Shakspere's Predecessors in the English Drama, Volume 4

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Smith, Elder & Company, 1884 - English drama - 668 pages

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Page 86 - Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks: 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...
Page 226 - Thence what the lofty grave tragedians taught In chorus or iambic, teachers best Of moral prudence, with delight received In brief sententious precepts, while they treat Of fate, and chance, and change in human life, High actions, and high passions best describing : Thence to the famous orators repair, Those ancient, whose resistless eloquence Wielded at will that fierce democratic, Shook the arsenal, and fulmined over Greece To Macedon and Artaxerxes...
Page 634 - Stand still, you ever-moving spheres of Heaven, That time may cease, and midnight never come; Fair Nature's eye, rise, rise again and make Perpetual day; or let this hour be but A year, a month, a week, a natural day, That Faustus may repent and save his soul! O lente, lente currite, noctis equi! The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike, The Devil will come, and Faustus must be damned.
Page 656 - He has outsoared the shadow of our night; Envy and calumny and hate and pain, And that unrest which men miscall delight, Can touch him not and torture not again...
Page 509 - Full little knowest thou that hast not tried What hell it is in suing long to bide ; To lose good days that might be better spent, To waste long nights in pensive discontent, To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow, To feed on hope, to pine with fear and sorrow, To have thy prince's grace yet want her Peers...
Page 528 - Triumph, my Britain! Thou hast one to show To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe. He was not of an age, but for all time...
Page 319 - But He, her fears to cease, Sent down the meek-eyed Peace ; She, crowned with olive green, came softly sliding Down through the turning sphere His ready harbinger, With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing; And waving wide her myrtle wand, She strikes a universal peace through sea and land.
Page 57 - tis the soul of peace ; Of all the virtues 'tis nearest kin to heaven ; It makes men look like gods. The best of men That e'er wore earth about him was a sufferer, A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit, The first true gentleman that ever breath'd.
Page 87 - But what we gained in skill we lost in strength. Our builders were with want of genius curst; The second temple was not like the first; Till you, the best Vitruvius, come at length, Our beauties equal, but excel our strength.
Page 637 - Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight, And burned is Apollo's laurel bough, That sometime grew within this learned man. Faustus is gone : regard his hellish fall, Whose fiendful fortune may exhort the wise Only to wonder at unlawful things, Whose deepness doth entice such forward wits To practise more than heavenly power permits.

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