Satires and Epistles

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Clarendon Press, 1881 - 164 pages

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Page 26 - Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer: Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike ; Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike...
Page 121 - With lust and violence the house of God? In courts and palaces he also reigns, And in luxurious cities, where the noise Of riot ascends above their loftiest towers, And injury, and outrage: And when night Darkens the streets, then wander forth the sons Of Belial, flown with insolence and wine.
Page 20 - They rave, recite, and madden round the land. What walls can guard me, or what shades can hide? They pierce my thickets, through my grot they glide, By land, by water, they renew the charge, They stop the chariot, and they board the barge.
Page 24 - Soft were my numbers ; who could take offence While pure description held the place of sense ? Like gentle Fanny's was my flow'ry theme, A painted mistress, or a purling stream.
Page 142 - 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," which they thought a malevolent speech.
Page 21 - A virgin tragedy, an orphan muse." If I dislike it, " Furies, death, and rage! " If I approve,
Page 23 - One flatt'rer's worse than all. Of all mad creatures, if the learn'd are right, It is the slaver kills, and not the bite. A fool quite angry is quite innocent: Alas ! 'tis ten times worse when they repent. One dedicates in high heroic prose, And ridicules beyond a hundred foes; One from all Grub Street will my fame defend, And, more abusive, calls himself my friend. This prints my letters, that expects a bribe, And others roar aloud, 'Subscribe, subscribe.
Page 21 - And to be grave, exceeds all power of face. I sit with sad civility, I read With honest anguish, and an aching head; And drop at last, but in unwilling ears, This saving counsel, — 'Keep your piece nine years.
Page 142 - whispers through the trees": If crystal streams "with pleasing murmurs creep," The reader's threaten'd (not in vain) with "sleep": Then, at the last and only couplet fraught With some unmeaning thing they call a thought, A needless Alexandrine ends the song, That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.
Page 29 - Whose buzz the witty and the fair annoys, Yet wit ne'er tastes, and beauty ne'er enjoys: So well-bred spaniels civilly delight In mumbling of the game they dare not bite. Eternal smiles his emptiness betray, As shallow streams run dimpling all the way.

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