| Encyclopaedia - 1845 - 840 pages
...meddle with buck-washing. Id. Ib. fol. 50. Defend me therefore, common sense, say I, From reveries so airy, from the toil Of dropping buckets into empty wells, And growing old in drawing nothing up! Cowper. The Task, book iii. Nothing is stol'n : my muse, though mean Draws from the spring she finds... | |
| William Cowper - 1847 - 556 pages
...While thoughtful man is plausibly amused. Defend me, therefore, common sense, say I, From reveries so airy, from the toil Of dropping buckets into empty...And growing old in drawing nothing up ! 'Twere well, says one sage erudite, profound, Terribly arch'd, and aquiline his nose, And overbuilt with most impending... | |
| 1878 - 496 pages
...all its flavour." " Domestic happiness, thou only bliss Of Paradise that hast survived the fall." " Dropping buckets into empty wells, And growing old in drawing nothing up." " The town has tinged the country." " Life spent in indolence and therefore sad." " But war's a game,... | |
| Davis Wasgatt Clark - Bible - 1847 - 334 pages
...preach, without having his mind stored with theological knowledge, are not unjustly characterized as, 44 Dropping buckets into empty wells ; And growing old in drawing nothing up." Where there is eloquence at all, there must be the eloquence of thought. A man may bluster, and foam,... | |
| William Cowper - English poetry - 1849 - 740 pages
...While thoughtful man is plausibly amused. 186 Defend me therefore common sense, say I, From reveries so airy, from the toil Of dropping buckets into empty wells, * And growing old in drawing nothing up ! 190 'Twere well, says one sage erudite, profound, Terribly arch'd and aquiline his nose, And overbuilt... | |
| William Cowper - 1850 - 516 pages
...While thoughtful man is plausibly amused, Defend me therefore, common sense, say I, From reveries so airy, from the toil Of dropping buckets into empty...And growing old in drawing nothing up ! 'Twere well, says one sage erudite, profound, Terribly arched, and aquiline his nose, And overbuilt with most impending... | |
| Early English newspapers - 1850 - 790 pages
...are accused of finding delight — speculations, the investigation of which is likened by Cowper to the toil Of dropping buckets into empty wells, And growing old in drawing nothing up. With all our respect for antiquaries and their studies, we must admit that there are amongst them men... | |
| Commerce - 1851 - 796 pages
...For my own part, assuredly I take no pride in it; it is the fruit of time mispeut, spent in— • the toil Of dropping buckets into empty wells, And growing old in drawing nothing up." For these reasons I want to get a bill of particulars, to the end, that we may show that we have fully... | |
| Popular literature - 1851 - 566 pages
...in a quotation from Cowper. " Yes," said he, " since then, in the language of the poet, I have been, Dropping buckets into empty wells, And growing old in drawing nothing up." By this time it had become late. I wished to leave him, and was endeavouring to devise some plan by... | |
| Epes Sargent - Elocution - 1852 - 568 pages
...exclaim , in the words of Cowper, — " Defend me, therefore, common sense, say I, From reveries eo airy, — from the toil Of dropping buckets into empty wells, And growing old in drawing nothing up ! " The preceptive portion of the Treatise presents no particular claim to originality ; the object... | |
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