Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, Volume 2Richardson, 1823 |
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Addison advantage agreeable ancient appears argument Aristotle Athenians attention beauty begin Bishop Atterbury cause cerning character Cicero Cluentius composition concise consider Dean Swift degree Demosthenes diffuse discourse distinct distinguished effect elegant eloquence employed endeavour English English language exordium expression fancy favour French Gavius genius give grace Greece hath hearers heart honour idea imagination inaccuracy introduction Isocrates judges Julius Cæsar kind language LECTURE Leontium Lysias manner Massillon means ment mind nature never object observe occasion Oppianicus orator oratory ornament passion pathetic pause peculiar perhaps perspicuous persuasion plain pleading pleasures popular assemblies praise preacher preaching proper propriety public speaking pulpit quæ quence Quinctilian racter reason remarkable render rhetoric Roman rule sense sentence sentiments sermon shew simplicity sion speaker strain strength style tence thing thought Thucydides tion tone treat truth turally voice warmth whole words writers
Popular passages
Page 308 - If I were hungry I would not tell thee : for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof. Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats ? Offer unto God thanksgiving; and pay thy vows unto the most high.
Page 72 - A man of a polite imagination is let into a great many pleasures that the vulgar are not capable of receiving. He can converse with a picture, and find an agreeable companion in 'a statue. He meets with a secret refreshment in a description, and often feels a greater satisfaction in the prospect of fields and meadows, than another does in the possession.
Page 124 - ... from a double principle; from the agreeableness of the objects to the eye, and from their similitude to other objects. We are pleased as well with comparing their beauties, as with surveying them, and can represent them to our minds, either as copies or originals. Hence it is that we take delight in a prospect which is well laid out, and diversified with fields and meadows, woods and rivers...
Page 132 - Our trees rise in cones, globes, and pyramids. We see the marks of the scissors upon every plant and bush. I do not know whether I am singular in my opinion, but, for my own part, I would rather look upon a tree in all its luxuriancy and diffusion of boughs and branches, than when it is thus cut and trimmed into a mathematical figure; and cannot but fancy that an orchard in flower looks infinitely more delightful than all the little labyrinths of the most finished parterre.
Page 112 - In short, our souls are at present delightfully lost and bewildered in a pleasing delusion, and we walk about like the enchanted hero of a romance, who sees beautiful castles, woods, and meadows, and at the same time hears the warbling of birds and the purling of streams ; but, upon the finishing of some secret spell, the fantastic scene breaks up, and the disconsolate knight finds himself on a barren heath or in a solitary desert.
Page 72 - He meets with a secret refreshment in a description, and often feels a greater satisfaction in the prospect of fields and meadows than another does in the possession. It gives him, indeed, a kind of property in every thing he sees, and makes the most rude uncultivated parts of nature administer to his pleasures: so that he looks upon the world, as it were, in another light, and discovers in it a multitude of charms that conceal themselves from the generality of mankind.
Page 85 - Our imagination loves to be filled with an object, or to grasp at any thing that is too big for its capacity. We are flung into a pleasing astonishment at such unbounded views, and feel a delightful stillness and amazement in the soul at the apprehension of them.
Page 115 - I have here supposed that my reader is acquainted with that great modern discovery, which is at present universally acknowledged by all the inquirers into natural philosophy : namely, that light and colours, as apprehended by the imagination, are only ideas in the mind, and not qualities that have any existence in matter.
Page 89 - Groves, fields, and meadows, are at any season of the year pleasant to look upon, but never so much as in the opening of the spring, when they are all new and fresh, with their first gloss upon them, and not yet too much accustomed and familiar to the eye.
Page 103 - ... and therefore, for want of such a light, all that we can do in speculations of this kind, is to reflect on those operations of the soul that are most agreeable, and to range, under their proper heads, what is pleasing or displeasing to the mind, without being able to trace out the several necessary and efficient causes from whence the pleasure or displeasure arises.