Readings in English Prose of the Eighteenth CenturyRaymond Macdonald Alden Houghton Mifflin, 1911 - 724 pages |
Contents
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Common terms and phrases
acquaintance admiration Æneid affected ancient answered appear Bargrave beauty believe Boswell Burke called character Church Church of England Colley Cibber Coriolanus cried death Duke of Bedford endeavor England English essay eyes fancy France genius gentleman give hand heard heart honor hope HORACE WALPOLE house of Hanover human Hylas idea Iliad imagination JAMES MACPHERSON Johnson king lady language latus clavus learning letters liberty live look Lord Lord Chesterfield mankind manner ment merit mind moral nation nature never observed occasion opinion passions perhaps person Philonous pleasure poem poet poetry political Pope postilion present principles reader reason religion replied Samuel Johnson seemed sense sentiments Shakespeare spirit suppose taste tell things thou thought tion told true truth Veal virtue Whig whole words writing
Popular passages
Page 46 - Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day. Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness ; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.
Page 362 - Dictionary was written with little assistance of the learned, and without any patronage of the great; not in the soft obscurities of retirement, or under the shelter of academic bowers, but amidst inconvenience and distraction, in sickness and in sorrow...
Page 370 - Shakespeare is, above all writers, at least above all modern writers, the poet of nature; the poet that holds up to his readers a faithful mirror of manners and of life. His characters are not modified by the customs of particular places, unpractised by the rest of the world; by the peculiarities of studies or professions, which can operate but upon small numbers; or by the accidents of transient fashions or temporary opinions: they are the genuine progeny of common humanity, such as the world will...
Page 193 - As I looked upon him he applied it to his lips, and began to play upon it. The sound of it was exceeding sweet, and wrought into a variety of tunes that were inexpressibly melodious, and altogether different from any thing I had ever heard. They put me in mind of those heavenly airs that are played to the departed souls of good men upon their first arrival in Paradise, to wear out the impressions of their last agonies, and qualify them for the pleasures of that happy place.
Page 406 - Of genius, that power which constitutes a poet; that quality without which judgment is cold, and knowledge is inert; that energy which collects, combines, amplifies, and animates; the superiority must, with some hesitation, be allowed to Dryden.
Page 635 - I have been lately informed by the proprietor of ' The World,' that two papers, in which my ' Dictionary ' is recommended to the public, were written by your lordship. To be so distinguished, is an honour, which, being very little accustomed to favours from the great, I know not well how to receive, or in what terms to acknowledge. " When, upon some slight encouragement, I first visited your lordship, I was overpowered, like the rest of mankind, by the enchantment of your...
Page 579 - ... it is with infinite caution that any man ought to venture upon pulling down an edifice which has answered in any tolerable degree for ages the common purposes of society, or on building it up again without having models and patterns of approved utility before his eyes.
Page 196 - The genius making me no answer, I turned about to address myself to him a second time, but I found that he had left me; I then turned again to the vision which I had been so long contemplating, but instead of the rolling tide, the arched bridge, and the happy islands, I saw nothing but the long hollow valley of Bagdat, with oxen, sheep, and camels grazing upon the sides of it.
Page 380 - But from the censure which this irregularity may bring upon him I shall, with due reverence to that learning which I must oppose, adventure to try how I can defend him. His histories, being neither tragedies nor comedies, are not subject to any of their laws; nothing more is necessary to all the praise which they expect than that the changes of action be so prepared as to be understood, that the incidents be various and affecting and the characters consistent, natural, and distinct. No other unity...
Page 187 - Ere thus I will out-braved be, One of us two shall die. I know thee well; an earl thou art, Lord Percy, so am I. " But trust me, Percy, pity it were, And great offence, to kill Any of these our guiltless men, For they have done no ill. "Let thou and I the battle try, And set our men aside."— "Accursed be he," Earl Percy said,