Essays of William Hazlitt |
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Page ix
... seems needful for considering his work as an Essayist . He was born on the 10th of April 1778 , in Mitre Lane , Maidstone . His father was a Unitarian minister , who , after several changes , settled at Wem , in Shropshire . In 1795 ...
... seems needful for considering his work as an Essayist . He was born on the 10th of April 1778 , in Mitre Lane , Maidstone . His father was a Unitarian minister , who , after several changes , settled at Wem , in Shropshire . In 1795 ...
Page 7
... seem not to have settled the order of their precedence to this hour ; and I should hope that the upholsterer and his companions , who used to sun themselves in the Green Park , and who broke their rest and fortunes to maintain the ...
... seem not to have settled the order of their precedence to this hour ; and I should hope that the upholsterer and his companions , who used to sun themselves in the Green Park , and who broke their rest and fortunes to maintain the ...
Page 8
... seems to have gone into his closet chiefly to set down what he observed out of doors . Addison seems to have spent most of his time in his study , and to have spun out and wire - drawn the hints , which he borrowed from Steele , or took ...
... seems to have gone into his closet chiefly to set down what he observed out of doors . Addison seems to have spent most of his time in his study , and to have spun out and wire - drawn the hints , which he borrowed from Steele , or took ...
Page 9
... seem , and yet I am not tired of them like so many other friends , nor they of me ! How airy these abstractions of the poet's pen stream over the dawn of our acquaintance with human life ! how they glance their fairest colours on the ...
... seem , and yet I am not tired of them like so many other friends , nor they of me ! How airy these abstractions of the poet's pen stream over the dawn of our acquaintance with human life ! how they glance their fairest colours on the ...
Page 13
... seems to have met with its congenial matter : the shaft is sped ; the forked lightning dresses up the face of nature in ghastly smiles , and the loud thunder rolls far away from the ruin that is made . Dr. Johnson's style , on the ...
... seems to have met with its congenial matter : the shaft is sped ; the forked lightning dresses up the face of nature in ghastly smiles , and the loud thunder rolls far away from the ruin that is made . Dr. Johnson's style , on the ...
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Common terms and phrases
abstract absurdity actor admiration appeared beauty better Brentford Cavanagh character Charles Lamb Coleridge Coleridge's comic common conversation Correggio criticism delight Don Quixote dream effect English Essay excellence expression face fancy favourite feel genius gentleman give grace hand Hazlitt head heart Hogarth human Iago idea imagination indifference instance Lamb laugh learned Leigh Hunt light living look Lord ludicrous manner Mary Lamb matter mind Molière nature never Nicolas Poussin Ninon de l'Enclos objects observation once opinion ourselves pain painter painting passed passion person picture play pleasure poet poetry political pretensions profession prose reason Rembrandt round Samuel Waddington scene seems seen sense speak spirit style talk taste Tatler things thought Titian Tom Jones truth turn volume walk William Hazlitt Winterslow wish words Wordsworth write
Popular passages
Page 186 - I'll tell you, friend! a wise man and a fool. You'll find, if once the monarch acts the monk Or, cobbler-like, the parson will be drunk, Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow, The rest is all but leather or prunella.
Page 174 - Between the acting of a dreadful thing And the first motion, all the interim is Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream : The genius, and the mortal instruments, Are then in council; and the state of man, Like to a little kingdom, suffers then The nature of an insurrection.
Page 294 - The hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long, That it had its head bit off by its young.
Page 287 - ... for wit lying most in the assemblage of ideas, and putting those together with quickness and variety, wherein can be found any resemblance or congruity, thereby to make up pleasant pictures and agreeable visions in the fancy; judgment, on the contrary, lies quite on the other side, in separating carefully, one from another, ideas, wherein can be found the least difference, thereby to avoid being misled by similitude, and by affinity to take one thing for another.
Page 263 - The Devil was sick, the Devil a monk would be : The Devil grew well, the devil a monk was he...
Page 282 - ... the quality we laugh at or despise in a still more contemptible or striking point of view. Wit, as distinguished from poetry, is the imagination or fancy inverted and so applied to given objects, as to make the little look less, the mean more light and worthless; or to divert our admiration or wean our affections from that which is lofty and impressive, instead of producing a more intense admiration and exalted passion, as poetry does.
Page 86 - Give me the clear blue sky over my head," says he, "and the green turf beneath my feet, a winding road before me, and a three hours' march to dinner — and then to thinking ! It is hard if I cannot start some game on these lone heaths. I laugh, I run, I leap, I sing for joy.
Page 19 - Styx nine times round them," my ideas float on winged words, and as they expand their plumes, catch the golden light of other years. My soul has indeed remained in its original bondage, dark, obscure, with longings infinite and unsatisfied ; my heart, shut up in the prison-house of this rude clay, has never found, nor will it ever find, a heart to speak to ; but that my understanding also did not remain dumb and brutish, or at length found a language to express itself, I owe to Coleridge.
Page 20 - As he gave out this text, his voice ' rose like a stream of rich distilled perfumes;' and when he came to the two last words, which he pronounced loud, deep, and distinct, it seemed to me, who was then young, as if the sounds had echoed from the bottom of the human heart, and as if that prayer might have floated in solemn silence through the universe.
Page 21 - The sun that was still labouring pale and wan through the sky, obscured by thick mists, seemed an emblem of the good cause ; and the cold, dank drops of dew that hung half melted on the beard of the thistle had something genial and refreshing in them ; for there was a spirit of hope and youth in all nature that turned everything — into good.