Biographical Memoirs of Eminent Novelists, and Other Distinguished Persons, Volume 3

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Page 386 - 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 ; Oh ! sweetest melancholy.
Page 386 - Welcome, folded arms, and fixed eyes, A sigh that piercing mortifies, A look that's fasten'd to the ground, A tongue chain'd 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 241 - ... 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.
Page 153 - 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 112 - H. Fielding has given a true picture of himself and his first wife in the characters of Mr. and Mrs. Booth, some compliments to his own figure excepted ; and I am persuaded several of the incidents he mentions are real matters of fact.
Page 306 - 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. In the evening I sat down and began to write without knowing in the least what I intended to say or relate.
Page 81 - I am sorry for H. Fielding's death, not only as I shall read no more of his writings, but I believe he lost more than others, as no man enjoyed life more than he did, though few had less reason to do so, the highest of his preferment being raking in the lowest sinks of vice and misery.
Page 156 - He wrote an account of them ; but 'twas nothing but the account of his miserable feelings. I met Smelfungus in the grand portico of the Pantheon : he was just coming out of it. 'Tis nothing but a huge cockpit,* said he.
Page 115 - In this situation, as I could not conquer Nature, I submitted entirely to her, and she made as great...
Page 101 - Lyttelton, added that of Middlesex justice. He sent them word he was at supper, that they must come next morning. They did not understand that freedom, and ran up, where they found him banqueting with a blind man...

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