Her face was ugly, and her mouth distort,
Foaming with poison round about her gills,
In which her cursed tongue full sharp and short
Appear'd like Asp his sting, that closely kills,
Or cruelly does wound whom so she wills.
A distaff in her other hand she had,
Upon the which she little spins, but spills;
And faynes to weave false tales and leasing bad,
To throw amongst the good which others had dis-
prad.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.

A foul and loathly creature sure in sight,
And in condition to be loathed no less,
For she was stuff''d with rancour and despight
Up to the throat, that oft with bitterness
It forth would break and gush in great excess,
Pouring out streams of poison and of gall
'Gainst all that truth or virtue do profess,
And wickedly backbite ;-her name men slander
Spenser's Fairy Queen.
Slanderous reproaches, and foul infamics,
Leasings, backbitings, and vain-glorious crakes,
Bad counsels, praises, and false flatteries;
All those against that fort did bend their batteries.
Spenser's Fairy Queen.

call.

So viperous slander,

Whose whisper o'er the world's diameter,
As level as the cannon to his blank,
Transports his poison'd shot,- may miss our

name,

And hit the woundless air.

Shaks. Hamlet.

For slander lives upon succession;
For ever housed, where it gets possession.
Shaks. Comedy of Errors.

I see, the jewel, best enamell'd,
Will lose his beauty; and though gold 'bides still,
That others touch, yet often touching will
Wear gold and no man, that hath a name,
But falsehood and corruption doth it shame.
Shaks. Comedy of Errors.

The best way is to slander Valentine
With falsehood, cowardice, and poor descent,-
Three things that women highly hold in hate.
Shaks. Two Gentlemen of Verona,

I'll devise some honest slanders
To stain my cousin with: one doth not know,
How much an ill word may empoison liking.
Shaks. Much Ado about Nothing.

I will be hang'd, if some eternal villain,
Some busy and insinuating rogue,
Some cogging cozening slave, to get some office,
Have not devis'd this slander.

Whose edge is sharper than the sword; whose The canker galls the infants of the spring;
For oft before their blossoms be disclos'd,
And in the morn and liquid dew of youth,
Contagious blastments are most imminent.

tongue
Out-venoms all the worms of Nile; whose breath
Rides on the posting winds, and doth belie
All corners of the world: kings, queens, and
states,

Maids, matrons, - nay, the secrets of the grave
This viperous slander enters.

Shaks. Cymbeline.
What have I done, that thou dar'st wag thy tongue
In noise so rude against me?

Shaks. Hamlet.

Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou
Shalt not escape calumny.

What we oft do best,

Shakspeare.

By sick interpreters, once weak ones, is
Not ours, or not allow'd: what worst, as oft
Hitting a grosser quality, is cried up
For our best act. If we shall stand still,
In fear our motion will be mock'd or carp'd at,
We should take root here where we sit, or sit
State-statues only.

Shaks. Henry VIII.
Shaks. Hamlet. If I am traduc'd by tongues, which neither know
My faculties, nor person, yet will be
The chronicles of my doing, let me say,
'Tis but the fate of place, and the rough brake
That virtue must go through.

No might nor greatness in mortality
Can censure 'scape; back-wounding calumny
The whitest virtue strikes: what king so strong,
Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue?
Shaks. Measure for Measure.

Shaks. Henry VIII.

Be good yourself, nor think another's shame
Can raise your merit, or adorn your fame.
Prudes rail at..
......; as statesmen in disgrace
At ministers, because they wish their place.

Lord Littleton's Advice to a Lady.

Talk of unusual swell of waist
In Maid of Honour loosely lac'd,
And beauty borrowing Spanish red,
And loving pair with sep'rate bed,
And jewels pawn'd for loss of game,
And then redeem'd by loss of fame;
And thus, in modish manner, we,
In aid of sugar, sweeten tea.

Green's Spleen.

The man that dares traduce, because he can
With safety to himself, is not a man.

Cowper's Expostulation.
'Tis false! 't is basely false !
What wretch could drop from his envenom'd
tongue

A tale so damn'd? It chokes

my breath.

Joanna Baillie's De Montford.
When I am cold, when my pale sheeted corse
Sleeps the dark sleep no venom'd tongue can wake,
List not to evil thoughts of her whose lips
Have then no voice to plead.

Does not the law of heaven say blood for blood}
And he who taints kills more than he who shed it.
Is it the pain of blows, or shame of blows,
That make such deadly to the sense of man?
Byron's Doge of Venice.

Now Laura moves along the joyous crowd,
Smiles in her eyes, and simpers on her lips;
To some she whispers, others speaks aloud;
To some she curtsics, and to some she dips;
Complains of warmth, and this complaint avow'd,
Her lover brings the lemonade, she sips;
She then surveys, condemns, but pities still,
Her dearest friends for being drest so ill.
One has false curls, another too much paint,

A third-where did she buy that frightful turban
A fourth's so pale, she fears she's going to faint,
A fifth's look 's vulgar, dowdyish and suburban,
A sixth's white silk has got a yellow taint,
A seventh's thin muslin surely will be her bane,
And lo! an eighth appears-"I'll see no more!"
For fear, like Banquo's kings, they reach a score.
Byron's Beppe

'Twas slander fill'd her mouth with lying words,
Slander, the foulest whelp of sin. The man
In whom this spirit enter'd was undone;
His tongue was set on fire of hell, his heart
Maturin's Bertram. Was black as death, his legs were faint with haste
To propagate the lie his soul had fram'd.

Onany a shaft at random sent,
Finds mark the archer never meant;
And many a word at random spoken,
May soothe or wound the heart that 's broken!
Scott's Lord of the Isles.
He threw his sting into a poisonous libel,
And on the honour of- O God—my wife,
The nearest, dearest part of all men's honour,
Left a base slur to pass from mouth to mouth
Of loose mechanics, with all coarse foul comments,
And villanous jests, and blasphemies obscene;
While sneering nobles, in more polish'd guise,
Whisper'd the tale, and smil'd upon the lie.
Byron's Doge of Venice.
Skill'd by a touch to deepen scandal's tints
With all the kind mendacity of hints,
While mingling truth with falsehood, sneers with
smiles,

And thread of candour with a web of wiles;
A plain blunt show of briefly-spoken seeming,
To hide her bloodless heart's soul-harden'd

scheming;

A lip of lies, a face form'd to conceal;
And, without feeling, mock at all who feel:
With a vile mask the Gorgon would disown,
A cheek of parchment, and an eye of stone.
Byron's Sketch from Private Life.

Pollock's Course of Time.

From door to door you might have seen him speed,
Or plac'd amid a group of gaping fools,
And whispering in their ears with his foul lips.
Peace fled the neighbourhood in which he made
His haunts.

Pollock's Course of Time.
O thou, from whose rank breath nor sex can save,
Nor sacred virtue, nor the powerless grave,
Felon unwhipp'd! than whom in yonder cells
Full many a groaning wretch less guilty dwells,-
Blush, if of honest blood a drop remains,
To steal its lonely way along thy veins;

Blush if the bronze long harden'd on thy cheek
Has left one spot where that poor drop can speak;
Blush to be branded with the Slanderer's name,
And, though thou dread'st not sin, at least dread
shame.
Sprague's Poems.

My dark-eyed darling! don't you know,

If you were homely, cold, and stupid,
Unbent for you were Slander's bow?

Her shafts but follow those of Cupid.
Dear child of Genius! strike the lyre

And drown with melody delicious,
Soft answering to your touch of fire,
The envious hint the sneer malicious.

Remember it is Music's law,

We and our fathers, from our childhood bred

Each pure, true note, though low you sound it, To watch the cruel victor's eye, to dread

Is heard through Discord's wildest war

Of rage and madness, storming round it. Serenely go your glorious way,

Secure that every footstep onward, Will lead you from their haunts away,

Since you go up, and they go-downward.

A whisper woke the air-
A soft light tone and low,
Yet barb'd with shame and woe,
Now, might it only perish there!

Nor farther go.

Mrs. Osgood.

Ah me! a quick and eager ear
Caught up the little meaning sound!
Another voice has breath'd it clear,
And so it wanders round

From ear to lip-from lip to ear-
Until it reach'd a gentle heart,

And that it broke.

The arbitrary lash, to bend, to grieve,
(Outcast of mortal race!) can we conceive
Image of aught delightful, soft, or gay?
Alas! when we have toil'd the longsome day,
The fullest bliss our hearts aspire to know
Is but some interval from active woc,
In broken rest and startling sleep to mourn,
Till morn, the tyrant, and the scourge, return.
Prior's Soloman,

War, famine, pest, volcano, storm, and fire,
Intestine broils, oppression, with her heart
Wrapt up in triple brass, besiege mankind.
God's image disinherited of day,

Here, plung'd in mines, forgets a sun was made:
There, beings deathless as their haughty lord,
Are hammer'd to the galling oar for life;
And plough the winter's wave, and reap despair.
Young's Night Thoughts.

Mrs. Osgood's Poems. Ill-fated race! the softening arts of peace;
Whate'er the humanizing muses teach;
The godlike wisdom of the temper'd breast
Progressive truth, the patient force of thought;
Investigation calm, whose silent powers
Command the world; the light that leads to
heaven;

SLAVERY.

You have among you many a purchas'd slave,
Which, like your asses, and your dogs, and mules,
You use in abject and in slavish parts
Because you bought them.

Shaks. Merchant of Venice.

And though we lay these honours on this man,
To ease ourselves of divers slanderous loads,
He shall but bear them as the ass bears gold,
To groan and sweat under the business,
Either led or driven, as we point the way.

Shaks. Julius Cæsar.
Romans now

Have thews and limbs like to their ancestors;

But woe the while! our fathers' minds are dead,
And we are govern'd with our mother's spirits;
Our yoke and sufferance show us womanish.

Shaks. Julius Cæsar.
Thou art a slave, whom fortune's tender arm
With favour never clasp'd; but bred a dog.

Shaks. Timon.

Lives there who loves his pain?

Kind, equal rule, the government of laws,
And all-protecting freedom, which alone
Sustain the name and dignity of man:
These are not theirs:

Thomson's Seasons.

Hark! heard ye not that piercing cry,
Which shook the waves and rent the sky?
E'en now,
e'en now on yonder western shores,
Weeps pale despair, and writhing anguish roars;
E'en now, in Afric's groves, with hideous yell,
From vale to vale the gathering cries rebound,
Fierce slavery stalks, and slips the dogs of hell;

And sable nations tremble at the sound!
Ye bands of senators! whose suffrage sways
Britannia's realms, whom either Ind obeys;
Who right the injur'd, and reward the brave,
Stretch your strong arm, for ye have power u
save!

Thron'd in the vaulted heart, his dread resort, Who would not, finding way, break loose from hell, Inexorable Conscience holds his court; Though thither doom'd?

With still small voice the plots of guilt alarms, Milton's Paradise Lost. Bares his mask'd brow, his lifted hand disarms,

At first I thought that liberty and heaven
To heav'nly soul had been all one; but now
I see that most through sloth had rather serve;
Minist'ring spirits, train'd up in feast and song.
Milton's Paradise Lost.

But wrapt in night, with terrors all his own,
He speaks in thunder when the deed is done
Hear him, ye senates! hear this truth sublime,
He who permits oppression, shares the crime'
Dr. Darwin.

484

What pale distress afflicts those wretched isles!
There hope ne'er dawns, and pleasure never smiles.
The vassal wretch obsequious drags his chain,
And hears his famish'd babes lament in vain.
Falconer's Shipwreck.

A land of tyrants and a den of slaves,
Here wretches seek dishonourable graves
And, calmly bent, to servitude conform,
Dull as their lakes that slumber in the storm.
Goldsmith's Traveller.
Canst thou, and honour'd with a Christian name,
Buy what is woman-born, and feel no shame ?
Trade in the blood of innocence, and plead
Expedience as a warrant for the deed?
So may the wolf, whom famine has made bold
To quit the forest and invade the fold;
the ruffian, who with ghostly glide,
So may
Dagger in hand, steals close to your bed-side;
Not he, but his emergence forc'd the door,
He found it inconvenient to be poor.

Belie the negro's powers: in headlong will,
Christian! thy brother thou shalt find him still;
Belie his virtue; since his wrongs began,
His follies and his crimes have stampt him man
J. Montgomery

The broken heart which kindness never heals,
The home-sick passion which the negro feels,
When toiling, fainting, in the land of canes,
His spirit wanders to his native plains;
His little lovely dwelling there he sees,
Beneath the shades of his paternal trees,
The home of comfort:- then before his eyes
The terrors of captivity arise.
J. Montgomery.

The negro, spoil'd of all that nature gave,
The free-born man thus shrunk into a slave,
His passive limbs to measur'd looks confin'd,
Obey'd the impulse of another mind;
A silent, secret, terrible control,

That ruled his sinews, and repress'd his soul
Cowper's Charity. Not for himself he waked at morning light,
Toil'd the long day, and sought repose at night;
His rest, his labour, pastime, strength and health,
Were only portions of a master's wealth;
His love

He finds his fellow guilty of a skin
Not colour'd like his own, and having pow'r
T'enforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause
Dooms and devotes him as his lawful prey.

O name not love, where Britons doom
Cowper's Task. The fruit of love to slavery from the womb.
J. Montgomery

I would not have a slave to till my ground,
To carry me, to fan me while I sleep,
And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth
That sinews bought and sold have ever earn'd.
Cowper's Task.

I could endure
Chains nowhere patiently; and chains at home,
Where I am free by birth-right, not at all.

Cowper's Task.

To know
How salt another's bread is, and how toilsome
The going up and down another's stairs.

Alas! no glory smiles

Lives there a savage ruder than the slave?
Cruel as death, insatiate as the grave,
False as the winds that round his vessel blow,
Remorseless as the gulf that yawns below;
Is he who toils upon the wafting flood,

A Christian broker in the trade of blood;
Boisterous in speech, in action prompt and bold,
He buys, he sells, he steals, he kills for gold.
Montgomery

He sees no beauty in the heaven serene,
But darkly scowling at the glorious day,
Rogers's Italy. Curses the winds that loiter on their way.
When swoln with hurricanes the billows rise,
To meet the lightning midway from the skies;
When from the unburden'd hold his shrieking
slaves

For Congo's chief on yonder Indian isles;
For ever fallen! no son of nature now,
With freedom charter'd on his manly brow!
Faint, bleeding, bound, he weeps the night away,
And when the sea-wind wafts the dewless day,
Starts, with a bursting heart, for ever more
To curse the sun that lights their guilty shore.
Campbell's Pleasures of Hope.

Alone upon his rocky height,
The eagle rear'd his unstain'd crest,
And soaring from his cloudy nest,
Turn'd to the sun his daring eye,
And wing'd at will the azure sky,
For he alone was free

Joanna Baillie.

Byron's Giaour.