The Letters of Sir Thomas Fitzosborne, on Several Subjects

Front Cover
R. and J. Dodsley, 1758 - English letters - 452 pages

From inside the book

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 66 - It muft be acknowledged, indeed, that in the times which fucceeded the diflblution of the Roman republic, this art was fo perverted from its true end as to become the fingle ftudy of their enervated orators.
Page 345 - I dare speak confidently and positively of very few things, except matter of fact. And when I venture to deliver any thing by way of opinion, I should, if it were not for mere shame, speak yet more diffidently than I have been wont to do.
Page 309 - There must be a great agitation of mind to invent, a great calm to judge and correct ; there must be upon the same tree, and at the same time, both flower and fruit.
Page 363 - ... of its opinions, with greater force of conviction than any other method we can employ. That ' it is not good for man to be alone...
Page 358 - But even if we look up to those who move in much superior orbits, and who have opportunities to improve, as well as leisure to exercise their understandings, we shall find that thinking is one of the...
Page 4 - If we see right, we see our woes: Then what avails it to have eyes? From ignorance our comfort flows. The only wretched are the wise. We wearied should lie down in death: This cheat of life would take no more; If you thought fame but empty breath; I, Phillis, but a perjur'd whore.
Page 115 - ... of my acquaintance, a captain of a privateer, who wrote an account to his owners of an engagement, " in which he had the good fortune, " he told them, of having only one of his
Page 272 - For him through hostile camps I bent my way, For him thus prostrate at thy feet I lay; Large gifts proportion'd to thy wrath I bear; O hear the wretched, and the gods revere!
Page 219 - But in fome places he feems not to have touched it with that delicacy of pencil, which graces the original ; as he has entirely loft the beauty of one of the figures. Hector is...
Page 186 - Horace have given us the rules of criticism, that we submit to their authority ; it is because those rules are derived from works which have been distinguished by the uninterrupted admiration of all the more improved part of mankind, from their earliest appearance down to this present hour. For whatever, through a long series of ages, has been universally esteemed as beautiful, cannot but be conformable to our just and natural ideas of beauty.

Bibliographic information