The British Poets: Including Translations ...

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C. Whittingham, 1822

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Page 103 - 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 72 - Who but must laugh if such a man there be ? Who would not weep if Atticus were he?
Page 218 - Hampton takes its name. Here Britain's statesmen oft the fall foredoom Of foreign tyrants, and of nymphs at home ; Here thou, great ANNA ! whom three realms obey, Dost sometimes counsel take — and sometimes tea. Hither the heroes and the nymphs resort, To taste awhile the pleasures of a court ; In various talk th...
Page 103 - 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. 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...
Page 36 - As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night, O'er Heaven's clear azure spreads her sacred light, When not a breath disturbs the deep serene, And not a cloud o'ercasts the solemn scene ; Around her throne the vivid planets roll, And stars unnumber'd gild the glowing pole, O'er the dark trees a yellower verdure shed, And tip with silver every mountain's head ; Then shine the vales, the rocks in prospect rise, A flood of glory bursts from all the skies : The conscious swains, rejoicing in the sight, Eye...
Page 229 - Why bows the side-box from its inmost rows ? How vain are all these glories, all our pains, Unless good sense preserve what beauty gains ; That men may say, when we the front-box grace, Behold the first in virtue as in face...
Page 101 - He wrote, and professed to write, merely for the people ; and when he pleased others, he contented himself. He spent no time in struggles to rouse latent powers ; he never attempted to make that better which was already good, nor often to mend what he must have known to be faulty. He wrote, as he tells us, with very little consideration ; when occasion or necessity called upon him, he poured out what the present moment happened to supply, and, when once it had passed the press, ejected it from his...
Page 227 - She said ; then raging to Sir Plume repairs, And bids her beau demand the precious hairs : (Sir Plume, of amber snuff-box justly vain, And the nice conduct of a clouded cane...
Page 213 - Repairs her smiles, awakens every grace, And calls forth all the wonders of her face ; Sees by degrees a purer blush arise, And keener lightnings quicken in her eyes. The busy sylphs surround their darling care...
Page 190 - No more shall nation against nation rise, Nor ardent warriors meet with hateful eyes,' Nor fields with gleaming steel be cover'd o'er ; The brazen trumpets kindle rage no more ; But useless lances into scythes shall bend, And the broad falchion in a ploughshare end.

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