The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With An Essay on His Life and Genius, Volume 2Luke Hansard & Sons, 1810 |
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Page 11
... sometimes deviating so capri- ciously from the received use of writing , that he was constrained to comply with the rule of his adver saries , lest he should lose the end by the means , and be left alone by following the crowd . When a ...
... sometimes deviating so capri- ciously from the received use of writing , that he was constrained to comply with the rule of his adver saries , lest he should lose the end by the means , and be left alone by following the crowd . When a ...
Page 12
... sometimes proper to trace back the orthography of different ages , and show by what gradations the word departed from its original . Closely connected with orthography is pronun- ciation , the stability of which is of great importance ...
... sometimes proper to trace back the orthography of different ages , and show by what gradations the word departed from its original . Closely connected with orthography is pronun- ciation , the stability of which is of great importance ...
Page 14
... sometimes perhaps to conjectures , which to readers unacquainted with this kind of study , cannot but appear improbable and capricious . But it may be reasonably imagined , that what is so much in the power of men as lan- guage , will ...
... sometimes perhaps to conjectures , which to readers unacquainted with this kind of study , cannot but appear improbable and capricious . But it may be reasonably imagined , that what is so much in the power of men as lan- guage , will ...
Page 17
... sometimes by particles prefixed , as , ambitious , more ambitious , most ambi- tious . The forms of our verbs are subject to great variety ; some end their preter tense in ed as I love , I loved , I have loved ; which may be called the ...
... sometimes by particles prefixed , as , ambitious , more ambitious , most ambi- tious . The forms of our verbs are subject to great variety ; some end their preter tense in ed as I love , I loved , I have loved ; which may be called the ...
Page 18
... sometimes prolong their duration , it will rarely give them perpetuity ; and their changes will be almost always informing us , that language is the work of man , of a being from whom permanence . and stability cannot be derived . Words ...
... sometimes prolong their duration , it will rarely give them perpetuity ; and their changes will be almost always informing us , that language is the work of man , of a being from whom permanence . and stability cannot be derived . Words ...
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The Works Of Samuel Johnson: With An Essay On His Life And Genius;, Volume 9 Samuel Johnson,Arthur Murphy No preview available - 2019 |
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Popular passages
Page 104 - Can such things be, And overcome us like a Summer's cloud, Without our special wonder? You make me strange Even to the disposition that I owe, When now I think you can behold such sights, And keep the natural ruby of your cheeks, When mine are blanch'd with fear.
Page 150 - ... up before him, and he leaves his work unfinished. A quibble is the golden apple for which he will always turn aside from his career or stoop from his elevation. A quibble, poor and barren as it is, gave him such delight that he was content to purchase it by the sacrifice of reason, propriety, and truth. A quibble was to him the fatal Cleopatra for which he lost the world, and was content to lose it.
Page 92 - Pale Hecate's offerings; and wither'd murder, Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf, Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace, With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design Moves like a ghost. Thou sure and firm-set earth, Hear not my steps which way they walk, for fear Thy very stones prate of my whereabout And take the present horror from the time, Which now suits with it.
Page 85 - Come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full Of direst cruelty...
Page 98 - On a sudden open fly, With impetuous recoil and jarring sound, Th' infernal doors, and on their hinges grate Harsh thunder.
Page 66 - Dictionary was written with little assistance of the learned, and without any patronage of the great; not in the soft obscurities of retirement, or under the shelter of academic bowers, but amidst inconvenience and distraction, in sickness and in sorrow.
Page 193 - Notes are often necessary, but they are necessary evils. Let him that is yet unacquainted with the powers of Shakespeare, and who desires to feel the highest pleasure that the drama can give, read every play from the first scene to the last, with utter negligence of all his commentators.
Page 154 - Time is, of all modes of existence, most obsequious to the imagination ; a lapse of years is as easily conceived as a passage of hours. In contemplation we easily contract the time of real actions, and therefore willingly permit it to be contracted when we only see their imitation.
Page 141 - Shakespeare has united the powers of exciting laughter and sorrow not only in one mind but in one composition. Almost all his plays are divided between serious and ludicrous characters, and, in the successive evolutions of the design, sometimes produce seriousness and sorrow and sometimes levity and laughter.
Page 150 - What he does best, he soon ceases to do. He is not long soft and pathetic without some idle conceit or contemptible equivocation. He no sooner begins to move, than he counteracts himself; and terror and pity, as they are rising in the mind, are checked and blasted by sudden frigidity.