The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: Lives of the poets

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W. Pickering, 1825
 

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Page 78 - Daughters, but by devout prayer to that Eternal Spirit who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out his seraphim with the hallowed fire of his altar to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases.
Page 320 - 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.
Page 120 - In this poem there is no nature, for there is no truth ; there is no art, for there is nothing new. Its form is that of a pastoral — easy, vulgar, and therefore disgusting ; whatever images it can supply are long ago exhausted ; and its inherent improbability always forces dissatisfaction on the mind.
Page 178 - No put-offs, my lord; answer me presently.' 'Then, Sir,' said he, 'I think it is lawful for you to take my brother Neale's money, for he offers it.
Page 465 - What he attempted, he performed ; he is never feeble, and he did not wish to be energetickP; he is never rapid, and he never stagnates. His sentences have neither studied amplitude, nor affected brevity : his periods, though not diligently rounded, are voluble and easy. Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison.
Page 125 - It is a drama in the epic style, inelegantly splendid and tediously instructive. The Sonnets were written in different parts of Milton's life upon different occasions. They deserve not any particular criticism; for of the best it can only be said that they are not bad, and perhaps only the eighth and the twenty-first are truly entitled to this slender commendation.
Page 120 - With these trifling fictions are mingled the most awful and sacred truths, such as ought never to be polluted with such irreverend combinations. The shepherd likewise is now a feeder of sheep, and afterwards an ecclesiastical pastor, a superintendent of a Christian flock. Such equivocations are always unskilful ; but here they are indecent, and at least approach to impiety, of which, however, I believe the writer not to have been conscious.
Page 324 - She thought this hour th' occasion would present To learn her secret cause of discontent, Which well she hop'd, might be with ease redress'd, Considering her a well-bred civil beast, And more a gentlewoman than the rest.
Page 61 - 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...
Page 288 - He was extremely ready and gentle in his correction of the errors of any writer, who thought fit to consult him; and full as ready and patient to admit of the reprehension of others, in respect of his own oversight or mistakes.

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