The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets: With Critical Observations on Their Works, Volume 2Benjamin Warner, and Benjamin C. Buzby, 1819 |
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acquaintance Addison afterwards appeared battle of Ramillies Beggar's Opera Cato censure character Congreve considered contempt court criticism death declared delight diligence Dryden duke earl elegance endeavoured excellence favour Fenton fortune friends genius honour imagined imitation Juba justly kind king William lady letter likewise lived lord Halifax lord Landsdown lord Tyrconnel mankind Matthew Prior ment mentioned merit mind nature neglect never observed obtained occasion once opinion panegyric passion performance perhaps Pindaric play pleased pleasure poem poet poetical poetry Pope pounds praise present Prior published queen racter reason received regard remarkable Savage Savage's says seems seldom Sempronius sent shew Siege of Damascus sir Robert Walpole solicited sometimes Spectator Spence Steele sufficient supposed Syphax Tatler Theophilus Cibber thought Tickell tion told tragedy Tyrconnel verses virtue whigs write written wrote
Popular passages
Page 220 - We were all, at the first night of it, in great uncertainty of the event; till we were very much encouraged by overhearing the duke of Argyle, who sat in the next box to us, say, ' It will do — it must do ! I see it in the eyes of them.
Page 130 - What he attempted, he performed ; he is never feeble, and he did not wish to be energetic ; 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, HUGHES.
Page 307 - ... as made his faults pardonable. He may be considered as a child exposed to all the temptations of indigence, at an age when resolution was not yet strengthened by conviction, nor virtue confirmed by habit ; a circumstance which, in his Bastard...
Page 356 - He was of a middle stature, of a thin habit of body, a long visage, coarse features, and melancholy aspect; of a grave and manly deportment, a solemn dignity of mien; but which upon a nearer acquaintance softened into an engaging easiness of manners.
Page 96 - Tories in the last reign; an act of authority violent enough, yet certainly legal, and by no means to be compared with that contempt of national right with which, some time afterwards, by the instigation of Whiggism, the Commons, chosen by the people for three years, chose themselves for seven.
Page 105 - This is an elevation of literary character, above all Greek, above all Roman fame.
Page 27 - Of Gilbert Walmsley, thus presented to my mind, let me indulge myself in the remembrance. I knew him very early; he was one of the first friends that literature procured me, and I hope that at least my gratitude made me worthy of his notice. He was of an advanced age, and I was only yet a boy; yet he never received my notions with contempt.
Page 129 - outsteps the modesty of nature," nor raises merriment or wonder by the violation of truth. His figures neither divert by distortion nor amaze by aggravation. He copies life with so much fidelity that he can be hardly said to invent; yet his exhibitions have an air so much original, that it is difficult to suppose them not merely the product of imagination.
Page 218 - This counsel was rejected; the profit and principal were lost ; and Gay sunk under the calamity so low, that his life became in danger. By the care of his friends, among whom Pope appears to have...
Page 251 - I can now excuse all his foibles; impute them to age, and to distress of circumstances: the last of these considerations wrings my very soul to think on. For a man of high spirit conscious of having (at least in one production) generally pleased the world, to be plagued and threatened by wretches that are low in every sense; to be forced to drink himself into pains of the body, in order to get rid of the pains of the mind is a misery.