The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.

Front Cover
G. Walker ... [and 9 others], 1820 - English literature

From inside the book

Contents

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 173 - The want* of human interest is always felt. Paradise Lost is one of the books which the reader admires and lays down, and forgets to take up again. None ever wished it longer than it is. Its perusal is a duty rather than a pleasure. We read Milton for instruction, retire harassed and overburdened, and look elsewhere for recreation ; we desert / our master, and seek for companions.
Page 417 - From harmony, from heavenly harmony This universal frame began : From harmony to harmony Through all the compass of the notes it ran, The diapason closing full in Man.
Page 2 - ... he became, as he relates, irrecoverably a poet. Such are the accidents which, sometimes remembered, and perhaps sometimes forgotten, produce that particular designation of mind, and propensity for some certain science or employment, which is commonly called genius. The true genius is a mind of large general powers, accidentally determined to some particular direction.
Page 173 - This, being necessary, was therefore defensible ; and he should have secured the consistency of his system, by keeping immateriality out of sight, and enticing his reader to drop it from his thoughts. But he has unhappily perplexed his poetry with his philosophy. His infernal and celestial powers are sometimes pure spirit, and sometimes animated body.
Page 63 - His spear, — to equal which, the tallest pine Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast Of some great ammiral, were but a wand...
Page 97 - ... 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 excellences of all times and of all places ; we are perpetually moralists, but we are geometricians only by chance.
Page 395 - There was, therefore, before the time of Dryden no poetical diction, no system of words at once refined from the grossness of domestic use, and free from the harshness of terms appropriated to particular arts. Words too familiar, or too remote, defeat the purpose of a poet. From those sounds which we hear on small or on coarse occasions, we do not easily receive strong impressions, or delightful images ; and words to which we are nearly strangers, whenever they occur, draw that attention on themselves...
Page 418 - As when some great and gracious monarch dies, Soft whispers, first, and mournful murmurs rise Among the sad attendants ; then the sound Soon gathers voice, and spreads the news around, Through town and country, till the dreadful blast Is blown to distant colonies at last...
Page 436 - I am as free as nature first made man, Ere the base laws of servitude began, When wild in woods the noble savage ran.
Page 408 - These fight like husbands, but like lovers those : These fain would keep, and those more fain enjoy...

Bibliographic information