Biographia Classica: The Lives and Characters of All the Classic Authors, the Grecian and Roman Poets, Historians, Orators, and Biographers. With an Historical and Critical Account of Them and Their Writings ...

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D. Browne, 1750

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Page 181 - We ought to have a certain knowledge of the principal character and distinguishing excellence of each; it is in that we are to consider him, and in proportion to his degree in that we are to admire him. No author or man...
Page 14 - Aristotle had reason to say, he was the only poet who had found out living words ; there are in him more daring figures and metaphors than in any good author whatever. An arrow is impatient to be on the wing, a weapon thirsts to drink the blood of an enemy, and the like.
Page 45 - Tis neither love nor poesy Can arm, against death's smallest dart, The poet's head or lover's heart; But when their life, in its decline, Touches the' inevitable line, All the world's mortal to them then, And wine is aconite to men; Nay, in death's hand, the grape-stone proves As strong as thunder is in Jove's.
Page 181 - No author or man ever excelled all the world in more than one faculty, and as Homer has done this in invention, Virgil has in judgment. Not that we...
Page 182 - ... all about him, and conquers with tranquillity. And when we look upon their machines, Homer...
Page 45 - The Odes of Anacreon," says Rapin, " are flowers, beauties, and perpetual graces : it is familiar to him to write what is natural; he has an air so delicate, easy, and graceful, that, among all the ancients, there is nothing comparable to the method he took, nor to that kind of writing he followed. He flows soft and easy, every whew diffusing the joy and indolence of his mind through all his compositions, and tuning his harp to the pleasant and happy temper of his soul.
Page 251 - Nero himfelf was not only fond of it to the higheft degree, but, as moft bad poets are, 'was vain and conceited of his performances in that kind. He valued himfelf more upon his...
Page 282 - I can bear; he fully satisfies my expectation; he treats his subject home; his spleen is raised, and he raises mine. I have the pleasure of concernment in all he says; he drives his reader along with him, and when he is at the end of his way, I willingly stop with him. If he went another stage, it would be too far; it would make a journey of a progress, and turn delight into fatigue.
Page 193 - Scaliger says, only shows his white teeth, he cannot provoke me to any laughter. His urbanity, that is, his good manners, are to be commended, but his wit is faint; and his salt, if I may dare to say so, almost insipid.
Page 1 - Mentes returning to Ithaca, found Homer cured. They embarked together, and after much time fpent in vifiting the Coafts...

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