SATIRE.
THE labouring bee, when his sharp sting is gone,
Forgets his golden work, and turns a drone;
And such is satire, when you take away
That rage in which his noble vigour lay.
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How can he show his manhood, if you bind him, To box, like boys, with one hand tied behind him?
Dryden.
Instructive satire! true to virtue's cause!
Thou shining supplement of public laws!
If satire charms, strike faults, but spare the man;
'Tis dull to be as witty as you can.
Satire recoils whenever charg'd too high;
Round your own fame the fatal splinters fly.
As the soft plume gives swiftness to the dart,
Good-breeding sends the satire to the heart.
At princes let but satire lift his gun,
The more their feathers fly, the more the fun!
E'en the whole world, blockheads and men of letters,
Enjoy a cannonade upon their betters.-Dr. Wolcot.
On me when dunces are satiric,
I take it for a panegyric;
Hated by fools, and fools to hate,
Be that my motto and my fate.
Though folly, rob'd in purple, shines,
Though vice exhausts Peruvian mines,
Yet shall they tremble and turn pale
When satire wields her mighty flail.-Churchill.
The man whose hardy spirit shall engage
To lash the vices of a guilty age,
At his first setting forward ought to know
That ev'ry rogue he meets must be his foe;
That the rude breath of satire will provoke
Many who feel, and more who fear the stroke.
SATISFACTION.
BE satisfied, and pleased with what thou art,
Act cheerfully and well the allotted part;
Enjoy the present hour, be thankful for the past,
And neither fear, nor wish, the approaches of the last.
Martial.
Of every nation each illustrious name,
Such toys as these have cheated into fame;
Exchanging solid quiet to obtain
The windy satisfaction of the brain.
Die he or justice must; unless for him
Some other able, and as willing, pay
The rigid satisfaction, death for death. Milton.
SAVING.
THE circling streams, once thought but pools of blood, From dark oblivion Harvey's name shall save.
Dryden.
A wondrous ark
To save himself and household, from amidst
A world devote to universal wreck.
Will no superior genius snatch the quill,
And save me on the brink from writing ill.-Young.
SCANDAL.
THERE is a lust in man no charm can tame,
Of loudly publishing his neighbour's shame;-
On eagles' wings immortal scandals fly,
While virtuous actions are but born and die.
smiles,
A thread of candour with a web of wiles.
Skill'd by a touch to deepen scandal's tints,
With all the high mendacity of hints,
While mingling truth with falsehood, sneers with
Byron.
SCARS.
HE jests at scars, that never felt a wound.
Shakspere.
Scratch thee but with a pin, and there remains
Some scar of it.
Shakspere.
Yet I'll not shed her blood,
Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow,
And smooth as monumental alabaster.
The soft delicious air,
To heal the scars of these corrosive fires,
Shall breathe her balm.
SCEPTIC.
OH! lives there, heaven! beneath thy dread expanse,
One hopeless, dark idolater of chance,
Content to feed with pleasures unrefined,
The lukewarm passions of a lowly mind;
Who mouldering earthward, 'reft of every trust,
In joyless union wedded to the dust,
Could all his parting energy dismiss,
And call this barren world sufficient bliss?-
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Ah me! the laurelled wreath that murder rears,
Blood-nursed, and watered by the widow's tears,
Seems not so foul, so tainted, and so dread,
As waves the night-shade round the sceptic head.
Campbell.
SCHEME.
THE greatest schemes that human wit can forge,
Or bold ambition dares to put in practice,
Depend upon our husbanding a moment,
And the light lasting of a woman's will;
As if the lord of nature should delight
To hang this ponderous globe upon a hair,
And bid it dance before a breath of wind.
SCHOOL.
TELL arts they have no soundness,
But vary by esteeming;
Tell schools they lack profoundness,
And stand too much on seeming.
Sir W. Raleigh.
Beside yon straggling fence, that skirts the way,
With blossom'd furze, unprofitably gay,
There, in his noisy mansion, skill'd to rule,
The village master taught his little school.
A man severe he was, and stern to view:
I knew him well, and every truant knew.
Well had the boding tremblers learn'd to trace
The day's disasters in his morning face;
Full well they laugh'd, with counterfeited glee,
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he;
Full well the busy whisper, circling round,
Convey'd the dismal tidings when he frown'd;
Yet he was kind, or, if severe in aught,
The love he bore to learning was a fault.
Goldsmith.
In every village mark'd with little spire, Embower'd in trees, and hardly known to fame, There dwells in lowly shed, and mean attire, A matron old, whom we school-mistress name; Who boasts unruly brats with birch to tame, They grieven sore, in piteous durance pent, Aw'd by the power of this relentless dame; And, oft-times, on vagaries idly bent, For unkempt hair, or task unconn'd, are sorely shent.
Shenstone.
In a green lane that from the village street
Diverges, stands the school-house; long and low
The frame, and blacken'd with the hues of time.
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Yet is the school-house rude,
As is the chrysalis to the butterfly,-
To the rich flower the seed. The dusky walls
Hold the fair germ of knowledge, and the tree
Glorious in beauty, golden with its fruits,
To this low school-house traces back its life.-Street.
SCIENCE.
THROUGH error's mazy grove, with fruitless toil,
Perplexed with puzzling doubts we roam;
False images our sight beguile;
And still we stumble through the gloom,
And science seek which still deludes the mind.
Yet we're enamoured of the race,
With disproportioned speed we urge the chase
In vain! the various prey no hounds restrain;
Fleeting it only leaves, t'increase our pain,
A cold unsatisfying scent behind. Elijah Fenton.
What cannot art and industry perform,
When science plans the progress of their toil.
Knowledge is not happiness, and science
But an exchange of ignorance for that
Which is another kind of ignorance.
SCORN.
DISDAIN and scorn ride sparkling in her eyes.
He hears
On all sides, from innumerable tongues,
A dismal, universal hiss, the sound
Of public scorn.
Imfamous wretch!
So much below my scorn, I dare not kill thee!
Dryden.
Milton.
Thou may'st from law, but not from scorn escape;
The pointed finger, cold, averted eye,
Insulted virtue's hiss-thou canst not fly.
Charles Sprague.
Pardon me sir. The air of folly best Doth nourish in the cynic's keenest thoughts; Dwells he 'midst men of sense, his spirit dies, Having no food for his fierce scorn to live on. Barry Cornwall.
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