Miscellaneous Pieces, in Prose

Front Cover
J. Johnson, 1773 - 219 pages

From inside the book

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 20 - I observed that those who had but just begun to climb the hill, thought themselves not far from the top : but as they proceeded, new hills were continually rising to their view ; and the summit of the highest they could before discern, seemed but the foot of another, till the mountain at length appeared to lose itself in the clouds. As I was gazing on these things with astonishment, my good genius suddenly appeared. "The mountain before thee...
Page 27 - ... of the hill. The tyrants then doubled their chains upon the unhappy captives, and led them away, without resistance, to the cells of Ignorance, or the mansions of Misery.
Page 56 - If you preserve your integrity, it must be a coarse-spun and vulgar honesty. Those high and lofty notions of morals which you brought with you from the schools, must be considerably lowered, and mixed with the baser alloy of a jealous and worldly-minded prudence.
Page 24 - After I had noticed a variety of objects, I turned my eye towards the multitudes who were climbing the steep ascent; and observed amongst them a youth of a lively look, a piercing eye, and something fiery and irregular in all his motions. His name was Genius. He darted like an eagle up the mountain ; and left his companions gazing after him with envy and admiration : but his progress was unequal, and interrupted by a thousand caprices. When Pleasure warbled in the valley, he mingled in her train.
Page 67 - ... exactness, you must not expect that man to be greatly influenced by the weakness of pity or the partialities of friendship ; you must not be offended that he does not fly to meet you after a short absence, or require from him the convivial spirit and honest effusions of a warm, open, susceptible heart. If another is remarkable for a lively, active zeal, inflexible integrity, a strong indignation against vice, and freedom in reproving it, he will probably have some little bluntness in...
Page 128 - The doors opening to soft music, a lady of incomparable beauty, attired with amazing splendour, entered, surrounded by a troop of gay nymphs more fair than the Graces. She advanced to the knight, and falling on her knees thanked him as her deliverer. The nymphs placed a garland of laurel upon his head, and the lady led him by the hand to the banquet, and sat beside him.
Page 208 - But in the mean time the sons of men deviated from their native innocence ; vice and ruin over-ran the earth with giant strides; and Astrea, with her train of celestial visitants, forsook their polluted abodes.
Page 126 - The flame now rested upon a pair of ample folding doors at the end of the gallery. Sir Bertrand went up to it, and applied the key to a brazen lock — with difficulty he turned the bolt...
Page 22 - ... rough a beginning, turned back, and attempted the mountain no more ; while others, having conquered this difficulty, had no...
Page 58 - But is it not some reproach upon the economy of Providence that such a one, who is a mean dirty fellow, should have amassed wealth enough to buy half a nation?" Not in the least. He made himself a mean dirty fellow for that very end. He has paid his health, his conscience, his liberty for it; and will you envy him his bargain? Will you hang your head and blush in his presence because he outshines you in equipage and show?

Bibliographic information