1688-1744.
ESSAY ON MAN.
Epistle i. Line 5.
Expatiate free o'er all this scene of man;
A mighty maze! but not without a plan.
Line 13.
Eye nature's walks, shoot folly as it flies,
And catch the manners living as they rise.
Line 88.
A hero perish or a sparrow fall.
Line 95.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never is, but always to be blest.
Line 99.
Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutored mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind.
Line 200.
Die of a rose in aromatic pain?
Line 294.
One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right.
Epistle ii. Line 1.
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;
The proper study of mankind is man.[11]
Line 217.
Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,
As to be hated, needs but to be seen;
But seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.
Line 231.
Virtuous and vicious every man must be,
Few in th' extreme, but all in the degree.
Line 276.
Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw.
Epistle iii. Line 305.
For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight;
His can't be wrong whose life is in the right.
Epistle iv. Line 49.
Order is Heaven's first law.
Line 193.
Honor and shame from no condition rise;
Act well your part—there all the honor lies.
Line 203.
Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow;
The rest is all but leather or prunella.
Line 215.
What can ennoble sots, or slaves, or cowards?
Alas! not all the blood of all the Howards.
Line 247.
A wit's a feather, and a chief a rod;
An honest man's the noblest work of God.
Line 254.
Plays round the head, but comes not to the heart.
Line 281.
Think how Bacon shined,
The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind.
Line 310.
Virtue alone is happiness below.
Line 330.
Slave to no sect, who takes no private road,
But looks through nature up to nature's God.
Line 379.
Formed by thy converse happily to steer
Prom grave to gay, from lively to severe.
MORAL ESSAYS.
Epistle i. Line 135.
'Tis from high life high characters are drawn—
A saint in crape is twice a saint in lawn.
Line 149.
'Tis education forms the common mind:
Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined.
Line 246.
Odious! in woollen! 'twould a saint provoke,
Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke.
Epistle ii. Line 15.
Whether the charmers sinner it or saint it,
If folly grow romantic, I must paint it.
Line 43.
Fine by defect and delicately weak.
Line 97.
With too much quickness ever to be taught,
With too much thinking to have common thought.
Line 215.
Men, some to business, some to pleasure take;
But every woman is at heart a rake.
Line 268.
And mistress of herself, though china fall.
Line 270.
Woman's at best a contradiction still.
Epistle iii. Line 1.
Who shall decide when doctors disagree?
Line 95.
But thousands die without or this or that,
Die, and endow a college or a cat.
Line 153.
The ruling passion, be it what it will,
The ruling passion conquers reason still.
Line 161.
Extremes in nature equal good produce.
Line 250.
Rise, honest muse! and sing—The man of Ross.
Line 285.
Who builds a church to God, and not to fame,
Will never mark the marble with his name.
AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM.
Part i. Line 9.
'Tis with our judgments as our watches; none
Go just alike, yet each believes his own.
Line 153.
And snatch a grace beyond the reach of art.
Part ii. Line 215.
A little learning is a dangerous thing.
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.
Line 232.
Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise,
Line 297.
True wit is nature to advantage dressed,
What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed.
Line 357.
That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.
Line 362.
True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learned to dance.
Line 365.
The sound must seem an echo to the sense.
Line 525.
To err is human: to forgive, divine.
Part iii. Line 625.
For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
ELEGY TO THE MEMORY OF AN UNFORTUNATE LADY.
Line 54.
By strangers honored and by strangers mourned
And bear about the mockery of woe
To midnight dances and the public show.
THE RAPE OF THE LOCK.
Canto ii. Line 7.
On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore,
Which Jews might kiss and infidels adore.
Canto ii. Line 17.
If to her share some female errors fall,
Look on her face, and you'll forget them all.
Canto iii. Line 16.
At every word a reputation dies.
Line 21.
The hungry judges soon the sentence sign,
And wretches hang, that jurymen may dine.
SATIRES AND IMITATIONS OF HORACE
Prologue, Line 1.
Shut, shut the door, good John.
Line 12.
E'en Sunday shines no Sabbath day to me.
Line 18.
Who pens a stanza when he should engross.
Line 127.
As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame,
I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came.
Line 197.
Should such a man, too fond to rule alone,
Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne,
Line 201.
Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
And without sneering teach the rest to sneer.
Line 308.
Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?
Line 333.
Wit that can creep, and pride that licks the dust.
Book ii. Satire i. Line 6.
Lord Fanny spins a thousand such a day.
Line 69.
Satire's my weapon, but I'm too discreet
To run a muck, and tilt at all I meet.
Line 127.
Then St. John mingles with my friendly bowl,
The feast of reason and the flow of soul.
Book ii. Satire ii. Line 159.
For I, who hold sage Homer's rule the best,
Welcome the coming, speed the going guest.[12]
Book ii. Epistle i. Line 108.
The mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease.
Epilogue to the Satires.
Dialogue i. Line 136.
Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.
Epitaph on Gay.
Of manners gentle, of affections mild;
In wit a man, simplicity a child.
THE DUNCIAD.
Book i. Line 54.
And solid pudding against empty praise.
Book iii. Line 158.
All crowd, who foremost shall be damned to fame.
Book iii. Line 165.
Silence, ye wolves! while Ralph to Cynthia howls,
And makes night hideous; answer him, ye owls.
Book iv. Line 614.
E'en Palinurus nodded at the helm.
ODYSSEY.
Book ii. Line 315.
Few sons attain the praise
Of their great sires, and most their sires disgrace.
Book xiv. Line 410.
Far from gay cities and the ways of men.
Book xv. Line 79.
Who love too much, hate in the like extreme.
Book xv. Line 83.
True friendship's laws are by this rule expressed,
Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest.
Windsor forest.
Thus, if small things we may with great compare.
Martinus Scriblerus on the Art of Sinking in Poetry.
Chapter xi.
Ye Gods! annihilate but space and time,
And make two lovers happy.
Epitaph on the Hon. S. Harcourt.
Who ne'er knew joy but friendship might divide,
Or gave his father grief but when he died.