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Friendship, peculiar boon of Heaven,
The noble mind's delight and pride,
To men and angels only given,

To all the lower world denied.
Friendship: An Ode.

DR. S. JOHNSON.

Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar :
The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel.
Hamlet, Act i. Sc. 3.

SHAKESPEARE.

Turn him, and see his threads: look if he be
Friend to himself, that would be friend to thee:
For that is first required, a man be his own;
But he that 's too much that is friend to none.
Underwood.
B. JONSON.

Lay this into your breast:
Old friends, like old swords, still are trusted best.
Duchess of Malfy.

J. WEBSTER.

Talk not of wasted affection, affection never was wasted ; If it enrich not the heart of another, its waters, returning Back to their springs, like the rain, shall fill them full of refreshment;

That which the fountain sends forth returns again to the fountain.

Evangeline.

H. W. LONGFELLOW.

True happiness

Consists not in the multitude of friends,

But in the worth and choice.

Cynthia's Revels.

Thou dost conspire against thy friend, Iago,

B. JONSON.

If thou but think'st him wronged, and makʼst his ear A stranger to thy thoughts.

Othello, Act iii. Sc. 3.

SHAKESPEARE.

Friendship above all ties does bind the heart;
And faith in friendship is the noblest part.

King Henry V.

EARL OF ORRERY.

Be kind to my remains; and O, defend,
Against your judgment, your departed friend!

Epistle to Congreve.

J. DRYDEN.

O summer friendship,

Whose flattering leaves, that shadowed us in
Our prosperity, with the least gust drop off
In the autumn of adversity.

The Maid of Honor.

P. MASSINGER.

Such is the use and noble end of friendship, To bear a part in every storm of fate. Generous Conqueror.

B. HIGGONS.

Friendship, like love, is but a name,
Unless to one you stint the flame.

'T is thus in friendships: who depend On many, rarely find a friend. Fables: The Hare and many Friends.

J. GAY.

Like summer friends,
Flies of estate and sunneshine.

The Answer.

G. HERBERT.

What the declined is

He shall as soon read in the eyes of others As feel in his own fall; for men, like butterflies, Show not their mealy wings but to the summer. Troilus and Cressida, Act iii. Sc. 3.

SHAKESPEARE.

The man that hails you Tom or Jack,
And proves, by thumping on your back,
His sense of your great merit,

Is such a friend, that one had need
Be very much his friend indeed
To pardon, or to bear it.

On Friendship.

W. COWPER.

Give me the avowed, the erect, the manly foe,
Bold I can meet,--perhaps may turn his blow;
But of all plagues, good Heaven, thy wrath can send,
Save, save, oh! save me from the Candid Friend!
New Morality.

G. CANNING.

Friendship is constant in all other things, Save in the office and affairs of love. Much Ado about Nothing, Act ii. Sc. 1.

SHAKESPEARE.

If I speak to thee in Friendship's name,
Thou think'st I speak too coldly;
If I mention Love's devoted flame,
Thou say'st I speak too boldly.

How Shall I Woo?

T. MOORE.

Of all our good, of all our bad,
This one thing only is of worth,
We held the league of heart to heart
The only purpose of the earth.

More Songs from Vagabondia: Envoy.

R. HOVEY.

It's an owercome sooth for age an' youth,
And it brooks wi' nae denial,

That the dearest friends are the auldest friends
And the young are just on trial.

Poems: In Scots.

R. L. STEVENSON.

For friendship, of itself a holy tie, Is made more sacred by adversity. The Hind and the Panther.

J. DRYDEN.

O Friendship, flavor of flowers! O lively sprite of life!
O sacred bond of blissful peace, the stalwart staunch of

strife.

Of Friendship.

FRIGHT.

N. GRIMOALD.

I feel my sinews slacken with the fright,
And a cold sweat thrills down o'er all my limbs,
As if I were dissolving into water.

The Tempest.

J. DRYDEN.

But that I am forbid

To tell the secrets of my prison-house,

I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word

Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,

Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres,

Thy knotted and combined locks to part,

And each particular hair to stand on end,

Like quills upon the fretful porcupine :
But this eternal blazon must not be

To ears of flesh and blood.

Hamlet, Act i. Sc. 5.

SHAKESPEARE.

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Of great events stride on before the events,
And in to-day already walks to-morrow.

The Death of Wallenstein.

S. T. COLERIDGE.

When I consider life, 't is all a cheat.
Yet, fooled with hope, men favor the deceit ;
Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay :
To-morrow's falser than the former day;
Lies worse; and, while it says we shall be blest
With some new joys, cuts off what we possest.

Strange cozenage! none would live past years again,
Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain.
Aureng-Zebe; or, The Great Mogul, Act iv. Sc. 1.

As though there were a tie,

And obligation to posterity.

J. DRYDEN.

We get them, bear them breed and nurse.
What has posterity done for us,

That we, lest they their rights should lose,
Should trust our necks to gripe of noose?
McFingal, Canto II.

J. TRUMBULL.

The best of prophets of the Future is the Past. Letter, Jan. 28, 1821.

GENTLEMAN.

LORD BYRON.

He is gentil that doth gentil dedis.

Canterbury Tales: The Wyf of Bathes Tale. CHAUCER.

The gentle minde by gentle deeds is knowne;

For a man by nothing is so well bewrayed

As by his manners,

Faërie Queene, Bk. VI. Canto IV.

E. SPENSER.

Tho' modest, on his unembarrassed brow
Nature had written-" Gentleman."

Don Juan, Canto IX.

LORD BYRON.

I freely told you, all the wealth I had
Ran in my veins, I was a gentleman.

Merchant of Venice, Act iii. Sc. 2.

66

SHAKESPEARE.

I am a gentleman." I'll be sworn thou art ;

Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions and spirit, Do give thee five-fold blazon.

Twelfth Night, Act.i. Sc. 5.

SHAKESPEARE.

Nothing to blush for and nothing to hide,
Trust in his character felt far and wide;
Be he a noble, or be he in trade,

This is the gentleman Nature has made.
What is a Gentleman ?

N. L. O'DONOGHUE.

And thus he bore without abuse
The grand old name of gentleman,
Defamed by every charlatan,
And soiled with all ignoble use.

In Memoriam, CX.

A. TENNYSON.

His tribe were God Almighty's gentlemen. Absalom and Achitophel.

J. DRYDEN.

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