Nor think though men were none
That heaven would want spectators, God want praise.
Milton.

So man, who here seems principal alone,
Perhaps acts second to some sphere unknown;
Touches some wheel, or verges to some goal:
'Tis but a part we see, and not the whole.-Pope.

2388. MAN: his possibilities.

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.

Man is supreme lord and master
Of his own ruin and disaster;
Controls his fate, but nothing less
In ordering his own happiness:
For all his care and providence
Is too, too feeble a defence
To render it secure and certain
Against the injuries of fortune;
And oft, in spite of all his wit,
Is lost with one unlucky hit,
And ruin'd with a circumstance,
And mere punctilio of chance. —Massinger.

2389. MAN. History of

MATURER manhood now arrives

And other thoughts come on, But with the baseless hopes of youth, Its generous warmth is gone; Cold, calculating cares succeed The timid thought, the wary deed,

The full realities of truth; Back on the past he turns his eye, Remembering, with an envious sigh, The happy dreams of youth. So reaches he the latter stage Of this our mortal pilgrimage, With feeble step and slow; New ills that latter stage await, And old experience learns too late, That all is vanity below.-Southey.

2390. MAN: immortal.

Whate'er of earth is form'd, to earth returns
Dissolved: the various objects we behold-
Plants, animals, this whole material mass-
Are ever changing, ever new. The soul
Of man alone, that particle divine,

Escapes the wreck of worlds, when all things fail :

Hence the great distance 'twixt the beasts that perish

And God's bright image, man's immortal race. Somerville.

2391. MAN: inconstant.

MEN are but children of a larger growth: Our appetites are apt to change as theirs, And full as craving too, and full as vain.

Dryden.

Man is but man, inconstant still, and various!
There's no to-morrow in him like to-day!
Perhaps the atoms rolling in his brain
Make him think honestly the present hour;
The next, a swarm of base ungrateful thoughts
May mount aloft.-Dryden.

Mankind one day serene and free appear;
The next, they're cloudy, sullen, and severe;
New passions new opinions still excite,

And what they like at noon, they leave at night.
They gain with labour what they quit with ease;
And health, for want of change, becomes disease;
Religion's bright authority they dare,

And yet are slaves to superstitious fear.
They counsel others, but themselves deceive,
And though they're cozen'd still, they still believe.
So false their censure, fickle their esteem,
This hour they worship, and the next blaspheme.

Garth.

2399. MAN. Weakness of

MAN, who madly deems himself the lord Of all, is nought but weakness and dependence. This sacred truth, by sour experience taught, Thou must have learnt, when, wandering all alone, Each bird, each insect, flitting through the sky, Was more sufficient for itself than thou.-Thomson.

Man's feeble race what ills await!

Labour and penury, the racks of pain, Disease and sorrow's sweeping train, And death, sad refuge from the storms of fate.

Gray.

2400. MAN: wonders of his being. OH, what is man, great Maker of mankind! That Thou to him so great respect dost bear; That Thou adorn'st him with so bright a mind, Mak'st him a king, and even an angel's peer? Oh, what a lively life, what heavenly power,

What spreading virtue, what a sparkling fire, How great, how plentiful, how rich a dower

Dost Thou within the dying flesh inspire!.

Thou leav'st Thy print in other works of Thine, But Thy whole image Thou in man hast writ; There cannot be a creature more divine,

Except, like Thee, it should be infinite.

But it exceeds man's thoughts, to think how high God hath raised man, since God a man became ; The angels do admire this mystery,

And are astonish'd when they view the same:

Nor hath He given these blessings for a day,
Nor made them on the body's life depend;
The soul, though made in time, survives for aye;
And though it hath beginning, sees no end.

Davies.

2401. MANHOOD: its possibilities.
THOUGH the transient springs have fail'd thee,
Though the founts of youth are dried,
Wilt thou among the mouldering stones
In weariness abide?

Wilt thou sit among the ruins,

With all words of cheer unspoken, Till the silver cord is loosen'd,

Till the golden bowl is broken?

Up and onward! Toward the east,
Green oases thou shalt find,—
Streams that rise from higher sources
Than the pools thou leavest behind.

Life has import more inspiring
Than the fancies of thy youth:

It has hopes as high as heaven;
It has labour, it has truth;

It has wrongs that may be righted,
Noble deeds that may be done,

Its great battles are unfought,

Its great triumphs are unwon.-Anne C. Lynch.

2402. MANIAC. Misfortune of the

A MAN, to-day the glory of his kind,
In reason clear, in understanding large,
In judgment sound, in fancy quick, in hope
Abundant, and in promise, like a field

Well cultured, and refresh'd with dews from God;
To-morrow, chain'd, and raving mad, and whipp'd
By servile hands; sitting on dismal straw,
And gnashing with his teeth against the chain,
The iron chain that bound him hand and foot ;
And trying whiles to send his glaring eye
Beyond the wide circumference of his woe:
Or, humbling more, more miserable still,
Giving an idiot laugh, that served to show
The blasted scenery of his horrid face;
Calling the straw his sceptre, and the stone,
On which he pinion'd sat, his royal throne.
Poor, poor, poor man! fallen far below the brute!
His reason strove in vain to find her way,
Lost in the stormy desert of his brain;
And being active still, she wrought all strange,
Fantastic, execrable, monstrous things.—Pollok

2403. MANKIND. Foes of

WAR, famine, pest, volcano, storm, and fire,
Intestine broils, Oppression with her heart
Wrapp'd up in triple brass, besiege mankind.
God's image, disinherited of day,

Here, plunged in mines, forgets a sun was made.
There, beings deathless as their haughty lord,
Are hammer'd to the galling oar for life,
And plough the winter's wave, and reap despair.

Some, for hard masters, broken under arms,

In battle lopp'd away, with half their limbs,
Beg bitter bread through realms their valour saved.
If so the tyrant or his minion doom,
Want and incurable disease (fell pair!)
On hopeless multitudes remorseless seize
At once; and make a refuge of the grave.
How groaning hospitals eject their dead!
What numbers groan for sad admission there!
What numbers, once in Fortune's lap high-fed,
Solicit the cold hand of charity!

To shock us more, solicit it in vain!
Not prudence can defend, or virtue save:
Disease invades the chastest temperance;

And punishment the guiltless: and alarm,
Through thickest shades, pursues the fond of peace.
Man's caution often into danger turns,
And his guard failing, crushes him to death.
Not Happiness itself makes good her name;
Our very wishes give us not our wish.

How distant oft the thing we dote on most
From that for which we dote, felicity!
The smoothest course of nature has its pains;

And truest friends, through error, wound our rest.
Without misfortune, what calamities!

And what hostilities, without a foe!

Nor are foes wanting to the best on earth.
But endless is the list of human ills,

And sighs might sooner fail than cause to sigh.

Each others' rights and wrongs; thus are we men.

Shakespeare.

Bailey.

And eyes forget the gentle ray
They wore in courtship's smiling day;
And voices lose the tone that shed
A tenderness round all they said:
Till fast declining, one by one,
The sweetnesses of love are gone,
And hearts, so lately mingled, seem
Like broken clouds-or like the stream,
That smiling left the mountain's brow,

As though its waters ne'er could sever,
Yet, ere it reach the plain below,

Breaks into floods that part for ever.-Moore.

2409. MARRIAGE: founded on esteem.

WEDDED love is founded on esteem, Which the fair merits of the mind engage: For those are charms which never can decay, But time, which gives new whiteness to the swan, Improves their lustre.-Fenton.

2410. MARRIAGE. Importance of

WHAT do you think of marriage?
I take 't, as those that deny purgatory:
It locally contains or heaven or hell;
There's no third place in it. -Webster.

As a girl, with ready smile,
Where shall rise some ponderous pile,
On the chosen festal day,
Turns the initial sod away,
So the bride with fingers frail
Founds a temple or a jail-

Or a palace it may be,
Flooded full with luxury,

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.
Lord Lyttleton.

2413. MARRIAGE. Mistakes in

FOR any man to match above his rank
Is but to sell his liberty.-Massinger.

Maidens, like moths, are ever caught by glare,
And Mammon wins his way where seraphs might
despair.-Byron.

WHATEVER hypocrites austerely talk
Of purity, and place, and innocence,
Defaming as impure what God declares
Pure, and commands to some, leaves free to all,
Our Maker bids increase; who bids abstain

But our destroyer, foe to God and man?

Hail wedded love, mysterious law, true source Of human offspring, sole propriety

In Paradise of all things common else.

By thee adult'rous love was driven from men
Among the bestial herds to range; by thee,
Founded in reason, loyal, just, and pure,
Relations dear, and all the charities

Of father, son, and brother first were known.
Far be it that I should write thee sin or blame,
Or think thee unbefitting holiest place,
Perpetual fountain of domestic sweets,
Whose bed is undefiled and chaste pronounced,
Present, or past, as saints and patriarchs used.
Here Love his golden shafts employs, here lights
His constant lamp, and waves his purple wings,
Reigns here and revels.-Milton.