The Library of Literary Criticism of English and American Authors: 1730-1784

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Charles Wells Moulton
Moulton Publishing Company, 1902
 

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Page 601 - Johnson having now explicitly avowed his opinion of Lord Chesterfield, did not refrain from expressing himself concerning that nobleman with pointed freedom : ' This man (said he) I thought had been a Lord among wits ; but, I find, he is only a wit among Lords !' And when his Letters to his natural son were published, he observed, that ' they teach the morals of a whore, and the manners of a dancing master.
Page 328 - After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley's ingenious sophistry to prove the non-existence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget, the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it,
Page 127 - So well-bred spaniels civilly delight In mumbling of the game they dare not bite. Eternal smiles his emptiness betray, As shallow streams run dimpling all the way, Whether in florid impotence he speaks, And, as the prompter breathes, the puppet squeaks; Or at the ear of Eve, familiar toad! Half froth, half venom, spits himself abroad, In puns, or politics, or tales, or lies, Or spite, or smut, or rhymes, or blasphemies.
Page 8 - God be thanked for books. They are the voices of the distant and the dead, and make us heirs of the spiritual life of past ages.
Page 547 - ... to attend one of his sermons, in the course of which I perceived he intended to finish with a collection, and I silently resolved he should get nothing from me. I had in my pocket a handful of copper money, three or four silver dollars, and five pistoles in gold. As he proceeded, I began to soften, and concluded to give the copper. Another stroke of his oratory made me ashamed of that, and determined me to give the silver ; and he finished so admirably, that I emptied my pocket wholly into the...
Page 5 - Sir, he hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in a book ; he hath not eat paper, as it were ; he hath not drunk ink : his intellect is not replenished ; he is only an animal, only sensible in the duller parts...
Page 53 - Unblamed through life, lamented in thy end. These are thy honours ! not that here thy bust Is mix'd with heroes, or with...
Page 560 - The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Await alike the inevitable hour — The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
Page 32 - ADVENTURES OF ROBINSON CRUSOE, of York, Mariner, who lived eight and twenty years all alone in an uninhabited island on the coast of America, near the mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; having been cast on shore by shipwreck, wherein all the men perished but himself. With an account how he was at last as strangely delivered by Pyrates. Written by himself.
Page 164 - Then he instructed a young nobleman, that the best poet in England was Mr. Pope (a Papist), who had begun a translation of Homer into English verse, for which he must have them all subscribe. "For," says he, "the author shall not begin to print till I have a thousand guineas for him.

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