Lives of the English Poets: Cowley-DrydenClarendon Press, 1905 - English poetry |
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Common terms and phrases
Absalom and Achitophel acted Addison admired Aeneid afterwards Anec appears Aubrey Aubrey's Brief Lives Biog Birkbeck Hill blank verse Boswell's Johnson Brief Lives Butler character Charles Clarendon Cowley's criticism Cromwell death delight Denham describes Diary Donne Dorset Duke Earl edition elegance English Essay father friends genius heroick Hist honour Horace Walpole Hudibras Hurd's Cowley images imitation John John Milton King labour language Latin learned Letters lines Lord Malone's Dryden Masson's Milton metaphysical poets Milton's Poems mind Misc nature never NIHIL numbers Otway Oxford Oxon Paradise Lost parliament passage perhaps Philips Pindar play poetical poetry POPE Pope's praise Preface printed prose publick published quoted reader rhyme Rochester says seems shew Southey's Cowper Spectator Sprat thing thou thought tion translation viii Virgil Waller Warton words write written wrote
Popular passages
Page 163 - In this poem there is no nature, for there is no truth ; there is no art, for there is nothing new. Its form is that of a pastoral ; easy, vulgar, and therefore disgusting ; whatever images it can supply are long ago exhausted ; and its inherent improbability always forces dissatisfaction on the mind.
Page 276 - ... bowers to lay me down ; To husband out life's taper at the close. And keep the flame from wasting by repose. I still had hopes, for pride attends us still, Amidst the swains to show my...
Page 20 - If by a more noble and more adequate conception that be considered as wit which is at once natural and new, that which, though not obvious, is, upon its first production, acknowledged to be just...
Page 78 - O could I flow like thee, and make thy stream My great example, as it is my theme! Though deep, yet clear, though gentle, yet not dull, Strong without rage, without o'er-flowing full.
Page 100 - Whether we provide for action or conversation, whether we wish to be useful or pleasing, the first requisite is the religious and moral knowledge of right and wrong ; the next is an acquaintance with the history of mankind, and with those examples which may be said to embody truth, and prove by events the reasonableness of opinions. Prudence and Justice are virtues and excellencies of all times and of all places; we are perpetually moralists, but we are geometricians only by chance.
Page 88 - This he steadily denies, and it was apparently not true ; but it seems plain, from his own verses to Diodati, that he had incurred
Page 292 - Of sentiments purely religious, it will be found that the most simple expression is the most sublime. Poetry loses its lustre and its power, because it is applied to the decoration of something more excellent than itself.
Page 136 - I have a particular reason," says he, " to remember ; for whereas I had the perusal of it " from the very beginning, for some years, as I " went from time to time to visit him, in parcels of " ten, twenty, or thirty verses at a time (which, " being written by whatever hand came next, might " possibly want correction as to the orthography