Memoirs of Count Grammont, Volume 2

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Page 257 - In the first rank of these did Zimri stand: A man so various, that he seem'd to be Not one, but all Mankind's Epitome. Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong; Was everything by starts, and nothing long: But in the course of one revolving moon, Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon: Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking; Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking.
Page 258 - In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half-hung, The floors of plaster, and the walls of dung, On once a flock-bed, but repair'd with straw, With tape-tied curtains, never meant to draw, The George and Garter dangling from that bed Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red, Great Villiers lies — alas!
Page 258 - Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking, Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking. Blest madman who could every hour employ With something new to wish or to enjoy! Railing and praising were his usual themes, And both, to show his judgment, in extremes : So over violent or over civil That every man with him was God or Devil. In squandering wealth was his peculiar art; Nothing went unrewarded but desert. Beggared by fools whom still he found too late, He had his jest, and they had...
Page 259 - Shrewsbury and love ; Or just as gay, at Council, in a ring Of mimic statesmen, and their merry king, No wit to flatter, left of all his store ! No fool to laugh at, which he valued more. There, victor of his health, of fortune, friends, And fame, this lord of useless thousands ends.
Page 258 - He laugh'd himself from court; then sought relief By forming parties, but could ne'er be chief: For, spite of him, the weight of business fell On Absalom and wise Achitophel: Thus, wicked but in will, of means bereft, He left not faction, but of that was left.
Page 277 - Rochester," which the critic ought to read for its elegance, the philosopher for its arguments, and the saint for its piety.
Page 260 - He has dammed up all those lights that nature made into the noblest prospects of the world, and opened other little blind loopholes backward, by turning day into night, and night into day. His appetite to his pleasures is diseased and crazy, like the pica in a woman, that longs to eat that which was never made for food, or a girl in the green sickness, that eats chalk and mortar.
Page 255 - Charles ; when he alike ridiculed that witty king, and his solemn chancellor ; when he plotted the ruin of his country with a cabal of bad ministers ; or, equally unprincipled, supported its cause with bad patriots ; one laments that such parts should have been devoid of every virtue. But when Alcibiades turns...
Page 251 - The prince was rough and passionate, and loved not debate ; liked what was proposed, as he liked the persons who proposed it ; and was so great an enemy to Digby and Colepepper, who were only present in debates of the war with the officers, that he crossed all they proposed.
Page 278 - He was the finest gentleman in the voluptuous court of Charles II., and in the gloomy one of King William. He had as much wit as his first master, or his contemporaries Buckingham and Rochester, without the royal want of feeling, the Duke's want of principles, or the Earl's want of thought. The latter said with astonishment, " that he did not know how it was, but Lord Dorset might do anything, and yet was never to blame.

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