The Poetical Decameron, Or, Ten Conversations on English Poets and Poetry: Particularly of the Reigns of Elizabeth and James I.

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Archibald Constable and Company, and Hurst, Robinson & Company, Cheapside, London, 1820 - English poetry

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Page 71 - Sing a song of sixpence, A pocket full of rye; Four and twenty blackbirds, Baked in a pie. When the pie was opened, The birds began to sing; Was not that a dainty dish To set before the king?
Page 183 - I could not make my verses iet vpon the stage in tragicall buskins, euerie worde filling the mouth like the faburden of Bo-Bell, daring God out of heauen with that Atheist Tamburlan, or blaspheming with the mad preest of the sonne...
Page 104 - The angel-quiristers of th' heavenly skies. Give pardon eke, sweet soul, to my slow eyes, That since I saw thee now it is so long, And yet the tears that unto thee belong To thee as yet they did not sacrifice. I did not know that thou wert dead before ; I did not feel the grief I did sustain ; The greater stroke astonisheth the more ; Astonishment takes from us sense of pain ; I stood amazed when others' tears begun, And now begin to weep when they have done.
Page 98 - Revenge, and made divers attempts, hoping to force her by the multitudes of their armed...
Page 181 - Ah, were she pitiful as she is fair, Or but as mild as she is seeming so, Then were my hopes greater than my despair, Then all the world were heaven, nothing woe. Ah, were her heart relenting as her hand, That seems to melt even with the mildest touch, Then knew I where to seat me in a land, Under wide heavens, but yet [I know] not such.
Page 219 - An Apologie of the Schoole of Abuse, against Poets, Pipers, Players, and their Excusers.
Page 212 - ... into bowls; and our darts to dishes. We have robbed Greece of gluttony, Italy of wantonness, Spain of pride, France of deceit, and Dutchland of quaffing. Compare London to Rome, and England to Italy, you shall find the theatres of the one, the abuses of the other, to be rife among us.
Page 274 - ... denied God and his sonne Christ, and not only in word blasphemed the trinitie, but also (as it is credibly reported) wrote bookes against it, affirming our Sauiour to be but a deceiuer, and Moses to be but a coniurer and seducer of the people, and the holy Bible to be but vaine and idle stories, and all religion but a deuice of pollicie.
Page 183 - I keepe my old coarse to palter up something in Prose using mine olde poesie still Omne tulit punctum, although latelye two Gentlemen Poets made two mad-men of Rome beate it out of their paper bucklers, and had it in derision for that I could not make my verses jet upon the stage in tragical! buskins, everie worde filling the mouth like the faburden of Bo-Bell, daring God out of heaven with that Atheist Tamburlan...
Page 116 - Thereto he could fine loving verses frame, And play the poet oft. But ah ! for shame, Let not sweet poets...

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