Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Alexander Pope, Esq;: Faithfully Collected from Authentic Authors, Original Manuscripts, and the Testimonies of Many Persons of Credit and Honour: with Critical Observations. Adorned with the Heads of Divers Illustrious Persons, Treated of in These Memoirs, Curiously Engrav'd by the Best Hands. In Two Volumes, Volume 2

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his Majesty's authority, 1745
 

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Page 319 - With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride, He hangs between, in doubt to act or rest; In doubt to deem himself a God or Beast; In doubt his mind or body to prefer; Born but to die, and...
Page 69 - So proud, so grand ; of that stupendous air, Soft and agreeable come never there. Greatness, with Timon, dwells in such a draught As brings all Brobdignag before your thought. To compass this, his building is a town, His pond an ocean, his parterre a down...
Page 183 - As shallow streams run dimpling all the way. Whether in florid impotence he speaks, And, as the prompter breathes, the puppet squeaks; Or, at the ear of Eve, familiar toad, Half froth, half venom, spits himself abroad...
Page 373 - Let not this weak, unknowing hand Presume thy bolts to throw, And deal damnation round the land On each I judge Thy foe.
Page 369 - When statesmen, heroes, kings, in dust repose Whose sons shall blush their fathers were thy foes, Shall then this verse to future age pretend Thou wert my guide, philosopher, and friend,— That urg'd by thee, I turn'd the tuneful art From sounds to things, from fancy to the heart...
Page 121 - Of manners gentle, of affections mild ; In wit, a man ; simplicity, a child ; With native humour temp'ring virtuous rage, Form'd to delight at once and lash the age ; Above temptation, in a low estate ; And uncorrupted...
Page 311 - All discord, harmony not understood ; All partial evil, universal good : And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite, One truth is clear, WHATEVER is, is RIGHT.
Page 215 - A poet, blest beyond the poet's fate, Whom Heaven kept sacred from the Proud and Great : Foe to loud praise, and friend to learned ease, Content with science in the vale of peace. Calmly he look'd on either life ; and here Saw nothing to regret, or there to fear ; From Nature's temperate feast rose satisfied, Thank'd Heaven that he had liv'd, and that he died.
Page 79 - A clerk foredoom'd his father's soul to cross, Who pens a stanza, when he should engross ? Is there, who, lock'd from ink and paper, scrawls With desp'rate charcoal round his darken'd walls ? All fly to Twit'nam, and in humble strain Apply to me, to keep them mad or vain.
Page 270 - God, her death was as easy as her life was innocent ; and as it cost her not a groan, or even a sigh, there is yet upon her countenance such an expression of tranquillity, nay, almost of pleasure, that it is even amiable to behold it.

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