The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.

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L. Hansard, 1806

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Page 26 - James, whose skill in physic will be long remembered ; and with David Garrick, whom I hoped to have gratified with this character of our common friend. But what are the hopes of man ? I am disappointed by that stroke of death which has eclipsed the gaiety of nations, and impoverished the public stock of harmless pleasure.
Page 242 - He began on it ; and when first he mentioned it to Swift, the doctor did not much like the project. As he carried it on, he showed what he wrote to both of us, and we now and then gave a correction, or a word or two of advice ; but it was wholly of his own writing. — When it was done, neither of us thought it would succeed. We showed it to Congreve ; who, after reading it over, said, it would either take greatly, or be damned confoundedly.
Page 109 - was particular in this writer, that when he had taken his resolution or made his plan for what he designed to write, he would walk about a room and dictate it into language with as much freedom and ease as any one could write it down, and attend to the coherence and grammar of what he dictated.
Page 196 - His scenes exhibit not much of humour, imagery, or passion : his personages are a kind of intellectual gladiators ; every sentence is to ward or strike ; the contest of smartness is never intermitted ; his wit is a meteor playing to and fro with alternate coruscations.
Page 279 - I can now excuse all his foibles; impute them to age, and to distress of circumstances: the last of these considerations wrings my very soul to think on. For a man of high spirit conscious of having (at least in one production) generally pleased the world, to be plagued and threatened by wretches that are low in every sense; to be forced to drink himself into pains of the body, in order to get rid of the pains of the mind is a misery.
Page 197 - Whistling thro' hollows of this vaulted aisle; We'll listenLeonora. Hark! Almeria. No, all is hush'd and still as death, — Tis dreadful! How reverend is the face of this tall pile, Whose ancient pillars rear their marble heads, To bear aloft its arch'd and ponderous roof, By its own weight made stedfast and immoveable, Looking tranquillity!
Page 308 - Gentlemen of the jury, you are to consider that Mr. Savage is a very great man, a much greater man than you or I, gentlemen of the jury ; that he wears very fine clothes, much finer clothes than you or I, gentlemen of the jury...
Page 25 - Of Gilbert Walmsley, thus presented to my mind, let me indulge myself in the remembrance. I knew him very early : he was one of the first friends that literature procured me, and I hope that at least my gratitude made me worthy of his notice. He was of an advanced age, and I was only not a boy; yet he never received my notions with contempt. He was a Whig, with all the virulence and malevolence of his party; yet difference...
Page 140 - ... always equable, and always easy, without glowing words or pointed sentences. Addison never deviates from his track to snatch a grace; he seeks no ambitious ornaments, and tries no hazardous innovations. His page is always luminous, but never blazes in unexpected splendour.
Page 291 - Richard, with an air of the utmost importance, to come very early to his house the next morning. Mr. Savage came as he had promised, found the chariot at the door, and Sir Richard waiting for him, and ready to go out. What was intended, and whither they were to go, Savage could not conjecture, and was not willing to...

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