Henry Austin Dobson

"A retrospect of the Eighteenth-Century Essayists subsequent to the ',' ',' and ',' only serves to confirm the supremacy of Addison and Steele. Some of their successors approached them in serious writing; others carried the lighter kinds to considerable perfection; but none (Goldsmith alone excepted) really rivaled them in that happily mingling of the lively and severe, which Johnson envied but could not emulate."

"Old books, old wine, old Nankin blue;— All things, in short, to which belong The charm, the grace that Time makes strong,— All these I prize, but (entre nous) Old friends are best."

"Fame is a food that dead men eat,— I have no stomach for such meat."

"Love comes unseen,—we only see it go."

"Carry his body hence,— Kings must have slaves; Kings climb to eminence Over men's graves: So this man's eye is dim;— Throw the earth over him."

"And round about its gray, time-eaten brow Lean letters speak—a worn and shattered row: I am a Shade: a Shadowe too arte thou: I marke the Time: saye, Gossip, dost thou soe?"

"O English girl, divine, demure, To YOU I sing!"

"Time goes, you say? Ah, no! Alas, Time stays, we go."

"All passes. ART alone Enduring stays to us: The Bust out-lasts the throne,— The Coin, Tiberius."

"The ladies of St. James’s! They’re painted to the eyes; Their white it stays forever Their red it never dies: But Phillida, my Phillida! Her colour comes and goes; It trembles to a lily,— It wavers to a rose."

"All the seasons run their race In this quiet resting place; Peach, and apricot, and fig Here will ripen, and grow big; Here is store and overplus,— More had not Alcinoüs!"

"In merest prudence men should teach […] That science ranks as monstrous things Two pairs of upper limbs; so wings— E'en angels' wings!—are fictions."

"... it may be interesting for an ear-witness to record that when Austin Dobson, after the publication of 'Vignettes in Rhyme,' was presented to Tennyson, that alarming vates inquired, in sepulchral tones, 'Are you a classic? Then become one! Read Horace every day of your life!' Dobson did not carry out this counsel quite to the letter, but with his customary docility in adopting good advice, he forthwith made a searching and prolonged study of the 'Odes' and 'Epistles,' a study the result of which upon his subsequent verse must be patent to the most careless observer, and may be traced upon his meticulous prose as well."