The Six Chief Lives from Johnson's Lives of the Poets: With Macaulay's "Life of Johnson" |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
Absalom and Achitophel acquaintance Addison Æneid afterwards appears Bolingbroke called Cato censure character Charles Dryden considered criticism death delight desire diction diligence dramatick Dryden Dunciad Earl edition elegance endeavoured English English poetry Essay Euripides excellence fame faults favour Fcap friends genius Homer honour hundred Iliad Jacob Tonson John Dryden Johnson judgement Juvenal kind King knew known labour Lady language Latin learning Letters lines literary literature lived Lord Lord Halifax manner MATTHEW ARNOLD Milton mind nature never opinion Paradise Lost passages passions perhaps play pleasing pleasure poem poet poetical poetry Pope Pope's pounds praise preface prose publick published reader reason remarks reputation rhyme satire says seems Sempronius sentiments Shakspeare shew shewn sometimes Sophocles Steele style supposed Swift Syphax Tatler tell thing thought tion told tragedy translation verses virtue Whig words write written wrote
Popular passages
Page 196 - From harmony, from heavenly harmony This universal frame began: From harmony to harmony Through all the compass of the notes it ran, The diapason closing full in Man.
Page 107 - He seems to have been well acquainted with his own genius, and to know what it was that Nature had bestowed upon him more bountifully than upon others ; the power of displaying the vast, illuminating the splendid, enforcing the awful, darkening the gloomy, and aggravating the dreadful...
Page 346 - O'er the dark trees a yellower verdure shed, And tip with silver every mountain's head ; Then shine the vales, the rocks in prospect rise, A flood of glory bursts from all the skies : The conscious swains, rejoicing in the sight, Eye the blue vault, and bless the useful light.
Page 297 - I bridle in my struggling Muse with pain, That longs to launch into a nobler strain.
Page 177 - They have not the formality of a settled style, in which the first half of the sentence betrays the other. The clauses are never balanced, nor the periods modelled : every word seems to drop by chance, though it falls into its proper place. Nothing is cold or languid : the whole is airy, animated, and vigorous ; what is little, is gay ; what is great, is splendid.
Page 212 - Waller was smooth ; but Dryden taught to join The varying verse, the full-resounding line, The long majestic march, and energy divine.
Page 96 - Nothing can less display knowledge or less exercise invention than to tell how a shepherd has lost his companion and must now feed his flocks alone, without any judge of his skill in piping; and how one god asks another god what is become of Lycidas, and how neither god can tell. He who thus grieves will excite no sympathy; he who thus praises will confer no honour.
Page 209 - I am as free as nature first made man, Ere the base laws of servitude began, When wild in woods the noble savage ran.