The works of Samuel Johnson [ed. by F.P. Walesby].Talboys and Wheeler, 1825 |
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Page 2
... written under the protection of greatness . To the patrons of such undertakings I willingly paid the ho- mage of believing that they , who were thus solicitous for the perpetuity of their language , had reason to expect that their ...
... written under the protection of greatness . To the patrons of such undertakings I willingly paid the ho- mage of believing that they , who were thus solicitous for the perpetuity of their language , had reason to expect that their ...
Page 5
... written professedly upon particular arts , or can be supposed necessary to those who do not regularly study them . Thus , when a reader not skilled in physick happens in Milton upon this line , pining atrophy , Marasmus , and wide ...
... written professedly upon particular arts , or can be supposed necessary to those who do not regularly study them . Thus , when a reader not skilled in physick happens in Milton upon this line , pining atrophy , Marasmus , and wide ...
Page 6
... but , as it has been shown that this conformity never was attained in any language , and that it is not more easy to persuade men to agree exactly in speaking than in writing , it may be asked , with equal propriety 6 THE PLAN OF.
... but , as it has been shown that this conformity never was attained in any language , and that it is not more easy to persuade men to agree exactly in speaking than in writing , it may be asked , with equal propriety 6 THE PLAN OF.
Page 7
... writing , that he was constrained to comply with the rule of his adversaries , lest he should lose the end by the means ... written , from ferrum , or fer ; in gibberish for gebrish , the jargon of Geber , and his chy- mical followers ...
... writing , that he was constrained to comply with the rule of his adversaries , lest he should lose the end by the means ... written , from ferrum , or fer ; in gibberish for gebrish , the jargon of Geber , and his chy- mical followers ...
Page 8
... written alike are differently pronounced , as flow , and brow : which may be thus registered , flow , woe ; brow , now ; or of which the exemplification may be gene- rally given by a distich : thus the words tear , or lacerate and tear ...
... written alike are differently pronounced , as flow , and brow : which may be thus registered , flow , woe ; brow , now ; or of which the exemplification may be gene- rally given by a distich : thus the words tear , or lacerate and tear ...
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Popular passages
Page 107 - His first defect is that to which mav be imputed most of the evil in books or in men. He sacrifices virtue to convenience, and is so much more careful to please than to instruct, that he seems to write without any moral purpose.
Page 97 - Nothing can please many, and please long, but just representations of general nature. Particular manners can be known to few, and therefore few only can judge how nearly they are copied. The irregular combinations of fanciful invention may delight...
Page 145 - I cannot say he is everywhere alike; were he so, I should do him injury to compare him with the greatest of mankind. He is many times flat, insipid; his comic wit degenerating into clenches, his serious swelling into bombast. But he is always great when some great occasion is presented to him...
Page 105 - His comedy pleases by the thoughts and the language, and his tragedy for the greater part by incident and action. His tragedy seems to be skill, his comedy to be instinct.
Page 48 - To deny the possibility, nay, actual existence, of witchcraft and sorcery is at once flatly to contradict the revealed word of God, in various passages both of the Old and New Testament : and the thing itself is a truth to which every nation in the world hath in its turn borne testimony, either by examples seemingly well attested or by prohibitory laws; which at least suppose the possibility of commerce with evil spirits.
Page 113 - The truth is that the spectators are always in their senses and know from the first act to the last that the stage is only a stage and that the players are only players.
Page 82 - She should have died hereafter ; There would have been a time for such a word. To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day To the last syllable of recorded time, And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death.
Page 65 - The night has been unruly : where we lay, Our chimneys were blown down : and, as they say, Lamentings heard i...
Page 102 - Shakespeare's plays are not in the rigorous and critical sense either tragedies or comedies, but compositions of a distinct kind; exhibiting the real state of sublunary nature, which partakes of good and evil, joy and sorrow, mingled with endless variety of proportion and innumerable modes of combination ; and expressing the course of the world, in which the loss of one is the gain of another; in which, at the same time, the reveller is hasting to his wine, and the mourner burying his friend...
Page 107 - When he found himself near the end of his work and in view of his reward, he shortened the labour to snatch the profit. He therefore remits his efforts where he should most vigorously exert them, and his catastrophe is improbably produced or imperfectly represented.