The Critical and Miscellaneous Prose Works of John Dryden: Now First Collected: with Notes and Illustrations; an Acount of the Life and Writing of the Author, Grounded on Original and Authentick Documents; and a Collection of His Letters, the Greater Part of which Has Never Before Been Published, Volume 3

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T. Cadel, jun. and W. Davies, 1800

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Page 214 - When first on this delightful land he spreads His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flower, Glist'ring with dew; fragrant the fertile earth After soft showers ; and sweet the coming on Of grateful evening mild...
Page 214 - But neither breath of morn, when she ascends With charm of earliest birds; nor rising sun On this delightful land; nor herb, fruit, flower, Glistering with dew; nor fragrance after showers; Nor grateful evening mild; nor silent night With this her solemn bird; nor walk by moon, Or glittering starlight, without thee is sweet.
Page 629 - Tis sufficient to say, according to the proverb, that here is God's plenty. We have our forefathers and great grand-dames all before us, as they were in Chaucer's days: their general characters are still remaining in mankind, and even in England, though they are called by other names than those of Monks, and Friars, and Canons, and Lady Abbesses, and Nuns; 'for mankind is ever the same, and nothing lost out of nature, though everything is altered.
Page 607 - Tales, their humours, their features, and the very dress, as distinctly as if I had supped with them at the Tabard in Southwark.
Page 411 - And they did chide with him sharply. 2 And he said unto them, What have I done now in comparison of you? Is not the gleaning of the grapes of Ephraim better than the vintage of Abiezer?
Page 631 - Who so shall telle a tale after a man, He moste reherse as neighe as ever he can : Everich word, if it be in his charge, All speke he, never so rudely and so large : Or elles he moste tellen his tale untrewe, Or feinen thinges, or finden wordes newe : He may not spare, although he were his brother, He moste as wel sayn o word as an other.
Page 189 - In the first rank of these did Zimri stand, A man so various that he seemed to be Not one, but all mankind's epitome : Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong, Was everything by starts and nothing...
Page 627 - I shall think fit hereafter, to describe another sort of Priests, such as are more easily to be found than the Good Parson; such as have given the last Blow to Christianity in this Age, by a Practice so contrary to their Doctrine.
Page 612 - For this reason, though he must always be thought a great poet, he is no longer esteemed a good writer; and for ten impressions, which his works have had in so many successive years, yet at present a hundred books are scarcely purchased once a twelvemonth; for, as my last Lord Rochester said, though somewhat profanely, Not being of God, he could not stand.
Page 595 - What judgment I had, increases rather than diminishes; and thoughts, such as they are, come crowding in so fast upon me that my only difficulty is to choose or to reject, to run them into verse or to give them the other harmony of prose...

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