SHALL I DESCRIBE YOUR CHARACTER?

GENTLEMAN.

H deeper than thou think'st, I've read thy heart!

A gilded insect-to the world thou seem'st,
The fashion's idol; person, pen, and lyre,
The soft devoted darling of the fair.

By slow degrees I've found Herculean nerve
Hid in the tuneful arm while hunger, thirst,
The sultry chase, the bleakest mountain bed,
The dark, rough, winter torrent, are to thee
But pastime.

HILLHOUSE-Percy's Masque.

2. You have a tear for pity, and a hand Open as day to melting charity.

Yet notwithstanding, being incensed, you're flint;
As humorous as winter, and as sudden

As flaws congealed in the spring of day.
Your temper, therefore, must be well observed.
Chide you for faults, and do it reverently
When we perceive your blood inclined to mirth;
But being moody, give you time and scope,

3.

4.

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Till that your passions, like a whale on ground,
Confound themselves with working.

You disdain the secret breath,

Henry Fourth.

The whispered tale that blights a virtuous name.

THOMSON.

Those who see thee in thy full-blown pride,

Know little of affections crushed within,

And wrongs which frenzy thee.

TALFOURD-Ion.

5. Too poor for a bribe, and too proud to importune, You have not the method of making a fortune.

6. Welcome are you in hut and hall,

GRAY.

To maids and matrons, peers and peasants,

You win the sympathies of all

By making puns and making presents.

7.

An intellect whose range

PRAED-Quince.

Is in the highest, loveliest sphere of thought,
A heart above all fickleness and change

With its deep love unbought.

Author of Christmas Bells.

8. You are not apt to fall in sudden love,
Or sudden loathing, without further reason

Than fancy's humorous promptings.

FANNY KEMBLE-Star of Seville.

9. This person has a knack, you know,
Of saying things mal a propos,
And making all the world reflect
On what it hates to recollect:
He talks to misers of their heir,
To women of the times that were,
To poets of the wrong review,

And to the French of Waterloo.

10.

11.

PRAED-Bridal of Belmont.

The kindest man,

The best conditioned and unwearied spirit
In doing courtesies.

Merchant of Venice.

You are born to poet uses,

To love all things set above you, all of good and all

of fair.

MISS BARRETT.

12. The orphan child, the friendless one, the luckless

and the poor,

Will never meet your spurning frown, or leave your

bolted door;

Your kindred circles all mankind,-your country all

the globe,

An honest name your jewelled star, and truth your

13.

ermined robe.

ELIZA COOK.

Truth alone,

Truth tangible, and palpable, such truth

As may be weighed and measured, truth deduced
By logical conclusion, close, severe,
From premises incontrovertible;

This is the mistress of your fond desire,

Your first, your only love.

MOULTRIE-Dream of Life.

14.

Reputed wise

For saying nothing.

Merchant of Venice.

R. H. HORNE.

15. A lover gay, and sooth to tell,

You love not oft in vain ;

For

you both generous are and brave, Full rich in dress, and never grave, And sweetly tell your pain.

16. Born with as much nobility as would, Divided, serve to make ten noblemen.

17. A happy wit and independent spirit, And then, you're brave too!

SHIRLEY.

JOHN TOBIN.

18. One of a cold and constant mind,

Not quickened into ardent action soon,
Nor prompt for petty enterprise, yet bold,
Fierce when need is, and capable of all things.

TAYLOR-Philip Van Artevelde.

2

19. Action your happiness, your judgment clear,
Caution you brand as foolishness or fear.
Rash and irascible, you rush like flame
Heedless of obstacle, to every aim.

Your path how just you stay not to inquire,

The effectual and the shortest your desire.
SHARON TURNER-Richard the Third.

20. A gentleman of the greatest promise that ever came

into my note.

Winter's Tale.

21. There can be no kernel in this light nut; the soul of this man is his clothes.

22.

Is not he

All's Well that ends Well.

23.

Of noble nature the chief handiwork,
Whose manliness o'er-towering other men,
Hath all the soul of woman tempering it?

SAUL-A Mystery.

A well accomplished youth,

Of all that virtue love for virtue loved;

Most power to do maids harm, least knowing ill.

Love's Labor Lost.

24. I warrant thou art a merry fellow, and carest for

nothing.

Twelfth Night.