The Mid-eighteenth Century, Volume 9, Part 1W. Blackwood and sons, 1902 - 387 pages |
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Adam Smith admirable attack better blank verse British character Clarissa classical tragedy comedy contemporary criticism Defoe deism deist Diderot doctrine drama effect eighteenth century eminent England English Essays excellence fiction Fielding France French French poetry genius Gil Blas Goldsmith hand hero heroic couplet History Horace Walpole human Hume humour imitation influence Johnson Jonathan Wild labours language less literary literature Louis XIV manner Manon Lescaut Marianne Marivaux matter memoirs merit Molière Montesquieu moral nature never novel novelists Œuvres Paris passions perhaps period philosophes Physiocrats piece Piron play poems poet poetical poetry political practice Prévost principles professed prose reader religion Richardson romance Rousseau Sage Saint-Lambert satire scarcely sense sentiment Smollett spirit stage style success taste theory things Thomson thought tion Tom Jones tone tradition translation true truth virtue vols Voltaire Voltaire's volume wholly writers Young
Popular passages
Page 97 - Things and actions are what they are, and the consequences of them will be what they will be : Why then should we desire to be deceived?
Page 101 - The prince soon found that this was one of the sages whom he should understand less as he heard him longer. He therefore bowed and was silent, and the philosopher, supposing him satisfied, and the rest vanquished, rose up and departed with the air of a man that had co-operated with the present system.
Page ii - Europe as being, for intellectual and spiritual purposes, one great confederation, bound to a joint action and working to a common result...
Page 101 - To live according to nature, is to act always with due regard to the fitness arising from the relations and qualities of causes and effects; to concur with the great and unchangeable scheme of universal felicity ; to co-operate with the general disposition and tendency of the present system of things.
Page 1 - Our opinions, our fashions, even our games, were adopted in France ; a ray of national glory illuminated each individual, and every Englishman was supposed to be born a patriot and a philosopher.
Page 89 - As the sceptical doubt arises naturally from a profound and intense reflection on those subjects, it always encreases, the farther we carry our reflections, whether in opposition or conformity to it. Carelessness and in-attention alone can afford us any remedy. For this reason I rely entirely upon them...
Page 148 - The business of a poet," said Imlac, "is to examine, not the individual, but the species; to remark general properties, and large appearances; he does not number the streaks of the tulip, or describe the different shades in the verdure of the forest.
Page 98 - I do not mean to reproach this author for not knowing what is equally hidden from learning and from ignorance. The shame is to impose words for ideas upon ourselves or others; to imagine that we are going forward when we are only turning round...
Page 265 - My temper is not very susceptible of enthusiasm, and the enthusiasm which I do not feel I have ever scorned to affect. But at the distance of twenty-five years I can neither forget nor express the strong emotions which agitated my mind as I first approached and entered the eternal city. After a sleepless night, I trod, with a lofty step, the ruins of the Forum ; each memorable spot...
Page 88 - All events seem entirely loose and separate. One event follows another; but we never can observe any tie between them. They seem conjoined, but never connected.