The works of Alexander Pope. With a selection of explanatory notes, and the account of his life by dr. Johnson, Volume 6

Front Cover

From inside the book

Contents

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 79 - HAPPY the man, whose wish and care A few paternal acres bound, Content to breathe his native air, In his own ground. Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread, Whose flocks supply him with attire ; Whose trees in summer yield him shade, In winter fire.
Page 79 - Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread, Whose flocks supply him with attire ; Whose trees in summer yield him shade, In winter fire. Blest, who can unconcern'dly find Hours, days, and years, slide soft away In health of body, peace of mind, Quiet by day. Sound sleep by night ; study and ease Together mix'd, sweet recreation, And innocence, which most does please With meditation.
Page 191 - YOU formerly observed to me that nothing made a more ridiculous figure in a man's life than the disparity we often find in him sick and well ; thus one of an unfortunate constitution is perpetually exhibiting' a miserable example of the weakness of his mind, and of his body, in their turns. I have had frequent opportunities of late to consider myself in these different views, and, I hope, have received some advantage by it, if what Waller says be true, that The soul's dark cottage, batter'd and decay'd,...
Page 55 - People seek for what they call wit, on all subjects, and in all places ; not considering that nature loves truth so well, that it hardly ever admit; of flourishing : Conceit is to nature what paint is to beauty ; it is not only needless, but impairs what it would improve.
Page 245 - Devotione, ie a sort of religious opera), they make fireworks almost every week out of devotion ; the streets are often hung with arras out of devotion ; and (what is still more strange) the ladies invite gentlemen to their houses, and treat them with music and sweetmeats, out of devotion : in a word, were it not for this devotion of its inhabitants, Naples would have little else to recommend it beside the air and situation.
Page 291 - I know of nothing that will be so interesting to you at present as some circumstances of the last act of that eminent comic poet and our friend, Wycherley. He had often told me...
Page 309 - ... a perspective glass. When you shut the doors of this grotto, it becomes, on the instant, from a luminous room, a camera obscura ; on the walls of which all the objects of the river, hills, woods, and boats, are forming a moving picture, in their visible radiations ; and when you have a mind to light it up, it affords you a very different scene.
Page 192 - I am even as unconcerned as was that honest Hibernian, who, being in bed in the great storm some years ago, and told the house would tumble over his head, made answer, " What care I for the house ? I am only a lodger.
Page 251 - Now damn them ! what if they should put it into the newspaper, how you and I went together to Oxford ? what would I care ? If I should go down into Sussex, they would say I was gone to the Speaker. But what of that ? If my son were but big enough to go on with the business, by G — d I would keep as good company as old Jacob.
Page 57 - A mutual commerce makes Poetry flourish : but then poets, like merchants, should repay with something of their own what they take from others : not, like pirates, make prize of all they meet.

Bibliographic information