SWEET are the uses of adversity; Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head: And this our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything.
GOOD name in man and woman, dear my lord, Is the immediate jewel of their souls: Who steals my purse steals trash; ’tis something, nothing; ’Twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands; But he that filches from me my good name Robs me of that which not enriches him, And makes me poor indeed.
COWARDS die many times before their death; The valiant never taste of death but once. Of all the wonders that I yet have heard, It seems to me most strange that men should fear; Seeing that death, a necessary end, Will come when it will come.
FRANCIS JEFFREY was born in Edinburgh in 1773 and died in 1850. He attended the schools of his native city and completed his education in the Universities of Glasgow and Oxford, preparing himself for the pursuit of law.
He was also a writer of essays and criticisms and attained high rank as a judge and writer. He was at one time editor of the famous “Edinburgh Review.”
SHAKESPEARE alone, when the object requires it, is always keen and worldly and practical; and yet, without changing his hand or stopping his course, scatters around him, as he goes, all sounds and shapes of sweetness, and conjures up landscapes of immortal fragrance and freshness, and peoples them with Spirits of glorious aspect and attractive grace. He is a thousand times more full of fancy and imagery and splendor than those who, in pursuit of such enchantments, have shrunk back from the delineation of character or passion, and declined the discussion of human duties and cares.
More full of wisdom and ridicule and sagacity than all the moralists and satirists that ever existed, he is also more wild, airy, and inventive, and more pathetic and fantastic, than all the poets of all regions and ages of the world. And he has all those elements so happily mixed up in him, and bears his high faculties so temperately, that the most severe reader cannot complain of him for want of strength or of reason, nor the most sensitive for defect of ornament or ingenuity. Everything in him is in unmeasured abundance and unequaled perfection; but everything is so balanced and kept in subordination, as not to jostle or disturb or take the place of another.