Essays on the Nature and Principles of Taste, Volume 1

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Cummings and Hilliard, 1812 - 434 pages

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Page 119 - Now entertain conjecture of a time, When creeping murmur, and the poring dark, Fills the wide vessel of the universe. From camp to camp, through the foul womb of night, The hum of either army stilly sounds, That the fix'd sentinels almost receive The secret whispers of each other's watch...
Page 39 - The swain responsive as the milk-maid sung, The sober herd that low'd to meet their young ; The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool, The playful children just let loose from school ; The watchdog's voice that bay'd the whisp'ring wind, And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind ; These all in sweet confusion sought the shade, And fill'd each pause the nightingale had made.
Page 89 - The current, that with gentle murmur glides, Thou know'st, being stopp'd, impatiently doth rage; But, when his fair course is not hindered, He makes sweet music with the enamell'd stones, Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge He overtaketh in his pilgrimage, And so by many winding nooks he strays, With willing sport, to- the wild ocean.
Page 44 - Shagg'd o'er with wavy rocks, cheerless, and void Of every life, that from the dreary months Flies conscious southward. Miserable they ! Who, here entangled in the gathering ice, Take their last look of the descending sun ; While, full of death, and fierce with tenfold frost, The long long night, incumbent o'er their heads, Falls horrible.
Page ix - I have here offered, than that music, architecture, and painting, as well as poetry and oratory, are to deduce their laws and rules from the general sense and taste of mankind, and not from the principles of those arts themselves ; or, in other words, the taste is not to conform to the art, but the art to the taste.
Page 38 - Sweet was the sound, when oft at evening's close Up yonder hill the village murmur rose. There as I...
Page 118 - And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord ; but the Lord was not in the wind : and after the wind an earthquake ; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: And after the earthquake a fire ; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave. And, behold, there came...
Page 119 - The hum of either army stilly sounds, That the fix'd sentinels almost receive The secret whispers of each other's watch: Fire answers fire; and through their paly flames Each battle sees the other's umber'd face: Steed threatens steed, in high and boastful neighs Piercing the night's dull ear; and from the tents, The armourers, accomplishing the knights, With busy hammers closing rivets up, Give dreadful note of preparation.
Page 24 - The beauty of autumn is accompanied with a similar exercise of thought : the leaves begin then to drop from the trees; the flowers and shrubs, with w-hich the fields were adorned in the summer months, decay; the woods and groves are silent ; the sun himself seems gradually to withdraw his light, or to become enfeebled in his power. Who is there, who, at this season, does not feel his mind impressed with a sentiment of melancholy ? or who is able to resist that current of thought, which, from such...
Page 37 - Caesar, and Cicero, and Virgil, which is before him. It is the Mistress of the world which he sees, and who seems to him to rise again from her tomb, to give laws to the universe. All that the labours of his youth, or the studies of his maturer age have acquired, with regard to the history of this great people, open at once before his imagination, and present him with a field of high and solemn imagery, which can never be exhausted. Take from him these associations, — conceal from him that it is...

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