Life every man holds dear; but the dear man
Holds honour far more precious dear than life.
Shaks. Troilus and Cressida.

Rightly to be great,

Is, not to stir without great argument;
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw,
When honour's at the stake.

Shaks. Hamlet.

By heaven, methinks, it were an easy leap,
To pluck bright honour from the pale-fac'd moon;
Or dive into the bottom of the deep,
Where fathom-line could never touch the ground,
And pluck up drowned honour by the locks:
So he, that doth redeem her thence might wear,
Without co-rival, all her dignities.

For Brutus is an honourable man,
So are they all-all honourable men.

Shaks. Julius Cæsar

Thou idol, honour, which we fools adore!
How many plagues do rest in thee to grieve us?
Which, when we have, we find there is much more,
Than that, which only is a name, can give us :
Of real comforts thou dost leave us poor,
And of those joys thou often dost deprive us,
That with ourselves doth set us at debate,
And makes us beggars in our greatest state.
Drayton's Baron's Wars.

You still insist upon that idol, honour;
Can it renew your youth? can it add wealth?
That, take off wrinkles? can it draw men's eyes
Shaks. Henry IV. Part I. To gaze upon you in your age? can honour,
That truly is a saint to none but soldiers,
And look'd into, bears no reward but danger,
Leave you the most respected person living?
Beaumont and Fletcher's Valentine.
Honour is

By Jove, I am not covetous of gold,
Nor care I, who doth feed upon my cost;

It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires:
But if it be a sin to covet honour,

I am the most offending soul alive.

Virtue's allowed ascent: honour that clasps
Shaks. Henry V. All perfect justice in her arms; that craves
No more respect than what she gives; that does
Nothing but what she 'll suffer.

What is that you would impart to me?
If it be aught toward the general good,
Set honour in one eye, and death i' th' other,
And I will look on both indifferen1ly :
For, let the gods so speed me, as I love
The name of honour more than I fear death.
Shaks. Julius Cæsar.

The king has cur'd me,

I humbly thank his grace: and from these shoulders,
These ruin'd pillars, out of pity, taken
A load would sink a navy-too much honour:
O, 't is a burden, Cromwell, 't is a burden,
Too heavy for a man that hopes for heaven!
Shaks. Henry VIII.

Let none presume

To wear an undeserved dignity.
O, that estates, degrees, and offices,
Were not deriv'd corruptly! and that dear honour
Were purchased by the merit of the wearer!
How many then should cover, that stand bare?
How many be commanded that command?
How much low peasantry would then be glean'd
From the true seed of honour? and how much
honour

Pick'd from the chaff and ruin of the times,
To be new varnish'd?

Shaks. Merchant of Venice.
Perseverance, dear my lord,

Keeps honour bright. To have done is to hang
Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail

In monumental mockery.

Shaks. Troilus and Cressida.

Massinger's Very Woman

1. Speak the height of honour.
2. No man to offend,

Ne'er to reveal the secrets of a friend;
Rather to suffer than to do a wrong;
To make the heart no stranger to the tongue,
Provok'd, not to betray an enemy,

Nor cat his meat, I choke with flattery;
Blushless to tell wherefore I wear my scars,
Or for my conscience, or my country's wars;
To aim at just things; if we have wildly run
Into offences - wish them all undone.
'Tis poor in grief, for a wrong done to die,
Honour to dare to live, and satisfy.

Massinger's Very Woman,
The noblest spur unto the sons of fame,
Is thirst of honour.

John Hall

Honour, thou spongy idol of man's mind,
Thou soak'st content away, thou hast confin'd
Ambitious man, and not his destiny,
Within the bounds of form and ceremony.

Sir P. Sidney's Arcadia
Vain honour thou art but disguise,
A cheating voice, a juggling art;
No judge of virtue, whose pure eyes
Court her own image in the heart;
More pleased with her true figure there,
Than her false echo in the ear.

Carew

His honour's link'd

Unto his life; he that will seek the one
Must venture for the other or lose both.

Tatham's Distracted State.
He taught them honour, virtue's bashfulness;
A fort so yieldless, that it scorns to treat;
Like pow'r, it grows to nothing, growing to less:
Honour, the moral conscience of the great!

Sir W. Davenant's Gondibert.
Poor frighted men at sea,
To save their lives, cast all their goods away.
In storms of fortune, where there is a strife
Which shall be sav'd, man's honour or his life;
Who would preserve this tatter'd bark from fate,
But sink the vessel to preserve the freight?

Sir Robert Howard's Vestal Virgin.
In other worlds devotion may have bliss,
I'm sure 'tis honour that must save in this.
Crown's Justinian.

Love's common unto all the mass of creatures,
As life and breath; honour to man alone:
Honour being then above life, dishonour must
Be worse than death; for fate can strike but one;
Reproach doth reach whole families.

Wood witn honour being engag'd,
Is so implacably enrag'd,
Though iron hew and mangle sore,
Wood wounds and bruises honour more.
Butler's Hudibras.

He that is valiant and darea fight,
Though drubb'd, can lose no honour by 't,
Honour's a lease for lives to come,
And cannot be extended from
The legal tenant; 'tis a chattel
Not to be forfeited in battle.

Butler's Hudibras.

Honour hurt is wont to rage
With pain no med'cine can assuage.
Quoth he, that honour's very squeamish
That takes a basting for a blemish;
For what's more honourable than scars,
Or skin to tatters rent in wars?
Some have been beaten till they know
What wood a cudgel's of, by th' blow,
Some kick'd, until they can feel whether
A shoe be Spanish or neat's leather.

Butler's Hudibras.
Honour's a sacred tie-the law of kings,
Cartwright's Siege. The noble mind's distinguishing perfection,

Honour is like that glassy bubble,
That finds philosophers such trouble,
Whose least part crack'd, the whole does fly,
And wits are crack'd to find out why.

Butler's Hudibras.

Quoth Ralpho, honour's but a word
To swear by only in a lord:
In other men 't is but a huff,
To vapour with, instead of proof.

If he that in the field is slain,
Be in the bed of honour lain,
He that is beaten, may be said
To lie in honour's truckle bed.

That aids and strengthens virtue where it meets

Butler's Hudibras.

Honour, my lord, is much too proud to catch
At every tender twig of nice distinctions.
These for th' unfeeling vulgar may do well:
But those, whose souls are by the nicer rule,
of virtuous delicacy nobly sway'd,
Stand at another bar than that of laws.

Thomson's Tancred and Sigismunda.

How vain are all hereditary honours,
Those poor possessions from another's deeds,
Unless our own just virtues form our title,
And give a sanction to our fond assumptions.
Shirley's Parricide.

The honours of a name 't is just to guard;
They are a trust but lent us, which we take,
And should, in reverence to the donor's fame,
With care transmit them down to other hands.
Shirley's Parricide.

What is honour? a silly vain opinion,
That hangs but on the rabble's idle breath;
For them we court it, yet by them 't is scorn'd.
Martyn's Timoleon.
I've scann'd the actions of his daily life
With all th' industrious malice of a foe;
And nothing meets mine eye but deeds of honour.
Hannah More's Daniel.

A life of honour and of worth
Has no eternity on earth,-

"Tis but a name

And yet its glory far exceeds

That base and sensual life which leads
To want and shame.

Longfellow. Where the meekness of self-knowledge veileth the front of self-respect,

There look thou for the man whose name none
can know but they will honour.
Tupper's Proverbiol Philosophy.

HOPE.

The miserable hath no other medicine
But only hope.

239

Shaks. Mea. for Mea.

Hope is a lover's staff; walk hence with that,
And manage it against despairing thoughts.

Shaks. Two Gentlemen of Verona.

The ample proposition, that hope makes
In all designs begun on earth below,
Fails in the promis'd largeness.

Shaks. Troilus and Cressida.

There is a credence in my heart,
An esperance so obstinately strong,
That doth invert the attest of eyes and ears;
As if those organs had deceptious functions,
Created only to calumniate.

Shaks. Troilus and Cressida.

A cause on foot
Lives so on hope, as in an early spring
We see the appearing buds; which, to prove fruit,
Hope gives not so much warrant as despair,
That frosts will bite them.

Shaks. Henry IV. Part II
Even here I will put off my hope, and keep it
No longer for my flatterer.

I will despair, and be at enmity

Shaks. Tempest

With cozening hope; he is a flatterer,

A parasite, a keeper-back of death,

Who gently would dissolve the bands of life,
Which false hope lingers in extremity.
Shaks. Richard II
Our hopes, I see, resemble much the sun,
That rising and declining casts large shadows;
But when his beams are dress'd in mid-day
brightness,

Yields none at all: when they are farthest from
Success, their gilt reflection does display
The largest shows of events fair and prosp'rous.
Chapman's Revenge for Honour.
What can we not endure,

With him went hope in rank, a handsome maid, When pains are lessen'd by the hope of cure?

Of cheerful look, and lovely to behold;

In silken samite she was light array'd,
And her fair locks were woven up in gold.
She always smil'd, and in her hand did hold
An holy water-sprinkle, dipt in dew,
With which she sprinkled favours manifold,
On whom she list, and did great liking shew,
Great liking unto many, but true love to few.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
True hope is swift, and flies with swallow's wings,
Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings.
Shaks. Richard III.

Nabb's Microcosmus.

When once the main spring, hope, is fall'n into
Disorder, no wonder if the lesser wheels.
Desire and joy-stand still.

Suckling's Aglaura

But thou, O hope, with eyes so fair, What was thy delighted measure? Still it whisper'd promis'd pleasure, And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail! Still would her touch the strain prolong, And from the rocks the woods- the vale, She call'd on echo still through all her song And where her sweetest theme she chose, A soft responsive voice was heard at every close, Dryden's Secret Love. And hope enchanted smil'd, and wav'd her golden