The British Essayists: WorldJames Ferguson J. Richardson and Company, 1823 - English essays |
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Common terms and phrases
acquaintance Æneid agreeable ancient appear Arachne argumentum ad ignorantiam assure attention bad company beauty Bedford coffee-house Belphegor birth called character Cicero Clarinda cobbler confess consequence consider conversation Demosthenes desire discovered dress drink endeavour entertainment Farinelli farther fashion favour Fitz-Adam folly fortune frequently garden gentleman give Gothic archi happy heart Herman Boerhaave honour humble servant husband imagine instance kind lady language late least less letter Libertine lived lord mankind manner marriage means ment merit metropolis mind moral nature neighbours neral never obliged observed occasion opinion OVID panegyric paper particular passion perhaps person pleased pleasure polite portunity prejudices present profession readers reason received ridicule seems spirit sure talked taste thing Thomas Scot thought THURSDAY tion town truth turn virtue whole wife wine woman words writing young
Popular passages
Page 285 - ... and better breakfasted than he whose morning appetite would have gladly fed on green figs between Bethany and Jerusalem, his religion walks abroad at eight, and leaves his kind entertainer in the shop trading all day without his religion.
Page 334 - She is not afraid of the snow for her household, for all her household are clothed with scarlet. She maketh herself coverings of tapestry, her clothing is silk and purple.
Page 184 - ... Johnson to fill that great and arduous post. And I hereby declare, that I make a total surrender of all my rights and privileges in the English language, as a free-born British subject, to the said Mr. Johnson, during the term of his dictatorship. Nay, more ; I will not only obey him like an old Roman, as my dictator, but, like a modern Roman, I will implicitly believe in him as my Pope, and hold him to be infallible while in the chair, but no longer. More than this he cannot well require ; for,...
Page 230 - To advise the ignorant, relieve the needy, comfort the afflicted, are duties that fall in our way almost every day of our lives. A man has frequent opportunities of mitigating the fierceness of a party; of doing justice to the character of a...
Page 183 - It must be owned, that our language is, at present, in a state of anarchy, and hitherto, perhaps, it may not have been the worse for it. During our free and open trade, many words and expressions have been imported, adopted, and naturalized from other languages, which have greatly enriched our own. Let it still preserve what...
Page 173 - The handcuffs and fetters in which the hero commonly appears at the end of the second, or the beginning of the third...
Page 285 - What does he therefore, but resolves to give over toiling, and to find himself out some factor, to whose care and credit he may commit the whole managing of his religious affairs; some divine of note and estimation that must be.
Page 82 - Imperial ensigns graced her smiling form, A golden key, and golden wand she bore : This charms to peace each sullen eastern storm, And that unlocks the summer's copious store. Onward in conscious majesty she came, The grateful honours of mankind to taste : To gather fairest wreaths of future fame, And blend fresh triumphs with her glories past.
Page 110 - Roger's; it is usual in all other places, that servants fly from the parts of the house through which their master is passing; on the contrary, here they industriously place themselves in his way; and it is on both sides, as it were, understood as a visit, when the servants appear without calling.
Page 181 - I HEARD the other day, with great pleasure, from my worthy friend, Mr. Dodsley, that Mr. Johnson's English Dictionary, with a grammar and history of our language prefixed, will be published this winter, in two large volumes in folio. I had long lamented that we had no lawful standard of our language set up, for those to repair to, who might choose to speak and write it grammatically and correctly...