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John Bartlett (1820–1905). Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. 1919.

Page 396

 
 
Oliver Goldsmith. (1730?–1774) (continued)
 
4295
    The bashful virgin’s sidelong looks of love.
          The Deserted Village. Line 29.
4296
    Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay.
Princes and lords may flourish or may fade,—
A breath can make them, as a breath has made; 1
But a bold peasantry, their country’s pride,
When once destroy’d, can never be supplied.
          The Deserted Village. Line 51.
4297
    His best companions, innocence and health;
And his best riches, ignorance of wealth.
          The Deserted Village. Line 61.
4298
    How blest is he who crowns in shades like these
A youth of labour with an age of ease!
          The Deserted Village. Line 99.
4299
    While Resignation gently slopes away,
And all his prospects brightening to the last,
His heaven commences ere the world be past.
          The Deserted Village. Line 110.
4300
    The watch-dog’s voice that bay’d the whispering wind,
And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind.
          The Deserted Village. Line 121.
4301
    A man he was to all the country dear,
And passing rich with forty pounds a year.
          The Deserted Village. Line 141.
4302
    Wept o’er his wounds, or tales of sorrow done,
Shoulder’d his crutch, and shew’d how fields were won.
          The Deserted Village. Line 157.
4303
    Careless their merits or their faults to scan,
His pity gave ere charity began.
Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride,
And even his failings lean’d to Virtue’s side.
          The Deserted Village. Line 161.
4304
    And as a bird each fond endearment tries
To tempt its new-fledg’d offspring to the skies,
He tried each art, reprov’d each dull delay,
Allur’d to brighter worlds, and led the way.
          The Deserted Village. Line 167.
 
Note 1.
See Pope, Quotation 177.

C’est un verre qui luit,
Qu’un souffle peut détruire, et qu’un souffle a produit
(It is a shining glass, which a breath may destroy, and which a breath has produced).—De Caux (comparing the world to his hour-glass). [back]