152. AMBITION. Fling away

I CHARGE thee, Aling away Ambition ; By that sin fell the angels : how can man then, The image of his Maker, hope to win by 't? . Love thyself last, cherish those hearts that hate thee, Corruption wins not more than honesty. Still, in thy right hand, carry gentle peace To silence envious tongues. Be just and fear not. Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's, Thy God's, and truth's. -Shakespeare.

The fiery soul abhorr’d in Catiline,
In Decius charms, in Curtius is divine :
The same Ambition can destroy or save,
And make a patriot, as it makes a knave.

Pope. 158. AMBITION. Miery of

AMBITION hath one heel nail'd in hell, Though she stretch her fingers to touch the heavens.

Lilly. 159. AMBITION. Mortification of

For when I feel my virtue fail,
And my ambitious thoughts prevail,
I'll take a turn among the tombs,
And see whereto all glory comes.
There the vile foot of every clown
Tramples the sons of honour down;
Beggars with awful ashes sport,
And tread the Cæsars in the dirt. - Watts.

153. AMBITION : impatient.

AMBITION is like love, impatient
Both of delays and rivals. -Denham.

154 AMBITION. Ingratitude of Brutus. The abuse of greatness is, when it disjoins Remorse from power : and to speak truth of Cæsar, I have not known when his affections sway'd More than his reason. But 'tis a common proof, That lowliness is young Ambition's ladder, Whereto the climber upward turns his face : But when he once attains the upmost round, He then unto the ladder turns his back, Looks in the clouds, scoring the base degrees By which he did ascend.- Shakespeare.

155. AMBITION : insatiable. AMBITION is a lust that's never quench'd, Grows more inflamed and madder by enjoyment.

Otway. Ambition, like a torrent, ne'er looks back; It is a swelling, and the last affection A high mind can put off. It is a rebel Both to the soul and reason, and enforces All laws, all conscience ; treads upon religion, And offers violence to nature's self.-Ben Jonson.

160. AMBITION: natural to man.
NATURE, that framed us of four elements,
Warring within our breasts for regimen,
Doth teach us all to have aspiring minds:
Our souls, whose faculties can comprehend
The wondrous architecture of the world,
And measure ev'ry wand'ring planet's course,
Still climbing after knowledge infinite,
And always moving as the restless spheres,
Wills us to wear ourselves, and never rest
Until we reach the ripest fruit of all,
That perfect bliss and sole felicity,
The sweet fruition of a heav'nly crown.-Marlo.
So strong the zeal t' immortalize himself
Beats in the breast of man, that ev'n a few,
Few transient years won from the abyss abhorr'd
Of blank oblivion seem a glorious prize,
And even to a clown.-Cowper.

The world sufficed not Alexander's mind;
Coop'd up he seem'd, in earth and seas confined.

Dryden.

161. AMBITION: often leads to disgrace. WHERE ambition of place goes before fitness Of birth, contempt and disgrace follow.-Chapman.

156. AMBITION : makes life a toil.

BLINDED greatness, ever in turmoil,
Suill seeking happy life, makes life a toil.

Daniel.

157. AMBITION : may be an excellence.

MAN was mark'd A friend, in his creation, to himself, And may, with fit Ambition, conceive The greatest blessings and the brightest honours Appointed for him, if he can achieve them The right and noble way, - Massinger.

162. AMBITION. Penalties of They that stand high have many blasts to shake

them, And if they fall, they dash themselves to pieces.

Shakespeare.

O false ambition ! Thou lying phantom ! whither hast thou lured me? Ev'n to this giddy height; where now I stand Forsaken, comfortless ; with not a friend In whom my soul can trust. -Brown.

He who ascends to mountain-tops, shall find
The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow;
He who surpasses or subdues mankind,
Must look down on the hate of those below.
Though high above, the sun of glory glow,
And far beneath, the earth and ocean spread;
Round him are: iey rocks, and loudly blow
Contending tempests on his naked head,
And thus reward the toils which to those summits

led.-Byron.

163. AMBITION. Power of
This sov'reign passion, scornful of restraint,
Even from the birth effects supreme command,
Swells in the breast, and with resistless force
O'erbears each gentler motion of the mind.

Johnson.
164. AMBITION. Restlessness of
Of all the passions which possess the soul,
None so disturbs vain mortals' minds,
As vain Ambition, which so blinds
The light of them, that nothing can control,
Nor curb their thoughts who will aspire ;
This raging, vehement desire
Of sovereignty no satisfaction finds,
But in the breasts of men doth ever roll
The restless stone of Sisyph'to torment them,
And as his heart, who stole the heav'nly fire,
The vulture gnaws, so doth that monster rent them :
Had they the world, the world would not content

them.-Earl of Sterline.

No toil, no hardship can restrain
Ambitious man inured to pain ;
The more confined, the more he tries,

And at forbidden quarry flies.—Dryden.
To the expanded and aspiring soul,
To be but still the thing it long has been,
Is misery, e’en though enthroned it were
Under the cope of high imperial state.

Joanna Baillie.
But quiet to quick bosoms is a hell,
And there hath been thy bane ; there is a fire
And motion in the soul which will not dwell
In its own narrow being, but aspire,
Beyond the fitting medium of desire ;
And but once kindled, quenchless evermore
Preys upon high adventure, nor can tire
Of aught but rest; a fever at the core,
Fatal to him who bears,--to all who ever bore.
This makes the madmen, who have made men mad
By their contagion, conquerors and kings,
Founders of sects and systems, to whom add

Sophists, bards, statesmen, all unquiet things
Which stir too strongly the soul's secret springs,
And are themselves the fools to those they fool;
Envied, yet not enviable ! what stings
Are theirs ! one breast laid open were a school
Which would unteach mankind the lust to shine

or rule.-Byron.
Their breath is agitation, and their life
A storm whereon they ride to sink at last,
And yet so nursed and bigoted to strife,
That should their days, surviving perils past,
Melt to calm twilight, they feel overcast
With sorrow and supineness, and so die ;
Even as a flame unfed, which runs to waste
With its own flickering, or a sword laid by,
Which eats into itself, and rusts ingloriously.

Byron.
165. AMBITION. True
First, what is true Ambition? The pursuit
Of glory nothing less than man can share.
Were they as vain as gaudy-minded man,
As flatulent with fumes of self-applause,
Their arts and conquests animals might boast,
And claim their laurel crowns as well as we;
But not celestial. Here, we stand alone;
As in our form, distinct, pre-eminent.
If prone in thought, our stature is our shame;
And man should blush his forehead meets the skies.
The visible and present are for brutes ;
A slender portion ! and a narrow bound !
These, Reason, with an energy divine,
O’erleaps, and climbs the future and unseen,
The vast unseen! the future fathomless !
When the great soul buoys up to this high point,
And leaves gross Nature's sediments below,
Then, and then only, Adam's offspring quits
The sage and hero of the fields and woods,
Asserts his rank, and rises into man.
This is ambition ; this is human fire.
Other ambition Nature interdicts;
Nature proclaims it most absurd in man
By pointing at his origin and end :
Milk and a swathe, at first, his whole demand--
His whole domain, at last, a turf, a stone;
To whom, between, a world may seem too small.

Young:

166. AMBITION. Universal

Not kings alone, Each villager has his ambition too ; No sultan prouder than his fetter'd slave : Slaves build their little Babylons of straw, Echo the proud Assyrian in their hearts, And cry— Behold the wonders of my might!'

For they are strong supporters; but, till then,
The greatest are but growing gentlemen.
It is a wretched thing to trust to reeds,
Which all men do that urge not their own deeds
Up to their ancestors’; the river's side,
By which you're planted, shows your fruit shall bide.
Hang all your rooms with one large pedigree ;
'Tis virtue alone is true nobility;
Which virtue from your father ripe will fall ;
Study illustrious him, and you have all. --Ben Jonson.

Long galleries of ancestors Challenge nor wonder nor esteem from me: • Virtue alone is true nobility.'-Dryden.

Do then as your progenitors have done,
And by their virtues prove yourself their son.

Dryden.

And why? because immortal as their lord;
And souls immortal must for ever heave
At something great; the glitter or the gold,
The praise of mortals or the praise of Heaven.

Young
167. AMBITION. Works of
IT open'd the niggard's purse ; clothed nakedness;
Gave beggars food; and threw the Pharisee
Upon his knees, and kept him long in act
Of prayer. It spread the lace upon the fop,
His language trimm'd, and plann'd his curious gait;
It stuck the feather on the gay coquette,
And on her finger laid the heavy load
Of jewelry; it did—what did it not?
The gospel preach'd, the gospel paid, and sent
The gospel ; conquer'd nations ; cities built ;
Measured the furrow of the field with nice
Directed share; shaped bulls, and cows, and rams :
And threw the ponderous stone ; and pitiful,
Indeed, and much against the grain, it dragg'd
The stagnant, dull, predestinated fool,
Through learning's halls, and made him labour much
Abortively; though sometimes not unpraised.
He left the sage's chair, and home return'd,
Making his simple mother think that she
Had bome a man. In schools, design'd to root
Sin up, and plant the seeds of holiness
In youthful minds, it held a signal place.
The little infant man, by nature proud,
Was taught the Scriptures by the love of praise,
And grew religious as he grew in fame.
And thus the principle, which out of heaven
The devil threw, and threw him down to hell,
And keeps him there, was made an instrument
To moralize and sanctify mankind,
And in their hearts beget humility.-- Pollok,

They that on glorious ancestors enlarge, Produce their debt, instead of their discharge.

Young:

But by your fathers' work if yours you rate,
Count me those only that were good and great.
Go! if your ancient but ignoble blood
Has crept through scoundrels ever since the flood,
Go! and pretend your family is young ;
Nor own your fathers have been fools so long.
What can ennoble sots, or slaves, or cowards?
Alas! not all the blood of all the Howards.

Pope.

170. ANCESTRY. Pride of

Nor stand so much on your gentility,
Which is an airy and mere borrow'd thing
From dead men's dust and bones ; and none of

yours,
Except you make or hold it.-Ben Jonson.

Please thy pride, and search the herald's roll, Where thou shalt find thy famous pedigree, Drawn from the root of some old Tuscan tree, And thou, a thousand off, a fool of long degree.

Dryden.

168. AMUSEMENTS. Empty
BEHOLD the child, by Nature's kindly law,
Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw :
Some livelier plaything gives his youth delight,
A little louder, but as empty quite :
Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his riper stage,
And beads and prayer-books are the toys of age :
Pleased with this bauble still, as that before,
Till tired he sleeps, and life's poor play is o'er.

I Pope.
169. ANCESTRY. Boasting of
Boast not the titles of your ancestors,
Brave youths; they're their possessions, none of

yours; When your own virtues equal'd have their names, Twill be but fair to lean upon their fames;

Put off your giant titles, then I can
Stand in your judgment's blank and equal man,
Though hills advanced are above the plain,
They are but higher earth, nor must disdain
Alliance with the vale : we see a spade
Can level them, and make a mount a glade.
Howe'er we differ in the herald's book,
He that mankind's extraction shall look
In Nature's rolls, must grant we all agree
In our best parts, immortal pedigree. – King.