The Microcosm, a Periodical Work: By Gregory Griffin ... Inscribed to the Rev. Dr. Davies. In Two Volumes, Volume 1

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C. Knight. Sold also by Mess. Robinsons, 1793

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Page 130 - That age will never again return, when a Pericles, after walking with Plato in a portico built by Phidias and painted by Apelles, might repair to hear a pleading of Demosthenes or a tragedy of Sophocles.
Page 193 - Nor praife the learning of a dunce* profeft, Nor fwear a floven's elegantly dreft. Thus, if by chance, in harmlefs fport and play, You coolly -talk a character away ; Or boldly a flat perjurer appear, Nor gallows dread, nor lacerated ear, Still let your lyes to truth near neighbours be, And...
Page 153 - I would earnestly recommend an attentive perusal of it to all of them whose muses are engaged in compositions of the Epic kind. I am very much afraid that I may run into the error which I have...
Page 8 - He may see the embryo statesman, who hereafter may wield and direct at pleasure the mighty and complex system of European Politics, now employing the whole extent of his abilities to circumvent his companions at their plays, or adjusting the important differences, which may arise between the contending heroes of his little circle...
Page 148 - ... that, if he did refrain from the practice of this ingenious art, it was not from want of an inclination that way. We may remember too, that in Virgil's poem...
Page 140 - It is not improbable that some may object to me that a knave is an unworthy hero for an epic poem — that a hero ought to be all that is great and good. The objection is frivolous. The greatest work of this kind that the world has ever produced has
Page 231 - He was naturally of a morofe, faturnine temper, which a confiderable quantity of port, regularly difcufled after dinner for a continuance of thirty years, had not a little contributed to heighten. The ufual companion of his leifure hours was the Parifh Attorney...
Page 141 - She made some tarts, All on a summer's day ". Here indeed the prospect brightens, and we are led to expect some liveliness of imagery, some warmth of poetical colouring; but here is no such thing. There is no task more difficult to a poet than that of rejection. Ovid among the ancients, and Dryden among the moderns, were perhaps the most remarkable for the want of it. The latter, from the haste in which he generally produced his compositions, seldom paid much attention to the lima labor, "the labour...
Page 136 - A man guilty of breaking these, though he cannot be transported for a felon or indicted for treasonable practices, is yet, in the High Court of Custom, branded as a flagrant offender against decorum, as notorious for an unprecedented infringement on propriety. There is no race of men on whom these laws are more severe than authors, and no species of authors more subject to them than periodical essayists.
Page 134 - Swift, if he had listened to king William, would have been a cornet of horse. — How little the talents of the one were adapted to his office is well known ; what a figure the author of the Tale of the Tub would have made as. a cornet, I leave to my readers to judge : the Attic elegance and polished wit of Addison was lost amidst the turbulence of state intrigues; and the keen sarcastic genius of Swift was by no means fitted for the camp ; unless it can be proved, that humour can gain a battle,...

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