The Works of the British Poets: With Prefaces, Biographical and Critical ...

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Robert Anderson
Arch, 1795 - English poetry

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Page 18 - Like leaves on trees the race of man is found, Now green in youth, now withering on the ground; Another race the following spring supplies; They fall successive, and successive rise: So generations in their course decay; So flourish these, when those are pass'd away.
Page iv - Homer was the greater genius ; Virgil, the better artist. In one we most admire the man ; in the other, the work. Homer hurries and transports us with a commanding impetuosity; Virgil leads us with an attractive majesty...
Page 329 - ... verum ubi plura nitent in carmine, non ego paucis offendar maculis, quas aut incuria fudit aut humana parum cavit natura.
Page 34 - Lo, seven are offer'd, and of equal charms. Then hear, Achilles ! be of better mind ; Revere thy roof, and to thy guests be kind ; And know the men, of all the Grecian host, Who honour worth, and prize thy valour most.
Page 94 - But least, the sons of Priam's hateful race. Die then, my friend! what boots it to deplore? The great, the good Patroclus is no more! He, far thy better, was foredoom'd to die, And thou, dost thou bewail mortality?
Page 400 - O'erleaps the fences of the nightly fold, And tears the peaceful flocks: with silent awe Trembling they lie, and pant beneath his paw. Nor with less rage Euryalus employs The wrathful sword, or fewer foes destroys; But on th' ignoble crowd his fury flew; He Fadus, Hebesus, and Rhoetus slew.
Page iv - Homer, what principally strikes us is his invention. It is that which forms the character of each part of his work; and accordingly we find it to have made his fable more...
Page iv - Italian operas, will find more sweetness, variety, and majesty of sound, than in any other language or poetry. The beauty of his numbers is allowed by the critics...
Page 102 - And his eyes stiffen'd at the hand of death; To the dark realm the spirit wings its way (The manly body left a load of clay,) And plaintive glides along the dreary coast, A naked, wandering, melancholy ghost! Achilles, musing as he roll'd his eyes O'er the dead hero, thus (unheard) replies; Die thou the first! When Jove and Heaven ordain, I follow thee...
Page 329 - His words are not only chosen, but the places in which he ranks them for the sound. He who removes them from the station wherein their master set them spoils the harmony. What he says of the Sibyl's prophecies may be as properly applied to every word of his: they must be read in order as they lie; the least breath discomposes them and somewhat of their divinity is lost.

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