Literary Pamphlets Chiefly Relating to Poetry from Sidney to Byron: I. Milton's 'Areopagitica'. II. Addison's 'A discourse on ancient and modern learning'. III. Pope's 'An essay on criticism'. IV. Byron's 'Letter to John Murray on the Rev. W. L. Bowles's strictures on Pope'. V. Wordsworth's 'A letter to a friend of Robert Burns'. VI. Bowles's Appendix - Two passages from "Two letters to the Right Hon. Lord Byron'

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Ernest Rhys
Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1897 - English poetry

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Page 84 - Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.
Page 226 - tis He alone Decidedly can try us; He knows each chord, — its various tone, Each spring, — its various bias: Then at the balance let's be mute; We never can adjust it; What's done we partly may compute, But know not what's resisted.
Page 82 - Methinks I see her as an eagle mewing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full mid-day beam ; purging and unsealing her long abused sight at the fountain itself of heavenly radiance, while the whole noise of timorous and flocking birds, with those also that love the twilight, flutter about, amazed at what she means, and in their envious gabble would prognosticate a year of sects and schisms.
Page 137 - Tis not a lip, or eye, we beauty call, But the joint force and full result of all. Thus when we view some well-proportion'd dome, (The world's just wonder, and ev'n thine, O Rome!) No single parts unequally surprise, All comes united to th' admiring eyes; No monstrous height, or breadth or length appear; The whole at once is bold and regular.
Page 157 - Nature, should preside o'er wit. Horace still charms with graceful negligence, And without method talks us into sense; Will, like a friend, familiarly convey The truest notions in the easiest way. He, who supreme in judgment, as in wit, Might boldly censure, as he boldly writ, Yet judg'd with coolness, tho...
Page 150 - Tis what the vicious fear, the virtuous shun, By fools 'tis hated, and by knaves undone! If wit so much from ign'rance undergo, Ah let not learning too commence its foe!
Page 17 - And yet, on the other hand, unless wariness be used, as good almost kill a man as kill a good book. Who kills a man, kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were in the eye.
Page 75 - To be still searching what we know not by what we know, still closing up truth to truth as we find it...
Page 126 - And censure freely, who have written well. Authors are partial to their wit, 'tis true, But are not critics to their judgment too? Yet, if we look more closely, we shall find Most have the seeds of judgment in their mind. 20 Nature affords at least a glimm'ring light; The lines, tho...
Page 135 - Of all the causes which conspire to blind Man's erring judgment, and misguide the mind, What the weak head with strongest bias rules, Is Pride, the never-failing vice of. fools. Whatever nature has in worth denied, , She gives in large recruits of needful pride ; For as in bodies, thus in souls, we find What wants in blood and spirits, swell'd with wind : Pride, where wit fails, steps in to our defence, And fills up all the mighty void of sense.

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