Johnson's Life of Dryden [ed.] by P. Peterson

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Macmillan and Company, 1899 - 185 pagina's
 

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Pagina 116 - Seven years, my Lord, have now passed since I waited in your outward rooms or was repulsed from your door; during which time I have been pushing on my work through difficulties of which it is useless to complain and have brought it at last to the verge of publication without one act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile of favor. Such treatment I did not expect, for I never had a Patron before.
Pagina 145 - Of these the false Achitophel was first, A name to all succeeding ages curst : For close designs and crooked counsels fit, Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit, Restless, unfixed in principles and place, In power unpleased, impatient of disgrace ; A fiery soul, which working out its way, Fretted the pigmy body to decay And o'cr-informed the tenement of clay.
Pagina 80 - From harmony, from heavenly harmony, This universal frame began : When Nature underneath a heap of jarring atoms lay, And could not heave her head, The tuneful voice was heard from high, Arise, ye more than dead ! Then cold and hot, and moist and dry, In order to their stations leap, And music's power obey. From harmony, from heavenly harmony. This universal frame began : From harmony to harmony Through all the compass of the notes it ran, The diapason closing full in man.
Pagina 116 - Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and when he has reached ground encumbers him with help? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labours, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and •cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it.
Pagina 152 - The rest to some faint meaning make pretence, But Shadwell never deviates into sense. Some beams of wit on other souls may fall, Strike through and make a lucid interval; But Shadwell's genuine night admits no ray, His rising fogs prevail upon the day...
Pagina 85 - A slimy-born and sun-begotten tribe ; Who far from steeples and their sacred sound, In fields their sullen conventicles found. These gross, half-animated lumps I leave ; Nor can I think what thoughts they can conceive. But if they think at all, 'tis sure no higher Than matter, put in motion, may aspire : Souls that can scarce ferment their mass of clay ; So drossy, so divisible are they, 319 As would but serve pure bodies for allay...
Pagina 95 - When he describes the Supreme Being as moved by prayer to stop the Fire of London, what is his expression? A hollow crystal pyramid he takes, In firmamental waters dipt above, Of it a broad extinguisher he makes, And hoods the flames that to their quarry strove.
Pagina 177 - Gainst form and order they their power employ, Nothing to build and all things to destroy. But far more numerous was the herd of such Who think too little and who talk too much. These out of mere instinct, they knew not why, Adored their fathers...
Pagina 47 - ... suffers them not to speak till the time of speaking is past ; or whose attention to their own character makes them unwilling to utter at hazard what has not been considered, and cannot be recalled.
Pagina 40 - The Guardian Angels of Kingdoms were machines too ponderous for him to manage...

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