The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D., Volume 6

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Bell & Bradfute ... [and 3 others] and S. Campbell, New York, 1806
 

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Page 141 - Come, thick night, And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, To cry " Hold, hold !
Page 90 - CRITICISM, though dignified from the earliest ages by the labours of men eminent for knowledge and sagacity, and, since the revival of polite literature, the favourite study of European scholars, has not yet attained the certainty and ) stability of science.
Page 213 - Envy is almost the only vice which is practicable at all times, and in every place; the only passion which can never lie quiet for want of irritation : its effects therefore are every where discoverable, and its attempts always to be dreaded.
Page 329 - ... yet the toil with which performance struggles after idea, is so irksome and disgusting, and so frequent is the necessity of resting below that perfection which we imagined within our reach, that seldom any man obtains more from his endeavours than a painful conviction of his defects, and a continual resuscitation of desires which he feels himself unable to gratify.
Page 225 - Love and the nymph shall charm my toils, The nymph, who sweetly speaks and sweetly smiles.
Page 327 - Such is the emptiness of human enjoyment, that we are always impatient of the present. Attainment is followed by neglect, and possession by disgust; and the malicious remark of the Greek epigrammatist on marriage may be applied to every other course of life, that its two days of happiness are the first and the last.1 Few moments are more pleasing than those in which the mind is concerting measures for a new undertaking.
Page 17 - THIS modest stone, what few vain marbles can, May truly say, * Here lies an honest man :' A poet, bless'd beyond the poet's fate, Whom Heaven kept sacred from the proud and great Foe to loud praise, and friend to learned ease, Content with science in the vale of peace. Calmly he look'd on either life, and here Saw nothing to regret, or there to fear ; From nature's...
Page 57 - ... power. Avarice is generally the last passion of those lives of which the first part has been squandered in pleasure, and the second devoted to ambition. He that sinks under the fatigue of getting wealth, lulls his age with the milder business of saving it.
Page 224 - Of him that hopes to be forgiven, it is indispensably required that he forgive. It is therefore superfluous to urge any other motive. On this great duty eternity is suspended, and to him that refuses to practise it, the Throne of mercy is inaccessible, and the Saviour of the world has been born in vain.
Page 6 - A giant shepherd here his flock maintains Far from the rest, and solitary reigns, In shelter thick of horrid shade reclin'd; And gloomy mischiefs labour in his mind. A form enormous! far unlike the race Of human birth, in stature, or in face; As some lone mountain's monstrous growth he stood, Crown'd with rough thickets, and a nodding wood.

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