A Life of William Shakespeare

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Smith, Elder, 1898 - 479 pages

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Page 321 - What needs my Shakespeare for his honoured bones The labour of an age in piled stones ? Or that his hallowed reliques should be hid Under a star-ypointing pyramid ? Dear son of memory, great heir of fame, What needst thou such weak witness of thy name ? Thou in our wonder and astonishment Hast built thyself a livelong monument.
Page 56 - I am as sorry as if the original fault had been my fault, because myself have seen his demeanour no less civil than he excellent in the quality he professes: besides, divers of worship have reported his uprightness of dealing which argues his honesty, and his facetious grace in writing, that approves his art.
Page 174 - I behold like a Spanish great galleon, and an English man-of-war ; Master Jonson (like the former) was built far higher in learning ; solid, but slow in his performances. Shakespeare with the English man-ofwar, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, tack about and take advantage of all winds, by the quickness of his wit and invention.
Page 114 - Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room. Even in the eyes of all posterity That wear this world out to the ending doom.
Page 324 - He was the man who of all modern, and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All the images of nature were still present to him, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily : when he describes anything, you more than see it, you feel it too.
Page 55 - ... supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you; and being an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country.
Page 127 - O, then vouchsafe me but this loving thought: 'Had my friend's Muse grown with this growing age, A dearer birth than this his love had brought, To march in ranks of better equipage: But since he died, and poets better prove, Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love.
Page 55 - How would it have joyed brave Talbot (the terror of the French) to thinke that after he had lyne two hundred yeares in his Tombe, hee should triumphe againe on the Stage, and have his bones newe embalmed with the teares of ten thousand spectators at least (at severall times), who, in the Tragedian that represents his person, imagine they behold him fresh bleeding.
Page 125 - The warrant I have of your honourable disposition, not the worth of my untutor'd lines, makes it assured of acceptance. What I have done is yours; what I have to do is yours; being part in all I have, devoted yours.
Page 255 - True/ representing some principal pieces of the reign of Henry VIII., which was set forth with many extraordinary circumstances of pomp and majesty, even to the matting of the stage; the knights of the order with their Georges and garters, the guards with their embroidered coats, and the like ; sufficient, in truth, within a while, to make greatness very familiar, if not ridiculous.

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