The History of Fiction: Being a Critical Account of the Most Celebrated Prose Works of Fiction, from the Earliest Greek Romances to the Novels of the Present Age, Volume 1

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J. Ballentyne and Company, 1816 - Fiction - 508 pages
 

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Page 107 - Drink to me only with thine eyes, And I will pledge with mine; Or leave a kiss but in the cup And I'll not look for wine. The thirst that from the soul doth rise Doth ask a drink divine; But might I of Jove's nectar sup, I would not change for thine.
Page xxvi - And as real history gives us not the success of things according to the deserts of vice and virtue, Fiction corrects it, and presents us with the fates and fortunes of persons rewarded or punished according to merit.
Page 172 - Magliabechi, librarian to the Grand Duke of Tuscany : several fine copies of verses were wrote on so rare a subject ; but at last Mr Bobart owned the cheat ; however, it was looked upon as a masterpiece of art, and, as such, deposited in the Museum, or Anatomy School, where I saw it some years after.
Page 276 - Levitical law," (Numbers v. 11—31,) continues that accurate writer, " there was prescribed a mode of trial, which consisted in the suspected person drinking water in the tabernacle. The mythological fable of the trial by the Stygian fountain, which disgraced the guilty by the waters rising so as to cover the laurel wreath of the unchaste female who dared the examination, probably 'had its origin in some of the early institutions of Greece or Egypt. Hence the notion was adopted in the Greek romances,...
Page 305 - There, renew'd the vital spring, Again he reigns a mighty king ; And many a fair and fragrant clime, Blooming in immortal prime, By gales of Eden ever fann'd...
Page 304 - O'er the fainting hero threw Her mantle of ambrosial blue; And bade her spirits bear him far, In Merlin's agate-axled car, To her green isle's enamelled steep Far in the navel of the deep.
Page xvi - ... by their favourite Knights. Some faint traditions of the ancients might have been kept glimmering and alive during the whole barbarous ages, as they are called ; and it is not impossible but these have been the parents of the Genii in the Eastern and the Fairies in the Western world.
Page 305 - In groves of golden bliss to dwell ; Where, crowned with wreaths of misletoe, Slaughter'd kings in glory go : But when he fell, with winged speed, His champions, on a milk-white steed, From the battle's hurricane, Bore him to Joseph's...
Page 306 - His champions, on' a milkwhite steed, From the battle's hurricane Bore him to Joseph's towered fane, In the fair vale of Avalon* : There, with chanted orison And the long blaze of tapers clear, The stoled fathers met the bier : Through the dim aisles, in order dread Of martial woe, the chief they led, And deep entomb'd in holy ground, Before the altar's solemn bound.
Page 74 - These are frequently founded on the exposure of children who, after being brought up as shepherds by reputed fathers, are discovered by their real parents by means of tokens fastened to them when they were abandoned. There is also a considerable resemblance between the story of Daphnis and Chloe and that of the Gentle Shepherd : the plot was suggested to Ramsay by one of his friends, who seems to have taken it from the Greek pastoral. Marmontel, too, in his Annette and Lubin, has imitated the simplicity...

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