AUTHORITY.

AUTHORITY.

AUTHORITY bears off a credent bulk,

69

69

That no particular scandal once can touch,
But it confounds the breather.

Shakspere.

Authority, though it err like others,

Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself,

That skins the voice o' the top.

Shakspere.

Man, proud man,

Drest in a little brief authority,

Most ignorant of what he's most assur'd,
His glassy essence like an angry ape,

Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As make the angels weep!

Shakspere.

My soul aches

To know, when two authorities are up,

Neither supreme, how soon confusion

May enter 'twixt the gap of both, and take

The one by the other.

Shakspere.

Thieves for their robbery have authority,

When judges steal themselves.

Shakspere.

Dost thou expect the authority of their voices,
Whose silent will condemns thee?

A man in authority is but as

A candle in the wind, sooner wasted
Or blown out, than under a bushel.

Ben Jonson.

Beaumont and Fletcher.

Deaf to complaints, they wait upon the ill,
Till some safe crisis authorize their skill.

Authority intoxicates,

And makes mere sots of magistrates;
The fumes of it invade the brain,
And make men giddy, proud, and vain:

Dryden.

70

AUTHORITY. AUTUMN.

By this the fool commands the wise,
The noble with the base complies,
The sot assumes the rule of wit,

And cowards make the brave submit.

Butler.

Authority is a disease and cure,

Which men can neither want nor will endure.

Butler.

Not from grey hairs authority doth flow,
Nor from bald heads, nor from a wrinkled brow;
But our past life, when virtuously spent,
Must to our age those happy fruits present.

Authority kept up, old age secures,
Whose dignity as long as life endures.

"Thus far and no farther," when addressed
To the wild wave, or wilder human breast,
Implies authority that never can,

Denham.

That never ought to be, the lot of man.

Cowper.

To

AUTUMN.

THEN came the Autumne, all in yellow clad,
As though he joyed in his plenteous store,
Laden with fruits that made him laugh, full glad
That he had banished hunger, which to-fore
Had by the belly oft him pinched sore;
Upon his head a wreathe that was enrold
With ears of corne of every sort, he bore,
And in his hand a sickle he did holde,

reape the ripened fruit the which the earth had yold.

Not spring or summer's beauty hath such grace
As I have seen in one autumnal face.

Spenser.

Mark how the summer kindly takes her leave,
And gathers round her her attendant flowers!
Yon glittering asters with their radiant hues
Convey the last memorial of her reign!

Donne.

And see! how fast advancing o'er the plain
The lavish autumn comes in rosy triumph,
Waving his golden hair: yon blooming mallow
That opes its red lip to the kiss of day,
Just tells his coming, then retires unseen,
To join his sister tribes in Flora's bower.-Körner.

Autumn departs.-From Gala's fields no more Come rural sounds, our kindred banks to cheer; Blest with the stream, and gale that wafts it o'er, No more the distant reaper's mirth we hear; The last blithe shout hath died upon our ear; And harvest-home hath hush'd the clanging wain; Save where, sad laggard of the autumnal train, Some age-struck wanderer gleans few ears of scattered grain.

Deem'st thou, these sadden'd scenes have pleasure still?

Lov'st thou through autumn's fading realms to stray,

To see the heath-flower wither'd on the hill,
To listen to the wood's expiring lay,

To note the red leaf shivering on the spray,
To mark the last bright tints the mountain stain;
O'er the waste fields to trace the gleaner's way,
And moralize on mortal joy and pain?-

O! if such scenes thou lov'st, scorn not the minstrel's

strain.

Season of mists, and mellow fruitfulness!
Close bosom friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

Scott.

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run; To bend with apples the mossed cottage trees, And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, And still more, later flowers for the bees, Until they think warm days will never cease,

For summer has o'erbrimmed their clammy cells.

Keats.

72

AUTUMN. AVARICE.

But see the fading many-coloured woods,
Shade deep'ning over shade, the country round
Imbrown; a crowded umbrage, dusk and dim
Of every hue, from wan declining green

To sooty dark. These now the lonesome muse
Low whispering, lead into their leaf-strewn walks,
And give the season in its latest view.

Thomson.

Cold grew the foggy morn, the day was brief,
Loose on the herry hung the crimson leaf;
The dew dwelt ever in the herb; the woods
Roared with strong blasts, with mighty showers the
floods;

All green was vanished, save of pine and yew,
That still displayed their melancholy hue;
Save the green holly, with its berries red,

And the green moss that o'er the gravel spread.

Crabbe.

AVARICE.

AND greedy Avarice by him did ride
Upon a camell loaden all with gold;
Two iron coffers hung on either side,

With precious metall full as they might hold,
And in his lap an heap of coin he told;
For of his wicked pelf his god he made,
And unto hell himself for money sold;
Accursed usury was all his trade,

And right and wrong ylike in equall balance waide.

His life was nigh unto death's dore yplaste; And threadbare cote and cobbled shoes he ware, He scarce good morsell all his life did taste, But both from backe and belly still did spare, To fill his bags, and richesse to compare; Yet child, ne kinsman, living had he none To leave them to; but thorough daily care To get, and nightly fear to lose his owne. He led a wretched life unto himselfe unknowne.

Most wretched wight whom nothing might suffice, Whose greedy lust did lack in greatest store, Whose need had end, but no end covetise,

Whose wealth was want, whose plenty made him poor, Who had enough, yet wished evermore.

There grows

In my most ill-composed affection, such
A stanchless avarice, that were I king,

Spenser.

I should cut off the nobles for their lands.-Shakspere.

This avarice of praise in times to come,
Those long inscriptions crowded on the tomb.

Dryden.

Unnumbered maladies man's joints invade,
Lay siege to life, and press the dire blockade,
But unextinguished avarice still remains,
And dreaded losses aggravate his pains;

He turns with anxious heart and crippled hands
His bonds of debt and mortgages of lands;

Or views his coffers with suspicious eyes,
Unlocks his gold, and counts it till he dies.-Johnson.

Of age's avarice I cannot see

What colour, ground, or reason there can be;
Is it not folly, when the way we ride
Is short, for a long voyage to provide?
To avarice some title youth may own,
To reap in autumn what a spring had sown;
And, with the providence of bees or ants,
Prevent with summer's plenty winter's wants.
But age scarce sows, ere death stands by to reap,
And to a stranger's hand transfers the heap.

Pale avarice in vulgar minds
Ambition's place doth hold,
And as the tyrant's bane is steel,
The miser's curse is gold.

Both make that costly sacrifice
Unto the means of ends;

Both start alike, to gain a good
That neither comprehends.

Denham.

C. C. Colton.