Blair's Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles-lettres |
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Page 14
Take only , for an example , the following noted description of Satan , after his fall , appearing at the head of the infernal hosts : He , above the rest , In shape and gesture proudly eminent , Stood like a tower ; his form had not ...
Take only , for an example , the following noted description of Satan , after his fall , appearing at the head of the infernal hosts : He , above the rest , In shape and gesture proudly eminent , Stood like a tower ; his form had not ...
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action affords ages agreeable ancient animated appear arranged attention beauty character chief Cicero clear common comparison composition concise conducted consists correct critical discourse distinct distinguished early effect elegant eloquence employed English epic essential excel expression figure force French genius give Greek historian Homer human ideas imagination Imitation improvement instruction introduced kind knowledge language latter less light lively manner mean merit mind moral nature never object observed Orator original ornament particular passion pastoral perfect period person perspicuity picture plain pleasures poem poet poetry polite possesses precise present principal proper raised reason relation remarkable renders rise Roman rule scenes sense sentence sentiments sermons simple simplicity sound speak speaker speech spirit strength style sublime Taste thing thought tion Tragedy unity Virgil writing
Popular passages
Page 112 - O SING unto the LORD a new song: Sing unto the LORD, all the earth.
Page 12 - Before him went the pestilence, and burning coals went forth at his feet. He stood, and measured the earth: he beheld, and drove asunder the nations; and the everlasting mountains were scattered, the perpetual hills did bow: his ways are everlasting.
Page 140 - A man of a polite imagination is let into a great many pleasures that the vulgar are not capable of receiving. He can converse with a picture, and find an agreeable companion in a statue. He meets with a secret refreshment in a description, and often feels a greater satisfaction in the prospect of fields and meadows, than another does in the possession.
Page 134 - Our sight is the most perfect and most delightful of all our senses. It fills the mind with the largest variety of ideas, converses with its objects at the greatest distance, and continues the longest in action without being tired or satiated with its proper enjoyments. The sense of feeling can indeed give us a notion of extension, shape, and all other ideas that enter at the eye, except colours ; but at the same time it is very much straitened and confined in its operations to the number, bulk,...
Page 141 - There are indeed but very few who know how to be idle and innocent, or have a relish of any pleasures that are not criminal; every diversion they take is at the expense of some one virtue or another, and their very first step out of business is into vice or folly.
Page 47 - Earth felt the wound, and Nature, from her seat Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe, That all was lost.
Page 46 - Me miserable ! which way shall I fly Infinite wrath, and infinite despair? Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell; And, in the lowest deep, a lower deep Still threatening to devour me opens wide, To which the Hell I suffer seems a Heaven.
Page 47 - O unexpected stroke, worse than of death ! Must I thus leave thee, Paradise? thus leave Thee, native soil, these happy walks and shades, Fit haunt of gods? where I had hope to spend, Quiet though sad, the respite of that day That must be mortal to us both.
Page 44 - O, speak again, bright angel! for thou art As glorious to this night, being o'er my head, As is a winged messenger of heaven Unto the white-upturned wondering eyes Of mortals that fall back to gaze on him, When he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds And sails upon the bosom of the air.
Page 14 - Less than archangel ruined, and the excess Of glory obscured ; as when the sun, new risen, Looks through the horizontal misty air Shorn of his beams, or from behind the moon, In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds On half the nations, and with fear of change Perplexes monarchs.
Bibliographic information
| Title | Blair's Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles-lettres |
| Author | Hugh Blair |
| Editor | John Marsh |
| Edition | 2 |
| Publisher | S.G. Goodrich, 1822 |
| Original from | Harvard University |
| Digitized | 31 Aug 2007 |
| Length | 144 pages |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |