The British Essayists; with Prefaces, Historical and Biographical,: The Rambler

Front Cover
E. Sargeant, and M. & W. Ward; and Munroe, Francis & Parker, and Edward Cotton, Boston., 1811 - English essays

From inside the book

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 314 - If a man was to compare the effect of a single stroke of a pick-axes or of one impression of the spade, with the general design and last result, he would be overwhelmed by the sense of their disproportion ; yet those petty operations, incessantly continued, in time surmount the greatest difficulties, and mountains are levelled, and oceans bounded, by the slender force of human beings.
Page 303 - Happy the man - and happy he alone He who can call today his own, He who, secure within, can say 'Tomorrow, do thy worst, for I have...
Page 321 - The Christian and the hero are inseparable ; and to the aspirings of unassuming trust and filial confidence, are set no bounds. To him who is animated with a view of obtaining approbation from the Sovereign of the universe, no difficulty is insurmountable. Secure, in this pursuit, of every needful aid, his conflict with the severest pains and trials, is little more than the vigorous exercises of a mind in health.
Page 76 - It is therefore not a sufficient vindication of a character that it is drawn as it appears, for many characters ought never to be drawn, nor of a narrative that the train of events is agreeable to observation and experience, for that observation which is called knowledge of the world will be found much more frequently to make men cunning than good.
Page 303 - There is certainly no greater happiness, than to be able to look back on a life usefully and virtuously employed, to trace our own progress in existence, by such tokens as excite neither shame nor sorrow. Life, in which nothing has been done or suffered to distinguish one day from another, is to him that has passed it, as if it had never been, except that he is conscious how ill he has husbanded the great deposit of his Creator.
Page 83 - ... knowledge ; and to remember, that a blighted spring makes a barren year, and that the vernal flowers, however beautiful and gay, are only intended by nature as preparatives to autumnal fruits.
Page 322 - which she endeavours to break those chains of "benevolence and social affection, that link the " welfare of every particular with that of the whole. " Remember that the greatest honour you can pay " to the Author of your being is by such a cheer" ful behaviour, as discovers a mind satisfied with
Page 106 - ... a body at once in a high degree solid and transparent, which might admit the light of the sun, and exclude the violence of the wind ; which might extend the sight of the philosopher to new ranges of existence, and charm him at one time with the unbounded extent of the material creation, and at another with the endless subordination of animal life ; and, what is yet of more importance, might supply the decays of nature, and succour old age with subsidiary sight.
Page 20 - He told him, that he had early laid it down as a fixed rule to do his best on every occasion, and in every company : to impart whatever he knew in the most forcible language he could put it in...
Page 179 - He that pursues fame with just claims, trusts his happiness to the winds ; but he that endeavours after it by false merit, has to fear, not only the violence of the storm, but the leaks of his vessel.

Bibliographic information