Is’t fit you waste your choler on a burr? 
  The nothings of the town; whose sport it is
  To break their villain jests on worthy men,
  The graver still the fitter!  Fie, for shame! 
  Regard what such would say?  So would not I,
  No more than heed a cur.

HONOURABLE SUCCESS.

What merit to be dropp’d on fortune’s hill?  The honour is to mount it. * * * Knowledge, industry, Frugality, and honesty;—­the sinews The surest help the climber to the top, And keep him there.

WISE PRECEPT.

                           Better owe
  A yard of land to labour, than to chance
  Be debtor for a rood!

THE TOWN.

Nine times in ten the town’s a hollow thing,
Where what things are is naught to what they show;
Where merit’s name laughs merit’s self to scorn! 
Where friendship and esteem that ought to be
The tenants of men’s hearts, lodge in their looks
And tongues alone.  Where little virtue, with
A costly keeper, passes for a heap;
A heap for none, that has a homely one! 
Where fashion makes the law—­your umpire which
You bow to, whether it has brains or not. 
Where Folly taketh off his cap and bells,
To clap on Wisdom, which must bear the jest! 
Where, to pass current you must seem the thing,
The passive thing, that others think, and not
Your simple, honest, independent self!

LOVE.

  Say but a moment, still I say I love you. 
  Love’s not a flower that grows on the dull earth;
  Springs by the calendar; must wait for sun—­
  For rain;—­matures by parts,—­must take its time
  To stem, to leaf, to bud, to blow.  It owns
  A richer soil, and boasts a quicker seed! 
  You look for it, and see it not; and lo! 
  E’en while you look, the peerless flower is up,
  Consumate in the birth!

  In joining contrasts lieth love’s delight. 
  Complexion, stature, nature, mateth it,
  Not with their kinds, but with their opposites. 
  Hence hands of snow in palms of russet lie;
  The form of Hercules affects the sylph’s
  And breasts that case the lion’s fear-proof heart,
  Find their lov’d lodge in arms where tremors dwell! 
  Haply for this, on Afric’s swarthy neck,
  Hath Europe’s priceless pearl been seen to hang,
  That makes the orient poor!  So with degrees,
  Rank passes by the circlet-graced brow
  Upon the forehead bare of notelessness,
  To print the nuptial kiss!

COUNTRY LIFE.

  The life I’d lead! 
  But fools would fly from it; for O! ’tis sweet! 
  It finds the heart out, be there one to find;
  And corners in’t where store of pleasures lodge,
  We never dream’d were there!  It is to dwell
  ’Mid smiles that are not neighbours