And count, if possible, the pamper'd numbers,
Who fatten on the state: they are the men,
Who, if they find a man too honourable
To be a fellow-gleaner of the spoils,
When faction's sickle sweeps the public wealth,
Lift up their angry voices to the crowd,
And breathe around their pestilential breath,
Till virtue's self is tainted by the touch.

DAWES' Athenia of Damascus.

5. And here and there some stern, high patriot stood, Who could not get the place for which he sued.

BYRON'S Don Juan.

OLD AGE. (See AGE.)

ΟΡΙΝΙΟΝ.

1. Opinion's but a fool, that makes us scan The outward habit by the inward man.

2. Opinion is that high and mighty dame

SHAKSPEARE.

Which rules the world, and in the mind doth frame
Distastes or likings; for, in human race,
She makes the fancy various as the face.

3. Let not opinion make thy judgment err;
The evening conquest crowns the conqueror.

4. Opinionators naturally differ

HOWEL.

LADY ALIMONY.

From other men; as wooden legs are stiffer
Than those of pliant joints, to yield and bow,
Which way soe'er they are design'd to go.

BUTLER'S Hudibras.

5. Opinion governs all mankind,
Like the blind leading of the blind;
For he that has no eyes in 's head,

Must be b'a dog glad to be led.

BUTLER'S Hudibras.

6. And nothing's so perverse in nature, As a profound opinionator.

7.

BUTLER'S Hudibras.

We all, my lords, have err'd;

Men may, I find, be honest, though they differ.

OPPORTUNITY.

1. There is a tide in the affairs of men,

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life

Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,

And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.

THOMSON.

SHAKSPEARE.

2. A little fire is quickly trodden out,

Which, being suffer'd, rivers cannot quench.

SHAKSPEARE.

3. The means that heaven yields must be embrac'd,

4.

And not neglected; else, if heaven would,
And we will not, heaven's offers we refuse,
The proffer'd means of succour and redress.

Accursed opportunity!

The midwife and the bawd to all our vices:

SHAKSPEARE.

That work'st our thoughts into desires; desires
To resolutions; and these being ripe and quicken'd,

Thou giv'st them birth, and bring'st them forth to action.

DENHAM.

1.

OPPRESSION — TYRANNY.

Oh, it is excellent

To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous

To use it like a giant.

SHAKSPEARE.

2. He hath no friends, but who are friends for fear, Who, in his drearest need, will fly from him.

SHAKSPEARE.

3. And many an old man's sigh, and many a widow's,
And many an orphan's water-standing eye-
Men for their sons', wives for their husbands' fate,
And orphans for their parents' timeless death-
Shall rue the hour that ever thou wast born.

SHAKSPEARE. 4. "Twixt kings and tyrants there's this difference known, Kings seek their subjects' good, tyrants their own.

5. So spake the fiend, and with necessity,
The tyrant's plea, excused his devilish deeds.

HERRICK.

MILTON'S Paradise Lost.

6. When force invades the gift of nature, life, The eldest law of nature, bids defence; And if in that defence a tyrant fall,

His death's his crime, not ours.

7. I am told thou call'st thyself a king;

8.

Know, if thou art one, that the poor have rights;
And power, in all its pride, is less than justice.

Where, alas,

Is innocence secure? Rapine and spoil

DRYDEN.

AARON HILL.

Haunt e'en the lowest deeps: seas have their sharks;

Rivers and ponds enclose the ravenous pike,
And he's in turn th' amphibious otter's prey.

SOMERVILE'S Chase.

438

9.

ORATOR.

Shall we resign

Our hopes, renounce our rights, forget our wrongs,
Because an impotent lip beneath a crown

Cries, "Be it so ?"

SIR A. HUNT.

10. Th' oppressive, sturdy, man-destroying villains,
Who ravag'd kingdoms, and laid empires waste,
And, in a cruel wantonness of power,

Thinn'd states of half their people, and gave up
To want the rest.

1

BLAIR'S Grave.

11. Think'st thou there is no tyranny but that
Of blood and chains? The despotism of vice-
The weakness and the wickedness of luxury -
The negligence, the apathy, the evils

Of sensual sloth-produce ten thousand tyrants,
Whose delegated cruelty surpasses

The worst acts of one energetic master,

However harsh and hard in his own bearing.

BYRON'S Sardanapalus.

12. To trample on all human feelings, all
Ties which bind man to man, to emulate

The fiends, who will one day requite them in
Variety of torturing.

BYRON'S Two Foscari.

13. Tyranny's the worst of treasons. The prince, who

Neglects or violates his trust, is more

A brigand than the robber-chief.

BYRON'S Two Foscari.

ORATOR. (See ELOQUENCE.)

ORDER.

1. Order, thou eye of action! wanting thee, Wisdom works hoodwink'd in perplexity; Entangled reason trips at every pace,

And truth, bespotted, puts on error's face.

AARON HILL.

2. Order is heaven's first law; and this confess'd, Some are, and must be, greater than the rest.

POPE'S Essay on Man.

1.

PAIN.

The poor beetle, that we tread upon,

In corporal suffering feels a pang as great

As when a giant dies.

2. Our pains are real things, and all Our pleasures but fantastical; Diseases of their own accord,

But cures come difficult and hard.

SHAKSPEARE.

BUTLER'S Hudibras.

3. And heard the everlasting yawn confess The pain, the misery of idleness.

4.

Again the play of pain

Shoots o'er his features, as the sudden gust

Crisps the reluctant lake, that lay so calm
Beneath the mountain shadow.

POPE.

Even with the crown of glory in his eyes,
At such inhuman artifice of pain

As was forced on him.

BYRON.

BYRON'S Two Foscari.