Essays: Biographical, Critical, and Historical; Illustrative of the Rambler, Adventurer & Idler ; and of the Various Periodical Papers Which, in Imitation of the Writings of Steele and Addison, Have Been Published Between the Close of the Eight Volume of the Spectator and the Commencement of the Year 1809, Volume 2

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J. Seeley, 1810 - English essays

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Page 226 - Here Reynolds is laid, and, to tell you my mind, He has not left a wiser or better behind : His pencil was striking, resistless and grand; His manners were gentle, complying and bland ; Still born to improve us in every part, His pencil our faces, his manners our heart : To coxcombs averse, yet most civilly steering, When they judg'd without skill he was still hard of hearing; When they talk'd of their Raphaels, Corregios and stuff, He shifted his trumpet, * and only took snuff.
Page 118 - FANCY, from these scenes of folly, To meet the matron MELANCHOLY, Goddess of the tearful eye, That loves to fold her arms and sigh ! Let us with silent footsteps go To charnels and the house of woe, To Gothic churches, vaults, and tombs, Where each sad night some virgin comes, With throbbing breast, and faded cheek, Herpromis'd bridegroom's urn to seek...
Page 466 - Dictionary was written with little assistance of the learned and without any patronage of the great; not in the soft obscurities of retirement or under the shelter of academic bowers, but amidst inconvenience and distraction, in sickness and in sorrow.
Page 50 - I have been directed to chide, and even repulse, when an offence was either taken or given, at the very time that the heart of the chider or repulser was open before me, overflowing with esteem and affection, and the fair repulser, dreading to be taken at her word, directing this word, or that expression, to be softened or changed. One, highly gratified with her lover's fervour and vows of everlasting love, has said, when I have asked her direction, ' I cannot tell you what to write ; but (her heart...
Page 61 - ... of the fiction. Lothario, with gaiety which cannot be hated, and bravery which cannot be despised, retains too much of the spectator's kindness. It was in the power of Richardson alone to teach us at once esteem and detestation, to make virtuous resentment overpower all the benevolence which wit, and elegance, and courage, naturally excite; and to lose at last the hero in the villain.
Page 277 - In the evening I sat down, and began to write, without knowing in the least what I intended to say or relate. The work grew on my hands, and I grew fond of it— add, that I was very glad to think of anything, rather than politics.
Page 94 - Or, if to touch such chord be thine, Restore the ancient tragic line, And emulate the notes that rung From the wild harp, which silent hung By silver Avon's holy shore, Till twice an hundred years...
Page 276 - 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 like mine filled with Gothic story) and that on the uppermost banister of a great staircase I saw a gigantic hand in armour.
Page 474 - GENTLY, most gently, on thy victim's head, Consumption, lay thine hand ! — let me decay, Like the expiring lamp, unseen, away, And softly go to slumber with the dead. And if 'tis true what holy men have said, That strains angelic oft foretell the day Of death to those good men who fall thy prey...
Page 173 - The Student," a periodical paper printed at Oxford in 1750; to " The Union, or select Scots and English Poems," 1753; to the Oxford Collections of 1751, 1761, and 1762; to the " Oxford Sausage, or Select Poetical Pieces, written by the most celebrated Wits of the University of Oxford ;" 12mo, 1764; and to Pearch's Collection ; he contributed many very valuable effusions.

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