Works: Life and Letters, Volume 2

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Saunders and Otley, 1835
 

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Page 340 - I would not have a slave to till my ground, To carry me, to fan me while I sleep, And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth That sinews bought and sold have ever earn'd.
Page 18 - If the flights of Dryden therefore, are higher, Pope continues longer on the wing. If of Dryden's fire the blaze is brighter, of Pope's the heat is more regular and constant. Dryden often surpasses expectation, and Pope never falls below it. Dryden is read with frequent astonishment, and Pope with perpetual delight.
Page 80 - With all her crew complete. Toll for the brave ! Brave Kempenfelt is gone ; His last sea-fight is fought ; His work of glory done. It was not in the battle ; No tempest gave the shock ; She sprang no fatal leak ; She ran upon no rock. His sword was in its sheath ; His fingers held the pen, When Kempenfelt went clown With twice four hundred men.
Page 127 - I'll tell you, friend! a wise man and a fool. You'll find, if once the monarch acts the monk Or, cobbler-like, the parson will be drunk, Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow, The rest is all but leather or prunella.
Page 18 - Dryden is sometimes vehement and rapid; Pope is always smooth, uniform, and gentle. Dryden's page is a natural field, rising into inequalities, and diversified by the varied exuberance of abundant vegetation; Pope's is a velvet lawn, shaven by the scythe, and levelled by the roller. Of genius, that power which constitutes a poet; that quality without which judgment is cold and knowledge is inert; that energy which collects, combines, amplifies, and animates; the superiority must, with some hestitation,...
Page 17 - Dryden knew more of man in his general nature, and Pope in his local manners.
Page 17 - The style of Dryden is capricious and varied; that of Pope is cautious and uniform. Dryden obeys the motions of his own mind; Pope constrains his mind to his own rules of composition. Dryden is sometimes vehement and rapid; Pope is always smooth, uniform, and gentle.
Page 344 - Religion stands on tiptoe in our land, Ready to pass to the American strand. When height of malice, and prodigious lusts, Impudent sinning, witchcrafts, and distrusts, (The marks of future bane,) shall fill our cup Unto the brim, and make our measure up ; THE CHURCH MILITANT.
Page 248 - I must have refused him, for he is on the side of the former. It is comfortable to be of no consequence in a world where one cannot exercise any without disobliging somebody. The town however seems to be much at his service, and if he be equally successful throughout the county, he will undoubtedly gain his election.
Page 63 - ... are watch-makers, who themselves are wits, and who at present perhaps think me one. Here is a carpenter and a baker, and not to mention others, here is your idol Mr. , whose smile is fame. All these read the Monthly Review, and all these will set me down for a dunce, if those terrible 'critics should show them the example.

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