Grocott & Ward, comps. Grocott’s Familiar Quotations, 6th ed. 189-?.
Bubbles
Like bubbles on the sea of matter borne,
They rise, they break, and to that sea return.
Pope.—Essay on Man, Epi. III. Line 19.
For what are men who grasp at praise sublime,
But bubbles on the rapid stream of time,
That rise and fall, that swell and are no more,
Born and forgot, ten thousand in an hour.
Dr. Young.—Love of Fame, Sat. II. Line 285.
The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,
And these are of them.
Shakespeare.—Macbeth, Act I. Scene 3. (Banquo to Macbeth when the Witches vanished.)