The Calamities and Quarrels of Authors: With Some Inquiries Respecting Their Moral and Literary Characters, and Memoirs for Our Literary History, Volume 1

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W. J. Widdleton, 1868 - Authors

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Page 84 - But Appius reddens at each word you speak, And stares tremendous, with a threatening eye, Like some fierce tyrant in old tapestry.
Page 279 - As a beam o'er the face of the waters may glow, While the tide runs in darkness and coldness below, So the cheek may be tinged with a warm sunny smile, Though the cold heart to ruin runs darkly the while.
Page 184 - That all Nashe's bookes and Dr. Harvey's bookes be taken wheresoever they may be found, and that none of the said bookes be ever printed hereafter.
Page 195 - The Hexamiter verse I graunt to be a Gentleman of an auncient house (so is many an english begger) , yet this Clyme of ours hee cannot thriue in; our speech is too craggy for him to set his plough in, hee goes twitching and hopping in our language like a man running...
Page 314 - For what other reason have I spent my life in so unprofitable a study ? why am I grown old, in seeking so barren a reward as fame ? The same parts and application, which have made me a poet, might have raised me to any honours of the gown, which are often given to men of as little learning and less honesty than myself.
Page 307 - ... of himself without vanity; therefore, I shall be short. It may be thought an instance of vanity that I pretend at all to write my life; but this Narrative shall contain little more than the History of my Writings; as, indeed, almost all my life has been spent in literary pursuits and occupations. The first success of most of my writings was not such as to be an object of vanity.
Page 59 - They were like letters cut into the bark of a young tree, which with the tree still grow proportionably. But how this love came to be produced in me so early is a hard question. I believe I can tell the particular little chance that filled my head first with such chimes of verse as have never since left ringing there.
Page 77 - wants to be introduced to me ! Indeed ! I would see him, as he has been midwife to Masters, but he is so dull that he would only be troublesome— and besides you know I shun authors, and would never have been one myself, if it obliged me to keep such bad company. They are always in earnest, and think their profession serious, and dwell upon trifles, and reverence learning.
Page 309 - I was, I own, sanguine in my expectations of the success of this work. I thought that I was the only historian that had at once neglected present power, interest, and authority, and the cry of popular prejudices; and as the subject was suited to every capacity, I expected proportional applause.
Page 59 - French courts; yet all this was so far from altering my opinion, that it only added the confirmation of reason to that which was before but natural inclination. I saw plainly all the paint of that kind of life the nearer I came to it; and that beauty which I did not fall in love with when, for aught I knew, it was real, was not like to bewitch or entice me when I saw that it was adulterate.

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