What drink’st thou oft, instead of homage sweet,
  But poisoned flattery?
Henry V., Act iv.  Sc 1.  SHAKESPEARE.

  But flattery never seems absurd;
  The flattered always take your word: 
  Impossibilities seem just;
  They take the strongest praise on trust. 
  Hyperboles, though ne’er so great,
  Will still come short of self-conceit.
The Painter who pleased Nobody and Everybody.  J. GAY.

  ’Tis an old maxim in the schools,
  That flattery’s the food of fools;
  Yet now and then your men of wit
  Will condescend to take a bit.
Cadenus and Vanessa.  J. SWIFT.

                         He loves to hear
  That unicorns may be betrayed with trees,
  And bears with glasses, elephants with holes,
  Lions with toils, and men with flatterers. 
  But when I tell him he hates flatterers,
  He says he does, being then most flattered.
Julius Caesar, Act ii.  Sc. 1.  SHAKESPEARE.

                                Ne’er
  Was flattery lost on Poet’s ear: 
  A simple race! they waste their toil
  For the vain tribute of a smile.
Lay of the Last Minstrel, Canto IV.  SIR W. SCOTT.

  Why should the poor be flattered? 
  No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp,
  And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee,
  Where thrift may follow fawning.
Hamlet, Act iii.  Sc. 2.  SHAKESPEARE.

  His nature is too noble for the world: 
  He would not flatter Neptune for his trident,
  Or Jove for ’s power to thunder.
Coriolanus, Act iii.  Sc. 1.  SHAKESPEARE.

FLOWERS.

  No daintie flowre or herbe that growes on grownd,
  No arborett with painted blossoms drest
  And smelling sweete, but there it might be fownd
  To bud out faire, and throwe her sweete smels al arownd.
Faerie Queene, Bk.  II.  Canto VI.  E. SPENSER.

  “Small herbs have grace, great weeds do grow apace:” 
  And since, methinks.  I would not grow so fast,
  Because sweet flowers are slow and weeds make haste.
King Richard III., Act ii.  Sc. 4.  SHAKESPEARE.

  Ye field flowers! the gardens eclipse you ’tis true: 
  Yet wildings of nature, I dote upon you,
    For ye waft me to summers of old
  When the earth teemed around me with fairy delight,
  And when daisies and buttercups gladdened my sight,
    Like treasures of silver and gold.
Field Flowers.  T. CAMPBELL.

  Loveliest of lovely things are they
  On earth that soonest pass away. 
  The rose that lives its little hour
  Is prized beyond the sculptured flower.
Scene on the Banks of the Hudson.  W.C.  BRYANT.