Letters Concerning the English Nation

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L. Davis and C. Reymers; R. Baldwin, and S. Crowder and Company, 1760 - English literature - 255 pages
 

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Page 173 - And screen'd in Shades from Day's detested Glare, She sighs for ever on her pensive Bed, Pain at her Side and Megrim at her Head.
Page 172 - For, that sad moment, when the sylphs withdrew, And Ariel weeping from Belinda flew, Umbriel, a dusky, melancholy sprite, As ever sullied the fair face of light, Down to the central earth, his proper scene, Repair'd to search the gloomy cave of Spleen.
Page 18 - ... is both to God and man : If after all these warnings and advertisements, thou dost not turn unto the Lord with all thy heart, but forget him, who remembered thee in thy distress, and give up thyself to follow lust and vanity; surely great will be thy condemnation.
Page 136 - Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay, The insolence of office and the spurns That patient merit of th' unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin?
Page 97 - However, it will not be making him too great a compliment if we affirm that he was valuable even in his mistakes. He deceived himself, but then it was at least in a methodical way. He destroyed all the absurd chimeras with which youth had been infatuated for...
Page 58 - In France the title of marquis is given gratis to any one who will accept of it; and whosoever arrives at Paris from the midst of the most remote provinces with money in his purse, and a name terminating in ac or ille, may strut about, and cry, " Such a man as I ! A man of my rank and figure...
Page 149 - He spoke of his works as of trifles that were beneath him ; and hinted to me, in our first conversation, that I should visit him upon no other foot than that of a gentleman, who led a life of plainness and simplicity.
Page 58 - Roman citizen; and, indeed, a peer's brother does not think traffic beneath him. When the Lord Townshend was Minister of State, a brother of his was content to be a City merchant; and at the time that the Earl of Oxford governed Great Britain, his younger brother was no more than a factor in Aleppo, where he chose to live, and where he died.
Page 139 - Yet, fooled with hope, men favour the deceit; Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay: To-morrow's falser than the former day; Lies worse, and, while it says, we shall be blest With some new joys, cuts off what we possest.
Page 72 - Islands. Be this as it will, men had sailed round the world, and could destroy cities by an artificial thunder more dreadful than the real one ; but, then, they were not acquainted with the circulation of the blood, the weight of the air, the laws of motion, light, the number of our planets, &c. And a man who maintained a thesis on Aristotle's " Categories, " on the universals a parte rei, or such-like nonsense, was looked upon as a prodigy.

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