Essays, Biographical, Critical, and Historical, Illustrative of the Tatler, Spectator, and Guardian, Volume 3 |
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Page 13
... example , together with the exquisite sentiment which terminates it , cannot be sufficiently admired . Soliciting the archbishop for retirement from the temple for the purpose of study , he observes , " I have searched many books , and ...
... example , together with the exquisite sentiment which terminates it , cannot be sufficiently admired . Soliciting the archbishop for retirement from the temple for the purpose of study , he observes , " I have searched many books , and ...
Page 29
... example : " A strange kind of exploration and peculiar way of rhabdomancy is that which is used in mineral discoveries ; that is , with a forked hazel , commonly called Moses his rod , which freely held forth , will stir and play if any ...
... example : " A strange kind of exploration and peculiar way of rhabdomancy is that which is used in mineral discoveries ; that is , with a forked hazel , commonly called Moses his rod , which freely held forth , will stir and play if any ...
Page 34
... example of Milton's style , which breathes all that devotional enthu siasm , and that high confidence in his own powers , which elevated this great poet so far above the ordinary sons of men , may be selected from his work on the Reason ...
... example of Milton's style , which breathes all that devotional enthu siasm , and that high confidence in his own powers , which elevated this great poet so far above the ordinary sons of men , may be selected from his work on the Reason ...
Page 36
... example , with such delight , to those especially of soft and delicious temper , who will not so much as look upon truth herself , unless they see her elegantly drest ; that whereas the paths of honesty and good life ap- pear now rugged ...
... example , with such delight , to those especially of soft and delicious temper , who will not so much as look upon truth herself , unless they see her elegantly drest ; that whereas the paths of honesty and good life ap- pear now rugged ...
Page 61
... example of his usual tone of composition : " Homer was , without dispute , the most uni- versal genius that has been known in the world , and Virgil the most accomplished . To the first must be allowed the most fertile invention , the ...
... example of his usual tone of composition : " Homer was , without dispute , the most uni- versal genius that has been known in the world , and Virgil the most accomplished . To the first must be allowed the most fertile invention , the ...
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Common terms and phrases
Addison admirable Æneid Anatomy of Melancholy ancient apologues appear Arabian beauty caliphs Canterbury Tales century character charms Chaucer colours composition consider criticism crusade delight diction Ditto Dryden East edition effect elegant endeavours English English Poetry Essays excellent exhibited exquisite fable fairy fancy genius Geoffery grace guage hath heaven humour imagery imagination justly king language learned literary literature Lord manner ment merit Milton mind moral nature never night observes opinion oriental passage period Persian perspicuity philosophy Pilpay pleasing pleasure poem poet poetry present productions prose racter reader remarks rich Roger de Coverley romance says second Crusade sense Shakspeare shew Simeon Seth simplicity Sir Roger species specimen Spectator spirit stars story style sublime supposed sweetness taste Tatler things third crusade thou tion verse whilst William of Malmesbury wonderful words writers written
Popular passages
Page 100 - When I look upon the tombs of the great, every emotion of envy dies in me; when I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate desire goes out; when I meet with the grief of parents upon a tombstone, my heart melts with compassion; when I see the tomb of the parents themselves, I consider the vanity of grieving for those whom we must quickly follow; when I see kings lying by those who deposed them, when I consider rival wits placed side by side, or the holy men that divided the world with...
Page 36 - I endure to interrupt the pursuit of no less hopes than these, and leave a calm and pleasing solitariness, fed with cheerful and confident thoughts, to embark in a troubled sea of noises and hoarse disputes, put from beholding the bright countenance of truth in the quiet and still air of delightful studies...
Page 111 - What he attempted, he performed ; he is never feeble, and he did not wish to be energetic ; he is never rapid, and he never stagnates. His sentences have neither studied amplitude, nor affected brevity ; his periods, though not diligently rounded, are voluble and easy. Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison, HUGHES.
Page 44 - But so have I seen a rose newly springing from the clefts of its hood, and, at first, it was fair as the morning, and full with the dew of heaven, as a lamb's fleece ; but when a ruder breath had forced open its virgin modesty, and dismantled its too youthful and unripe retirements, it began to put on darkness, and to decline to softness and the symptoms of a sickly age; it bowed the head, and broke its stalk, and, at night, having lost some of its leaves and all its beauty, it fell into the portion...
Page 31 - Lastly, I should not choose this manner of writing, wherein knowing myself inferior to myself, led by the genial power of nature to another task, I have the use, as I may account, but of my left hand.
Page 32 - Time serves not now, and perhaps I might seem too profuse to give any certain account of what the mind at home, in the spacious circuits of her musing, hath liberty to propose to herself, though of highest hope and hardest attempting; whether that epic form whereof the two poems of Homer and those other two of Virgil and Tasso 5 are a diffuse, and the book of Job a brief, model...
Page 18 - STUDIES serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of business.
Page 35 - Neither do I think it shame to covenant with any knowing reader, that for some few years yet I may go on trust with him toward the payment of what I am now indebted...
Page 76 - Thus the ideas, as well as children, of our youth often die before us ; and our minds represent to us those tombs to which we are approaching ; where though the brass and marble remain, yet the inscriptions are effaced by time, and the imagery moulders away. The pictures drawn in our minds are laid in fading colours ; and if not sometimes refreshed, vanish and disappear.
Page 105 - We cannot indeed have a single image in the fancy that did not make its first entrance through the sight; but we have the power of retaining, altering, and compounding those images which we have once received, into all the varieties of picture and vision...