The British Prose Writers...: Gray's lettersJ. Sharpe, 1821 - British prose literature |
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Page 9
... appear under my name . As yet I have not looked into sir Isaac . Public disputations I hate ; mathematics I reverence ; his- tory , morality , and natural philosophy have the greatest charms in my eye ; but who can forget poetry ? they ...
... appear under my name . As yet I have not looked into sir Isaac . Public disputations I hate ; mathematics I reverence ; his- tory , morality , and natural philosophy have the greatest charms in my eye ; but who can forget poetry ? they ...
Page 16
... appear , Would pluck the promise of the vernal year ? Quid fraudare juvat vitem crescentibus uvis ? Et modo nata mala vellere poma manu ? So the original . The paraphrase seems to me infinitely more beautiful . There is a peculiar ...
... appear , Would pluck the promise of the vernal year ? Quid fraudare juvat vitem crescentibus uvis ? Et modo nata mala vellere poma manu ? So the original . The paraphrase seems to me infinitely more beautiful . There is a peculiar ...
Page 18
... appear , The fields as verdant , and the skies as clear ; Nor storms nor comets will my doom declare , Nor signs on earth , nor portents in the air ; Unknown and silent will depart my breath , Nor Nature e'er take notice of my death ...
... appear , The fields as verdant , and the skies as clear ; Nor storms nor comets will my doom declare , Nor signs on earth , nor portents in the air ; Unknown and silent will depart my breath , Nor Nature e'er take notice of my death ...
Page 55
... appear a match for a much greater power ; though perhaps Geneva , and all that belongs to it , are not of equal extent with Windsor and its two parks . To one that has passed through Savoy , as we did , nothing can be more striking than ...
... appear a match for a much greater power ; though perhaps Geneva , and all that belongs to it , are not of equal extent with Windsor and its two parks . To one that has passed through Savoy , as we did , nothing can be more striking than ...
Page 83
... appear to some readers , I chose to insert it , as it gives me an opportunity of remarking that Mr. Gray was extremely skilled in the customs of the ancient Romans ; and has catalogued , in his common - place book , their various ...
... appear to some readers , I chose to insert it , as it gives me an opportunity of remarking that Mr. Gray was extremely skilled in the customs of the ancient Romans ; and has catalogued , in his common - place book , their various ...
Common terms and phrases
acquaintance Adieu admire antiquity antistrophe appear beautiful believe body Borrowdale called Cambridge Caractacus castle church crags desire Dodsley duke Dunciad Elfrida eyes Florence Genoa give Gothic Grande Chartreuse Gray Gray's Greek hand head hear heard hill honour hope house of York imagine Italy journey Keswick king lady lake late least letter live London lord lord Bolingbroke Mason Massinissa mean miles mind Monody mountains Naples never night obliged opinion passed Pembroke College Pembroke-Hall perhaps Peterhouse Pindaric pleasure poem poetry Pray Rheims rise river road rock Rome round scene Scotland seems seen side Skiddaw sort spirits sure Syphax Tacitus taste tell Teverone thing thought tion town trees vale valley verses walk WALPOLE WEST WHARTON whole wish wood write
Popular passages
Page 67 - I do not remember to have gone ten paces without an exclamation, that there was no restraining : Not a precipice, not a torrent, not a cliff, but is pregnant with religion and poetry.
Page 27 - It is a little chaos of mountains and precipices; mountains, it is true, that do not ascend much above the clouds, nor are the declivities quite so amazing as Dover cliff; but just such hills as people who love their necks as well as I do may venture to climb, and crags that give the eye as much pleasure as if they were more dangerous. Both vale and hill are covered with most venerable beeches, and other very reverend vegetables, that, like most other ancient people, are always dreaming out their...
Page 16 - There shall the great owl make her nest, and lay, and hatch, and gather under her shadow : there shall the vultures also be gathered, every one with her mate.
Page 123 - I have this to say : the language of the age is never the language of poetry ; except among the French, whose verse, where the thought or image does not support it, differs in nothing from prose. Our poetry, on the contrary, has a language peculiar to itself ; to which almost every one, that has written, has added something by enriching it with foreign idioms and derivatives : nay sometimes words of their own composition or invention.
Page 186 - I know, will make me ridiculous enough; but to appear in proper person, at the head of my works, consisting of half a dozen ballads in thirty pages, would be worse than the pillory. I do assure you, if I had received such a book, with such a frontispiece, without any warning, I believe it would have given me a palsy...
Page 144 - In the first place he is the hardest author by far I ever meddled with. Then he has a dry conciseness that makes one imagine one is perusing a table of contents rather than a book ; it tastes for all the world like chopped hay, or rather like chopped logic ; for he has a violent affection to that art, being in some sort his own invention ; so that he often loses himself in little trifling distinctions and verbal niceties, and what is worse, leaves you to extricate yourself as you can. Thirdly, he...
Page 170 - Nor cast one longing, ling'ring look behind? On some fond breast the parting soul relies. Some pious drops the closing eye requires; Ev'n from the tomb the voice of Nature cries, Ev'n in our ashes live their wonted fires. For thee, who mindful of th...
Page 13 - When you have seen one of my days, you have seen a whole year of my life ; they go round and round like the blind horse in the mill, only he has the satisfaction of fancying he makes a progress and gets some ground ; my eyes are open enough to see the same dull prospect, and to know that, having made four-and-twenty steps more, I shall be just where I was.
Page 174 - Guernsey lilies bloom in every window ; the town, clean and well-built, surrounded by its old stone walls, with their towers and gateways, stands at the point of a peninsula, and opens full south to an arm of the sea. which, having formed two beautiful bays on each hand of it, stretches away in direct view till it joins the British Channel: it is skirted on either side with gently-rising grounds, clothed with thick wood, and directly cross its mouth rise the high lands of the Isle of Wight at distance,...
Page 168 - As I am not at all disposed to be either so indulgent, or so correspondent, as they desire, I have but one bad way left to escape the honour they would inflict upon me ; and, therefore, am obliged to desire you would make Dodsley print it immediately (which may be done in less than a week's time) from your copy, but without...