POPE, SELECTED POEMS; THE ESSAY ON CRITICISM; THE MORAL ESSAYS; THE DUNCIAD |
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admiration ancient appears attack Book called cause century character Cibber College Compare court critics death died divine Dryden Duke dull Dulness Dunciad edition Elwin English Essay eyes fair fall fame fools genius give given goddess grace hand head Heaven Imitated Italy John judge king known laws learning less letter light lines live London Lord means meant mind Moral Muse nature never o'er once passage passion persons play poem poet poor Pope Pope's praise printed published queen quoted reason reign rest rise round rules satire says seems sense sons soul speak stands taste things thou thought translation true turn verse Ward Warton whole write written wrote
Popular passages
Page 115 - In vain, they gaze, turn giddy, rave, and die. Religion, blushing, veils her sacred fires, And unawares Morality expires. Nor public flame, nor private dares to shine; Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine Lo, thy dread empire, Chaos ! is restored; Light dies before thy uncreating word : Thy hand, great Anarch, lets the curtain fall, And universal darkness buries all.
Page 4 - whispers through the trees." If crystal streams "with pleasing murmurs creep," The reader's threatened (not in vain) with " sleep." Then at the last and only couplet fraught With some unmeaning thing they call a thought, A needless Alexandrine ends the song, That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.
Page 1 - A perfect judge will read each work of wit With the same spirit that its author writ : Survey the whole, nor seek slight faults to find Where Nature moves, and rapture warms the mind ; Nor lose, for that malignant dull delight, The gen'rous pleasure to be charm'd with wit.
Page 149 - Excise. A hateful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged not by the common judges of property, but wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid.
Page 4 - In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold, Alike fantastic, if too new, or old : Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.
Page 28 - Whether the charmer sinner it, or saint it, If folly grow romantic, I must paint it. Come, then, the colours and the ground prepare! Dip in the rainbow, trick her off in air; Choose a firm cloud before it fall, and in it Catch, ere she change, the Cynthia of this minute.
Page 115 - Night primaeval and of Chaos old ! Before her, Fancy's gilded clouds decay, And all its varying rainbows die away. Wit shoots in vain its momentary fires, The meteor drops, and in a flash expires. As one by one, at dread Medea's strain, The sick'ning stars fade off th' ethereal plain ; As Argus
Page 127 - Is not a Patron, my Lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help...
Page xl - OF all the causes which conspire to blind Man's erring judgment, and misguide the mind, What the weak head with strongest bias rules, Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools.
Page 45 - Or in proud falls magnificently lost, But clear and artless, pouring through the plain Health to the sick, and solace to the swain. Whose causeway parts the vale with shady rows? Whose seats the weary traveller repose ? Who taught that Heav'n-directed spire to rise? " The Man of Ross,