The works of the English poets. With prefaces, biographical and critical, by S. Johnson, Volume 21

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Page 321 - Happy the man, and happy he alone, He, who can call to-day his own : He who, secure within, can say, To-morrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.
Page 170 - Nor must we understand the language only of the poet, but his particular turn of thoughts and expression, which are the characters that distinguish, and as it were individuate, him from all other writers. When we are come thus far, it is time to look into ourselves ; to conform our genius to his, to give his thought either the same turn, if our tongue will bear it, or if not, to vary but the dress, not to alter or destroy the substance.
Page 54 - The covetous worldling in his anxious mind Thinks only on the wealth he left behind. All C'eyx his Alcyone employs, For her he grieves, yet in her absence joys...
Page 166 - That servile path thou nobly dost decline Of tracing word by word, and line by line : A new and nobler way thou dost pursue, To make translations, and translators too : They but preserve the ashes, thou the flame, True to his sense, but truer to his fame.
Page 153 - em twinkling up in air. Take not away the life you cannot give, For all things have an equal right to live. Kill noxious creatures, where 'tis sin to save ; This only just prerogative we have: But nourish life with vegetable food, And shun the sacrilegious taste of blood.
Page 137 - I, who these mysterious truths declare, Was once Euphorbus in the Trojan war; My name, and lineage I remember well, And how in fight by Sparta's king I fell. In Argive Juno's fane I late beheld My buckler hung on high, and own'd my former shield.
Page 273 - What English readers unacquainted with Greek or Latin, will believe me, or any other man, when we commend those authors, and confess we derive all that is pardonable in us from their fountains, if they take those to be the same poets, whom our Ogilbys have translated?
Page 17 - One goose they had ('twas all they could allow) A wakeful sentry, and on duty now, Whom to the Gods for sacrifice they vow : Her, with malicious zeal, the couple view'd ; She ran for life, and limping they...
Page 91 - O shame, a nation conquer'd by a man! A woman-man! yet more a man is he, Than all our race; and what he was, are we. Now, what avail our nerves? th...
Page 322 - What is't to me, Who never sail in her unfaithful sea, If storms arise, and clouds grow black ; , If the mast split, and threaten wreck ? Then let the greedy merchant fear For his ill-gotten gain ; And pray to gods that will not hear, While the debating winds and billows bear His wealth into the main.

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