The Calamities and Quarrels of Authors: With Some Inquiries Respecting Their Moral and Literary Characters, and Memoirs for Our Literary History

Front Cover
Routledge, Warnes, and Routledge, 1859 - Authors - 552 pages

From inside the book

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 320 - Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer; Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, Just hint a fault and hesitate dislike...
Page 69 - Take away the dross from the silver, and there shall come forth a vessel for the finer. 5 Take away the wicked from before the king, and his throne shall be established in righteousness.
Page 56 - But Appius reddens at each word you speak, And stares, tremendous, with a threatening eye, Like some fierce tyrant in old tapestry.
Page 476 - and " Every Man out of his Humour," usurped that dictatorship, in the Literary Republic, which he so sturdily and invariably maintained, though long and hardily disputed.
Page 61 - How fluent nonsense trickles from his tongue ! How sweet the periods, neither said, nor sung ! Still break the benches, Henley ! with thy strain, While Sherlock, Hare, and Gibson preach in vain.
Page 237 - Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world, Like a Colossus ; and we petty men Walk under his huge legs, and peep about To find ourselves dishonourable graves.
Page 215 - I know that all the muses' heavenly lays, With toil of sprite which are so dearly bought, As idle sounds, of few or none are sought ; That there is nothing lighter than vain praise.
Page 209 - For what other reason have I spent my life in so unprofitable a study ? why am I grown old, in seeking so barren a reward as fame ? The same parts and application, which have made me a poet, might have raised me to any honours of the gown, which are often given to men of as little learning and less honesty than myself.
Page 488 - As thou thyself ; we envy not to see Thy friends with bays to crown thy poesy. No, here the gall lies ; — We, that know what stuff Thy very heart is made of, know the stalk On which thy learning grows, and can give life To thy, once dying, baseness ; yet must we Dance anticke on your paper — . But were thy warp'd soul put in a new mould, I'd wear thee as a jewel set in gold.
Page 378 - For physic and farces His equal there scarce is — His farces are physic — His physic a farce is.

Bibliographic information