The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.Alexander V. Blake, 1840 |
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Page 27
... allowed that every society may punish , though not prevent the publication of opinions which that society shall think pernicious ; but this punishment , though it may crush the author , promotes the book ; and it seems not more rea ...
... allowed that every society may punish , though not prevent the publication of opinions which that society shall think pernicious ; but this punishment , though it may crush the author , promotes the book ; and it seems not more rea ...
Page 43
... allowed it to be false . The plan of " Paradise Lost " has this incon- venience , that it comprises neither human actions nor human manners . * The man and woman who act and suffer are in a state which no other man or woman can ever ...
... allowed it to be false . The plan of " Paradise Lost " has this incon- venience , that it comprises neither human actions nor human manners . * The man and woman who act and suffer are in a state which no other man or woman can ever ...
Page 44
... allowed to be the portress of hell ; but when they stop the journey of Satan , a journey described as real , and when Death offers him battle , the allegory is broken . That Sin and Death should have shown the way to hell , might have ...
... allowed to be the portress of hell ; but when they stop the journey of Satan , a journey described as real , and when Death offers him battle , the allegory is broken . That Sin and Death should have shown the way to hell , might have ...
Page 45
... allowed sometimes to revisit earth ; for what other author ever soared so high , or sustained his flight so long ? Milton , being well versed in the Italian poets , appears to have borrowed often from them ; and , as every man catches ...
... allowed sometimes to revisit earth ; for what other author ever soared so high , or sustained his flight so long ? Milton , being well versed in the Italian poets , appears to have borrowed often from them ; and , as every man catches ...
Page 56
... allowed that they depend upon different fa- culties , or on different use of the same faculty ; that the actor must have a pliancy of mien , a flexibility of countenance , and a variety of tones , which the poet may be easily supposed ...
... allowed that they depend upon different fa- culties , or on different use of the same faculty ; that the actor must have a pliancy of mien , a flexibility of countenance , and a variety of tones , which the poet may be easily supposed ...
Common terms and phrases
Addison afterwards appears blank verse censure character considered court Cowley criticism death declared delight desire diligence discovered Drake Dryden Duke Dunciad Earl easily elegance endeavoured enemies English excellence father favour fortune French friends genius honour hope Hudibras Iliad imagination kind King King of Prussia known labour Lady language Latin learning lence letter lines lived Lord ment Milton mind nation nature never Night Thoughts nihil Nombre de Dios numbers observed opinion Paradise Lost perhaps Pindar pinnaces pleasure poem poet poetical poetry Pope Port Egmont pounds praise Prince published Queen racter reader reason received remarks reputation rhyme Savage says seems sent ship sion sometimes soon Spaniards supposed Swift Syphax Tatler thing thought tion told tragedy translation verses Virgil virtue Waller whigs write written wrote Young
Popular passages
Page 275 - He had employed his mind chiefly upon works of fiction, and subjects of fancy ; and by indulging some peculiar habits of thought, was eminently delighted with those flights of imagination which pass the bounds of nature, and to which the mind is reconciled only by a passive acquiescence in popular traditions. He loved fairies, genii, giants, and monsters ; he delighted to rove through the meanders of enchantment, to gaze on the magnificence of golden palaces, to repose by the water-falls of Elysian...
Page 279 - I have found out a gift for my fair; I have found where the wood-pigeons breed; But let me that plunder forbear, She will say 'twas a barbarous deed...
Page 96 - To judge rightly of an author, we must transport ourselves to his time, and examine what were the wants of his contemporaries, and what were his means of supplying them.
Page 148 - His prose is the model of the middle style; on grave subjects not formal, on light occasions not grovelling; pure without scrupulosity, and exact without apparent elaboration; always equable, and always easy, without glowing words or pointed sentences. Addison never deviates from his track to snatch a grace; he seeks no ambitious ornaments, and tries no hazardous innovations. His page is always luminous, but never blazes in unexpected splendour.
Page 8 - ... what, on any occasion, they should have said or done; but wrote rather as beholders than partakers of human nature; as Beings looking upon good and evil, impassive and at leisure; as Epicurean deities making remarks on the actions of men and the vicissitudes of life without interest and without emotion. Their courtship was void of fondness, and their lamentation of sorrow. Their wish was only to say what they hoped had never been said before.
Page 21 - Cooper's Hill is the work that confers upon him the rank and dignity of an original author. He seems to have been, at least among us, the author of a species of composition that may be denominated local poetry, of which the fundamental subject is some particular landscape, to be poetically described with the addition of such embellishments as may be supplied by historical retrospection, or incidental meditation.
Page 46 - He was naturally a thinker for himself, confident of his own abilities, and disdainful of help or hinderance : he did not refuse admission to the thoughts or images of his predecessors, but he did not seek them. From his contemporaries he neither courted nor received support; there is in his writings nothing by which the pride of other authors might be gratified, or favour gained ; no exchange of praise, nor solicitation of support.
Page 211 - ... nothing will supply the want of prudence; and that negligence and irregularity, long continued, will make knowledge useless, wit ridiculous, and genius contemptible.
Page 252 - What his mind could supply at call, or gather in one excursion, was all that he sought, and all that he gave. The dilatory caution of Pope enabled him to condense his sentiments, to multiply his images, and to accumulate all that study might produce, or chance might supply. If the flights of Dryden therefore are higher, Pope continues longer on the wing. If of Dryden's fire the blaze is brighter, of Pope's the heat is more regular and constant. Dryden often surpasses expectation, and Pope never falls...
Page 111 - Tis not enough that Aristotle has said so, for Aristotle drew his models of tragedy from Sophocles and Euripides ; and, if he had seen ours, might have changed his mind.