English Essays from Sir Philip Sidney to Macaulay: With Introductions, Notes and IllustrationsCharles William Eliot "A collection of essays written by English authors" --provided by cataloger. |
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abuse Addison admiration Æneid ancient Aristotle beauty BEN JONSON called Cato character Church Church of England comedy common conversation Crantor delight divine doth effect enemy England essay ESTHER JOHNSON evil excellent expression eyes faculty friends genius give Greeks hath honor human imagination imitation Italian Italy Juba Julius Cæsar kind King knowledge ladies language learning less Levana live Livy Lord Machiavelli manners matter ment mind moral nation nature never object observed opinion Othello passion person Petrarch philosopher Pindar Plato play pleasure Plutarch poem poesy poetical poetry poets political Pope praise Prince principles reader reason religion seems Sempronius sense sentiment Shakespeare Shakspere shew speak Spectator spirit Steele supposed Syphax taste Tatler things thought tion tragedy true truth Ulubrae verse Virgil virtue Whig whole words writings
Popular passages
Page 323 - Desiring this man's art and that man's scope, With what I most enjoy contented least; Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, Haply I think on thee, and then my state, Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate...
Page 59 - Sufflaminandus erat,' as Augustus said of Haterius. His wit was in his own power ; would the rule of it had been so, too ! Many times he fell into those things, could not escape laughter, as when he said in the person of Caesar, one speaking to him,
Page 371 - Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds.
Page 354 - The great secret of morals is love; or a going out of our own nature, and an identification of ourselves with the beautiful which exists in thought, action, or person, not our own.
Page 26 - ... he cometh to you with words set in delightful proportion, either accompanied with, or prepared for, the well enchanting skill of music; and with a tale forsooth he cometh unto you, with a tale which holdeth children from play, and old men from the chimney corner.
Page 16 - Poesy, therefore, is an art of imitation, for so Aristotle termeth it in his word Mimesis, that is to say, a representing, counterfeiting, or figuring forth: to speak metaphorically, a speaking picture : with this end, to teach and delight; of this have been three several kinds.
Page 211 - What he attempted, he performed ; he is never feeble, and he did not wish to be energetick * ; he is never rapid, and he never stagnates. His sentences have neither studied amplitude, nor affected brevity ; his periods, though not diligently rounded, are voluble and easy. Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison.
Page 78 - Bridge, said I, standing in the Midst of the Tide. The Bridge thou seest, said he, is human Life, consider it attentively. Upon a more leisurely Survey of it, I found that it consisted of threescore and ten entire Arches, with several broken Arches, which added to those that were entire, made up the Number about an hundred.
Page 371 - The functions of the poetical faculty are twofold: by one it creates new materials of knowledge, and power, and pleasure; by the other it engenders in the mind a desire to reproduce and arrange them according to a certain rhythm and order which may be called the beautiful and the good.
Page 18 - ... the highest end of the mistress-knowledge, by the Greeks called Ap-firsxrovcxij , which stands, as I think, in the knowledge of a man's self, in the ethic and politic consideration, with the end of well-doing, and not of well-knowing only...