Lounger

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T. and J. Allman, 1823 - English essays
 

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Page 189 - I care not, fortune, what you me deny ; You cannot rob me of free nature's grace ; You cannot shut the windows of the sky, Through which Aurora shows her brightening face, You cannot bar my constant feet to trace The woods and lawns, by living stream, at eve : Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace, And I their toys to the great children leave : Of fancy, reason, virtue, nought can me bereave.
Page 224 - Nature bestows only on a poet; the eye that distinguishes, in every thing presented to its view, whatever there is on which imagination can delight to be detained, and with a mind that at once comprehends the vast, and attends to the minute. The reader of the Seasons...
Page 223 - Though gods assembled grace his tow'ring height, Than what more humble mountains offer here, Where, in their blessings, all those gods appear. See Pan with flocks, with fruits Pomona crown'd, Here blushing Flora paints th...
Page 224 - As a writer, he is entitled to one praise of the highest kind ; his mode of thinking, and of expressing his thoughts, is original. His blank verse is no more the blank verse of Milton, or of any other poet, than the rhymes of Prior are the rhymes of Cowley. His numbers, his pauses, his diction, are of his own growth, without transcription, without imitation. He thinks in a peculiar train, and he thinks always as a man of genius...
Page 252 - Disdains thy syren song to hear, Speed thee on changeful wings away, To where thy willing slaves obey, Go herd amongst thy wonted train, The false, th' inconstant, lewd and vain: Thou hast no subject here, begone; Contemplation comes anon.
Page 255 - His genius seems qualified for describing some beautiful scenes and objects of external nature, and for delineating with the embellishments of allegory, some passions and affections of the human mind. Still, however, his imagination is employed among beautiful and engaging, rather than among awful and magnificent images ; and even when he presents us with dignified objects, he is more grave than lofty, more solemn than sublime, as in the folio wing passage: Now see ! the spreading gates unfold, Display'd...
Page 13 - Whitlocke talks of one Milton, as he calls him, a blind man, who was employed in translating a treaty with Sweden into Latin.
Page 204 - in these particulars. You must tell your neighbours, who may be apt, from some spurious examples, to suppose that every thing contrary to the natural ideas of politeness is polite, .that in such an opinion they are perfectly mistaken. Such a caricature is indeed, as in all other imitations, the easiest to be imitated ; but it is not the real portraiture and likeness of a high-bred man or woman. As good dancing is like a more dignified sort of walk, and as the best dress hangs the easiest on the...
Page 19 - But the one next her, with the fanciful cap, and the panache of red and white feathers, with that elegant form, that striking figure, is not she a fine woman ?"~" Why, no, Sir, not quite a fine woman; not quite such a woman as a man," (raising his chest as he pronounced the word man, and pressing the points of his three unemployed fingers gently on his bosom,) " as a man would be proud to stake his life for.
Page 220 - A god impels the winds. A god pours out the rivers. Grapes are the gift of Bacchus. Ceres presides over the harvest. Orchards are the care of Pomona. Does a shepherd sound his reed on the summit of a mountain, it is Pan, who, with his pastoral pipe, returns the amorous lay. When the...

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