History of English Literature, Volume 2Chatto & Windus, 1883 - English literature |
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Common terms and phrases
action amusement Areopagitica beauty become Ben Jonson characters Christian church comedy Comus Congreve conscience conversation Coriolanus Corvino Country Wife court cries Cynthia's Revels death divine doth dream England English eyes faith fancy father feel French genius give grace hand hath hear heart heaven honour Hudibras husband Ibid ideas images imagination Jonson king kiss lady living look Lord Macbeth manners marriage married Milton mind Mitford Molière moral Mosca nature never night noble nurse Othello Paradise Lost passion Pilgrim's Progress play pleasure poem poet poetic poetry Provoked Wife Puritan reason Reformation religion Renaissance Roman decadence Romeo and Juliet says Sejanus sentiments Shakspeare Shakspeare's sing Sonnet soul speak spirit style sublime sweet taste tell theatre thee things thou thought tion truth unto Vanbrugh verses vice virtue Volpone whole wife woman words writes Wycherley
Popular passages
Page 54 - No longer mourn for me when I am dead Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell Give warning to the world that I am fled From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell : Nay if you read this line, remember not The hand that writ it : for I love you so, That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot, If thinking on me then should make you woe.
Page 260 - ... books are not absolutely dead things but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. I know they are as lively and as vigorously productive as those fabulous dragons teeth, and being sown up and down may chance to spring up armed men.
Page 12 - As when some one peculiar quality Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw All his affects, his spirits, and his powers, In their confluctions, all to run one way, This may be truly said to be a humour.
Page 104 - But let the frame of things disjoint, both the worlds suffer, Ere we will eat our meal in fear, and sleep In the affliction of these terrible dreams That shake us nightly.
Page 111 - What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not me; no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.
Page 106 - She should have died hereafter ; There would have been a time for such a word. To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day To the last syllable of recorded time, And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death.
Page 127 - With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries ; The honey bags steal from the humble-bees, And, for night-tapers, crop their waxen thighs, And light them at the fiery glowworm's eyes...
Page 294 - And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks ; and in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle.
Page 185 - For so have I seen a lark rising from his bed of grass, and soaring upwards, singing as he rises, and hopes to get to heaven and climb above the clouds ; but the poor bird was beaten back with the loud sighings of an eastern wind, and his motion made irregular and inconstant, descending more at every breath of the tempest, than it could recover by the libration and...
Page 160 - Almighty and most merciful Father, We have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against thy holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; And we have done those things which we ought not to have done; And there is no health in us.