The English Reader, Or, Pieces in Prose and Poetry: From the Best Writers : Designed to Assist Young Persons to Read with Propriety and Effect, Improve Their Language and Sentiments, and to Inculcate Some of the Most Important Principles of Piety and Virtue : with a Few Preliminary Observations on the Principles of Good Reading

Lindley Murray

L.B. Clarke, 1827 - Readers - 252 pages

Contents

• The seasons: 2
• Excellence of the Holy Scriptures: 8
• Indignant sentiments on national prejudices and hatred: 11
• Select Sentences and Paragraphs: 17
• No rank or possessions can make the guilty mind happy: 32
• The importance of a good education: 46
• Happiness is founded in rectitude of conduct: 67
• Schemes of life often illusory: 141
• The pleasures of virtuous sensibility: 145
• The influence of devotion on the happiness of life: 146
• The planetary and terrestrial worlds comparatively considered: 148
• On the power of custom and the uses to which it may be applied 150: 150
• The pleasures resulting from a proper use of our faculties: 152
• On the imperfection of that happiness which rests solely on worldly pleasures: 154
• What are the real and solid enjoyments of human life: 157
• Scale of beings 158: 158
• Trust in the care of Providence recommended: 161
• Piety and gratitude enliven prosperity: 162
• Virtue when deeply rooted is not subject to the influence of fortune: 164
• The Speech of Fabricius a Roman ambassador to king Pyrrhus: 165
• Character of James I king of England: 166
• Charles V emperor of Germany resigns his dominions and retires from the world: 167
• The same subject continued: 170
• Short and easy sentences: 172
• Verses in which the lines are of different length: 174
• Verses containing exclamations interrogations and parentheses: 175
• Verses in various forms: 177
• Verses in which sound corresponds to signification: 179
• Paragraphs of greater length: 180
• The bear and the bees: 182
• The nightingale and the glowworm: 184
• The youth and the philosopher: 186
• Religion and death: 189
• The vanity of wealth: 191
• Nothing formed in vain: 192
• Cruelty to brutes censured: 193
• of Matthew: 194
• A paraphrase on the latter part of the 6th chapter 6 The death of a good man a strong incentive to virtue: 195
• Adams advice to Eve to avoid temptation: 196
• On procrastination: 197
• and on slavery: 199
• The morning in summer: 200
• Rural sounds as well as rural sights delightful 201: 201
• 4 Care of birds for their young: 202
• Liberty and slavery contrasted: 203
• Charity A paraphrase on the 13th chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians: 204
• Picture of a good man: 205
• The pleasures of retirement: 207
• The pleasure and benefit of an improved and well directed imagination: 208
• The Dermit: 209
• The beggars petition: 211
• Unhappy close of life: 212
• Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk during his solitary abode in the Island of Juan Fernandez: 213
• Gratitude: 214
• A man perishing in the snow from whence reflec tions are raised on the miseries of life: 216
• A morning hymn: 217
• Ode to content: 219
• The shepherd and the philosopher: 220
• The road to happiness open to all men: 222
• The goodness of Providence: 223
• Address to the Deity: 224
• The pursuit of happiness often ill directed: 225
• The fireside: 227
• Providence vindicated in the present state of man: 229
• Selfishness reproved: 230
• Human frailty 231: 231
• Ode to peace: 232
• Ode to adversity 14 The Creation required to praise its Author: 233
• The universal prayer: 235
• Conscience: 236
• On an infant: 237
• The cuckoo 287: 242
• Hymn on a review of the seasons: 243
• On solitude: 245
• That philosophy which stops at secondary causes reproved: 252

Popular passages

Page 214 - Angels: for ye behold him, and with songs And choral symphonies, day without night Circle his throne rejoicing; ye in heaven, On earth join all ye creatures to extol Him first, him last, him midst, and without end. Fairest of stars, last in the train of night, If better thou belong not to the dawn, Sure pledge of day, that crown'st the smiling morn With thy bright circlet, praise him in thy sphere, While day arises, that sweet hour of prime.

Page 214 - Air, and ye elements, the eldest birth Of Nature's womb, that in quaternion run Perpetual circle, multiform ; and mix And nourish all things ; let your ceaseless change Vary to our great Maker still new praise.

Page 183 - Twilight gray had in her sober livery all things clad : Silence accompanied ; for Beast and Bird, they to their grassy couch, these to their nests, were slunk, — all but the wakeful nightingale; she, all night long, her amorous descant sung; Silence was pleased. Now...

Page 225 - Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, A hero perish, or a sparrow fall, Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd, And now a bubble burst, and now a world.

Page 220 - Whilst all the stars that round her burn, And all the planets in their turn, Confirm the tidings as they roll, And spread the truth from pole to pole.

Page 197 - Nor rural sights alone, but rural sounds Exhilarate the spirit, and restore The tone of languid nature. Mighty winds, That sweep the skirt of some far-spreading wood Of ancient growth, make music not unlike The dash of Ocean on his winding shore...

Page 238 - Cease then, nor order imperfection name; Our proper bliss depends on what we blame. Know thy own point: this kind this due degree Of blindness, weakness, Heav'n bestows on thee. Submit. — In this, or any other sphere, Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear: Safe in the hand of one disposing Power, Or in the natal, or the mortal hour.

Page 239 - With light and heat refulgent. Then Thy sun Shoots full perfection through the swelling year : And oft Thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks : And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve, By brooks and groves, in hollow-whispering gales.

Page 98 - Now therefore when I come to thy servant my father, and the lad be not with us; seeing that his life is bound up in the lad's life...

Page 173 - The Epitaph Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth A Youth, to Fortune and to Fame unknown; Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth, And Melancholy mark'd him for her own.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The English Reader, Or, Pieces in Prose and Poetry: From the Best Writers : Designed to Assist Young Persons to Read with Propriety and Effect, Improve Their Language and Sentiments, and to Inculcate Some of the Most Important Principles of Piety and Virtue : with a Few Preliminary Observations ...
• Author: Lindley Murray
• Publisher: L.B. Clarke, 1827
• Original from: Harvard University
• Digitized: Sep 4, 2007
• Length: 252 pages