I count myself in nothing else so happy
As in a soul remembering my good friends.
KING RICHARD II. ii. 3.

ALL that is left to us is to recommend our pro

ductions by the imitation of the Ancients; and it will be found true, that in every age, the highest character for sense and learning has been obtain'd by those who have been most indebted to them. For, to say truth, whatever is very good sense, must have been common sense in all times; and what we call Learning, is but the knowledge of the sense of our predecessors.

POPE.

How pleasing wears the wintry night,
Spent with the old illustrious dead!
While by the taper's trembling light
I seem those awful scenes to tread
Where chiefs or legislators lie
Whose triumphs move before my eye,
In arms and antique pomp arrayed;
While now I taste the Ionian song,
Now bend to Plato's god-like tongue
Resounding through the olive shade.

AKENSIDE.

FEBRUARY

Therefore, the poet

Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods.

MERCHANT OF VENICE V. I.

'S it nature, or by the error of fantasy, that the

seeing of places we know to have been frequented or inhabited by men, whose memory is esteemed or mentioned in stories, doth in some sort move and stir us up as much or more than the hearing of their noble deeds, or reading of their compositions?

FLORIO's Montaigne.

THEN old songs waken from enclouded tombs ;
Old ditties sigh above their father's grave;
Ghosts of melodious prophesyings rave

Round every spot where trod Apollo's foot;
Bronze clarions awake, and faintly bruit,
Where long ago a giant battle was;
And from the turf a lullaby doth pass

In every place where infant Orpheus slept.

KEATS.

How far that little candle throws his beams!

MERCHANT OF VENICE V. I.

ANOTHER old custom there is, of saying,

when light is brought in, God sends us the

light of Heaven; and the parson likes this very well. Light is a great blessing, and as great as food, for which we give thanks: and those that think this superstitious, neither know superstition nor themselves.

GEORGE HERBERT.

MEN scarcely know how beautiful fire is—
Each flame of it is as a precious stone
Dissolved in ever-moving light, and this
Belongs to each and all who gaze upon.

SHELLEY.

What's yet in this,

That bears the name of life? Yet in this life

Lie hid moe thousand deaths.

MEN

MEASURE FOR MEASURE iii. 1.

EN that look no further than their outsides think health an appurtenance unto life, and quarrel with their constitutions for being sick; but I, that have examined the parts of man, and know upon what tender filaments that fabric hangs, do thank my God that we can die but once.

SIR THOMAS BROWNE.

DEVOURING Famine, Plague, and War,

Each able to undo mankind,

Death's servile emissaries are;

Nor to these alone confined,
He hath at will

More quaint and subtle ways to kill;
A smile or kiss, as he will use the art,

Shall have the cunning skill to break a heart.

SHIRLEY.