2.

P. MASSINGER.

Thy gown? why, ay;-come, tailor, let us see 't.
O mercy, God! what masquing stuff is here?
What's this? a sleeve? 't is like a demi-cannon :
What, up and down, carved like an apple-tart?
Here's snip and nip and cut and slish and slash,
Like to a censer in a barber's shop:

Why, what i' devil's name, tailor, callest thou this! Taming of the Shrew, Act iv. Sc. 3.

SHAKESPEARE.

With silken coats, and caps, and golden rings,
With ruffs, and cuffs, and farthingales and things;
With scarfs, and fans, and double change of bravery,
With amber bracelets, beads, and all this knavery.
Taming of the Shrew, Act iv. Sc. 3.

Dress drains our cellar dry,

SHAKESPEARE.

And keeps our larder lean; puts out our fires.
And introduces hunger, frost, and woe,
Where peace and hospitality might reign.

The Task, Bk. II.

W. COWPER.

Dwellers in huts and in marble halls-
From Shepherdess up to Queen-

Cared little for bonnets, and less for shawls,
And nothing for crinoline.

But now simplicity 's not the rage,

And it's funny to think how cold

The dress they wore in the Golden Age
Would seem in the Age of Gold.

The Two Ages.

DRINK.

H. S. LEIGH.

Or merry swains, who quaff the nut-brown ale,
And sing enamored of the nut-brown maid.
The Minstrel, Bk. I.

J. BEATTIE.

Fill full! Why this is as it should be: here
Is my true realm, amidst bright eyes and faces
Happy as fair! Here sorrow cannot reach.
Sardanapalus, Act iii. Sc. 1.

LORD BYRON.

But maistly thee, the bluid o' Scots,
Frae Maidenkirk to John o' Grots,
The king o' drinks, as I conceive it,
Talisker, Isla, or Glenlivet!
For after years wi' a pockmantie
Frae Zanzibar to Alicante,

In mony a fash an' sair affliction
I gie 't as my sincere conviction-
Of a' their foreign tricks an' pliskies,
I maist abominate their whiskies.
Nae doot, themsel's, they ken it weel,
An' wi' a hash o' leemon peel,
An' ice an' siccan filth, they ettle
The stawsome kind o' goo to settle;

Sic wersh apothecary's broos wi'

As Scotsmen scorn to fyle their moo's wi'.

The Scotman's Return from Abroad. R. L. STEVENSON.

In vain I trusted that the flowing bowl Would banish sorrow, and enlarge the soul. To the late revel, and protracted feast, Wild dreams succeeded, and disordered rest. Solomon, Bk. II. M. PRIOR.

And now, in madness,

Being full of supper and distempering draughts, Upon malicious bravery, dost thou come

To start my quiet.

Othello, Act i. Sc. 1.

He that is drunken . .

SHAKESPEARE.

Is outlawed by himself; all kind of ill
Did with his liquor slide into his veins.

The Temple: The Church Porch.

G. HERBERT.

A drunkard clasp his teeth, and not undo 'em, To suffer wet damnation to run through 'em. The Revenger's Tragedy, Act iii. Sc. 1. C. TOURNEUR.

I told you, sir, they were red-hot with drinking;
So full of valor that they smote the air

For breathing in their faces; beat the ground
For kissing of their feet.

Tempest, Act iv. Sc. 1.

SHAKESPEARE.

Of my merit

On thet point you yourself may jedge;
All is, I never drink no sperit,

Nor I hain't never signed no pledge.
The Biglow Papers, First Series, No. VII.

J. R. LOWELL.

DUTY.

So nigh is grandeur to our dust,

So near is God to man,

When Duty whispers low, Thou must,
The youth replies, I can.

Voluntaries.

R. W. EMERSON.

Not once or twice in our rough island story,
The path of duty was the way to glory.

Ode: Death of the Duke of Wellington. A. TENNYSON.

When I'm not thanked at all, I'm thanked enough: I've done my duty, and I 've done no more. Tom Thumb.

H. FIELDING.

And I read the moral-A brave endeavor
To do thy duty, whate'er its worth,

Is better than life with love forever,
And love is the sweetest thing on earth.

Sir Hugo's Choice.

DYING.

J. J. ROCHE.

The slender debt to nature 's quickly paid,
Discharged, perchance, with greater ease than made.

Emblems, Bk. II. 13.

F. QUARLES.

The sense of death is most in apprehension;
And the poor beetle, that we tread upon,
In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great
As when a giant dies.

Measure for Measure, Act iii. Sc. 1.

SHAKESPEARE.

She thought our good-night kiss was given,
And like a lily her life did close;
Angels uncurtained that repose,
And the next waking dawned in heaven.
Ballad of Babe Christabel.

G. MASSEY.

So fades a summer cloud away;

So sinks the gale when storms are o'er;
So gently shuts the eye of day;

So dies a wave along the shore.
The Death of the Virtuous.

Of no distemper, of no blast he died,

MRS. BARBAULD.

But fell like autumn fruit that mellowed long;
Even wondered at, because he dropt no sooner.
Fate seemed to wind him up for fourscore years;
Yet freshly ran he on ten winters more:
Till, like a clock worn out with eating time,
The wheels of weary life at last stood still.
Edipus, Act iv. Sc. 1.

J. DRYDEN.

EASTER.

"Christ the Lord is risen to-day,"
Sons of men and angels say.

Raise your joys and triumphs high;
Sing, ye heavens, and earth reply.
"Christ the Lord is risen to-day."

C. WESLEY.

Yes, He is risen who is the First and Last; Who was and is; who liveth and was dead; Beyond the reach of death He now has passed, Of the one glorious Church the glorious Head. He is Risen.

Tomb, thou shalt not hold Him longer;
Death is strong, but Life is stronger;
Stronger than the dark, the light;
Stronger than the wrong, the right;
Faith and Hope triumphant say
Christ will rise on Easter Day.

An Easter Carol.

H. BONAR.

PH. BROOKS.

Rise, heart! thy Lord is risen. Sing His praise
Without delays

Who takes thee by the hand, that thou likewise

With Him mayst rise

That as His death calcined thee to dust,

His life may make thee gold, and much more just. Easter.

Spring bursts to-day,

G. HERBERT.

For Christ is risen and all the earth's at play.

An Easter Carol.

C. G. ROSSETTI.

ECCLESIASTICISM.

With crosses, relics, crucifixes,
Beads, pictures, rosaries, and pixes;
The tools of working out salvation
By mere mechanic operation.

Hudibras, Pt. III. Canto I.

S. BUTLER.

Till Peter's keys some christened Jove adorn,
And Pan to Moses lends his pagan horn.

The Dunciad, Bk. III.

A. POPE.

Christians have burnt each other, quite persuaded That all the Apostles would have done as they did. Don Juan, Canto I.

LORD BYRON.

To rest, the cushion and soft dean invite,
Who never mentions hell to ears polite.

Moral Essays, Epistle IV.

A. POPE.

Perverts the Prophets and purloins the Psalms. English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. LORD BYRON.

So shall they build me altars in their zeal,
Where knaves shall minister, and fools shall kneel:
Where faith may mutter o'er her mystic spell,
Written in blood-and Bigotry may swell

The sail he spreads for Heaven with blast from hell!
Lalla Rookh: The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan.

T. MOORE.

In hope to merit heaven by making earth a hell. Childe Harold, Canto I.

LORD BYRON.

When pious frauds and holy shifts
Are dispensations and gifts.

Hudibras, Pt. I. Canto III.

S. BUTLER.

Yes, rather plunge me back in pagan night,
And take my chance with Socrates for bliss,
Than be the Christian of a faith like this,
Which builds on heavenly cant its earthly sway,
And in a convert mourns to lose a prey.
Intolerance.

T. MOORE.

And after hearing what our Church can say,
If still our reason runs another way,
That private reason 't is more just to curb,
Than by disputes the public peace disturb;
For points obscure are of small use to learn,
But common quiet is mankind's concern.
Religio Laici.

J. DRYDEN.