The Mid-eighteenth Century, Volume 9, Part 1W. Blackwood and sons, 1902 - 387 pages |
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Adam Smith admirable attack Berkeley better blank verse Butler character classical comedy contemporary Conyers Middleton criticism Defoe deism deist Diderot doctrine drama effect eighteenth century England English Essays excellence fiction Fielding France French French poetry genius Gil Blas Goldsmith hand heroic couplet History Horace Walpole human Hume humour imitation influence Johnson Jonathan Wild labours language less literary literature manner Manon Lescaut Marianne Marivaux matter means memoirs merit Molière Montesquieu moral nature never novel novelists Œuvres Paris passion 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 superior taste theory things Thomson thought tion Tom Jones tone tragedy translation true truth verse virtue vols Voltaire Voltaire's volume wholly writers Young
Popular passages
Page 103 - 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 107 - 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 cooperated with the present system.
Page 179 - I hoped, might be of some use to ascertain, how far, by fitting to metrical arrangement a selection of the real language of men in a state of vivid sensation, that sort of pleasure and that quantity of pleasure may be imparted, which a Poet may rationally endeavour to impart.
Page 95 - 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 inattention alone can afford us any remedy. For this reason I rely entirely upon them...
Page 107 - 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 273 - 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.
Page 220 - His declamation was fashioned to the pomp and cadence of the old stage ; and he expressed the enthusiasm of poetry,' rather than the feelings of nature.
Page 104 - 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 185 - As a writer, he is entitled to one praise of the highest kind: his mode of thinking, and of expressing his thoughts, is original. His blank verse is no more the blank verse of Milton, or of any other poet, than the rhymes of Prior are the rhymes of Cowley. His numbers, his pauses, his diction, are of his own growth, without transcription, without imitation.
Page 374 - But, in fact," (continues Ballantyne) — " he had often said to me that neither his own nor any modern popular style of composition was that from which he derived most pleasure. I asked him what it was. He answered — Johnson's; and that he had more pleasure in reading London, and The Vanity of Human Wishes, than any other poetical composition he could mention...