The Prose Works of Sir Walter Scott, Bart: Biographical memoirs of eminent novelists

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R.Cadell, 1834 - France

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Page 224 - I received one morning a message from poor Goldsmith,, that he was in great distress ; and as it was not in his power to come to me, begging that I would come to him as soon as possible. I sent him a guinea, and promised to come to him directly. I accordingly went as soon as I was dressed, and found that his landlady had arrested him for his rent, at which he was in a violent passion. I perceived that he had already changed my guinea, and had got a bottle of Madeira and a glass before him.
Page 220 - I had rather be an under-turnkey in Newgate. I was up early and late ; I was browbeat by the master, hated for my ugly face by the mistress, worried by the boys...
Page 289 - I waked one morning, in the beginning of last June, from a dream, of which, all I could recover was, that I had thought myself in an ancient castle (a very natural dream for a head filled like mine with Gothic story), and that on the uppermost banister of a great staircase I saw a gigantic hand in armour.
Page 369 - Welcome, folded arms and fixed eyes, A sigh that piercing mortifies, A look that's fastened to the ground, A tongue chained up without a sound ! Fountain heads and pathless groves, Places which pale passion loves ! Moonlight walks, when all the fowls Are warmly housed save bats and owls ! A midnight bell, a parting groan, These are the sounds we feed upon ; Then stretch our bones in a still gloomy valley : Nothing's so dainty sweet as lovely melancholy.
Page 254 - Yet when the sense of sacred presence fires, And strong devotion to the skies aspires, Pour forth thy fervours for a healthful mind, Obedient passions, and a will resign'd ; For love which scarce collective man can fill, For patience, sov'reign, o'er transmuted ill ; For faith, that, panting for a happier seat, Counts death kind nature's signal of retreat ; These goods for man the laws of heaven ordain.
Page 138 - No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail ; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.
Page 240 - Vicar of Wakefield ' in youth and in age — we return to it again and again, and bless the memory of an author who contrives so well to reconcile us to human nature, — SIR WALTER SCOTT.
Page 369 - Hence, all you vain delights, As short as are the nights, Wherein you spend your folly : There's nought in this life sweet If man were wise to see't, But only melancholy...
Page 210 - Here Cumberland lies, having acted his parts, The Terence of England, the mender of hearts; A flattering painter, who made it his care To draw men as they ought to be, not as they are.
Page 258 - Halifax till about the latter end of that year, and cannot omit mentioning this anecdote of myself and schoolmaster : — He had the ceiling of the school-room new white-washed ; the ladder remained there. I, one unlucky day, mounted it, and wrote with a brush, in large capital letters, LAU. STERNE, for which the usher severely whipped me. My master was very much hurt at this, and said, before me, that never should that name be effaced, for I was a boy of genius, and he was sure I should come to...

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