The British Essayists;: Rambler

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J. Johnson, J. Nichols and son, R. Baldwin, F. and C. Rivington, W. Otridge and son, W.J. and J. Richardson, A. Strahan, R. Faulder, ... [and 40 others], 1808 - English essays
 

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Page 45 - Come, thick night, And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, To cry 'Hold, hold!
Page 46 - These imperfections of diction are less obvious to the reader, as he is less acquainted with common usages ; they are therefore wholly imperceptible to a foreigner, who learns our language from books, and will strike a solitary academick less forcibly than a modish lady.
Page 242 - ... conclude that no more is to be done. All attraction is increased by the approach of the attracting body. We never find ourselves so desirous to finish as in the latter part of our work, or so impatient of delay, as when we know that delay cannot be long.
Page 239 - SUCH is the emptiness of human enjoyment, that we are always impatient of the present. Attainment is followed by neglect, and possession by disgust; and the malicious remark of the Greek epigrammatist on marriage may be applied to every other course of life, that its two days of happiness, are the first and the last.
Page 130 - From this pacific and harmless temper, thus propitious to others and ourselves, to domestic tranquillity and to social happiness, no man is withheld but by pride, by the fear of being insulted by his adversary, or despised by the world. It may be laid down as an unfailing and universal axiom, that " all pride is abject and mean.
Page 4 - We are by our occupations, education, and habits of life, divided almost into different species, which regard one another for the most part with scorn and malignity. Each of these classes of the human race has desires, fears and conversation, vexations and merriment, peculiar to itself; cares which another cannot feel ; pleasures which he cannot partake ; and modes of expressing every sensation, which he cannot understand.
Page 44 - We are all offended by low terms, but are not disgusted alike by the same compositions, because we do not all agree to censure the same terms as low. No word is naturally or intrinsically meaner than another ; our opinion therefore of words, as of other things arbitrarily and capriciously established, depends wholly upon accident and custom.
Page 247 - ... to examine or reduce. Whatever shall be the final sentence of mankind, I have at least endeavoured to deserve their kindness. 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. When common words were less pleasing to the ear, or less distinct in their signification, I have familiarized...
Page 155 - thy ingratitude has put an end to my hopes and experiments : I have now learned the vanity of those labours that wish• to be rewarded by human benevolence ; I shall henceforth do good, and avoid evil, without respect to the opinion of men ; and resolve to solicit only the approbation of that Being whom alone we are sure to please by endeavouring to please him.
Page 129 - A wise man will make haste to forgive, because he knows the true value of time, and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain. He that willingly suffers the corrosions of inveterate hatred, and gives up his days and nights to the gloom of malice and perturbations of stratagem, cannot surely be said to consult his ease.

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