The British Essayists, Volume 22Alexander Chalmers J. Johnson, 1808 - English essays |
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Common terms and phrases
Abouzaid acquaintance Ajut ALEXANDER CHALMERS Altilia amuse ance Anningait ardour attention considered contempt critick curiosity danger delight desire dignity dili discovered easily elegance endeavour envy escape Ethiopia excellence expected expence eyes famation families the land favour favourite fear felicity flattered folly fondness fortune frequently friends friendship gained gratification Greenland happiness haste heard heart HIGHLEY honour hope hour human ignorance imagination inclination indulgence kind knowledge labour lady learning lence lest Leviculus lived mankind marriage ment merit merriment mind miscarriage misery nature neglect ness never numbers observed obtain opinion OVID passion perpetual pleased pleasure portunity poverty praise present pride Prospero publick Pythagoras racter RAMBLER reason regard reputation resolved riches SATURDAY scarcely Seged seldom sentiments shew smoke of hell solicited sometimes soon sorrow suffer thou thought Thrasybulus tion topick TUESDAY vanity virtue wealth whoever wholly wish XXII
Popular passages
Page 13 - 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 213 - 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 the terms of philosophy, by applying them to popular ideas...
Page 207 - ... yet the toil with which performance struggles after idea, is so irksome and disgusting, and so frequent is the necessity of resting below that perfection which we imagined within our reach, that seldom any man obtains more from his endeavours than a painful conviction of his defects, and a continual resuscitation of desires which he feels himself unable to gratify.
Page 214 - The Essays professedly serious, if I have been able to execute my own intentions, will be found exactly conformable to the precepts of Christianity, without any accommodation to the licentiousness and levity of the present age.
Page 208 - ... 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 212 - Patron; for the Supplications of an Author never yet reprieved him a Moment from Oblivion; and, though Greatness has sometimes sheltered Guilt, it can afford no Protection to Ignorance or Dulness.
Page 122 - As the sons of art departed, muttering threats of perpetual infamy, Abouzaid, who stood at the gate, called to him Hamet the poet. " Hamet," said he, " 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...
Page 13 - In this passage is exerted all the force of poetry, that force which calls new powers into being, which embodies sentiment, and animates matter...
Page 97 - Resentment is a union of sorrow with malignity, a combination of a passion which all endeavour to avoid with a passion which all concur to detest. The man who retires to meditate mischief, and to exasperate his own rage ; whose thoughts are employed only on means of distress and contrivances of ruin ; whose mind never pauses from the remembrance of his own suft'erings, but to indulge some hope of enjoying the calamities of another, may justly be numbered among the most miserable of human beings,...