The Works of John Dryden: Now First Collected ...

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W. Miller, 1808

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Page 353 - But he has done his robberies so openly, that one may see he fears not to be taxed by any law. He invades authors like a monarch ; and what would be theft in other poets, is only victory in him.
Page 339 - A continued gravity keeps the spirit too much bent; we must refresh it sometimes, as we bait in a journey, that we may go on with greater ease.
Page 354 - Rome to us, in its rites, ceremonies and customs, that if one of their poets had written either of his tragedies, we had seen less of it than in him. If there was any fault in his language...
Page 374 - Blank verse is acknowledged to be too low for a poem, nay more, for a paper of verses ; but if too low ~> . for an ordinary sonnet, how much more for tragedy, which is by Aristotle, in the dispute betwixt the epic poesy and the Dramatic, for many reasons he there alleges, ranked above it...
Page 303 - But now, since the rewards of honour are taken away, that virtuous emulation is turned into direct malice, yet so slothful, that it contents itself to condemn and cry down others without attempting to do better.
Page 325 - ... distinct webs in a play, like those in ill-wrought stuffs; and two actions, that is, two plays, carried on together, to the confounding of the audience; who, before they are warm in their concernments for one part, are diverted to another; and by that means espouse the interest of neither.
Page 313 - Oedipus, knew as well as the poet that he had killed his father by a mistake and committed incest with his mother before the play; that they were now to hear of a great plague, an oracle, and the ghost of Laius...
Page 301 - ... expresses so much the conversation of a gentleman, as Sir John Suckling ; nothing so even, sweet, and flowing, as Mr Waller ; nothing so majestic, so correct, as Sir John Denham ; nothing so elevated, so copious, and full of spirit, as Mr Cowley.
Page 352 - Jonson derived from particular persons, they made it not their business to describe : they represented all the passions very lively, but above all, love. I am apt to believe the English language in them arrived to its highest perfection ; what words have since been taken in, are rather superfluous than ornamental. Their plays are now the most pleasant and frequent entertainments of the stage...
Page 321 - Ovid ; he had a way of writing so fit to stir up a pleasing admiration and concernment, which are the objects of a tragedy, and to shew the various movements of a soul combating betwixt two different passions, that, had he lived in our age, or in his own could have writ with our advantages, no man but must have yielded to him...

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