The Works of Samuel Johnson.LL.D..: The lives of the English poetsT. Longman, B. White and Son, B. Law, J. Dodsley, H. Baldwin, J. Robson, J Johnson, C. Dilly, T. Vernor, G. G. J. and J. Robinson, T. Cadell, J. Nichols, R. Baldwin, N. Conant, P. Elmsly, F. and C. Rivington, T. Payne, W. Goldsmith, R. Faulder, Leigh and Sotheby, G. Nicol, J. Murray, A. Strahan, W. Lowndes, T. Evans, W. Bent, S. Hayes, G. and T. Wilkie, T. and J. Egerton, W. Fox, P. M.'Queen, Ogilvie and Speale, Darton and Harvey, G. and C. Kearsley, W. Millar, B. C. Collins, and E. Newbery., 1792 |
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action afterwards appears beauties becauſe better called character common confidered Cowley death defign defire delight Dryden Earl elegance English equal excellence expected faid fame fancy fays feems fent fentiments fhall fhew fhould firft fome fometimes formed friends ftudies fubject fuch fuppofed gave genius give given hand himſelf hope images imagination Italy kind King knowledge known labour Lady laft language learning lefs lines lived loft Lord manners mean mention Milton mind muſt nature never numbers occafion once opinion performance perhaps play pleaſure poem poet poetical poetry praiſe prefent probably produced publick publiſhed reader reaſon received relates remarks rhyme tell thefe theſe thing thofe thoſe thou thought tion tragedy tranflation true truth uſe verfe virtue Waller whofe whole write written wrote
Popular passages
Page 73 - Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer; Willing to wound and yet afraid to strike, Just hint a fault and hesitate dislike; Alike...
Page 264 - While in the park I sing, the listening deer Attend my passion, and forget to fear : When to the beeches I report my flame, They bow their heads, as if they felt the same. To gods appealing, when I reach their bowers, With loud complaints they answer me in showers. To thee a wild and cruel soul is given, More deaf than trees, and prouder than the Heaven ! On the head of a stag...
Page 34 - To move, but doth if th' other do. And though it in the centre sit, Yet, when the other far doth roam, It leans and hearkens after it, And grows erect as that comes home. Such wilt thou be to me, who must Like th
Page 382 - Dryden is the criticism of •a poet ; not a dull collection of theorems, nor a rude detection of faults, which perhaps the censor was not able to have committed ; but a gay and vigorous dissertation, where delight is mingled with instruction, and where the author proves his right of judgement by his power of performance.
Page 92 - Let not our veneration for Milton forbid us to look with some degree of merriment on great promises and small performance, on the man who hastens home, because his countrymen are contending for their liberty, and, when he reaches the scene of action, vapours away his patriotism in a private boarding-school.
Page 381 - To judge rightly of an author, we must transport ourselves to his time, and examine what were the wants of his contemporaries, and what were his means of supplying them.
Page 381 - Demosthenes fades away before it. In a few lines is exhibited a character so extensive in its comprehension, and so curious in its limitations, that nothing can be added, diminished or...
Page 150 - We drove a field, and both together heard What time the grey fly winds her sultry horn, Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night. We know that they never drove a field, and that they had no flocks to batten...
Page 24 - Who but Donne would have thought that a good man is a telescope? Though God be our true glass, through which we see All, since the being of all things is He, Yet are the trunks, which do to us derive Things, in proportion fit, by perspective Deeds of good men ; for by their living here, Virtues, indeed remote, seem to be near.
Page 271 - The topics of devotion are few, and being few are universally known ; but, few as they are, they can be made no more ; they can receive no grace from novelty of sentiment, and very little from novelty of expression.