Page 267

John Dryden. (1631–1700)

2921

Above any Greek or Roman name.1

Upon the Death of Lord Hastings. Line 76.

2922

And threat’ning France, plac’d like a painted Jove,
Kept idle thunder in his lifted hand.

Annus Mirabilis. Stanza 39.

2923

Whate’er he did was done with so much ease,
In him alone ’t was natural to please.

Absalom and Achitophel. Part i. Line 27.

2924

A fiery soul, which, working out its way,
Fretted the pygmy-body to decay,
And o’er-inform’d the tenement of clay.2
A daring pilot in extremity;
Pleas’d with the danger, when the waves went high
He sought the storms.

Absalom and Achitophel. Part i. Line 156.

2925

Great wits are sure to madness near allied,
And thin partitions do their bounds divide.3

Absalom and Achitophel. Part i. Line 163.

2926

And all to leave what with his toil he won
To that unfeather’d two-legged thing, a son.

Absalom and Achitophel. Part i. Line 169.

2927

Resolv’d to ruin or to rule the state.

Absalom and Achitophel. Part i. Line 174.

2928

And heaven had wanted one immortal song.

Absalom and Achitophel. Part i. Line 197.

2929

But wild Ambition loves to slide, not stand,
And Fortune’s ice prefers to Virtue’s land.4

Absalom and Achitophel. Part i. Line 198.

Note 1.
Above all Greek, above all Roman fame.—Alexander Pope: epistle i. book ii. line 26. [back]

Note 2.
See Fuller, Quotation 2. [back]

Note 3.
No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness.—Aristotle: Problem, sect. 30.

Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiæ (There is no great genius without a tincture of madness).—Seneca: De Tranquillitate Animi, 15.

What thin partitions sense from thought divide!—Alexander Pope: Essay on Man, epistle i. line 226. [back]

Note 4.
Greatnesse on Goodnesse loves to slide, not stand,
And leaves, for Fortune’s ice, Vertue’s ferme land.
Knolles: History (under a portrait of Mustapha I.) [back]