Memoirs of Richard Cumberland, Volume 1

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Lackington, Allen, & Company, 1807 - 432 pages

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Page 363 - Tavern, in a considerable body, for an early dinner, where Samuel Johnson took the chair, at the head of a long table, and was the life and soul of the corps. The poet took post silently by his side, with the Burkes, Sir Joshua Reynolds...
Page 348 - Temple, he showed me the beginning of his 'Animated Nature;' it was with a sigh, such as genius draws, when hard necessity diverts it from its bent to drudge for bread, and talk of birds, and beasts, and' creeping things, which Pidcock's showman would have done as well.
Page 349 - Buffon into English, yet I much doubt, if without that spur he would ever have put his Pegasus into action : no, if he had been rich, the world would have been poorer than it is by the loss of all the treasures of his genius and the contributions of his pen.
Page 350 - If fortune had turned him into a field of clover, he would have laid down and rolled in it. The mere manual labour of writing would not have allowed his lassitude and love of ease to have taken the pen out of the inkhorn, unless the cravings of hunger had reminded him that he must fill the sheet before he saw the table cloth. He might indeed have knocked down Osbourne for a blockhead, but' he would not have knocked him down with a folio of his own writing.
Page 364 - I had the honour to be deputed to that office. I planted him in an upper box, pretty nearly over the stage, in full view of the pit and galleries, and perfectly well situated to give the echo all its play through the hollows and recesses of the theatre.
Page 79 - ... when, after long and eager expectation, I first beheld little Garrick, then young and light and alive in every muscle and in every feature, come bounding on the stage, and pointing at the wittol Altamont and heavy -paced Horatio — heavens, what a transition!
Page 362 - have " very different motives for resorting to the " stage. I write for money, and care little " about fame — " I was touched by this melancholy confession, and from that moment busied myself assiduously amongst all my connexions in his cause. The whole company pledged themselves to the support of the ingenuous poet, and faithfully kept their promise to him.
Page 187 - It was an interlude truly comic and amusing. Beckford, loud, voluble, self-sufficient, and galled by hits, which he could not parry, and probably did not expect, laid himself more and more open in the vehemence of his argument ¡ Dodington, lolling in his chair in perfect apathy and selfcommand...
Page 366 - Reynolds's and my house, should meet at the St. James's Coffee-house, which accordingly took place, and was occasionally repeated with much festivity and good fellowship. Dr. Bernard, Dean of Deny, a very amiable and old friend of mine, Dr. Douglas, since Bishop of Salisbury, Johnson, David Garrick, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Oliver Goldsmith, Edmund and Richard Burke, Hickey, with two or three others, constituted our party.
Page 149 - I'm thinking, Pierre, how that damned starving quality Called Honesty got footing in the world. Pierr. Why, powerful Villainy first set it up, For its own ease and safety: honest men Are the soft easy cushions on which knaves Repose and fatten...