The British Prose Writers...: Fitzosborne's letters

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J. Sharpe, 1821 - British prose literature

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Page 61 - As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night! O'er heaven's clear azure spreads her sacred light, When not a breath disturbs the deep serene, And not a cloud o'ercasts the solemn scene; Around her throne the vivid planets roll, And stars unnumbered gild the glowing pole; O'er the dark trees a yellower verdure shed, And tip with silver every mountain's head.
Page 18 - He spoke, and awful bends his sable brows, Shakes his ambrosial curls, and gives the nod, The stamp of fate, and sanction of the god : High Heaven with trembling the dread signal took, And all Olympus to the centre shook.
Page 24 - Could all our care elude the gloomy grave, Which claims no less the fearful than the brave, For lust of fame I should not vainly dare In fighting fields, nor urge thy soul to war. But since, alas ! ignoble age must come, Disease, and death's inexorable doom, The life, which others pay, let us bestow, And give to fame what we to nature owe ; Brave though we fall, and honour'd if we live, Or let us glory gain, or glory give...
Page 119 - But touch me, and no minister so sore. Whoe'er offends, at some unlucky time Slides into verse, and hitches in a rhyme, Sacred to ridicule his whole life long, And the sad burthen of some merry song.
Page 20 - And Troy's proud dames, whose garments sweep the ground, Attaint the lustre of my former name, Should Hector basely quit the field of fame! My early youth was bred to martial pains, My soul impels me to the embattled plains: Let me be foremost to defend the throne, And guard my father's glories and my own.
Page 55 - Caosar is as much known by one designation as by the other. The amount then is only this: that the conqueror of Pompey conquered Pompey ; or somebody conquered Pompey; or rather, since Pompey is as little known now as Cssar, somebody conquered somebody. Such a poor business is this boasted immortality! and such is the thing called glory among us '. To discerning men this fame is mere air, and what they despise, if not shun." But surely, " 'twere to consider too curiously," (as Horatio says to Hamlet,)...
Page 61 - As torrents roll, increased by numerous rills, With rage impetuous, down their echoing hills 'Rush to the vales, and pour'd along the plain, Roar through a thousand channels to the main : The distant shepherd trembling hears the sound So mix both hosts, and so their cries rebound.
Page 51 - The poor beetle, which we tread upon, In corporal sufferance feels a pang as great As when a giant dies.
Page 81 - A generous friendship no cold medium knows, Burns with one love, with one resentment glows; One should our interests and our passions be; My friend must hate the man that injures me.
Page 19 - To tender passions all his mighty mind ; His beauteous princess cast a mournful look, Hung on his hand, and then dejected spoke ; Her bosom labor'd with a boding sigh, And the big tear stood trembling in her eye.

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