An essay On the picturesque

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Page 190 - The other shape, If shape it might be call'd that shape had none Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb ; Or substance might be call'd that shadow seem'd, For each seem'd either: black it stood as night, Fierce as ten furies, terrible as Hell, And shook a dreadful dart ; what seem'd his head The likeness of a kingly crown had on.
Page 132 - Making it momentary as a sound, Swift as a shadow, short as any dream ; Brief as the lightning in the collied night, That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth. And ere a man hath power to say, — Behold ! The jaws of darkness do devour it up : So quick bright things come to confusion.
Page 97 - Looks through the horizontal misty air Shorn of his beams, or from behind the moon In dim eclipse disastrous twilight sheds On half the nations, and with fear of change Perplexes monarchs.
Page 87 - THE passion caused by the great and sublime in nature, when those causes operate most powerfully, is astonishment : and astonishment is that state of the soul in which all its motions are suspended, with some degree of horror.
Page 190 - The other Shape — If shape it might be called that shape had none Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb; Or substance might be called that shadow seemed, For each seemed either — black it stood as Night, Fierce as ten Furies, terrible as Hell, And shook a dreadful dart: what seemed his head The likeness of a kingly crown had on.
Page 116 - Twas but a kindred sound to move, For pity melts the mind to love. Softly sweet, in Lydian measures Soon he soothed his soul to pleasures. War...
Page 51 - A temple or palace of Grecian architecture in its perfect entire state, and with its surface and colour smooth and even, either in painting or reality is beautiful; in ruin it is picturesque.
Page 89 - ... of sublimity. But as the nature of every corrective, must be to take off from the peculiar effect of what it is to correct, so does the picturesque when united to either of the others. It is the coquetry of nature; it makes beauty more amusing, more varied, more playful, but also, Less winning soft, less amiably mild.
Page 63 - In our own species, objects merely picturesque are to be found among the wandering tribes of gypsies and beggars, who, in all the qualities which give them that character, bear a close analogy to the wild forester and the worn out cart horse, and again to old mills, hovels, and other inanimate objects of the same kind.
Page 165 - ... else has retired into obscurity ; it still forces itself into notice, still impudently stares you in the face. An object of a sober tint, unexpectedly gilded by the sun, is like a serious countenance suddenly lighted up by a smile ; a whitened object like the eternal grin of a fool.

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