The Works of Samuel Johnson, L.L.D.

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Hastings, Etheridge and Bliss, 1811

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Page 51 - Nor the other light of life continue long, But yield to double darkness nigh at hand : So much I feel my genial spirits droop, My hopes all flat, nature within me seems In all her functions weary of herself ; My race of glory run, and race of shame, And I shall shortly be with them that rest.
Page 70 - This modest stone, what few vain marbles can, May truly say, Here lies an honest man : A Poet, blest beyond the Poet's fate, Whom Heaven kept sacred from the Proud and Great : Foe to loud praise, and friend to learned ease, Content with science in the vale of peace. Calmly he look'd on either life, and here Saw nothing to regret, or there to fear ; From Nature's...
Page 53 - Why am I thus bereaved thy prime decree ? The sun to me is dark And silent, as the moon, When she deserts the night, Hid in her vacant interlunar cave.
Page 51 - No strength of man or fiercest wild beast could withstand ; Who tore the lion...
Page 71 - Venus, take my votive glass, Since I am not what I was ; What from this day I shall be, venus, let me never see.
Page 34 - ... but a little dexterity of conduct and readiness of expedients. No degree of knowledge attainable by man is able to set him above the want of hourly assistance, or to extinguish the desire of fond endearments and tender officiousness ; and therefore no one should think it unnecessary to learn those arts by which friendship may be gained. Kindness is preserved by a constant reciprocation of benefits or interchange of pleasures ; but such benefits only can be bestowed as others are capable to receive,...
Page 53 - The sun to me is dark And silent as the moon, When she deserts the night, Hid in her vacant interlunar cave. Since light so necessary is to life, And almost life itself, if it be true That light is in the soul, She all in every part ; why was the sight To such a tender ball as the eye confined, So obvious and so easy to be quench'd?
Page 197 - You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night, And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, To cry " Hold, hold !
Page 282 - Resentment is an union of sorrow with malignity, a combination of a passion which all endeavour to avoid, with a passion which all concur to detest. The man who retires to meditate mischief and to exasperate his own rage; whose thoughts are employed only on means of distress and contrivances of ruin; whose mind never pauses from the remembrance of his own sufferings, but to indulge some hope of enjoying the calamities of another, may justly be numbered among the most miserable of human beings, among...
Page 92 - POLITICIANS remark, that no oppression is so heavy or lasting as that which is inflicted by the perversion and exorbitance of legal authority. The robber may be seized, and the invader repelled, whenever they are found ; they who pretend no right but that of force, may by force be punished or suppressed.

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