Rough in battle,

As the first Romans, when they went to war;
Yet, after victory, more pitiful

Than all their praying virgins left at home!

May 20.

All for Love.

But poets are confined in narrower space,
To speak the language of their native place;
The painter widely stretches his command:
Thy pencil speaks the tongue of every land.

Albert Dürer, 1471.

May 21.

To Sir Godfrey Kneller.

In what a ruin has thy headstrong pride

And boundless thirst for empire plunged thy people!

Don Sebastian.

Now, where are the successors to my name?

What bring they to fill out a poet's fame?
Weak, short-lived issues of a feeble age.

Prologue to Troilus and Cressida.

Philip II., 1527. Alexander Pope, 1688.

May 20.

May 21.

The gods, that in my fortunes were unkind, Gave me not sceptres, nor such gilded things; But whilst I wanted crowns, enlarged my mind To despise sceptres and dispose of kings.

May 23.

The Indian Queen.

"My lady liege," said he,

"What all your sex desire is Sovereignty. The wife affects her husband to command; All must be hers, both money, house, and land."

Catherine II., 1729.

May 24.

Wife of Bath.

Queen Victoria, 1819.

Our temperate isle will no extremes sustain
Of popular sway or arbitrary reign,

But slides between them both into the best,
Secure in freedom, in a monarch blest.

Linnæus, 1707.

The Medal.

May 23.

May 24.

If I fall,

It shall be like myself; a setting sun
Should leave a track of glory in the skies.

Don Sebastian.

Know, sir, there's a proud modesty in merit,
Averse from begging, and resolved to pay
Ten times the gift it asks.

May 26.

Cleomenes.

Greatness, and noise, and show, are your delight;
Yet wise men love you in their own despite;
And finding in their native wit no ease,
Are forced to put your folly on to please.

May 27.

Aurengzebe.

Disgraced, distressed, in exile and alone,
He's greater than a monarch on his throne.

Conquest of Granada.

Dante Alighieri, 1265.