Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Perfume
In virtue, nothing earthly could surpass her,
Save thine “incomparable oil,” Macassar!
Byron—Don Juan. Canto I. St. 17.
And the ripe harvest of the new-mown hay
Gives it a sweet and wholesome odour.
Colley Cibber—Richard III. (Altered.) Act V. Sc. 3. L. 44.
I cannot talk with civet in the room,
A fine puss gentleman that’s all perfume.
Cowper—Conversation. L. 283.
Soft carpet-knights all scenting musk and amber.
Du Bartas—Divine Weekes and Workes. Third Day. Pt. I.
And ever since then, when the clock strikes two,
She walks unbidden from room to room,
And the air is filled that she passes through
With a subtle, sad perfume.
The delicate odor of mignonette,
The ghost of a dead and gone bouquet,
Is all that tells of her story—yet
Could she think of a sweeter way?
Bret Harte—Newport Legend. Quoted by Augustus Thomas in The Witching Hour.
Look not for musk in a dog’s kennel.
Herbert—Jacula Prudentum.
A stream of rich distill’d perfumes.
Milton—Comus. 556.
Sabean odours from the spicy shore
Of Arabie the blest.
Milton—Paradise Lost. Bk. IV. L. 162.
An amber scent of odorous perfume
Her harbinger.
Milton—Samson Agonistes. L. 720.
And all your courtly civet cats can vent
Perfume to you, to me is excrement.
Pope—Epilogue to the Satires. Dialogue II. L. 188.
And all Arabia breathes from yonder box.
Pope—The Rape of the Lock. Canto I. L. 134.
So perfumed that
The winds were love-sick.
Antony and Cleopatra. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 198.
From the barge
A strange invisible perfume hits the sense
Of the adjacent wharfs.
Antony and Cleopatra. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 216.
Hast thou not learn’d me how
To make perfumes? distil? preserve? yea, so
That our great king himself doth woo me oft
For my confections?
Cymbeline. Act I. Sc. 5. L. 12.
The perfumed tincture of the roses.
Sonnet LIV.
Take your paper, too,
And let me have them very well perfumed,
For she is sweeter than perfume itself
To whom they go to.
Taming of the Shrew. Act I. Sc. 2. L. 151.
Perfume for a lady’s chamber.
Winter’s Tale. Act IV. Sc. 4. L. 225.