Contents
-BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
England
The land of scholars, and the nurse of arms.
Goldsmith.
The storehouse of the world.
Dr. Young.
England is safe, if true within itself.
Shakespeare.
England! my country, great and free!Heart of the world, I leap to thee!
Bailey.
Rule, Britannia, rule the waves;Britons never will be slaves.
Thomson.
It was always yet the trick of our English nation, if they have a good thing, to make it too common.
Shakespeare.
Most brilliant star upon the crest of TimeIs England. England!
Alexander Smith.
This England never did, nor never shall,Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror.
Shakespeare.
O England!—model to thy inward greatness,Like little body with a mighty heart.
Shakespeare.
Be England what she will,With all her faults, she is my country still.
Churchill.
May he be suffocate,That dims the honour of this warlike isle!
Shakespeare.
England, of all countries in the world,Most blind to thine own good.
Randolph.
Without one friend, above all foes,Britannia gives the world repose.
Cowper.
This land of such dear souls, this dear, dear land,Dear for her reputation through the world.
Shakespeare.
The Continent will not suffer England to be the workshop of the world.
Earl of Beaconsfield.
The noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees is the high-road that leads him to England.
Sam’l Johnson.
England, bound in with the triumphant sea,Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siegeOf watery Neptune.
Shakespeare.
Come the three corners of the world in arms,And we shall shock them. Naught shall make us rue,If England to itself do rest but true.
Shakespeare.
’T is liberty crowns Britannia’s Isle,And makes her barren rocks and her bleak mountains smile.
Addison.
The people of England are the most enthusiastic in the world. There are others more excitable, but there are none so enthusiastic.
Earl of Beaconsfield.
Hail, land of bowmen! seed of those who scorn’dTo stoop the neck to wide imperial Rome:O dearest half of Albion sea-walled.
Albania.
Set in this stormy Northern sea,Queen of these restless fields of tide,England! what shall men say of thee,Before whose feet the worlds divide?
Oscar Wilde.
His home! the Western giant smiles,And turns the spotty globe to find it;—This little speck the British Isles?’Tis but a freckle,—never mind it.
O. W. Holmes.
Poor England! thou art a devoted deer,Beset with every ill but that of fear.The nations hunt; all mock thee for a prey;They swarm around thee, and thou stand’st at bay.
Cowper.
England, a happy land we know,Where follies naturally grow,Where without culture they arise,And tow’r above the common size.
Churchill.
Be Britain still to Britain true,Amang oursels united;For never but by British hands,Maun British wrangs be righted.
Burns.
Britain, the queen of isles, our fair possessionSecur’d by nature, laughs at foreign force;Her ships her bulwark, and the sea her dike,Sees plenty in her lap, and braves the world.
Havard.
Oh, when shall Britain, conscious of her claim,Stand emulous of Greek and Roman fame?In living medals see her wars enroll’d,And vanquished realms supply recording gold?
Pope.
This precious stone set in the silver sea,Which serves it in the office of a wall,Or as a moat defensive to a house,Against the envy of less happier lands;This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.
Shakespeare.
The ocean is the grand vehicle of trade, and the uniter of distant nations. To us it is peculiarly kind, not only as it wafts into our ports the harvests of every climate, and renders our island the centre of traffic, but also as it secures us from foreign invasions by a sort of impregnable intrenchment.
Harvey.
For of old time, since first the rushing flood,Urg’d by Almighty Pow’r, this favour’d isleTurn’d flashing from the continent aside,Indented shore to shore responsive still,Its guardian she.
Thomson.
This royal throne of kings, this scepter’d isle,This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,This other Eden, demi-paradise,This fortress built by nature for herselfAgainst infection and the hand of war;This happy breed of men, this little world,This precious stone set in the silver sea.
Shakespeare.
There is no land like England,Whate’er the light of day be;There are no hearts like English hearts,Such hearts of oak as they be;There is no land like England,Whate’er the light of day be:There are no men like Englishmen,So tall and bold as they be!And these will strike for England,And man and maid be freeTo foil and spoil the tyrantBeneath the greenwood tree.
Tennyson.
O native isle! fair freedom’s happiest seat!At thought of thee, my bounding pulses beat;At thought of thee my heart impatient burns;And all my country to my soul returns.When shall I see those fields, whose plenteous grainNo pow’r can ravish from th’ industrious swain?When kiss, with pious love, the sacred earthThat gave a Burleigh or a Russell birth?When—in the shade of laws that long have stood,Propt by their care or strengthen’d by their blood,—Of fearless independence wisely vain,The proudest slave of Bourbon’s race disdain.
Lord Littleton.
England is a domestic country. Here the home is revered and the hearth sacred. The nation is represented by a family,—the Royal family,—and if that family is educated with a sense of responsibility and a sentiment of public duty, It is difficult to exaggerate the salutary influence it may exercise over a nation.
Beaconsfield.
Island of bliss! amid the subject seas,That thunder round thy rocky coasts, set up,At once the wonder, terror and delightOf distant nations: whose remotest shoresCan soon be shaken by thy naval arm;Not to be shook thyself, but all assaultsBaffling, as thy hoar cliffs the loud sea-wave.
Thomson.
England, our Mother’s Mother! Come, and seeA greater England here! O come, and beAt home with us, your children, for there runsThe same blood in our veins as in your sons;The same deep-seated love of LibertyBeats in our hearts. We speak the same good tongue:Familiar with all songs your bards have sung:Those large men, Milton, Shakespeare, both are ours.
R. H. Stoddard.
There learned arts do flourish in great honourAnd poets’ wits are had in peerless price;Religion hath lay power, to rest upon her,Advancing virtue, and suppressing vice.For end all good, all grace there freely grows,Had people grace it gratefully to use:For God His gifts there plenteously bestows,But graceless men them greatly do abuse.
Spenser.
A power which has dotted over the surface of the whole globe with her possessions and military posts, whose morning drum-beat, following the sun, and keeping company with the hours, circles the earth with one continuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of England.
Daniel Webster.
