John Bartlett (18201905). Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. 1919.
Page 419
William Cowper. (17311800) (continued)
4507 Praise enough To fill the ambition of a private man, That Chathams language was his mother tongue.
The Task. Book ii. The Timepiece, Line 235.
4508 There is a pleasure in poetic pains Which only poets know. 1
The Task. Book ii. The Timepiece, Line 285.
4509 Transforms old print To zigzag manuscript, and cheats the eyes Of gallery critics by a thousand arts.
The Task. Book ii. The Timepiece, Line 363.
4510 Reading what they never wrote, Just fifteen minutes, huddle up their work, And with a well-bred whisper close the scene.
The Task. Book ii. The Timepiece, Line 411.
4511 Whoeer was edified, themselves were not.
The Task. Book ii. The Timepiece, Line 444.
4512 Variety s the very spice of life. 2
The Task. Book ii. The Timepiece, Line 606.
4513 She that asks Her dear five hundred friends.
The Task. Book ii. The Timepiece, Line 642.
4514 His head, Not yet by time completely silverd oer, Bespoke him past the bounds of freakish youth, But strong for service still, and unimpaird.
The Task. Book ii. The Timepiece, Line 702.
4515 Domestic happiness, thou only bliss Of Paradise that has survived the fall!
The Task. Book iii. The Garden. Line 41.
4516 Great contest follows, and much learned dust.
The Task. Book iii. The Garden. Line 161.
4517 From reveries so airy, from the toil Of dropping buckets into empty wells, And growing old in drawing nothing up. 3
The Task. Book iii. The Garden. Line 188.
Note 1. See Dryden, Quotation 95 . [back ]Note 2. No pleasure endures unseasoned by variety.Publius Syrus : Maxim 406. [back ]Note 3. He has spent all his life in letting down buckets into empty wells; and he is frittering away his age in trying to draw them up again.Lady Hollands Memoir of Sydney Smith, vol. i. p. 259. [back ]