British Novelists and Their Styles: Being a Critical Sketch of the History of British Prose Fiction |
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Arcadia artist Britain British Literature British novel-writing British Novelists British novels called Cambridge Castle of Otranto characters Christianity cloth College comic contemporary critic Crown 8vo Dickens and Thackeray doctrine Edinburgh effect eighteenth century element English Epic fact fancy Fcap fictitious Fielding and Smollett form of literature French genius Gothic Greek hero heroic human humour ideal imagination incidents intellectual interest kind Latin literary lived London Lyric manners matter mediæval metrical mind Miss mode modern moral Narrative Poetry nature novelists Old English Baron peculiar perhaps philosophy Picaresque Novel poems poetic poets political popular prose fiction prose romance Rabelais representation represented respect Richardson Robert Bage satire scenes Scotland Scott Scotticism Scottish Second Edition Shakespeare Smollett social society specimens speculative spirit Sterne story style Thackeray Theodore Hook things thought tion Trouveurs truth variety vernacular literature Verse Waverley Waverley Novels Whiggism writers
Popular passages
Page 14 - ... than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?
Page 14 - I have of late — but wherefore I know not — lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises ; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory ; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.
Page 130 - It was an attempt to blend the two kinds of romance, the ancient and the modern. In the former, all was imagination and improbability ; in the latter, nature is always intended to be, and sometimes has been, copied with success. Invention has not been wanting ; but the great resources of fancy have been dammed up, by a strict adherence to common life.
Page 282 - And an Introduction, explanatory of his position in the Church, with reference to the Parties which divide it. 3 vols. 8vo.
Page 44 - There were hills which garnished their proud heights with stately trees : humble valleys whose base estate seemed comforted with the refreshing of silver rivers; meadows enamelled with all sorts of eye-pleasing flowers ; thickets, which being lined with most pleasant shade were witnessed so to, by the cheerful disposition of many well-tuned birds ; each pasture stored with sheep feeding with sober security, while the pretty lambs with bleating oratory craved...
Page 130 - YE who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope; who expect that age will perform the promises of youth, and that the deficiencies of the present day will be supplied by the morrow ; attend to the history of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia.
Page 104 - I will not scruple to say it may be likewise either in verse or prose: for though it wants one particular, which the critic enumerates in the constituent parts of an epic poem, namely metre; yet, when any kind of writing contains all its other parts, such as fable, action, characters, sentiments, and diction, and is deficient in metre only, it seems, I think, reasonable to refer it to the epic...
Page 285 - Christ and other Masters. A Historical Inquiry into some of the Chief Parallelisms and Contrasts between Christianity and the Religious Systems of the Ancient World.
Page 52 - AUTHOR'S APOLOGY FOR HIS BOOK WHEN at the first I took my pen in hand Thus for to write, I did not understand That I at all should make a little book In such a mode ; nay, I had undertook To make another ; which, when almost done, Before I was aware I this begun.
Page 149 - And wi' the lave ilk merry morn Could rank my rig and lass, Still shearing, and clearing The tither stocked raw, Wi' claivers, an' haivers, Wearing the day awa : Ev'n then a wish, (I mind its power,) A wish that to my latest hour Shall strongly heave my breast ; That I for poor auld Scotland's sake, Some usefu' plan, or beuk could make, Or sing a sang at least.