An Inquiry Into the History, Authenticity, & Characteristics of the Shakspeare Portraits: In which the Criticisms of Malone, Steevens, Boaden, & Others, are Examined, Confirmed, Or Refuted. Embracing the Felton, the Chandos, the Duke of Somerset's Pictures, the Droeshout Print, and the Monument of Shakspeare, at Stratford; Together with an Exposé of the Spurious Pictures and Prints, Volume 1

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The author, 1827 - 254 pages

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Page 76 - To speak; whereat their doubled ranks they bend From wing to wing, and half enclose him round With all his peers: Attention held them mute. Thrice he assay'd, and thrice, in spite of scorn, Tears, such as Angels weep, burst forth: at last Words, interwove with sighs, found out their way.
Page 38 - For whilst, to the shame of slow-endeavouring art, Thy easy numbers flow ; and that each heart Hath, from the leaves of thy unvalued book, Those Delphic lines with deep impression took ; Then thou, our fancy of itself bereaving, Dost make us marble with too much conceiving ; And, so sepulcher'd, in such pomp dost lie, That kings for such a tomb would wish to die.
Page 22 - Reader THIS Figure, that thou here seest put, It was for gentle Shakespeare cut; Wherein the Graver had a strife With Nature, to out-doo the life: O, could he but have drawne his wit As well in brasse, as he hath hit His face; the Print would then surpasse All, that was ever writ in brasse. But, since he cannot, Reader, looke Not on his Picture, but his Booke.
Page 38 - What needs my Shakespeare for his honoured bones, The labour of an age in piled stones, Or that his hallowed relics should be hid Under a star-ypointing pyramid? Dear son of memory, great heir of Fame, What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name? Thou in our wonder and astonishment Hast built thyself a livelong monument.
Page 87 - Ac ne forte putes me, quae facere ipse recusem, cum recte tractent alii, laudare maligne, ille per extentum funem mihi posse videtur 210 ire poeta, meum qui pectus inaniter angit, irritat, mulcet, falsis terroribus implet, ut magus, et, modo me Thebis, modo ponit Athenis.
Page 169 - Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in all Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff : you shall seek all day ere you find them, and when you have them, they are not worth the search.
Page 19 - The fire having continued all this night (if I may call that night which was light as day for ten miles round about, after a dreadful manner), when conspiring with a fierce eastern wind in a very dry season, I went on foot to the same place, and saw the whole south part of the city burning from Cheapside to the Thames...
Page 23 - It is better, on this account, in graduating the bottle, to make two scratches as represented in the drawing, one at the top and the other at the bottom of the curve : this prevents any future mistake.
Page 106 - O, for my sake do you with Fortune chide, The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds, That did not better for my life provide Than public means which public manners breeds. Thence comes it that my name receives a brand, And almost thence my nature is subdued To what it works in, like the dyer's hand.
Page 145 - I can now excuse all his foibles ; impute them to age, and to distress of circumstances; the last of these considerations wrings my very soul to think on. For a man of high spirit, conscious of having, at least in one production, generally pleased the world, to be plagued and threatened by wretches that are low in every sense ; to be forced to drink himself into pains of the body, in order to get rid of the pains of the mind, is a misery.

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