GREAT.—He that once is good, is always great.
Ben Jonson.—The Forest, to Lady Aubigny.
High stations tumults, but not bliss, create:
None think the Great unhappy, but the Great.
Young.—Love of Fame, Sat. I. Line 237.
In perfum’d chambers of the great.
Shakespeare.—King Henry IV. Part II. Act III. Scene 1. (Apostrophe to Sleep.)
In joys, in grief, in triumphs, in retreat,
Great always, without aiming to be great.
Roscommon.—Dr. Chetwood to the Earl.
’Tis phrase absurd to call a villain great.
Pope.—Essay on Man, Epi. IV. Line 230.
“Here lies the great”—false marble! where?
Nothing but small and sordid dust lies there.
Cowley.—Life and Fame.
GREATNESS.—Nay, then, farewell!
I have touch’d the highest point of all my greatness:
And, from that
full meridian of my glory,
I haste now to my setting. I shall fall
Like a bright exhalation in the evening,
And
no man see me more.
Shakespeare.—King Henry VIII.Act III. Scene 2. (Wolsey on his Fall.)
’Tis, alas! the poor prerogative
Of greatness to be wretched, and unpitied—
Congreve.—The Mourning Bride, Act I. Scene 1.
In my stars I am above thee; but be not afraid of greatness; some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.
Shakespeare.—Twelfth Night, Act II. Scene 5. (Malvolio reading a Letter.)
GREECE.—The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece!
Where burning Sappho loved and sung,
Where
grew the hearts of war and peace,—
Eternal summer gilds them
yet,
But all, except their sun, is set.
Byron.—Don Juan, Canto III. Stanza 86.
GREECE.—Such is the aspect of this shore;
’Tis Greece, but living Greece no more!
So coldly sweet, so
deadly fair,
We start, for soul is wanting there.
Byron.—The Giaour, Line 91.
GREEK.—Beside, ’tis known he could speak Greek,
As naturally as pigs squeak.
Butler.—Hudibras, Part I.Canto I. Line 51.
When Greeks joined Greeks, then was the tug of war.