BEAUTY-continued.

BEAUTY.

Die when you will, you need not wear,
At Heaven's court, a form more fair
Than beauty at your birth has given;
Keep but the lips, the eyes we see,
The voice we hear, and you will be
An angel ready made for heaven.

41

Lord Herbert of Cherbury, Woman, 10.

Beauty, thou wild fantastic ape,

Who dost in every country change thy shape;

Here black, there brown, here tawny, and there white;
Thou flatterer who comply'st with every sight.

Who hast no certain what nor where,

Cowley.

Herrick, Aph. 175.

But vary'st still, and dost thyself declare
Inconstant as thy she-possessors are.
Beauty's no other but a lovely grace
Of lively colours flowing from the face.
Beauty is nature's brag, and must be shown
In courts, and feasts, and high solemnities,
Where most may wonder at the workmanship.
It is for homely features to keep home;
They had their name thence; coarse complexions,
And cheeks of sorry grain, will serve to ply
The sampler, and to tease the housewife's wool.
What need a vermeil-tinctur'd lip for that,
Love-darting eyes, and tresses like the morn?-

There was another meaning in those gifts. Milton, Comus, 745.
Beauty is Nature's coin, must not be hoarded,

But must be current, and the good thereof
Consists in mutual and partaken bliss,
Unsavoury in th' enjoyment of itself:

If you let slip time, like a neglected rose,

It withers on the stalk with languish'd head. Milton, ib. 739.

Beauty, like the fair Hesperian tree

Laden with blooming gold had need the guard

Of dragon-watch with unenchanted eye,

To save her blossoms and defend her fruit.

Beauty stands

In the admiration only of weak minds

Milton, ib. 393.

Led captive; cease to admire, and all her plumes

Fall flat and shrink into a trivial toy,

At every sudden slighting quite abash'd. Milton, P. R. 11. 220.

Beauty with a bloodless conquest finds

A welcome sovereignty in rudest minds.

Waller.

A lavish planet reign'd when she was born,
And made her of such kindred mould to heav'n,
She seems more heaven than ours.

Beauty, like ice, our footing does betray;

Who can tread sure on the smooth slippery way?
Pleased with the passage, we glide swiftly on,

Lee, Edipus.

And see the dangers which we cannot shun. Dryden, Aurengz. Old as I am, for ladies' love unfit,

The power of beauty I remember yet. Dryden, Cym.and Iph.1.2.

One who would change the worship of all climates,

And make a new religion where'er she comes,
Unite the differing faiths of all the world,
To idolize her face.

Dryden, Love's Triumph.

Her eyes, her lips, her cheeks, her shapes, her features
Seem to be drawn by Love's own hand; by Love
Himself in love.

Dryden, Beauty's Triumph.

All hearts, alike all faces cannot move,
There is a secret sympathy in love,
The powerful loadstone cannot move a straw,
No more than jet the trembling needle draw.

Sedley, Ant. and Cl.

Rowe.

Addison, Cato.

Is she not more than painting can express,
Or youthful poets fancy when they love? Rowe, Fair Pen. 11. 1.
From every blush that kindles in thy cheeks,
Ten thousand little loves and graces spring.
'Tis not a set of features, or complexion,
The tincture of a skin that I admire :
Beauty soon grows familiar to the lover,
Fades in his eye, and palls upon the sense
Nature in various moulds has beauty cast,
And form'd the feature for each different taste:
This sighs for golden locks and azure eyes;
That, for the gloss of sable tresses dies.
In wit, as nature, what affects our hearts,
Is not th' exactness of peculiar parts;
'Tis not a lip or eye we beauty call,
But the joint force, and full result of all.

Gay, Dione, III. 1.

Pope, E. C. 245.

Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see,
Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be. Pope, E. C. 255

BEAUTY-continued.

BEAUTY.

Yet graceful ease, and sweetness void of pride,

Might hide her faults, if belles had faults to hide :

If to her share some female errors fall,

43

Look on her face, and you'll forget them all. Pope, Rape, 11. 18.

The bloom of opening flowers' unsullied beauty,
Softness, and sweetest innocence she wears,

And looks like nature in the world's first spring.

The hand of time alone disarms
Her face of its superfluous charms;
But adds, for every grace resign'd,
A thousand to adorn her mind.

Rowe, Tamerlane,

As lamps burn silent with unconscious light,
So modest ease in beauty shines most bright;
Unaiming charms with edge resistless fall,
And she who means no mischief does it all.
If that be she who yonder pensive comes,
She seems some bright inhabitant of heav'n,
Shot with a falling star from yon bright region,
To light the world below.

What tender force, what dignity divine,

What virtue consecrating every feature;

Broome.

Aaron Hill.

Aaron Hill.

Around that neck what dross are gold and pearl! Young, Bu.

What's female beauty, but an air divine,

Through which the mind's all-gentle graces shine?

They, like the sun, irradiate all between ;

The body charms, because the soul is seen.

Hence men are often captives of a face,

They know not why, of no peculiar grace :

Some forms, though bright, no mortal man can bear;
Some none resist, though not exceeding fair.

The Spirit of Beauty unfurls her light,

And wheels her course in a joyous flight!

I know her track through the balmy air,

By the blossoms that cluster and whiten there :
She leaves the tops of the mountain green,
And gems the valley with crystal sheen.
She hovers around us at twilight hour,

When her presence is felt with the deepest power;
She mellows the landscape, and crowds the stream
With shadows that flit like a fairy dream;

Still wheeling her flight through the gladsome air,
The Spirit of Beauty is everywhere!

Young.

Rufus Dawes

Beauty, like wit, to judges should be shown;
Both are most valued where they best are known.

Lyttelton, Soliloquy of a Beauty, 1. 2.

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness.

Keats, Endymion, 1. 1.

Oh, fresh is the rose in the gay dewy morning,
And sweet is the lily at evening close:

But in the fair presence of lovely young Jessie,
Unseen is the lily, unheeded the rose.

Heart on her lips, and soul within her eyes,

Burns.

Soft as her clime, and sunny as her skies. Byron, Beppo, 45.

Who can curiously behold

The smoothness and the sheen of beauty's cheek

Nor feel the heart can never all grow old? Byron, C.H. 111. 11.

We gaze, and turn away, and know not why,
Dazzled and drunk with beauty, till the heart
Reels with its fulness

Who hath not proved how feebly words essay
To fix one spark of beauty's heavenly ray?
Who doth not feel, until his failing sight
Faints into dimness with its own delight,

His changing cheek, his sinking heart confess

Byron.

The might-the majesty of loveliness? Byron, Bride of A. 1.

She was a form of life and light,

That, seen, became a part of sight;

And rose, where'er I turned mine eye,

The morning-star of memory.

An eye's an eye, and whether black or blue
Is no great matter, so 'tis in request,

"T is nonsense to dispute about a hue

The kindest may be taken as a test.

Byron, Giaour.

Ibid. III. 74

The fair sex should be always fair; and no man,
Till thirty, should perceive there's a plain woman.
Byron, Don Juan, XIII. 3;
Her overpowering presence made you feel
It would not be idolatry to kneel.
Her glossy hair was cluster'd o'er a brow
Bright with intelligence, and fair and smooth;
Her eyebrow's shape was like the aerial bows,
Her cheek all purple with the beam of youth,
Mounting at times to a transparent glow,
As if her veins ran lightning.

Ibid. 1. 61.

Crabbe.

Such harmony in motion, speech, and air,
That without fairness, she was more than fair.
There's beauty all around our paths,
If but our watchful eyes

Can trace it 'midst familiar things,

And through their lowly guise.

Mrs. Hemans.

Without the smile, from partial beauty won,

Oh, what were man ?-a world without a sun!Campbell, P. II.

What is beauty? Not the shew

Of shapely limbs and features. No.

These are but flowers

That have their dated hours

To breathe their momentary sweets, then go. "T is the stainless soul within

That outshines the fairest skin.

Sir A. De Vere Hunt.

Her grace of motion and of look, the smooth
And swimming majesty of step and tread,
The symmetry of form and feature, set

The soul afloat, even like delicious airs

Of flute or harp.

What is beauty? Alas! 'tis a jewel, a glass,

A bubble, a plaything, a rose,

'Tis the snow, dew, or air; 'tis so many things rare,

That 'tis nothing, one well may suppose.

'Tis a jewel, Love's token; glass easily broken,

A bubble that vanisheth soon;

Milman.

A plaything that boys cast aside when it cloys,
A rose quickly faded and strewn.

MS.