English Satire and SatiristsJ.M. Dent & sons Limited, 1925 - 325 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
admirable already appeared beginning better Butler Byron called cause century character Church close Court criticism deal doubt Dryden effective Elizabethan England English epigrams equal essay expression eyes fact Fair followed give greater Hall hand heart human imitations interesting John king known Lady later learning least less light lines literary literature live matter means measure merit mind moral nature never once passage passed perhaps piece play poem poet poetry political poor Pope probably prose question rarely reason reform religion respect ridicule satire satirist says seems sense shown shows side sort spirit stands style success Swift tells theme things thought true truth turn verse vices whole women write writers written wrote
Popular passages
Page 169 - Whether the nymph shall break Diana's law, Or some frail China jar receive a flaw ; Or stain her honour, or her new brocade; Forget her prayers, or miss a masquerade ; Or lose her heart, or necklace, at a ball; Or whether Heaven has doom'd that Shock must fall.
Page 65 - Full little knowest thou, that hast not tried, What hell it is in suing long to bide: To lose good days, that might be better spent; To waste long nights in pensive discontent; To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow; To feed on hope, to pine with fear and sorrow; To have thy prince's grace, yet want her peers...
Page 188 - Way of using Books at present, is twofold: Either first, to serve them as some Men do Lords, learn their Titles exactly, and then brag of their Acquaintance. Or Secondly, which is indeed the choicer, the profounder, and politer Method, to get a thorough Insight into the Index, by which the whole Book is governed and turned, like Fishes by the Tail.
Page 269 - And if I laugh at any mortal thing, 'Tis that I may not weep...
Page 172 - She comes ! she comes ! the sable throne behold Of Night primeval and of Chaos old ! Before her, fancy's gilded clouds decay, And all its varying rainbows die away. Wit shoots in vain its momentary fires, The meteor drops, and in a flash expires. As one by one, at dread Medea's strain, The sick'ning stars fade off th' ethereal plain ; As Argus
Page 220 - Nothing can be conceived more hard than the heart of a thorough-bred metaphysician. It comes nearer to the cold malignity of a wicked spirit than to the frailty and passion of a man. It is like that of the Principle of Evil himself, incorporeal, pure, unmixed, dephlegmated, defecated evil.
Page 177 - Vellom, and the rest as good For all his Lordship knows, but they are Wood. For Locke or Milton 'tis in vain to look, These shelves admit not any modern book.
Page 116 - But deeds, and language, such as men do use, And persons, such as comedy would choose, When she would shew an image of the times, And sport with human follies, not with crimes.
Page 22 - For if he yaf, he dorste make avaunt, He wiste that a man was repentaunt. For many a man so hard is of his herte, He may nat wepe al-thogh him sore smerte. 230 Therfore, in stede of weping and preyeres, Men moot yeve silver to the povre freres.
Page 71 - May all be bad ; doubt wisely ; in strange way To stand inquiring right, is not to stray ; To sleepe, or runne wrong, is.