The works of the poets of Great Britain and Ireland. With prefaces, biographical and critical, by S. Johnson, Volume 11804 |
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Page 77
... persons were living at Holloway , about the year 1734 , and at that time pos sessed such a degree of health and strength , as enabled them on Sundays and Prayer - days to walk a mile up a steep hill to Highgate chapel . One of them was ...
... persons were living at Holloway , about the year 1734 , and at that time pos sessed such a degree of health and strength , as enabled them on Sundays and Prayer - days to walk a mile up a steep hill to Highgate chapel . One of them was ...
Page 83
... persons of elevated dignity . Before the greatness displayed in Milton's poem , all other greatness shrinks away . The weakest of his agents are the highest and noblest of human beings , the original parents of mankind , with whose ...
... persons of elevated dignity . Before the greatness displayed in Milton's poem , all other greatness shrinks away . The weakest of his agents are the highest and noblest of human beings , the original parents of mankind , with whose ...
Page 90
... persons , which have no real existence . To exalt causes into agents , to invest abstract ideas with form , and animate them with activity , has always been the right of poetry . But such airy beings are , for the most part , suffered ...
... persons , which have no real existence . To exalt causes into agents , to invest abstract ideas with form , and animate them with activity , has always been the right of poetry . But such airy beings are , for the most part , suffered ...
Page 94
... person who was well acquainted with him , to this effect , viz . that he was a con- veyancing lawyer , and a bencher of the Inner Temple , and had raised himself from a low beginning to very great eminence in that profession ; that he ...
... person who was well acquainted with him , to this effect , viz . that he was a con- veyancing lawyer , and a bencher of the Inner Temple , and had raised himself from a low beginning to very great eminence in that profession ; that he ...
Page 95
... person of his loyalty and wit " should suffer in obscurity , and under the wants he did . The duke always " seemed to hearken to him with attention enough ; and after some time , un- " dertook # < 6 66 " dertook to recommend his ...
... person of his loyalty and wit " should suffer in obscurity , and under the wants he did . The duke always " seemed to hearken to him with attention enough ; and after some time , un- " dertook # < 6 66 " dertook to recommend his ...
Other editions - View all
The Works of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland. with Prefaces ... Great Britain No preview available - 2016 |
The Works of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland. with Prefaces ... Great Britain,Samuel Johnson No preview available - 2015 |
The Works of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland. with Prefaces ... Great Britain No preview available - 2015 |
Common terms and phrases
acquaintance Addison afterwards appears beauties blank verse called censure character Charles Dryden composition considered Cowley criticism death delight diction Dryden duke Dunciad Earl elegance endeavoured English English poetry excellence faults favour friends genius honour Hudibras Iliad images imagination imitation John Dryden kind King known labour Lady language Latin learning letter lines lived Lord lord Halifax mentioned Milton mind nature never night Night Thoughts NIHIL numbers observed occasion once opinion Paradise Lost passion performance perhaps Pindar play pleased pleasure poem poet poetical poetry Pope Pope's pounds praise present produced published Queen racter reader reason received remarks reputation rhyme satire Savage says seems sentiments shew shewn sometimes soon supposed Swift Syphax Tatler thing thought tion told tragedy translation Tyrannick Love verses Virgil virtue Waller Whigs write written wrote Young
Popular passages
Page 562 - The sound must seem an echo to the sense : Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows, And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows ; But when loud surges lash the sounding shore, The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar : When Ajax strives some rock's vast- weight to throw, The line too labours, and the words move slow ; Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain, Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main.
Page 44 - O could I flow like thee, and make thy stream My great example, as it is my theme! Though deep, yet clear, though gentle, yet not dull, Strong without rage, without o'er-flowing full.
Page 55 - Memory and her siren daughters, but by devout prayer to that eternal Spirit, who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out his seraphim, with the hallowed fire of his altar, to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases.
Page 673 - I rejoice to concur with the common reader ; for by the common sense of readers, uncorrupted with literary prejudices, after all the refinements of subtility and the dogmatism of learning, must be finally decided all claim to poetical honours. The Churchyard abounds with images which find a mirror in every mind, and with sentiments to which every bosom returns an echo. The four stanzas beginning, "Yet even these bones...
Page 204 - They have not the formality of a settled style, in which the first half of the sentence betrays the other. The clauses are never balanced, nor the periods modelled : every word seems to drop by chance, though it falls into its proper place. Nothing is cold or languid : the whole is airy, animated, and vigorous; what is little, is gay ; what is great, is splendid.
Page 12 - Yet great labour, directed by great abilities, is never wholly lost: if they frequently threw away their wit upon false conceits, they likewise sometimes struck out unexpected truth; if their conceits were far-fetched, they were often worth the carriage. To write on their plan, it was at least necessary to read and think.
Page 557 - His declaration that his care for his works ceased at their publication, was not strictly true. His parental attention never abandoned them ; what he found amiss in the first edition, he silently corrected in those that followed. He appears to have revised the 'Iliad...
Page 5 - Let him for succour sue from place to place, Torn from his subjects, and his son's embrace. First let him see his friends in battle slain, And their untimely fate lament in vain: And when at length the cruel war shall cease, On hard conditions may he buy his peace: Nor let him then enjoy supreme command ; But fall, untimely, by some hostile hand, And lie unburied on the barren sand!
Page 636 - Insatiate Archer! could not one suffice? Thy shaft flew thrice ; and thrice my peace was slain ; And thrice, ere thrice yon moon had fill'd her horn.
Page 522 - A grotto is not often the wish or pleasure of an Englishman, who has more frequent need to solicit than exclude the sun; but Pope's excavation was requisite as an entrance to his garden, and, as some men try to be proud of their defects, he extracted an ornament from an inconvenience, and vanity produced a grotto where necessity enforced a passage.