Critical and Historical Essays: Diary and letters of Madam d'Arblay. The life and writings of Addison. The Earl of Chatham. Index

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Сторінка 57 - It may, by metaphor, apply itself Unto the general disposition: As when some one peculiar quality Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw All his affects, his spirits, and his powers, In their confluctions, all to run one way, This may be truly said to be a humour.
Сторінка 78 - He is taller, by almost the breadth of my nail, than any of his court ; which alone is enough to strike an awe into the beholders.
Сторінка 98 - One of these poems has been rescued from oblivion by the exquisite absurdity of three lines : " Think of two thousand gentlemen at least, And each man mounted on his capering beast; Into the Danube they were pushed by shoals." Where to procure better verses the treasurer did not know. He understood how to negotiate a loan,, or remit a subsidy. He was also well versed in the history of running horses and fighting 'cocks ; but his acquaintance among the poets was very small.
Сторінка 109 - No man is so great a favourite with the public as he who is at once an object of admiration, of respect, and of pity; and such were the feelings which Addison inspired. Those who enjoyed the privilege of hearing his familiar conversation declared with one voice that it was superior even to his writings. The brilliant Mary Montague said that she had known all the wits, and that Addison was the best company in the world.
Сторінка 21 - Steevens, and the polecat John Williams. It did not, however, occur to them to search the parish register of Lynn, in order that they might be able to twit a lady with having concealed her age. That truly chivalrous exploit was reserved for a bad writer of our own time, whose spite she had provoked by not furnishing him with materials for a worthless edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson, some sheets of which our readers have doubtless seen round parcels of better books.
Сторінка 1 - All those whom we have been accustomed to revere as intellectual patriarchs seemed children when compared with her ; for Burke had sat up all night to read her writings, and Johnson had pronounced her superior to Fielding, when Rogers was still a schoolboy, and Southey still in petticoats. Her Diary is written in her earliest and best manner ; in true woman's English, clear, natural, and lively. It ought to be consulted by every person who wishes to be well acquainted with the history of our literature...
Сторінка 148 - Or dost thou warn poor mortals left behind, A task well suited to thy gentle mind ? Oh! if sometimes thy spotless form descend, To me, thy aid, thou guardian genius, lend! When rage misguides me, or when fear alarms, When pain distresses, or when pleasure charms, In silent whisperings purer thoughts impart, And turn from ill a frail and feeble heart, Lead through the paths thy virtue trod before, Till bliss shall join, nor death can part us more.
Сторінка 121 - Addison; — a mirth consistent with tender compassion for all that is frail, and with profound reverence for all that is sublime. Nothing great, nothing amiable, no moral duty, no doctrine of natural or revealed religion, has ever been associated by Addison with any degrading idea. His humanity is without a parallel in literary history.
Сторінка 133 - Tory writers, as a gentleman of wit and virtue, in whose friendship many persons of both parties were happy, and whose name ought not to be mixed up with factious squabbles. Of the jests by which the triumph of the "Whig party was disturbed, the most severe and happy was Bolingbroke's. Between two acts, he sent for Booth to his box, and presented him, before the whole theatre, with a purse of fifty guineas for defending the cause of liberty so well against a perpetual dictator.
Сторінка 260 - Chatham, at the time of his decease, had not, in both Houses of Parliament, ten personal adherents. Half the public men of the age had been estranged from him by his errors, and the other half by the exertions which he had made to repair his errors. His last speech had been an attack at once on the policy pursued by the government, and on the policy recommended by the opposition. But death at once restored him to his old place in the affection of his country.

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