The British Essayists: SpectatorLionel Thomas Berguer T. and J. Allman, 1823 |
Common terms and phrases
Acarnania acquaintance actions admiration agreeable Alcibiades appear Aristotle beautiful behaviour Castilian cerning characters circumstances consider conversation creature desire Diogenes Laertius discourse endeavour esteem evil fancy father favour female freethinker frequently gentleman give happiness heart honour Hudibras human humble servant humour husband imagination innocent Ionian sea Kate Cole kind labour lady leap letter Leucate live look lover Lover's Leap mankind manner matter means mention merit mind mirth modesty nature nerally never nurse obliged observe occasion October 30 OVID paper particular passion person philosopher pleased pleasure Plutarch poet pray present proper racter reader reason received renegado ridicule salamander Sappho sense shew short Simonides Socrates sometimes soul speak species SPECTATOR speculation spirit tell temper thing thought tion town turn verses VIRG virtue whole wife woman women word write young
Popular passages
Page 91 - ... a block of marble; and that the art of the statuary only clears away the superfluous matter, and removes the rubbish. The figure is in the stone, the sculptor only finds it. What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to a human soul. The philosopher, the saint, or the hero, the wise, the good, or the great man, very often lie hid and concealed in a plebeian, which a proper education might have dis-interred, and have brought to light.
Page 256 - These, equal syllables alone require, tho' oft the ear the open vowels tire; 345 while expletives their feeble aid do join, and ten low words oft creep in one dull line: while they ring round the same unvary'd chimes, with sure returns of still expected rhymes; where'er you find " the cooling western breeze...
Page 239 - Euphrosyne, And by men, heart-easing Mirth, Whom lovely Venus at a birth With two sister Graces more To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore...
Page 229 - I have been forced to relinquish that opinion, and have therefore endeavoured to seek after some better reason. In order to it, a friend of mine, who is an excellent anatomist, has promised me by the first opportunity to dissect a woman's tongue, and to examine whether there may not be in it certain juices which render it so wonderfully voluble or flippant...
Page 2 - If exercise throws off all superfluities, temperance prevents them ; if e.xercise clears the vessels, temperance neither satiates nor overstrains. them ; if exercise. raises proper ferments in the humours, and promotes the circulation of the bood, temperance gives nature her full play, and enables her to exert herself in all her force and vigour ; if exercise dissipates a growing distemper, temperance starves it. Physic for the most part is nothing else but the substitute of exercise or temperance.
Page 239 - Jest, and youthful jollity, Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles, Nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles Such as hang on Hebe's cheek, And love to live in dimple sleek; Sport that wrinkled Care derides, And Laughter holding both his sides: Come, and trip it as you go On the light fantastic toe; And in thy right hand lead with thee The mountain nymph, sweet Liberty; And if I give thee honour due, Mirth, admit me of thy crew, To live with her, and live with thee In unreprove'd pleasures free...
Page 235 - ... said my friend, carried his royal inclination a little too far, and there was a committee ordered to look into the . management of his treasury. Among other things it appeared, that his majesty walking incog, in the cloister, had overheard a poor man say to another, " Such a small sum would make me the happiest man in the world.
Page 65 - I am more pleased with, than those who show human nature in a variety of views, and describe the several ages of the world in their different manners. A reader cannot be more rationally entertained than by comparing the virtues and vices of his own times with...
Page 187 - At the foot of the mountain thereissued out a clear spring of water, at which a soldier alighted from his horse to drink. He was no sooner gone than a little boy came to the same place, and finding a purse of gold which the soldier had dropped, took it up and went away with it. Immediately after this came an infirm old man, weary with age and travelling, and having quenched his thirst, sat down to rest himself by the side of the spring.
Page 256 - The sound must seem an echo to the sense. Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows, And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows ; But when loud surges lash the sounding shore. The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar. When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw. The line too labors, and the words move slow. Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain, Flies o'er the unbending corn, and skims along the main. Hear how Timotheus...