Sketches of the History of Literature and Learning in England ...: With Specimens of the Principal Writers, Volumes 5-6

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C. Knight & Company, 1845 - English language
 

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Page 192 - Like a glowworm golden In a dell of dew, Scattering unbeholden Its aerial hue Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view: Like a rose embowered In its own green leaves, By warm winds deflowered, Till the scent it gives Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged thieves. Sound of vernal showers On the twinkling grass, Rain-awakened flowers, All that ever was Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass.
Page 60 - Truth may, perhaps, come to the price of a pearl that showeth best by day, but it will not rise to the price of a diamond or carbuncle that showeth best in varied lights. A mixture of a lie doth ^ever add pleasure. Doth any man doubt that if there were taken out of men's minds vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would, and the like, but it would leave the minds of a number of men poor shrunken things, full of melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves?
Page 18 - Tis now become a history little known, That once we call'd the pastoral house our own. Short-lived possession ! but the record fair, That memory keeps of all thy kindness there, Still outlives many a storm, that has effaced A thousand other themes less deeply traced.
Page 21 - Rose like an exhalation, with the sound Of dulcet symphonies and voices sweet— Built like a temple, where pilasters round Were set, and Doric pillars overlaid With golden architrave; nor did there want Cornice or frieze, with bossy sculptures graven: The roof was fretted gold.
Page 89 - Or brew fierce tempests on the wintry main, Or o'er the glebe distil the kindly rain ; Others on earth o'er human race preside, Watch all their ways and all their actions guide.
Page 18 - All this, and more endearing still than all, Thy constant flow of love, that knew no fall, Ne'er roughen'd by those cataracts and breaks, That humour interposed too often makes ; All this still legible in memory's page, And still to be so to my latest age. Adds joy to duty, makes me glad to pay Such honours to thee as my numbers may ; Perhaps a frail memorial, but sincere, Not scorned in heaven, though little noticed here.
Page 75 - Unskilful he to note the card Of prudent Lore, Till billows rage, and gales blow hard, And whelm him o'er...
Page 194 - MY HEART aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk...
Page 225 - You will observe, that, from Magna Charta to the Declaration of Right, it has been the uniform policy of our Constitution to claim and assert our liberties as an entailed inheritance derived to us from our forefathers, and to be transmitted to our posterity, — as an estate specially belonging to the people of this kingdom, without any reference whatever to any other more general or prior right.
Page 132 - The end of man's existence I discerned, Who from ignoble games and revelry Could draw, when we had parted, vain delight, While tears were thy best pastime, day and night ; "And while my youthful peers before my eyes (Each hero following his peculiar bent) Prepared themselves for glorious enterprise By martial sports, — or, seated in the tent, Chieftains and kings in council were detained ; What time the fleet at Aulis lay enchained.

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