The Essays of Abraham Cowley

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Scribner, Welford, 1869 - 199 pages

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Page 6 - Price 6s. each; or in calf extra, price los. 6d. The Gentle Life. Essays in aid of the Formation of Character of Gentlemen and Gentlewomen. Tenth Edition. "Deserves to be printed in letters of gold, and circulated in every house."— Chambers' Journal. About in the World. Essays by the Author of "The Gentle Life.
Page 9 - Lectures on the English Language." 8vo. cloth extra, 16s. Lectures on the English Language; forming the Introductory Series to the foregoing Work.
Page 122 - The Wish Well then; I now do plainly see This busy world and I shall ne'er agree. The very honey of all earthly joy Does, of all meats, the soonest cloy; And they, methinks, deserve my pity Who for it can endure the stings, The crowd, and buzz, and murmurings Of this great hive, the city. Ah yet, ere I descend to th...
Page 121 - I believe I can tell the particular little chance that filled my head first with such chimes of verse as have never since left ringing there.
Page 120 - Thus would I double my life's fading space, For he that runs it well, twice runs his race. And in this true delight, These unbought sports, that happy state, I would not fear nor wish my fate, But boldly say each night, To-morrow let my sun his beams display, Or in clouds hide them; I have lived to-day.
Page 39 - But since nature denies to most men the capacity or appetite, and fortune allows but to a very few the opportunities or possibility of applying themselves wholly to philosophy, the best mixture of human affairs that we can make are the employments of a country life.
Page 118 - is a hard and nice subject for a man to write of himself; it grates his own heart to say any thing of disparagement, and the reader's ears to hear any thing of praise from him. There 5 is no danger from me of offending him in this kind; neither my mind, nor my body, nor my fortune, allow me any materials for that vanity. It is sufficient for my own contentment, that they have preserved me from being scandalous, or remarkable on the defective side.
Page 26 - Odi et amo. Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris. Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.
Page 123 - A corps perdu, without making capitulations or taking counsel of fortune. But God laughs at a man who says to his soul, "Take thy ease...
Page 4 - ... in their glistening armour, but in their every-day attire, are brought nearer to us, become intelligible to us, and teach us lessons of humanity which we can learn from men only, and not from saints and heroes. Here lies the real value of real history. It widens our minds and our hearts, and gives us that...

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