The Rehearsal: First Acted 7 Dec. 1671. Published ?July 1672. With Illustrations from Previous Plays, Etc. ...

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A. Murray & Son, 1868 - 136 pages

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Page 14 - 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 squand'ring wealth was his peculiar art: Nothing went unrewarded, but desert.
Page 14 - He laughed 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 14 - A man so various that he seemed 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 chymist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon ; Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking, Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking.
Page 8 - Is. for the EXTRA SERIES, due in advance on the 1st of JANUARY, and should be paid by Cheque, Postal Order, or Money Order, crost ' Union of London and Smith's Bank,
Page 13 - He has pulled down all that fabric that Nature raised in him, and built himself up again after a model of his own. 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.
Page 14 - God and property, And by the same blind benefit of Fate The Devil and the Jebusite did hate : Born to be saved even in their own despite, Because they could not help believing right.
Page 14 - The character of Zimri in my Absalom is, in my opinion, worth the whole poem: it is not bloody, but it is ridiculous enough; and he, for whom it was intended, was too witty to resent it as an injury.
Page 12 - ... with that contempt, that at last he drew a lasting disgrace upon himself. And he at length ruined both body and mind, fortune and reputation equally. The madness of vice appeared in his person in very eminent instances ; since at last he became contemptible and poor, sickly, and sunk in his parts, as well as in all other respects, so that his conversation was as much avoided as ever it had been courted.
Page 14 - He is as inconstant as' the moon which he lives under ; and although he does nothing but advise with his pillow all day, he is as great a stranger to himself as he is to the rest of the world. His mind entertains all things very freely that come and go, but, like guests and strangers, they are not welcome if they stay long. This lays him open to all cheats, quacks, and impostors, who apply to every particular humour while it Lists, and afterwards vanish.
Page 13 - 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 Greensickness, that eats Chalk and Mortar. Perpetual Surfeits of Pleasure have filled his Mind with bad and vicious Humours (as well as his Body with a Nursery of Diseases) which makes him affect new and extravagant Ways, as being sick and tired with the Old. Continual Wine, Women and Music put false Values upon Things, which by Custom become habitual, and debauch his...

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