The British Essayists; with Prefaces, Historical and Biographical,: The Rambler

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E. Sargeant, and M. & W. Ward; and Munroe, Francis & Parker, and Edward Cotton, Boston., 1811
 

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Page 190 - 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 182 - Be of good courage, I begin to feel Some rousing motions in me, which dispose To something extraordinary my thoughts.
Page 189 - 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 102 - To imitate the fictions and sentiments of Spenser can incur no reproach, for allegory is perhaps one of the most pleasing vehicles of instruction. But I am very far from extending the same respect to his diction or his stanza. His style was in his own time allowed to be vicious, so darkened with old words and peculiarities of phrase, and so remote from common use, that Jonson boldly pronounces him
Page 188 - No strength of man or fiercest wild beast could withstand ; Who tore the lion...
Page 50 - For, who can congratulate himself upon a life passed 'without some act more mischievous to the peace or prosperity of others, than the theft of...
Page 189 - Out, out, hyaena! these are thy wonted arts, And arts of every woman false like thee...
Page 271 - The wits of these happy days have discovered a way to fame, which the dull caution of our laborious ancestors durst never attempt; they cut the knots of sophistry which it was formerly the business of years to untie, solve difficulties by sudden irradiations of intelligence, and comprehend long processes of argument by immediate intuition.
Page 163 - Who dares think one thing, and another tell, My heart detests him as the gates of hell.
Page 186 - Depress'd and overthrown as seem'd, Like that self-begotten bird In the Arabian woods embost, That no second knows, nor third, And lay erewhile a holocaust.

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