The Lives of the Most Eminent British Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, Volume 4

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J. Murray, 1831

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Page 312 - To build, to plant, whatever you intend. To rear the column, or the arch to bend, To swell the terrace, or to sink the grot; In all, let nature never be forgot.
Page 312 - You show us Rome was glorious, not profuse, And pompous buildings once were things of use; Yet shall, my lord, your just, your noble rules, Fill half the land with imitating fools ; Who random drawings from your sheets shall take; And of one beauty many blunders make...
Page 313 - Till kings call forth the ideas of your mind, (Proud to accomplish what such hands design'd) Bid harbours open, public ways extend, Bid temples worthier of the God ascend, Bid the broad arch the dangerous flood contain, The mole projected break the roaring main ; Back to his bounds their subject sea command, And roll obedient rivers through the land : These honours peace to happy Britain brings; These are imperial works, and worthy kings.
Page 46 - The moon on the east oriel shone, Through slender shafts of shapely stone, By foliaged tracery combined ; Thou would'st have thought some fairy's hand ' Twixt poplars straight the ozier wand, In many a freakish knot, had twined ; Then framed a spell, when the work was done, And changed the willow wreaths to stone.
Page 181 - God grant mine eyes may never behold the like, who now saw above ten thousand houses all in one flame ; the noise and cracking and thunder of the impetuous flames, the shrieking of women and children...
Page 299 - He leaped the fence, and saw that all nature was a garden. He felt the delicious contrast of hill and valley changing imperceptibly into each other, tasted the beauty of the gentle swell, or concave scoop, and remarked how loose groves crowned an easy eminence with happy ornament, and while they called in the distant view 313 between their graceful stems, removed and extended the perspective by delusive comparison.
Page 181 - I know not by what despondency or fate, they hardly stirred to quench it, so that there was nothing heard or seen but crying out and lamentation, running about like distracted creatures, without at all attempting to save even their goods ; such a strange consternation there was upon them...
Page 92 - First, for the scene, was drawn a Umtifadjap (landscape) consisting of small woods, and here and there a void place filled with huntings ; which falling, an artificial sea was seen to shoot forth, as if it flowed to the land, raised with waves which seemed to move, and in some places the billows to break, as imitating that orderly disorder which is common in nature.
Page 181 - ... goods, such a strange consternation there was upon them ; so as it burned both in breadth and length, the churches, public halls, exchange, hospitals, monuments and ornaments...
Page 265 - I mean to speak of him in the language of our art. To speak then of Vanbrugh in the language of a painter, he had originality of invention, he understood light and shadow, and had great skill in composition.

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