The Miscellaneous Works: Containing All His Original Poems, Tales, and Translations, Volume 1

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J. and R. Tonson, 1760 - English poetry

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Page 177 - A man so various that he seemed to be Not one, but all mankind's epitome : Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong, Was everything by starts and nothing long; But in the course of one revolving moon Was chymist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon ; Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking, Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking.
Page xlii - Through the azure deep of air : Yet oft before his infant eyes would run Such forms, as glitter in the Muse's ray With orient hues, unborrow'd of the sun : Yet shall he mount, and keep his distant way Beyond the limits of a vulgar fate ; Beneath the good how far — but far above the great ! ODE VI.
Page 63 - The composition of all poems is, or ought to be, of wit; and wit in the poet, or Wit writing (if you will give me leave to use a school-distinction), is no other than the faculty of imagination in the writer, which, like a nimble spaniel, beats over and ranges through the field of memory, till it springs the quarry it hunted after; or, without metaphor, which searches over all the memory for the species or ideas of those things which it designs to represent.
Page 163 - Oh ! had he been content to serve the crown With virtues only proper to the gown, Or had the rankness of the soil been freed From cockle that oppressed the noble seed, David for him his tuneful harp had strung And Heaven had wanted one immortal song.
Page 158 - An idol monarch which their hands had made; Thought they might ruin him they could create Or melt him to that golden calf — a State.
Page 195 - Law they require, let law then show her face ; They could not be content to look on grace, Her hinder parts, but with a daring eye To tempt the terror of her front, and die. By their own arts 'tis righteously decreed, Those dire artificers of death shall bleed...
Page 162 - Refuse his age the needful hours of rest? Punish a body which he could not please ; Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease ? And all to leave what with his toil he won, To that unfeather'd two-legg'd thing, a son ; Got, while his soul did huddled notions try ; And born a shapeless lump, like anarchy.
Page 313 - Tis some relief, that points not clearly known, Without much hazard, may be let alone...
Page 184 - And all his pow'r against himself employs. He gives, and let him give my right away: But why should he his own, and yours betray? He, only he can make the nation bleed, And he alone from my revenge is freed. Take then my tears...
Page 216 - Doeg, though without knowing how or why, Made still a blundering kind of melody; Spurred boldly on, and dashed through thick and thin Through sense and nonsense, never out nor in: Free from all meaning, whether good or bad, And, in one word, heroically mad, He was too warm on picking-work to dwell, But faggoted his notions as they fell, And, if they rhymed and rattled, all was well.

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