The Novels of Sterne, Goldsmith, Dr. Johnson, Mackenzie, Horace Walpole, and Clara Reeve: To which are Prefixed Memoirs of the Lives of the Authors

Front Cover
Hurst, Robinson, and Company, 1823 - 659 pages
 

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 333 - YE who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope ; who expect that age will perform the promises of youth, and that the deficiencies of the present day will be supplied by the morrow ; attend to the history of Rasselas, prince of Abyssinia.
Page 341 - The business of a poet," said Imlac, "is to examine, not the individual, but the species ; to remark general properties and large appearances ; he does not number the streaks of the tulip, or describe the different shades in the verdure of the forest. He is to exhibit in his portraits of nature such prominent and striking features, as...
Page 341 - He must divest himself of the prejudices of his age and country ; he must consider right and wrong in their abstracted and invariable state ; he must disregard present laws and opinions, and rise to general and transcendental truths, which will always be the same : he must therefore content himself with the slow progress of his name ; contemn the applause of his own time, and commit his claims to the justice of posterity. He must write as the interpreter of nature and the legislator of mankind, and...
Page xxxii - How often have I loitered o'er thy green, Where humble happiness endeared each scene! How often have I paused on every charm, The sheltered cot, the cultivated farm, The never-failing brook, the busy mill, The decent church that topt the neighbouring hill, The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade For talking age and whispering lovers made!
Page 292 - And curs of low degree. This dog and man at first were friends ; But when a pique began, The dog, to gain some private ends, Went mad and bit the man. Around, from all the...
Page 358 - This opinion, which perhaps prevails as far as human nature is diffused, could become universal only by its truth ; those that never heard of one another, would not have agreed in a tale which nothing but experience can make credible. That it is doubted by single cavillers, can very little weaken the general evidence : and some who deny it with their tongues, confess it by their fears.
Page 244 - I took a single captive, and, having first shut him up in his dungeon, I then looked through the twilight of his grated door to take his picture. I beheld his body half wasted away with long expectation and confinement, and felt what kind of sickness of the heart it was which arises from hope deferred. Upon looking nearer, I saw him pale and feverish. In thirty years the western breeze had not once fanned his blood. He had seen no sun, no moon, in all that time, nor had the voice of friend or kinsman...
Page 173 - em, which I had just bought, and gave him one ; — and, at this moment that I am telling it, my heart smites me that there was more of pleasantry in the conceit of seeing how an ass would eat a macaroon than of benevolence in giving him one, which presided in the act. " When the ass had eaten his macaroon, I pressed him to come in.
Page lxvi - Gothic story), and that on the uppermost banister of a great staircase I saw a gigantic hand in armour. In the evening I sat down, and began to write, without knowing in the least what I intended to say or relate. The work grew on my hands, and I grew fond of it — add, that I was very glad to think of any thing rather than politics.
Page 244 - Tis thou, thrice sweet and gracious goddess, addressing myself to LIBERTY, whom all in public or in private worship, whose taste is grateful, and ever will be so, till NATURE herself shall change no tint of words can spot thy snowy mantle or chymic power turn thy sceptre into iron with thee to smile upon him as he eats his crust, the swain is happier than his monarch, from whose court thou art exiled Gracious heaven! cried I, kneeling down upon the last step but one in my ascent, grant me but health,...

Bibliographic information