Shakespeare and His Birthplace: Containing a Biography of the Poet, and a Guide to Stratford-upon-Avon and Its Vicinity

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T. Nelson and Sons, 1859 - Stratford-upon-Avon (England) - 128 pages

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Page 123 - This guest of summer, The temple-haunting martlet, does approve By his loved mansionry that the heaven's breath Smells wooingly here : no jutty, frieze, Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird Hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle : Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed The air is delicate.
Page 51 - I remember, the players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare, that in his writing (whatsoever he penned) he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been, Would he had blotted a thousand.
Page 50 - Many were the wit-combats betwixt him and Ben Jonson, which two I behold like a Spanish great galleon, and an English man-of-war ; Master Jonson (like the former) was built far higher in learning ; solid, but slow in his performances. Shakespeare...
Page 51 - I loved the man, and do honour his memory, on this side idolatry, as much as any. He was (indeed) honest, and of an open and free nature; had an excellent phantasy, brave notions, and gentle expressions; wherein he flowed with that facility, that sometimes it was necessary he should be stopped: Sufflaminandus erat, as Augustus said of Haterius.
Page 35 - He had, by a misfortune common enough to young fellows, fallen into ill company, and, amongst them, some that made a frequent practice of deer-stealing engaged him more than once in robbing a park that belonged to Sir Thomas Lucy, of Charlcote, near Stratford.
Page 50 - English man-ofwar, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, tack about and take advantage of all winds, by the quickness of his wit and invention.
Page 44 - Yes, trust them not: for there is an upstart crow beautified with our feathers, that with his tiger's heart, wrapt in a player's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you; and being an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country.
Page 121 - Dis's waggon! daffodils That come before the swallow dares, and take The winds of March with beauty; violets dim, But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes Or Cytherea's breath...
Page 116 - Under an oak whose antique root peeps out Upon the brook that brawls along this wood : To the which place a poor sequester'd stag, That from the hunter's aim had ta'en a hurt, Did come to languish...
Page 62 - Merciful Heaven, Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt Split'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak Than the soft myrtle: but man, proud man, Drest in a little brief authority, Most ignorant of what he's most assured, His glassy essence, like an angry ape, Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven As make the angels weep; who, with our spleens, Would all themselves laugh mortal.

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