The Cambridge History of English Literature: The age of JohnsonSir Adolphus William Ward, Alfred Rayney Waller G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1913 - English literature |
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Page 384 - The natural effort of every individual to better his own condition, when suffered to exert itself with freedom and security, is so powerful a principle that it is alone and without any assistance, not only capable of carrying on the society to wealth and prosperity, but of surmounting a hundred impertinent obstructions with which the folly of human laws too often encumbers its operations...
Page 165 - And see the rivers, how they run Through woods and meads, in shade and sun, Sometimes swift, sometimes slow— Wave succeeding wave, they go A various journey to the deep, Like human life to endless sleep!
Page 374 - In short there are two principles, which I cannot render consistent ; nor is it in my power to renounce either of them, viz. that all our distinct perceptions are distinct existences, and that the mind never perceives any real connexion among distinct existences.
Page 234 - But me, not destined such delights to share, My prime of life in wandering spent and care ; Impell'd, with steps unceasing, to pursue Some fleeting good, that mocks me with the view ; That, like the circle bounding earth and skies, Allures from far, yet, as I follow, flies ; My fortune leads to traverse realms alone, And find no spot of all the world my own.
Page 301 - I should desire that the last words which I should pronounce in this Academy, and from this place, might be the name of — MICHAEL ANGELO*.
Page 195 - I have laboured to refine our language to grammatical purity, and to clear it from colloquial barbarisms, licentious idioms, and irregular combinations. Something, perhaps, I have added to the elegance of its construction, and something to the harmony of its cadence.
Page 553 - An inquiry into the share, which King Charles i. had in the transactions of the Earl of Glamorgan...
Page 208 - His great works were performed under discountenance, and in blindness; but difficulties vanished at his touch ; he was born for whatever is arduous ; and his work is not the greatest of heroic poems, only because it is not the first.
Page 107 - As a writer, he is entitled to one praise of the highest kind ; his mode of thinking, and of expressing his thoughts, is original. His blank verse is no more the blank verse of Milton, or of any other poet, than the rhymes of Prior are the rhymes of Cowley. His numbers, his pauses, his diction, are of his own growth, without transcription, without imitation.
Page 272 - What we have gotten by this revolution, you will say, is a great deal of good sense. What we have lost is a world of fine fabling; the illusion of which is so grateful to the charmed spirit that in spite of philosophy and fashion.