The Great Triumphs of Great Men

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James Mason
William P. Nimmo, 1875 - 624 pages

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Page 152 - All the images of nature were still present to him, and he drew them not laboriously but luckily : when he describes anything you more than see it, you feel it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted learning, give him the greater commendation : he was naturally learned ; he needed not the spectacles of books to read nature ; he looked inwards, and found her there.
Page 91 - These abominable principles, and this more abominable avowal of them, demand the most decisive indignation.
Page 91 - If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms : Never, never, never...
Page 154 - As for Jonson, to whose character I am now arrived, if we look upon him while he was himself (for his last plays were but his dotages), I think him the most learned and judicious writer which any theatre ever had. He was a most severe judge of himself, as well as others. One cannot say he wanted wit, but rather that he was frugal of it.
Page 207 - ... berceau, or covered walk of acacias, which commands a prospect of the country, the lake, and the mountains. The air was temperate, the sky was serene, the silver orb of the moon was reflected from the waters, and all nature was silent. I will not dissemble the first emotions of joy on the recovery of my freedom, and, perhaps, the establishment of my fame.
Page 92 - My Lords, I am old and weak, and at present unable to say more; but my feelings and indignation were too strong- to have said less. I could not have slept this night in my bed, nor reposed my head on my pillow, without giving this vent to my eternal abhorrence of such preposterous and enormous principles.
Page 62 - How sleep the brave who sink to rest By all their country's wishes blest! When Spring, with dewy fingers cold, Returns to deck their hallowed mould, She there shall dress a sweeter sod Than Fancy's feet have ever trod.
Page 195 - The vocabulary is the vocabulary of the common people. There is not an expression, if we except a few technical terms of theology, which would puzzle the rudest peasant. We have observed several pages which do not contain a single word of more than two syllables.
Page 113 - ... their shadows in perfect stillness — how soon, upon any call of patriotism, or of necessity, it would assume the likeness of an animated thing, instinct with life and motion — how soon it would ruffle, as it were, its swelling plumage — how quickly it would put forth all its beauty and its bravery, collect its scattered elements of strength, and awaken its dormant thunder.
Page 167 - The Psalms of David imitated in the language of the New Testament, and applied to the Christian state and worship.

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