The British essayists, with prefaces by A. Chalmers, Volumes 31-32

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Page 262 - Thou's met me in an evil hour; For I maun crush amang the stoure Thy slender stem: To spare thee now is past my pow'r, Thou bonnie gem. Alas ! it's no thy neebor sweet, The bonnie Lark, companion meet! Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet! Wi' spreckl'd breast, When upward-springing, blythe, to greet The purpling east.
Page 143 - But there was a certain man, called Simon, which beforetime in the same city used sorcery, and bewitched the people of Samaria, giving out that himself was some great one : 10 To whom they all gave heed, from the least to the greatest, saying, This man is the great power of God.
Page 146 - That which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpillar eaten.
Page 263 - Ev'n thou who mourn'st the Daisy's fate, That fate is thine — no distant date ; Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives, elate, Full on thy bloom, Till crush'd beneath the furrow's weight, Shall be thy doom ! TO RUIN.
Page 100 - Tis not a set of features, or complexion, The tincture of a skin that I admire. Beauty soon grows familiar to the lover, Fades in his eye, and palls upon the sense. The virtuous Marcia tow'rs above her sex : True, she is fair, (oh how divinely fair !) But still the lovely maid improves her charms With inward greatness, unaffected wisdom, And sanctity of manners.
Page 103 - Though I will not go so far as a paradoxical critic has done, and ascribe valour to Falstaff ; yet, if his cowardice is fairly examined, it will be' found to be not so much a weakness as a principle. In his very cowardice there is much of the sagacity I have remarked in him; he has the sense of danger, but not the discomposure of fear.
Page 240 - But see the fading many-coloured woods, Shade deepening over shade, the country round Imbrown, a crowded umbrage, dusk, and dun, Of every hue, from wan declining green To sooty dark.
Page 282 - From this tyranny, as youth conceives it, of attention and of labor, relief is commonly sought from some favorite avocation or amusement, for which a young man either finds or steals a portion of his time, either patiently plods through his task, in expectation of its approach, or anticipates its arrival by deserting his work before the legal period for amusement is arrived. It may fairly be questioned, whether the most innocent of those amusements, is either so honorable or so safe as the avocation...
Page 281 - The abstraction of learning, the speculations of science, and the visionary excursions of fancy are fatal, it is said, to the steady pursuit of common objects, to the habits of plodding in dustry, which ordinary business demands. The fineness of mind which is created or increased by the study of letters, or the admiration of the arts, is supposed to incapacitate a man for the drudgery by which professional eminence is gained ; as a nicely tempered edge, applied to a coarse and rugged material, is...
Page 281 - Genius are proscribed, as leading their votaries to barren indigence and merited neglect. In doubting the truth of these assertions, I think I shall not entertain any hurtful degree of...

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