Life, Letters, and Writings, Volume 4

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Page 72 - WITH how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the skies! How silently, and with how wan a face! What, may it be that even in heavenly place That busy archer his sharp arrows tries?
Page 203 - O, for my sake do you with Fortune chide, The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds, That did not better for my life provide Than public means which public manners breeds. Thence comes it that my name receives a brand, And almost thence my nature is subdued To what it works in, like the dyer's hand...
Page 191 - To paint fair Nature, by divine command, Her magic pencil in his glowing hand, A Shakespeare rose: then, to expand his fame Wide o'er this breathing world, a Garrick came.
Page 328 - But man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave, solemnizing nativities and deaths with equal lustre, nor omitting ceremonies of bravery in the infamy of his nature.
Page 123 - When you came home with twenty apologies for laying out a less number of shillings upon that print after Lionardo which we christened the "Lady Blanch," when you looked at the purchase and thought of the money, and thought of the money and looked again at the picture, — was there no pleasure in being a poor man ? Now you have nothing to do but to walk into Colnaghi's and buy a wilderness of Lionardos. Yet, do you...
Page 73 - Bewray itself in my long-settled eyes, Whence those same fumes of melancholy rise, With idle pains, and missing aim, do guess. Some that know how my spring I did address, Deem that my Muse some fruit of knowledge plies ; Others, because the Prince my service tries, Think, that I think state errors to redress ; But harder judges judge, ambition's rage, Scourge of itself, still climbing slippery place, Holds my young brain captived in golden cage, O fools, or over-wise ! alas, the race Of all my thoughts...
Page 95 - BELSHAZZAR the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand. Belshazzar, whiles he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem; that the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, might drink therein.
Page 73 - Of those fierce darts, Despair at me doth throw; 0 make in me those civil wars to cease : 1 will good tribute pay, if thou do so. Take thou of me smooth pillows, sweetest bed ; A chamber, deaf to noise, and blind to light; A rosy garland, and a weary head. And if these things, as being thine by right, Move not thy heavy grace, thou shalt in me Livelier than elsewhere Stella's image see.
Page 124 - You are too proud to see a play anywhere now but in the pit. Do you remember where it was we used to sit, when we saw the Battle of I-Iexham, and the Surrender of Calais, and Bannister and Mrs.
Page 322 - A long line is a line we are long repeating. In the Shepherds Hunting take the following — If thy verse doth bravely tower, As she makes wing, she gets power ; Yet the higher she doth soar, She's affronted still the more, 'Till she to the high'st hath past, Then she rests with fame at last.

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