e noblest passions to inspire,
Not one immoral, one corrupted thought.
One line which, dying, he could wish to blot.
_Prologue to Thomson's Coriolanus_. LORD LYTTELTON.

I can no more believe old Homer blind,
Than those who say the sun hath never shined;
The age wherein he lived was dark, but he
Could not want sight who taught the world to see.
_Progress of Learning_. SIR J. DENHAM.

Read Homer once, and you can read no more,
For all books else appear so mean, so poor;
Verse may seem prose; but still persist to read,
And Homer will be all the books you need.
_Essay on Poetry_. SHEFFIELD, DUKE OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE.

The poet in a golden clime was born,
With golden stars above;
Dowered with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn,
The love of love.
_The Poet_. A. TENNYSON.

Happy who in his verse can gently steer
From grave to light, from pleasant to severe.
_The Art of Poetry_. J. DRYDEN.

But those that write in rhyme still make
The one verse for the other's sake;
For one for sense, and one for rhyme,
I think 's sufficient at one time.
_Hudibras, Pt. II_. DR. S. BUTLER.

For rhyme the rudder is of verses.
With which, like ships, they steer their courses.
_Hudibras, Pt. I_. DR. S. BUTLER.

And he whose fustian 's so sublimely bad,
It is not poetry, but prose run mad.
_Prologue to Satires_. A. POPE.

I had rather be a kitten, and cry, mew,
Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers;
I had rather hear a brazen can stick turned,
Or a dry wheel grate on the axle-tree;
And that would set my teeth nothing on edge,
Nothing so much as mincing poetry:
'T is like the forced gait of a shuffling nag.
_King Henry IV., Pt. I. Act_ iii. _Sc_. 1. SHAKESPEARE.

Poets, like painters, thus unskilled to trace
The naked nature and the living grace,
With gold and jewels cover every part,
And hide with ornaments their want of art.
True wit is nature to advantage dressed,
What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed.
_Essay on Criticism, Pt. II_. A. POPE.

Unjustly poets we asperse;
Truth shines the brighter clad in verse,
And all the fictions they pursue
Do but insinuate what is true.
_To Stella_. J. SWIFT.

Blessings be with them, and eternal praise,
Who gave us nobler loves and nobler cares,--
The Poets! who on earth have made us heirs
Of truth and pure delight by heavenly lays!
_Personal Talk_. W. WORDSWORTH.

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