Memoirs of Richard Cumberland

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Parry and McMillan, 1856 - 397 pages

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Page 191 - ... which he might be extricated. He then told me that he had a novel ready for the press, which he produced to me. I looked into it, and saw its merit ; told the landlady I should soon return, and having gone to a bookseller, sold it for sixty pounds. I brought Goldsmith the money, and he discharged his rent, not without rating his landlady in a high tone for having used him so ill '." My next meeting with Johnson was on Friday the 1st of July, when he and I and Dr.
Page 190 - I received one morning a message from poor Goldsmith that he was in great distress, and, as it was not in his power to come to me, begging that I would come to him as soon as possible. I sent him a guinea, and promised to come to him directly. I accordingly went as soon as I was dressed, and found that his landlady had arrested him for his rent, at which he was in a violent passion. I perceived that he had already changed my guinea, and had got a bottle of Madeira and a glass before him. I put the...
Page 307 - As an actor, confessed without rival to shine; As a wit, if not first, in the very first line. Yet with talents like these, and an excellent heart, The man had his failings, a dupe to his art: Like an ill-judging beauty his colours he spread, And beplastered with rouge his own natural red; On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting — 'Twas only that when he was off he was acting.
Page 189 - Here Cumberland lies, having acted his parts, The Terence of England, the mender of hearts; A flattering painter, who made it his care To draw men as they ought to be, not as they are.
Page 167 - Flow'd ere the wonted season, with a torrent So unexpected, and so wondrous fierce, That the wild deluge overtook the haste Ev'n of the hinds that watch'd it: men and beasts Were borne above the tops of trees, that grew On th' utmost margin of the water-mark.
Page 178 - ... and from vanity and an eager desire of being conspicuous wherever he was, he frequently talked carelessly without knowledge of the subject, or even without thought. His person was short, his countenance coarse and vulgar, his deportment that of a scholar awkwardly affecting the easy gentleman. Those who were in any way distinguished, excited envy in him to so ridiculous an excess, that the instances of it are hardly credible.
Page 176 - I pass over many anonymous letters I have received. Those in print are public ; and some of them have been brought judicially before the Court. Whoever the writers are, they take the wrong way. I will do my duty unawed. What am I to fear ? That mendax infamia...
Page 192 - For the saying which he cried by the word of the LORD against the altar in Beth-el, and against all the houses of the high places which are in the cities of Samaria, shall surely come to pass.
Page 47 - Horatio — heavens, what a transition! — it seemed as if a whole century had been swept over in the transition of a single scene; old things were done away and a new order at once brought forward, bright and luminous, and clearly destined to dispel the barbarisms and bigotry of a tasteless...
Page 177 - His mind resembled a fertile, but thin soil. There was a quick, but not a strong vegetation of whatever chanced to be thrown upon it. No deep root could be struck. The oak of the forest did not grow there ; but the elegant shrubbery and the fragrant parterre appeared in gay succession.

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