Chapter SLAVERY to SLEEP of Index by Grocott's Quotations - Alpha

SLAVERY to SLEEP

SLAVERY.—Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, slavery! still thou art a bitter draught!

Sterne.—The Passport, Hotel at Paris.

Ay, this country has spoiled them; this same christening will ruin the colonies.

Foote.—The Patron, Act I.

SLAVES.—Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs
Receive our air, that moment they are free;
They touch our country, and their shackles fall.

Cowper.—The Task, Book II. Line 40.

And this spirit of liberty is so deeply implanted in our constitution, and rooted in our very soil, that a slave or negro, the moment he lands in England, falls under the protection of the laws, and so far becomes a freeman.

Salkeld’s Reports, 666; Sommerset’s Case, 20; State Trials, 79; Loft’s Report, 1; Blackstone’s Comm. 127-424; see also Grace’s Case, reported by Dr. Haggard.

SLEEP.—Blessed be he who first invented sleep; it covers a man all over like a cloak.

Geo. Combe.—Don Quixote.

I wish I could write a chapter upon sleep. It is a fine subject.

Sterne.—Tristram Shandy, Vol. III. Chap. XV.

Death, so call’d, is a thing which makes men weep,
And yet a third of life is pass’d in sleep.

Byron.—Don Juan, Canto XIV. Stanza 3.

Sleep, that knits up the ravell’d sleave of care,
The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great Nature’s second course,
Chief nourisher in life’s feast.

Shakespeare.—Macbeth, Act II. Scene 2. (To his Lady after the murder.)

Tired Nature’s sweet restorer, balmy sleep!
He, like the world, his ready visit pays
Where Fortune smiles; the wretched he forsakes;
… flies from woe,
And lights on lids unsullied with a tear.

Young.—Night I. Line 1.

SLEEP.—Sleep, thou repose of all things; Sleep, thou gentlest of the deities; thou peace of the mind, from which care flies; who dost soothe the hearts of men wearied with the toils of the day, and refittest them for labour.

Ovid.—Meta. Book XI. Line 623. (Riley’s Transl.)

O sleep, O gentle sleep!
Nature’s soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down,
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?

Shakespeare.—King Henry IV. Part II. Act III. Scene 1. (The King, solus.)

Sleep, that sometimes shuts up sorrow’s eye.

Shakespeare.—Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III. Scene 2. (Helena.)