The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.Alexander V. Blake, 1840 |
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Page 12
... praise , there are , as there must be in all Cowley's compositions , some striking thoughts , but they are not well wrought . His elegy on Sir Henry Wotton is vigorous and happy : the series of thoughts is easy and natural ; and the ...
... praise , there are , as there must be in all Cowley's compositions , some striking thoughts , but they are not well wrought . His elegy on Sir Henry Wotton is vigorous and happy : the series of thoughts is easy and natural ; and the ...
Page 18
... praise by inelegance of language : Where honour or where conscience does not bind , No other law shall shackle me ; Slave to myself I ne'er will be ; Nor shall my future actions be confin'd By my own present mind . Who by resolves and ...
... praise by inelegance of language : Where honour or where conscience does not bind , No other law shall shackle me ; Slave to myself I ne'er will be ; Nor shall my future actions be confin'd By my own present mind . Who by resolves and ...
Page 21
... praise , and its praise is yet more when it is apparently copied by Garth and Pope ; after whose names little will be gained by an enumeration of smaller poets , that have left scarcely a corner of the island not dignified ither by ...
... praise , and its praise is yet more when it is apparently copied by Garth and Pope ; after whose names little will be gained by an enumeration of smaller poets , that have left scarcely a corner of the island not dignified ither by ...
Page 28
... praise of his antagonist industry , gave him , as was reported , a hundred would be sufficiently offensive , and ... praises , been confirmed in great con- He prepared a reply , which , left as it was im- fidence of himself , thought he ...
... praise of his antagonist industry , gave him , as was reported , a hundred would be sufficiently offensive , and ... praises , been confirmed in great con- He prepared a reply , which , left as it was im- fidence of himself , thought he ...
Page 39
... praise has been bestowed , is " Lycidas ; " of which the dic- tion is harsh , the rhymes uncertain , and the numbers ... praises will are exhibited , he attends the theatre . confer no lionour . This poem has yet a grosser fault . With ...
... praise has been bestowed , is " Lycidas ; " of which the dic- tion is harsh , the rhymes uncertain , and the numbers ... praises will are exhibited , he attends the theatre . confer no lionour . This poem has yet a grosser fault . With ...
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.