Note 324 — QUARRELS OF AUTHORS; (continued 3)
Reading edition
I select some of these lines as examples.
Of Care, who only “seals her eyes in cloisters,” he says,
“She visits cities, but she dwells in thrones.”
Of learned Curiosity, eager, but not to be hurried—the student is
“Hasty to know, though not by haste beguiled.”
He calls a library, with sublime energy,
“The monument of vanish’d minds.”
Never has a politician conveyed with such force a most important precept:
——————“The laws, Men from themselves, but not from power, secure.”
Of the Court he says,
“There prosperous power sleeps long, though suitors wake.” “Be bold, for number cancels bashfulness; Extremes, from which a King would blushing shrink, Unblushing senates act as no excess.”
And these lines, taken as they occur:
“Truth’s a discovery made by travelling minds.” “Honour’s the moral conscience of the great.” “They grow so certain as to need no hope.” “Praise is devotion fit for mighty minds.”
I conclude with one complete stanza, of the same cast of reflection. It may be inscribed in the library of the student, in the studio of the artist, in every place where excellence can only be obtained by knowledge.
“Rich are the diligent, who can command Time, nature’s stock! and, could his hour-glass fall, Would, as for seed of stars, stoop for the sand, And by incessant labour gather all!”