Critical and Historical Essays, Volume 3

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Page 77 - I live a rent-charge on his providence. But you, whom every Muse and Grace adorn, Whom I foresee to better fortune born, Be kind to my remains ; and, oh defend, Against your judgment, your departed friend ! Let not the insulting foe my fame pursue, But shade those laurels which descend to you : And take for tribute what these lines express ; You merit more, nor could my love do less.
Page 201 - ... and treaties, had sent forth armies, had set up and pulled down princes. And in his high place he had so borne himself, that all had feared him, that most had loved him, and that hatred itself could deny him no title to glory, except virtue. He looked like a great man, and not like a bad man. A person small and emaciated, yet deriving dignity from a carriage which, while it indicated deference to the court, indicated also habitual self-possession and selfrespect, a high and intellectual forehead,...
Page 354 - As when some one peculiar quality Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw All his affects, his spirits, and his powers, In their confluctions, all to run one way, This may be truly said to be a humour.
Page 344 - that your daughter is in a situation where she is never allowed a holiday?" Horace Walpole wrote to Frances, to express his sympathy. Boswell, boiling over with good-natured rage, almost forced an entrance into the palace to see her. "My dear Ma'am, why do you stay? It won't do, Ma'am; you must resign. We can put up with it no longer. Some very violent measures, I assure you, will be taken. We shall address Dr. Burney in a body.
Page 320 - Yet there was no want of low minds and bad hearts in the generation which witnessed her first appearance. There was the envious Kenrick and the savage Wolcot, the asp George Steevens, and the polecat John Williams. It did not, however, occur to them to search the parish register of Lynn, in order that they might be able to twit a lady with having concealed her age. That truly chivalrous exploit was reserved for a bad writer of our own time, whose spite she had provoked by not furnishing him with...
Page 200 - ... in the earth, too often paraded with injudicious and inelegant ostentation, but still precious, massive, and splendid. There appeared the voluptuous charms of her to whom the heir of the throne had in secret plighted his faith. There, too, was she, the beautiful mother of a beautiful race, the St. Cecilia whose delicate features, lighted up by love and music, art has rescued from the common decay.
Page 411 - I fared like a distressed prince, who calls in a powerful neighbour to his aid; I was undone by my auxiliary; when I had once called him in, I could not subsist without dependence on him.
Page 551 - Another consists of meditations on the Psalms, which will doubtless greatly console and edify the church. This makes the character complete. Whatsoever things are false, whatsoever things are dishonest, whatsoever things are unjust, whatsoever things are impure, whatsoever things are hateful, whatsoever things are of evil report, if there be any vice, and if there be any infamy, all these things, we knew, were blended in Barere.
Page 139 - War-office ; thirdly, that he, during the year 1770, attended debates in the House of Lords, and took notes of speeches, particularly of the speeches of Lord Chatham ; fourthly, that he bitterly resented the appointment of Mr. Chamier to the place of Deputy Secretary at War ; fifthly, that he was bound by some strong tie to the first Lord Holland.
Page 423 - The epilogue, which was written by Garth, a zealous Whig, was severely and not unreasonably censured as ignoble and out of place. But Addison was described, even by the bitterest Tory writers, as a gentleman of wit and virtue, in whose friendship many persons of both parties were happy, and whose name ought not to be mixed up with factious squabbles. Of the jests by which the triumph of the "Whig party was disturbed, the most severe and happy was Bolingbroke's. Between two acts, he sent for Booth...