The British Essayists, Volume 9

Front Cover
Alexander Chalmers
J. Johnson, 1808 - English essays

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Page 221 - Euphrosyne, And by men heart-easing Mirth; Whom lovely Venus, at a birth, With two sister Graces more, To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore...
Page 87 - This was he, whom we had sometimes in derision, and a proverb of reproach: we fools accounted his life madness, and his end to be without honour: how is he numbered among the children of God, and his lot is among the saints!
Page 65 - CONSIDER a human soul, without education, like marble in the quarry : which shows none of its inherent beauties, until the skill of the polisher fetches out the colours, makes the surface shine, and discovers every ornamental cloud, spot, and vein, that runs through the body of it. Education, after the same manner, when it works upon a noble mind, draws out to view every latent virtue and perfection, which, without such helps, are never able to make their appearance.
Page ii - ... till such time as he should sweat ; when, as the story goes, the virtue of the medicaments perspiring through the wood had so good an influence on the sultan's constitution, that they cured him of an indisposition which all the compositions he had taken inwardly had not been able to remove. This eastern allegory is finely contrived to shew us how beneficial bodily labour is to health, and that exercise is the most effectual physic.
Page 98 - Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking, Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking.
Page 211 - ... sudden glances and vibrations ; or whether, in the last place, there may not be certain undiscovered channels running from the head and the heart to this little instrument of loquacity, and conveying into it a perpetual affluence of animal spirits.
Page 221 - Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee Jest, and youthful jollity, Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles, Nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles, Such as hang on Hebe's cheek, And love to live in dimple sleek; Sport that wrinkled Care derides, And Laughter holding both his sides. Come, and trip it as you go On the light fantastic toe...
Page 221 - Jest, and youthful jollity, Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles, Nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles Such as hang on Hebe's cheek, And love to live in dimple sleek; Sport that wrinkled Care derides, And Laughter holding both his sides: Come, and trip it as you go On the light fantastic toe; And in thy right hand lead with thee The mountain nymph, sweet Liberty; And if I give thee honour due, Mirth, admit me of thy crew, To live with her, and live with thee In unreprove'd pleasures free...
Page 240 - Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows, And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows; But when loud surges lash the sounding shore, The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar : When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw, The line too labors, and the words move slow: Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain, Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main.
Page 239 - These equal syllables alone require, Tho' oft the ear the open vowels tire; While expletives their feeble aid do join, And ten low words oft creep in one dull line: While they ring round the same unvary'd chimes, With sure returns of still expected rhymes : Where'er you find 'the cooling western breeze...

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