English Men of Letters, Volume 3John Morley Harper & Bros., 1894 - Authors, English |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
Absalom and Achitophel Addison admirable afterwards Almanzor appeared Astrophel and Stella Aurengzebe beauty Bolingbroke called certainly character connexion couplet Court criticism Curll death delight doth doubt dramatic Dryden Duke Duke of Guise Dunciad Earl Elizabeth England English epistle Essay excellent eyes famous favour feeling friends Fulke Greville give hand heart Homer honour Iliad Johnson kind king Lady Mary Languet Leicester less letters lines literary literature live Lord marriage Mary Sidney matter mind nature never once passages Penelope Devereux perhaps phrase piece play poem poet poet's poetical poetry political Pope Pope's praise prince probably prologue prose published queen remarkable rhymes satire seems sense Shadwell Sidney's Sir Henry Sir Henry Sidney Sir Philip Sidney sonnets spirit story style Swift thee things thou thought tion translation true verse Whig whole words writing written wrote Wycherley
Popular passages
Page 104 - eyes, And hate for arts that caused himself to rise ; Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer; Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike ; Just hint a fault and hesitate dislike; Alike reserved to
Page 104 - or to commend, A timorous foe and a suspicious friend; Dreading ev'n fools, by flatterers besieged, And so obliging that he ne'er obliged; Like Cato, give his little senate laws, And sit attentive to his own applause; While wits and templars every sentence raise, And wonder with a foolish face of praise; Who would not laugh if such a man there
Page 176 - vain—the all-composing Hour Resistless falls ; the Muse obeys the Power— She comes ! she comes ! the sable throne behold Of night primeval and of chaos old ! Before her Fancy's gilded clouds decay, And all its varying rainbows die away. Wit shoots in vain its momentary fires, The meteor drops, and in a flash expires, As one by one, at
Page 176 - Medea's strain, The sickening stars fade off the ethereal plain ; As Argus' eyes by Hermes' wand oppress'd Closed one by one to everlasting rest; Thus at her felt approach, and secret, might, Art after art goes out, and all is night. See skulking Truth to her old cavern fled, Mountains of casuistry heaped o'er her head! Philosophy, that
Page 160 - Alas! I lie: rage hath this error bred; Love is not dead; Love is not dead, but sleepeth In her unmatched mind, Where she his counsel keepeth Till due deserts she find. Therefore from so vile fancy, To call such wit a frenzy, Who Love can temper thus, Good Lord, deliver us 1
Page 131 - hands kept time to her voice-music. As for the houses of the country (for many houses came under their eye), they were all scattered, no two being one by the other, and yet not so far off as that it barred mutual succour; a show, as it were, of an accompanable solitariness and of a civil
Page 62 - an ancient pile; And these, grudged at, are reverenced the while. Thou joy'st in better marks, of soil, of air, Of wood, of water; therein art thou fair. Thou hast thy walks for health as well as sport: Thy mount, to which thy dryads do resort, Where Pan and Bacchus their high feasts have
Page 136 - relique of his saintly exercises, a prayer stolen word for word from the mouth of a heathen woman praying to a heathen god; and that in no serious book, but in the vain amatorious poem of Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia?" Charles' defenders pointed out that the papers given to
Page 172 - Fortune, that with malicious joy Does man, her slave, oppress, Proud of her office to destroy, Is seldom pleased to bless: Still various and unconstant still, But with an inclination to be ill, Promotes, degrades, delights in strife, And makes a lottery of life. I can enjoy her while she's kind; But when she dances in the wind, And