Grocott & Ward, comps. Grocott’s Familiar Quotations, 6th ed. 189-?.
Fear
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
Psalm cxi. Ver. 10.
The Fear of God is freedom, joy, and peace;
And makes all ills that vex us here to cease.
Waller.—The Fear of God, Canto I. Line 1.
Have you not mark’d a partridge quake,
Viewing the towering falcon nigh?
She criddles low behind the brake:
Nor would she stay: nor dares she fly.
Prior.—The Dove, Ver. 14.
So have I seen some fearful hare maintain
A course, till tired before the dog she lay;
Who stretch’d behind her, pants upon the plain,
Past power to kill, as she to get away.
Dryden.—Annus Mirabilis, Stanza 131.
With his loll’d tongue he faintly licks his prey;
His warm breath blows her flix up as she lies:
She trembling creeps upon the ground away,
And looks back to him with beseeching eyes.
Dryden.—Annus Mirabilis, Stanza 132.
And now his shadow reach’d her as she run,
His shadow lengthen’d by the setting sun;
And now his shorter breath, with sultry air,
Pants on her neck, and fans her parting hair.
Pope.—Windsor Forest, Line 191. (Lodona pursued by Pan.)
[Dryden and Pope have here evidently imitated Ovid in the 12th Fable of his Meta.; where he describes Apollo pursuing Daphne, as when the greyhound has seen the hare in the open field, and the one by the speed of his legs pursues his prey, the other seeks her safety;—yet he that follows, aided by the wings of love, is the swifter, and denies her any rest; and is now just at her back as she flies, and is breathing upon her hair scattered upon her neck.—Riley’s Ovid, Book I. Line 532.]
’Tis listening fear, and dumb amazement all.
Thomson.—Summer.
Hang those that talk of fear.
Shakespeare.—Macbeth, Act V. Scene 3. (To Seyton.)
Yet I do fear thy nature;
It is too full o’ the milk of human kindness
To catch the nearest way.
Shakespeare.—Macbeth, Act I. Scene 5. (Lady Macbeth reading her husband’s Letter.)