An Essay on Taste: To which is Now Added Part Fourth, of the Standard of Taste : with Observations Concerning the Imitative Nature of Poetry

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J. Bell, and W. Creech, 1780 - Aesthetics - 284 pages
 

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Page 67 - He'd undertake to prove by force Of argument, a man's no horse; He'd prove a buzzard is no fowl, And that a lord may be an owl; A calf an alderman, a goose a justice, And rooks committee-men and trustees.
Page 68 - This sword a dagger had, his page, That was but little for his age...
Page 68 - It would ferape trenchers, or chip bread; Toaft cheefe or bacon, though it were To bait a moufe-trap, t'would not care. 'Twould make clean (hoes, and in the earth Set leeks and onions, and fo forth.
Page 69 - The sun had long since in the lap Of Thetis taken out his nap, And like a lobster boil'd, the morn From black to red began to turn."* The Imagination modifies images, and gives unity to variety; it sees all things in one, il piu nell
Page 241 - Commons with a proof sheet of Milton's work, wet from the press, and exclaimed, "This is part of the noblest poem that ever was written in any language or in any age...
Page 96 - Le sentiment dont je parle est dans tous les hommes, mais comme ils n'ont pas tous les oreilles et les yeux également bons, de même ils n'ont pas tous le sentiment également parfait.
Page 67 - For rhetoric, he could not ope His mouth, but out there flew a trope; And when he happened to break off I...
Page 133 - But every one who really merits the name, conveys much more momentous inftrudtion, and more effectually teaches juftnefs of thinking, by explaining 'the kind and degree of every excellence and blemifh, by teaching us what are the qualities in .things to which we owe our pleafure or difguft, and what the principles of human nature by which they are prpduced.
Page 130 - ... we take up with any ftandard, however foreign or improper, that can end our wavering. Authority in all its forms ufurps the place of truth and reafon. The ufage of an admired genius will procure approbation even to faults, from one whofe tafte is languid.
Page 131 - Curiofity is naturally excited, their volumes after long inquiry are found, but feldom reward the labour of the fearch. Every period of time has produced thefe bubbles of artificial fame, which are kept up a while by the breath of fafhion, and then break at once, and are annihilated. The learned often bewail the lofs of ancient writers whofe characters have furvived their Works ; but, perhaps, if we could now retrieve them, •we mould find them only the Gran-villes, Montagues, Stepneys, and Sheffield*...

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