The Poetical Decameron, Or, Ten Conversations on English Poets and Poetry: Particularly of the Reigns of Elizabeth and James I.

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A. Constable & Company, 1820 - English poetry - 674 pages

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Page 183 - I keepe my old coarse to palter up something in Prose using mine olde poesie still Omne tulit punctum, although latelye two Gentlemen Poets made two mad-men of Rome beate it out of their paper bucklers, and had it in derision for that I could not make my verses jet upon the stage in tragical! buskins, everie worde filling the mouth like the faburden of Bo-Bell, daring God out of heaven with that Atheist Tamburlan...
Page 71 - SING A SONG OF SIXPENCE Sing a song of sixpence, A pocket full of rye; Four and twenty blackbirds Baked in a pie. When the pie was opened, The birds began to sing; Was not that a dainty dish To set before the king!
Page 98 - Revenge, and made divers attempts, hoping to force her by the multitudes of their armed...
Page 181 - Ah, were she pitiful as she is fair, Or but as mild as she is seeming so, Then were my hopes greater than my despair, Then all the world were heaven, nothing woe. Ah, were her heart relenting as her hand, That seems to melt even with the mildest touch, Then knew I where to seat me in a land, Under wide heavens, but yet [I know] not such.
Page 62 - O, this would make a learned, and liberal soul To rive his stained quill, up to the back, And damn his long-watch'd labours to the fire ; Things that were born, when none but the still night And his dumb candle saw his pinching throes ; Were not his own free merit more a crown Unto his travails than their reeling claps.
Page 219 - An Apologie of the Schoole of Abuse, against Poets, Pipers, Players, and their Excusers.
Page 211 - Newe Bookes I heare of none, but only of one, that writing a certaine Booke, called THE SCHOOLE OF ABUSE, and dedicating it to Maister SIDNEY, was for hys labor scorned, if at leaste it be in the goodnesse of that nature to scorne.
Page 187 - Bellaria, noting in Egistus a princely and bountiful mind, adorned with sundry and excellent qualities, and Egistus, finding in her a virtuous and courteous disposition, there grew such a secret uniting of their affections, that the one could not well be without the company of the other...
Page 299 - ... and provident to shun the like. I surcease to prosecute this any further, lest my good meaning be (by some) misconstrued ; and fearing likewise, lest with tediousnesse I tire the patience of the favourable Reader, heere (though abruptly) I conclude ^ my third and last TREATISE.
Page 274 - ... denied God and his sonne Christ, and not only in word blasphemed the trinitie, but also (as it is credibly reported) wrote bookes against it, affirming our Sauiour to be but a deceiuer, and Moses to be but a coniurer and seducer of the people, and the holy Bible to be but vaine and idle stories, and all religion but a deuice of pollicie.

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