The Works of John Dryden: Illustrated, with Notes, Historical, Critical, and Explanatory, and a Life of the Author by Sir Walter Scott, 15. köide

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William Patterson, 1892

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Page 344 - He was the man who of all modern, and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul, All the images of Nature were still present to him, and he drew them, not laboriously, but luckily: when he describes any thing, you more than see it, you feel it too.
Page 293 - Is it not evident, in these last hundred years, (when the study of philosophy has been the business of all the virtuosi in Christendom) that almost a new nature has been revealed to us...
Page 324 - ... the hero of the other side is to drive in before him; or to see a duel fought and one slain with two or three thrusts of the foils, which we know are so blunted that we might give a man an hour to kill another in good earnest with them. "I have observed that in all our tragedies the audience cannot forbear laughing when the actors are to die; 'tis the most comic part of the whole play.
Page 338 - He rather prays you will be pleased to see One such to-day, as other plays should be ; Where neither chorus wafts you o'er the seas...
Page 346 - Humour, which Ben 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.
Page 285 - After they had attentively listened, till such time as the sound by little and little went from them, Eugenius, lifting up his head and taking notice of it, was the first who congratulated to the rest that happy omen of our nation's victory, adding that we had but this to desire in confirmation of it, that we might hear no more of that noise which was now leaving the English coast.
Page 159 - Thus while he spoke, unmindful of defence, A winged arrow struck the pious prince. But, whether from some human hand it came, Or hostile god, is left unknown by fame ; No human hand, or hostile god, was found, 485 To boast the triumph of so base a wound. When Turnus saw the Trojan quit the plain, His chiefs dismay'd, his troops a fainting train, Th...
Page 332 - 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 296 - ... that the time of the feigned action, or fable of the play, should be proportioned as near as can be to the duration of that time in which it is represented...
Page 299 - I can never see one of those plays which are now written, but it increases my admiration of the ancients. And yet I must acknowledge further, that to admire them as we ought, we should understand them better than we do.

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