O thou vast Ocean! ever sounding sea!
Thou symbol of a drear immensity!
Thou thing that windest round the solid world
Like a huge animal, which, downward hurled
From the black clouds, lies weltering and alone,
Lashing and writhing till its strength be gone.
Thy voice is like the thunder, and thy sleep
Is as a giant's slumber, loud and deep.

Address to the Ocean.-B. W. PROCTOR.

OPINION and TRUTH.

Distinction between

Universality is such a proof of truth, as truth itself is ashamed of; for universality is nothing but a quainter and a trimmer name to signify the multitude. Now, human authority at the strongest is but weak, but the multitude is the weakest part of human authority: it is the great patron of error, most easily abused, and most hardly disabused. The beginning of error may be, and mostly is, from private persons, but the maintainer and continuer of error is the multitude.

Of Inquiry and Private Judgment in Religion.
JOHN HALES.

OPPORTUNITY.

Opportunities make us known to ourselves and

others.

Maxims, CCCXXIII.-ROCHEFOUCAULT.

Paintings. Characteristics of Salvator's

As in genius of the more spiritual cast, the living man, and the soul that lives in him, are studiously made the prominent image; and the mere accessories of scene kept down and cast back, as if to show that the exile from Paradise is yet the monarch of the outward world— so, in the landscapes of Salvator, the tree, the mountain, the waterfall, become the principal, and man himself dwindles to the accessory. The matter seems to reign supreme, and its true lord to creep beneath its stupendous shadow. Mere matter giving interest to the immortal man, not the immortal man to the inert matter. A terrible philosophy in art!

Zanoni, Book III. Chap. IV.-E. B. LYTTON.

PALACE. Description of a

A deep vale

Shut out by Alpine hills from the rude world;
Near a clear lake, margined by fruits of gold
And whispering myrtles; glassing softest skies
As cloudless, save with rare and roseate shadows,
As I would have thy fate!

A palace lifting to eternal summer

Its marble walls, from out a glossy bower
Of coolest foliage, musical with birds,

Whose songs should syllable thy name! At noon
We'd sit beneath the arching vines, and wonder
Why Earth could be unhappy, while the Heavens
Still left us youth and love! We'd have no friends

That were not lovers; no ambition, save

To exceed them all in love; we'd read no books

That were not tales of love—that we might smile To think how poorly eloquence of words

Translates the poetry of hearts like ours!

And when night came amidst the breathless Heavens,
We'd guess
what star should be our home when love
Becomes immortal; while the perfumed light
Stole through the mists of alabaster lamps,
And every air was heavy with the sighs
Of orange groves and music from sweet lutes,
And murmurs of low fountains that gush forth
I' the midst of roses!

The Lady of Lyons, Act II. Scene 1.-E. B. LYTTON.

PARADISE.

:

Death; thou hast shewn me much

But not all shew me where Jehovah dwells,
In his especial paradise or thine:

Where is it?

Here, and o'er all space.

Cain, Act II. Scene II.-BYRON.

PARADISE. Despair of

He must dream

Of what? of Paradise!-Ay! dream of it,
My disinherited boy! 'Tis but a dream.

Cain, Act. III. Scene I.-BYRON.

PARSON. A good

A parish priest was of the pilgrim train;
An awful, reverend, and religious man.
eyes diffused a venerable grace,
And charity itself was in his face.

His

Rich was his soul, though his attire was poor
(As God hath cloth'd his own ambassador);
For such, on earth, his bless'd Redeemer bore.
With eloquence innate his tongue was arm'd;
Though harsh the precept, yet the people charm'd;
For, letting down the golden chain from high,
He drew his audience upward to the sky:
And oft with holy hymns he charm'd their ears
(A music more melodious than the spheres):
For David left him, when he went to rest,

His lyre; and after him he sung the best.

The Character of a Good Parson.

PASSION.

Cultivated

GEOFFREY CHAUCER.

Passion itself is very figurative, and often bursts out into metaphors; but, in touching the pathos, the poet must be perfectly well acquainted with the emotions of the human soul, and carefully distinguish between those metaphors which rise glowing from the heart, and those cold conceits which are engendered in the fancy.

PASSION. A ruling

Essay, XI.-GOLDSMITH.

I have repeatedly remarked to you, in conversation, the effect of what has been called a Ruling Passion.

When its object is noble, and an enlightened understanding directs its movements, it appears to me a great felicity; but whether its object be noble or not, it infallibly creates, where it exists in great force, that active ardent constancy, which I describe as a capital feature of the decisive character. Essays on Decision of Character.

PASSIONS. Influence of our

JOHN FOSTER.

We are by no means aware how much we are influenced by our passions.

Maxims, CCCXXXV.-ROCHEFOUCAULT.

PASSIONS should be in Subjection.

Our

Passions are perhaps the stings without which, it is said, no honey is made. Yet I think all sorts of men have ever agreed, they ought to be our servants and not our masters; to give us some agitation for entertainment or exercise, but never to throw our reason out of its seat. It is better to have no passions at all, than to have them too violent; or such alone as, instead of heightening our pleasures, afford us nothing but vexation and pain. Letter against excessive Grief.

PAST.

The

Sir WILLIAM TEMPLE.

The Past is an unfathomable depth,

Beyond the span of thought; 'tis an elapse
Which hath no mensuration, but hath been
For ever and for ever.

Time: A Poem.-H. K. WHITE.