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-BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Lord Lyttleton
Alas! by some degree of woeWe every bliss must gain:The heart can ne’er a transport know,That never feels a pain.
Ev’n in the happiest choice, where fav’ring heavenHas equal love and easy fortune giv’n,—Think not, the husband gain’d, that all is done;The prize of happiness must still be won:And, oft, the careless find it to their cost,The lover in the husband may be lost;The graces might alone his heart allure;They and the virtues, meeting, must secure.
For his chaste Muse employed her heaven-taught lyreNone but the noblest passions to inspire,Not one immortal, one corrupted thought,One line, which dying he could wish to blot.
Hence, wretched nation! all thy woes arise,Avow’d corruption, licensed perjuries,Eternal taxes, treaties for a day,Servants that rule, and senates that obey.
Me other cares in other climes engage,Cares that become my birth, and suit my age:In various knowledge to instruct my youth,And conquer prejudice, worst foe to truth,By foreign arts, domestic faults to mend,Enlarge my notions, and my views extend;The useful science of the world to know,Which books can never teach, nor pedants show.
What is your sex’s earliest, latest care,Your heart’s supreme ambition? To be fair.
A cunning woman is a knavish fool.
A woman’s noblest station is retreat.
Alas! by some degree of woe we every bliss must gain.
Domestic worth, that shuns too strong a light.
How much the wife is dearer than the bride!
The lover in the husband may be lost.
The useful science of the world to know, which books can never teach, nor pedants show.
Wit is not levelled so much at the muscles as at the heart; and the latter will sometimes smile when there is not a single wrinkle on the cheek.
Women, like princes, find few real friends.
