The Works of the English Poets, from Chaucer to Cowper: Including the Series Edited with Prefaces, Biographical and Critical, Volume 13

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J. Johnson, 1810 - 612 pages

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Page 421 - tis madness to defer: Next day the fatal precedent will plead ; Thus on, till wisdom is push'd out of life. Procrastination is the thief of time; Year after year it steals, till all are fled, And to the mercies of a moment leaves The vast concerns of an eternal scene.
Page 421 - Of man's miraculous mistakes, this bears The palm, " That all men are about to live," For ever on the brink of being born. All pay themselves the compliment to think They one day shall not drivel : and their pride On this reversion takes up ready praise ; At least, their own ; their future selves...
Page 95 - Just such is the Christian ; his course he begins, Like the sun in a mist, when he mourns for his sins, And melts into tears ; then he breaks out and shines, And travels his heavenly way : But when he comes nearer to finish his race, Like a fine setting sun, he looks richer in grace, And gives a sure hope, at the end of his days, Of rising in brighter array.
Page 204 - But soon he saw the brisk awakening viol, Whose sweet entrancing voice he loved the best ; They would have thought who heard the strain They saw, in Tempe's vale, her native maids, Amidst the festal sounding shades, To some unwearied minstrel dancing...
Page 221 - Wide and wider spreads the vale As circles on a smooth canal ; The mountains round (unhappy fate !) Sooner or later, of all height, Withdraw their summits from the skies, And lessen as the others...
Page 203 - Madness ruled the hour) Would prove his own expressive power. First Fear his hand, its skill to try, Amid the chords bewilder'd laid, And back recoil'd, he knew not why, E'en at the sound himself had made.
Page 418 - TIRED Nature's sweet restorer, balmy Sleep! He, like the world, his ready visit pays Where Fortune smiles; the wretched he forsakes; Swift on his downy pinion flies from woe, And lights on lids unsullied with a tear.
Page 222 - Ever charming, ever new, When will the landscape tire the view! The fountain's fall, the river's flow, The woody valleys warm and low; The windy summit, wild and high, Roughly rushing on the sky! The pleasant seat, the ruin'd tower, The naked rock, the shady bower; The town and village, dome and farm, Each give each a double charm, As pearls upon an Ethiop's arm.
Page 381 - The love of praise, howe'er concealed by art, Reigns, more or less, and glows in every heart ; The proud to gain it, toils on toils endure ; The modest shun it, but to make it sure.
Page 202 - Or where the beetle winds His small but sullen horn, As oft he rises 'midst the twilight path, Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum, — Now teach me, Maid composed ! To breathe some soften'd strain : Whose numbers, stealing through thy darkening vale, May not unseemly with its stillness suit, As, musing slow, I hail Thy genial loved return.

About the author (1810)

Samuel Johnson was born in 1709, in Lichfield, England. The son of a bookseller, Johnson briefly attended Pembroke College, Oxford, taught school, worked for a printer, and opened a boarding academy with his wife's money before that failed. Moving to London in 1737, Johnson scratched out a living from writing. He regularly contributed articles and moral essays to journals, including the Gentleman's Magazine, the Adventurer, and the Idler, and became known for his poems and satires in imitation of Juvenal. Between 1750 and 1752, he produced the Rambler almost single-handedly. In 1755 Johnson published Dictionary of the English Language, which secured his place in contemporary literary circles. Johnson wrote Rasselas in a week in 1759, trying to earn money to visit his dying mother. He also wrote a widely-read edition of Shakespeare's plays, as well as Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland and Lives of the Poets. Johnson's writing was so thoughtful, powerful, and influential that he was considered a singular authority on all things literary. His stature attracted the attention of James Boswell, whose biography, Life of Johnson, provides much of what we know about its subject. Johnson died in 1784.

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