Conclusion of the Rambler

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F. C. and J. Rivington, 1823 - Authors, English

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Page 18 - And, when I die, be sure you let me know Great Homer died three thousand years ago. Why did I write? what sin to me unknown Dipp'd me in ink, my parents', or my own? As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame, I lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came.
Page 144 - You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night, And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, To cry " Hold, hold !
Page 143 - Come, thick night ! And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, That my keen knife see not the wound it makes ; , Nor heav'n peep through the blanket of the dark, To cry, Hold, hold...
Page 19 - Venus, take my votive glass, Since I am not what I was , What from this day I shall be, Venus let me never see.
Page 87 - I do not however think it safe to judge of works of genius merely by the event. The resistless vicissitudes of the heart, this alternate prevalence of merriment and solemnity, may sometimes be more properly ascribed to the vigour of the writer than the justness of the design: and, instead of vindicating tragi-comedy by the success of...
Page 144 - Yet the efficacy of this invocation is destroyed by the insertion of an epithet now seldom heard but in the stable, and dun night may come or go without any other notice than contempt.
Page 143 - We are all offended by low terms, but are not disgusted alike by the same compositions, because we do not all agree to censure the same terms as low. No word is naturally or intrinsically meaner than another ; our opinion therefore of words, as of other things arbitrarily and capriciously established, depends wholly upon accident and custom.
Page 144 - Yet this sentiment is weakened by the name of an instrument used by butchers and cooks in the meanest employments: we do not immediately conceive that any crime of importance is to be committed with a knife...
Page 142 - IT has been observed by Boileau, that " a mean or common thought expressed in pompous diction, generally pleases more than a new or noble sentiment delivered in low and vulgar language ; because the number is greater of those whom custom has enabled to judge of words, than whom study has qualified to examine things.
Page 214 - Thus think the crowd; who, eager to engage, Take quickly fire, and kindle into rage. Not so mild Thales, nor Chrysippus thought, Nor that good man, who drank the pois'nous draught With mind serene; and could not wish to see His vile accuser drink as deep as he: Exalted Socrates! divinely brave! Injur'd he fell, and dying he forgave, Too noble for revenge; which still we find The weakest frailty of a feeble mind.

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