Essays Biographical and Critical: Chiefly on English PoetsMacmillan, 1856 - 475 pages |
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Page 5
... human faculties seem to have reached that extreme of expansion , on the slightest increase beyond which man would burst away into some other mode of being , and leave this behind . And why all this ? What are the special claims of ...
... human faculties seem to have reached that extreme of expansion , on the slightest increase beyond which man would burst away into some other mode of being , and leave this behind . And why all this ? What are the special claims of ...
Page 13
... human being completely idle . All men have some natural and con- genial mood into which they fall when they are left to talk with themselves . One man recounts the follies of the past day , renewing the relish of them by the ...
... human being completely idle . All men have some natural and con- genial mood into which they fall when they are left to talk with themselves . One man recounts the follies of the past day , renewing the relish of them by the ...
Page 14
... human nature . It was Shakespeare's use , as it seems to us , to revert often , when alone , to that ultimate mood of the soul , in which one hovers wistfully on the borders of the finite , vainly pressing against the barriers that ...
... human nature . It was Shakespeare's use , as it seems to us , to revert often , when alone , to that ultimate mood of the soul , in which one hovers wistfully on the borders of the finite , vainly pressing against the barriers that ...
Page 16
... human life as a whole ; the melancholy of a mind incessantly tending from the real ( τα φυσικα ) to the metaphysical ( τα μετα τα φυσικα ) , and only brought back by external occasion from the meta- physical to the real . Do not let us ...
... human life as a whole ; the melancholy of a mind incessantly tending from the real ( τα φυσικα ) to the metaphysical ( τα μετα τα φυσικα ) , and only brought back by external occasion from the meta- physical to the real . Do not let us ...
Page 19
... human conceptions ; to stand , therefore , incessantly upon these extreme conceptions , as upon the perimeter of a figure , and to view all inwards from them , is the highest exercise of thought to which a human being can attain ...
... human conceptions ; to stand , therefore , incessantly upon these extreme conceptions , as upon the perimeter of a figure , and to view all inwards from them , is the highest exercise of thought to which a human being can attain ...
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acquaintance angels antique appearance Barrett Beckford Ben Jonson Bristol Brooke Street Burgum burletta called Catcott character Chatterton circumstance Clayfield Coffee-house Colston's school concrete connexion death Devil drama Dryden England English expression fact faculty fancy feeling genius Goethe Goethe's going habit hand honour human imagination imitation intellectual kind language letter literary literature lived London Lord Luther Magazine matter means Mephistopheles metre Milton mind nation nature never night North Briton Paradise Lost passage passion peculiar person piece poem poet poetical poetry political poor prose published regard respect rhyme Rowley Satan satire Scotchmen Scottish seems Shakespeare Shoreditch Sir Herbert Croft sister song soul spirit Stella style Swift terton things THOMAS CHATTERTON thou thought tion town tragedy UNIVERSITY verse walk Walpole Whig Whiggism whole Wilkes words Wordsworth write written young
Popular passages
Page 11 - Desiring this man's art and that man's scope, With what I most enjoy contented least; Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, Haply I think on thee, and then my state, Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate; For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
Page 3 - I remember, the players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare, that in his writing (whatsoever he penned) he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been, Would he had blotted a thousand.
Page 54 - Thus Satan, talking to his nearest mate, With head uplift above the wave, and eyes That sparkling blazed ; his other parts besides, Prone on the flood, extended long and large, Lay floating many a rood...
Page 433 - Less Philomel will deign a song, In her sweetest saddest plight, Smoothing the rugged brow of night, While Cynthia checks her dragon yoke, Gently o'er the accustom'd oak : Sweet bird, that shunn'st the noise of folly, Most musical, most melancholy...
Page 452 - And the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept: and as he went, thus he said, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom!
Page 47 - I was confirmed in this opinion, that he, who would not be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things, ought himself to be a true poem...
Page 370 - How exquisitely the individual Mind (And the progressive powers perhaps no less Of the whole species) to the external World Is fitted : — and how exquisitely, too — Theme this but little heard of among men — The external World is fitted to the Mind; And the creation (by no lower name Can it be called) which they with blended might Accomplish: — this is our high argument.
Page 453 - ... boy, That he shouts with his sister at play ! O well for the sailor lad, That he sings in his boat on the bay ! And the stately ships go on To their haven under the hill ; But O for the touch of a...
Page 453 - And the stately ships go on To their haven under the hill ; But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand, And the sound of a voice that is still ! Break, break, break, At the foot of thy crags, O Sea ! But the tender grace of a day that is dead Will never come back to me.
Page 27 - They that have power to hurt and will do none, That do not do the thing they most do show, Who, moving others, are themselves as stone...