The Life of Alexander Pope, Esq: Comp. from Original Manuscripts; with a Critical Essay on His Writings and Genius

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C. Bathurst, 1769 - Poets, English - 578 pages

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Page 265 - Let not this weak unknowing hand Presume Thy bolts to throw, And deal damnation round the land, On each I judge Thy foe. If I am right, Thy grace impart Still in the right to stay ; If I am wrong, oh, teach my heart To find that better way...
Page 256 - Know then this truth (enough for man to know) 'Virtue alone is happiness below.
Page 231 - With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride, He hangs between, in doubt to act or rest; In doubt to deem himself a God or Beast; In doubt his mind or body to prefer; Born but to die, and...
Page 80 - She gives in large recruits of needful pride ; For, as in bodies, thus in souls we find, What wants in blood and spirits, swell'd with wind : Pride, where wit fails, steps in to our defence, And fills up all the mighty void of sense.
Page 298 - Who builds a church to God, and not to Fame, Will never mark the marble with his name : Go, search it there, where to be born and die, Of rich and poor makes all the history ; Enough, that Virtue fill'd the space between ; Prov'd by the ends of being, to have been.
Page 229 - But what his nature and his state can bear. Why has not Man a microscopic eye? For this plain reason, Man is not a Fly. Say what the use, were finer optics giv'n, T' inspect a mite, not comprehend the heav'n? Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er, To smart and agonize at ev'ry pore? Or quick effluvia darting thro' the brain, Die of a rose in aromatic pain?
Page 116 - He springs to vengeance with an eager pace, And falls like thunder on the prostrate ace. The nymph exulting fills with shouts...
Page 239 - Nor think, in Nature's state they blindly trod; The state of Nature was the reign of God: Self-love and social at her birth began, Union the bond of all things, and of man.
Page 231 - KNOW then thyself, presume not God to scan, The proper study of mankind is Man. Placed on this isthmus of a middle state, A being darkly wise, and rudely great; With too much knowledge for the sceptic side, With too much weakness for the stoic's pride, He hangs between; in doubt to act or rest...
Page 226 - Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate All but the page prescribed, their present state: From brutes what men, from men what spirits know: Or who could suffer being here below ? The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day, Had he thy reason, would he skip and play ? Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food, And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood.

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