"If your care to wheat alone extend, Let Maia with her sisters first descend, Before you trust in earth your future hope, Or else expect a listless, lazy crop."

"Some through ambition, or through thirst of gold, Have slain their brothers, and their country sold."

"Those who to empire by dark paths aspire, Still plead a call to what they most desire."

"One world sufficed not Alexander’s mind; Coop’d up he seem’d, in earth and seas confined."

"Too truly Tamerlane’s successors they; Each thinks a world too little for his sway."

"O diadem, thou centre of ambition, Where all its different lines are reconciled; As if thou wert the burning glass of glory."

"No toil, no hardship can restrain Ambitious man inured to pain; The more confined, the more he tries, And at forbidden quarry flies."

"With joy th’ ambitious youth his mother heard, And, eager, for the journey soon prepared; He longs the world beneath him to survey, To guide the chariot, and to give the day."

"Why does Antony dream out his hours, And tempts not fortune for a noble day?"

"To cure their mad ambition, they were sent To rule a distant province, each alone: What could a careful father more have done?"

"Leave to fathom such high points as these, Nor be ambitious, ere the time, to please; Unseasonably wise, till age and cares Have form’d thy soul to manage great affairs."

"Dare to be great without a guilty crown; View it, and lay the bright temptation down: ’Tis base to seize on all."

"Were virtue by descent, a noble name Could never villanize his father’s fame; But, as the first, the last of all the line Would, like the sun, ev’n in descending, shine."

"Vain are their hopes who fancy to inherit, By trees of pedigree, or fame or merit; Though plodding heralds through each branch may trace Old captains and dictators of their race."

"Long galleries of ancestors Challenge nor wonder or esteem from me: "Virtue alone is true nobility.""

"Do then as your progenitors have done, And by their virtues prove yourself their son."

"Thus, born alike, from virtue first began The diffrence that distinguish’d man from man: He claim’d no title from descent of blood; But that which made him noble, made him good."

"What have I lost by my forefathers’ fault! Why was I not the twentieth by descent From a long restive race of droning kings?"

"Please thy pride, and search the herald’s roll, Where thou shalt find thy famous pedigree, Drawn from the root of some old Tuscan tree, And thou, a thousand off, a fool of long degree."

"For if the sire be faint, or out of case, He will be copied in his famish’d race."

"So bright a splendour, so divine a grace, The glorious Daphnis casts on his illustrious race."

"Auspicious chief! thy race, in times to come, Shall spread the conquests of imperial Rome."

"From a mean stock the pious Decii came; Yet such their virtues, that their loss alone For Rome and all our regions did atone."

"Obscure! why prythee what am I? I know My father, grandsire, and great grandsire too: If farther I derive my pedigree, I can but guess beyond the fourth degree. The rest of my forgotten ancestors Were sons of earth."

"When we behold an angel, not to fear, Is to be impudent."

"That we may angels seem, we paint them elves, And are but satires to set up ourselves."

"I saw th’ angelic guards from earth ascend, Grieved they must now no longer man attend; The beams about their temples dimly shone; One would have thought the crime had been their own."

"When he knew his rival freed and gone, He swells with wrath; he makes outrageous moan: He frets, he fumes, he stares, he stamps the ground, The hollow tow’r with clamours rings around."

"I beg the grace You would lay by those terrors of your face; Till calmness to your eyes you first restore, I am afraid, and I can beg no more."

"If on your head my fury does not turn, Thank that fond dotage which so much you scorn."

"He, like a patient angler, ere he strook, Would let them play awhile upon the hook."

"Casting nets were spread in shallow brooks, Drags in the deep, and baits were hung on hooks."

"Perpetual anguish fills his anxious breast, Not stopt by business, nor composed by rest; No music cheers him, nor no feast can please."

"Some on antiquated authors pore; Rummage for sense."

"Then thus a senior of the place replies, Well read, and curious of antiquities."

"His pensive cheek upon his hand reclined, And anxious thoughts revolving in his mind."

"Let this and every other anxious thought At th’ entrance of my threshold be forgot."

"Firm Doric pillars found the solid base, The fair Corinthian crown the higher space, And all below is strength, and all above is grace."

"His son builds on, and never is content Till the last farthing is in structure spent."

"Grant her, besides, of noble blood that ran In ancient veins, ere heraldry began."

"The whole division that to Mars pertains, All trades of death that deal in steel for gains, Were there; the butcher, armorer, and smith, Who forges sharpen’d fauchions, or the scythe."

"Their wildness lose, and, quitting nature’s part, Obey the rules and discipline of art."

"The soldier then in Grecian arts unskill’d, Returning rich with plunder from the field, If cups of silver or of gold he brought With jewels set, and exquisitely wrought, To glorious trappings strait the plate he turn’d, And with the glitt’ring spoil his horse adorn’d."

"What wonder if the kindly beams he shed, Revived the drooping arts again; If science raised her head, And soft humanity, that from rebellion fled."

"All arts and artists Theseus could command, Who sold for hire, or wrought for better fame."

"He, full of fraudful arts, This well-invented tale for truth imparts."

"Live then, thou great encourager of arts! Live ever in our thankful hearts."

"Unskill’d in schemes by planets to foreshow, I neither will nor can prognosticate To the young gaping heir his father’s fate."

"The spiteful stars have shed their venom down, And now the peaceful planets take their turn."