Literature, its rise, progress, fortunes and advantages, an address |
Common terms and phrases
Addison Æneid Alcibiades Alcuin ancient Arcadia Aristotle Athens Aulus Gellius battle beautiful Bede borrowed Byron Caxton celebrated passages century chap character CHARLES SPENCE Chatham Society Chaucer Cicero classic copy Cowper delightful Demosthenes derived Disraeli the elder Dryden Egypt Egyptian employed England English Eschylus Faerie Queene famous fancy fight formed frequently genius Gibbon give Grecian Greece Greek habit heaven's gate Herodotus Homer Hudibras idea Iliad interesting Iobates Johnson King last words letters literary literature lived Longinus Macaulay manuscript Mark Antony Milton mind never originally paid Palamon paper papyrus Paradise Peloponnesian war Pergamos perusal Pisistratus Plato Pleasures Pliny Plutarch poem poet present printed Pytheas quotation readers refer reign remark Roman Rome says Shakespeare singing Sir Philip Sydney soul Spenser sublime taste thee thou thoughts Thucydides translated Travels true Virgil virtue of necessity whilst Wilmott writing written wrote
Popular passages
Page 44 - And she may still exist in undiminished vigour when some traveller from New Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul's.
Page 31 - It was at Rome, on the 15th of October, 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter 1, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind.
Page 22 - THE BODY of BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, Printer, (like the cover of an old book, its contents torn out, and stript of its lettering and gilding) lies here food for worms ; yet the work itself shall not be lost, for it will (as he believed) appear once more in a new and more beautiful edition, corrected and amended by THE AUTHOR.
Page 48 - So that if the invention of the ship was thought so noble, which carrieth riches and commodities from place to place, and consociateth the most remote regions in participation of their fruits, how much more are letters to be magnified, which as ships pass through the vast seas of time, and make ages so distant to participate of the wisdom, illuminations, and inventions, the one of the other...
Page 44 - That eagle's fate and mine are one, Which, on the shaft that made him die, Espied a feather of his own, Wherewith he wont to soar so high.
Page 13 - And yet, on the other hand, unless wariness be used, as good almost kill a man as kill a good book: Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the earth; but a good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life.
Page 21 - Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider.
Page 12 - My bounty is as boundless as the sea, My love as deep; the more I give to thee, The more I have, for both are infinite.
Page 46 - Friendship is a vase which, when it is flawed by heat or violence or accident, may as well be broken at once ; it can never be trusted after. The more graceful and ornamental it was, the more clearly do we discern the hopelessness of restoring it to its former state. Coarse stones, if they are fractured, may be cemented again ; precious ones, never.
Page 40 - And the Lord answered me, and said, "Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.