Prefaces, Biographical and Critical, to the Works of the English Poets: Addison. Blackmore. Sheffield

Front Cover
J. Nichols, 1781 - English poetry

From inside the book

Selected pages

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 155 - He copies life with so much fidelity that he can be hardly said to invent : yet his exhibitions have an air so much original that it is difficult to suppose them not merely the product of imagination.
Page 90 - He has dissipated the prejudice that had long connected gaiety with vice, and easiness of manners with laxity of principles. He has restored virtue to its dignity, and taught innocence not to be ashamed. This is an elevation of literary character "above all Greek, above all Roman fame.
Page 75 - He taught us how to live; and, oh! too high The price of knowledge, taught us how to die.
Page 150 - That general knowledge which now circulates in common talk was in his time rarely to be found. Men not professing learning were not ashamed of ignorance, and in the female world any acquaintance with books was distinguished only to be censured.
Page 68 - ... reign ; an act of authority violent enough, yet certainly legal, and by no means to be compared with that contempt of national right with •which, some time afterwards, by the instigation of whiggism, the commons, chosen by the people for three years, chose themselves for seven.
Page 61 - The marriage, if uncontradicted report can be credited, made no addition to his happiness ; it neither found them nor made them equal. She always remembered her own rank, and thought herself entitled to treat with very little ceremony the tutor of her son.
Page 127 - Sempronius lead us in our flight, We'll force the gate, where Marcus keeps his guard, And hew down all that would oppose our passage ; A day will bring us into Caesar's camp.
Page 158 - What he attempted, he performed; he is never feeble, and he did not wish to be energetic ; he is never rapid, and he never stagnates. His sentences have neither studied amplitude, nor affected brevity; his periods, though not diligently rounded, are voluble and easy.
Page 42 - This, says Pope *, had been tried for the first time in favour of the Distrest Mother; and was now, with more efficacy, practised for Cato. The danger was soon over. The whole nation was at that time on fire with faction. The Whigs applauded every line in which liberty was mentioned, as a satire on the Tories ; and the Tories echoed every clap, to show that the satire was unfelt.
Page 89 - Many who praise virtue, do no more than praise it. Yet it is reasonable to believe that Addison's professions and practice were at no great variance, since, amidst that storm of faction in which most of his life was passed, though his station made him conspicuous and his activity made him formidable, the character given him by his friends was never contradicted by his enemies : of those with whom interest or opinion united him he had not only the esteem, but the kindness; and of others, whom the...

Bibliographic information