A Literary History of the Middle Ages: Comprehending an Account of the State of Learning from the Close of the Reign of Augustus to Its Revival in the Fifteenth Century

Front Cover
G. Routledge, 1883 - 469 pages
 

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 442 - have now reigned above fifty years in victory or peace : beloved by " my subjects, dreaded by my enemies, and respected by my allies. " Riches and honours, power and pleasure, have waited on my call, " nor does any earthly blessing appear to have been wanting to my " felicity. In this situation I have diligently numbered the days of " pure and genuine happiness which have fallen to my lot : they amount " to FOURTEEN : — O man ! place not thy confidence in this present
Page 168 - III and was never indeed totally discontinued in England. The pleadings in the supreme courts of judicature were in French: The deeds were often drawn in the same language: The laws were composed in that idiom...
Page 272 - The diction of this poem is generally pure, the periods round, and the numbers harmonious ; and on the whole, the structure of the versification approaches nearly to that of polished Latin poetry.
Page 412 - One hundred years after his flight from Mecca, the arms and the reign of his successors extended from India to the Atlantic Ocean, over the various and distant provinces, which may be comprised under the names of, I. Persia; II. Syria; III. Egypt; IV. Africa; and, V. Spain.
Page 442 - ... with the curious and costly figures of birds and quadrupeds. In a lofty pavilion of the gardens, one of these basins and fountains, so delightful in a sultry climate, was replenished not with water but with the purest quicksilver. The seraglio of Abdalrahman...
Page iii - Literary History of the Middle Ages ; comprehending an Account of the State of Learning from the Close of the Reign of Augustus to its Revival in the Fifteenth Century.
Page 221 - d just as lief — be buried, tomb'd and gross'd in. " Every one by nature hath — a gift too, a dotation : I, when I make verses,— do get the inspiration Of the very best of wine — that comes into the nation : It maketh sermons to abound — for edification. " Just as liquor floweth good...
Page 158 - The dregs of the Carlovingian race no longer exhibited any symptoms of virtue or power, and the ridiculous epithets of the bald, the stammerer, the fat, and the simple, distinguished the tame and uniform features of a crowd of kings alike deserving of oblivion. By the failure of the collateral branches, the whole inheritance devolved to Charles the Fat, the last emperor of his family ; his insanity...
Page 269 - FlonreD-cakes beth the shingles all Of church, cloister, bowers, and hall. The pinnes (pinnacles) beth fat puddings, Rich meat to princes and kings. All is common to young and old, To stout and stern, young and old. Advancing further into the century, we come to Robert, a monk of Gloucester, who compiled in more than thirteen thousand rhymes a history of England, from the days of the imaginary Brutus to his own.1 Here, also, Geoffrey of Monmouth supplied the materials, as far as the subject would...
Page 421 - Admirers also of beauty in the human figure, the Arabians were peculiarly susceptible of -that passion which has been aptly termed the genuine source of agreeable poetry. Love has certainly the greatest share in all their poems ; and there is hardly an elegy, a panegyric, or even a satire, which does not open with the complaints of an unfortunate, or the raptures of a successful lover. The description then follows of the 1 I copy Sir William Jones ; Essay on Asiatic Poetry, iv. 027. * Ibid. horse...

Bibliographic information