Macaulay's Essays on Milton and AddisonScott, Foresman, 1899 - 272 pages |
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abused Addison admirable Æneid allusion Ambrose Philips appeared battle beauty Boileau called Catullus character Charles charm civil critical Dante death Dryden Edinburgh Review England English essay Euripides excellent fame favorite feel French friends genius Greek Halifax honor house of Bourbon House of Commons human Isaac Bickerstaff Johnson King Lancelot Addison language Latin Latin verses learning less letter liberty literary literature Lord Macaulay Macaulay's Magdalene College manner means Milton mind Montague moral nature never noble opinion Paradise Lost Parliament party passages passed person Petition of Right poems poet poetry political Pope popular praise probably produced prose published readers remarkable Revolution ridiculous scarcely seems sentence Somers Spectator spirit Steele style success Swift talents taste Tatler things thought Tickell tion Tories truth virtues Voltaire Whig Whig party words writers written wrote
Popular passages
Page 112 - He had been wrested by no common deliverer from the grasp of no common foe. He had been ransomed by the sweat of no vulgar agony, by the blood of no earthly sacrifice.
Page 100 - Many politicians of our time are in the habit of laying it down as a self-evident proposition, that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story, who resolved not to go into the water till he had learned to swim. If men are to wait for liberty till they become wise and good in slavery, they may indeed wait forever.
Page 95 - We can as easily conceive a good man and an unnatural father, or a good man and a treacherous friend. We cannot, in estimating the character of an individual, leave out of...
Page 112 - On the rich and the eloquent, on nobles and priests, they looked down with contempt: For they esteemed themselves rich in a more precious treasure, and eloquent in a more sublime language, nobles by the right of an earlier creation, and priests by the imposition of a mightier hand.
Page 112 - If their steps were not accompanied by a splendid train of menials, legions of ministering angels had charge over them. Their palaces were houses not made with hands ; their diadems crowns of glory which should never fade away.
Page 232 - Or dost thou warn poor mortals left behind, A task well suited to thy gentle mind ? Oh! if sometimes thy spotless form descend, To me, thy aid, thou guardian genius, lend! When rage misguides me, or when fear alarms, When pain distresses, or when pleasure charms, In silent whisperings purer thoughts impart, And turn from ill a frail and feeble heart, Lead through the paths thy virtue trod before, Till bliss shall join, nor death can part us more.
Page 113 - Vision, or woke screaming from dreams of everlasting fire. Like Vane, he thought himself intrusted with the sceptre of the millennial year. Like Fleetwood, he cried in the bitterness of his soul that God had hid his face from him. But, when he took his seat in the council, or girt on his sword for war, these tempestuous workings of the soul had left no perceptible trace behind them.
Page 99 - Such a spirit is Liberty. At times she takes the form of a hateful reptile. She grovels, she hisses, she stings. But woe to those who in disgust shall venture to crush her! And happy are those who, having dared to receive her in her degraded and frightful shape, shall at length be rewarded by her in the time of her beauty and her glory!
Page 111 - Not content with acknowledging, in general terms, an overruling Providence, they habitually ascribed every event to the will of the Great Being for whose power nothing was too vast, for whose inspection nothing was too minute. To know Him, to serve Him, to enjoy Him, was with them the great end of existence.
Page 56 - He who, in an enlightened and literary society, aspires to be a great poet, must first become a little child. He must take to pieces the whole web of his mind. He must unlearn much of that knowledge which has perhaps constituted hitherto his chief title to superiority.