The Works of the English Poets: With Prefaces, Biographical and Critical, Volume 15 |
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againſt appears Arcite arms beauty becauſe began beſt better blood breaſt caſt cauſe Chaucer dame death deſire dream earth equal eyes face fair fall fame fate father fear field fight fire firſt force fortune gave give grace green ground hand head heard heart heaven himſelf honour hope juſt kind king knew knight ladies laſt leave length leſs light live look lord maid mean mind mortal moſt muſt myſelf nature never o'er once pain Palamon plain pleaſe poet preſent purſued queen race remains reſt ſaid ſame ſaw ſay ſecret ſee ſhall ſhe ſhould ſide ſome ſoul ſtill ſtood ſuch tears tell thee theſe things thoſe thou thought took turn whoſe wife wind wood youth
Popular passages
Page 32 - Even the grave and serious characters are distinguished by their several sorts of gravity, their discourses are such as belong to their age, their calling and their breeding — such as are becoming of them and of them only.
Page 27 - Tis true, I cannot go so far as he who published the last edition of him; for he would make us believe the fault is in our ears, and that there were really ten syllables in a verse where we find but nine...
Page 37 - ... when the reason ceases for which they were enacted. As for the other part of the argument, that his thoughts will lose of their original beauty by the innovation of words; in the first place, not only their beauty, but their being is lost, where they are no longer understood, which is the present case.
Page 277 - God's images; he forms and equips those ungodly man-killers, whom we poets, when we flatter them, call heroes ; a race of men who can never enjoy quiet in themselves, till they have taken it from all the world.
Page 26 - In the first place, as he is the father of English poetry, so I hold him in the same degree of veneration as the Grecians held Homer or the Romans Virgil...
Page 211 - ... him, too, with envious eye, And, as on Job, demanded leave to try. He took the time when Richard was deposed, And high and low with happy Harry closed.
Page 31 - Tales the various manners and humours (as we now call them) of the whole English nation, in his age. Not a single character has escaped him. All his pilgrims are severally distinguished from each other; and not only in their inclinations, but in their very physiognomies and persons.
Page 307 - Because thou can'st not be My mistress, I espouse thee for my tree : Be thou the prize of honour and renown ; The deathless poet, and the poem, crown. Thou shalt the Roman festivals adorn, And, after poets, be by victors worn...
Page 25 - Dido: he would not destroy what he was building. Chaucer makes Arcite violent in his love, and unjust in the pursuit of it; yet when he came to die, he...
Page 32 - May I have leave to do myself the justice (since my enemies will do me none, and are so far from granting me to be a good poet, that they will not allow me so much as to be a Christian, or a moral man), may I have leave, I say...
Bibliographic information
| Title | The Works of the English Poets: With Prefaces, Biographical and Critical, Volume 15 The Works of the English Poets: With Prefaces, Biographical and Critical, Samuel Johnson |
| Editor | Samuel Johnson |
| Publisher | C. Bathurst, 1779 |
| Original from | the University of Michigan |
| Digitized | Feb 27, 2006 |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |