Lectures on English Poets & The Spirit of the AgeJ. M. Dent & sons, Limited, 1928 - 349 pages |
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admiration affectation appear beauty Beggar's Opera blank verse Boccaccio breath character Chaucer Cobbett Coleridge common criticism delight describes Edinburgh Review English equal Essay expression fame fancy feeling flowers friends genius give Godwin grace ground hand heart heaven human idea imagination interest language Lectures less light living look Lord Byron Lyrical Ballads Malthus manner Milton mind modern moral Muse nature never object opinion pain passion perfect perhaps person philosophical pleasure poem poet poetical poetry political Pope praise prejudice pretensions principle prose reader reason Richard Dehmel sense sentiment Shakspeare shew Sir James Mackintosh Sir Walter Sir Walter Scott sort soul sound Southey speak Spenser spirit spleen striking style sweet thing thou thought Titian truth turn verse William Gifford WILLIAM HAZLITT wings words Wordsworth writer
Popular passages
Page 58 - All the images of nature were still present to him, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily. When he describes anything, you more than see it, you feel it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted learning give him the greater commendation. He was naturally learned. He needed not the spectacles of books to read nature. He looked inwards, and found her there.
Page 34 - I am now indebted, as being a work not to be raised from the heat of youth, or the vapours of wine; like that which flows at waste from the pen of some vulgar amorist, or the trencher fury of a rhyming parasite; nor to be obtained by the invocation of Dame Memory and her siren daughters; but by devout prayer to that eternal Spirit who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge...
Page 305 - Tis morn; but scarce yon level sun Can pierce the war-clouds, rolling dun Where furious Frank and fiery Hun Shout in their sulphurous canopy. The combat deepens. On, ye brave, Who rush to glory, or the grave!
Page 6 - Between the acting of a dreadful thing And the first motion, all the interim is Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream : The genius, and the mortal instruments, Are then in council; and the state of man, Like to a little kingdom, suffers then The nature of an insurrection.
Page 93 - While Spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont. And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve ! While Summer loves to sport Beneath thy lingering light : While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves, Or Winter, yelling through the troublous air, Affrights thy shrinking train, And rudely rends thy robes : So long, regardful of thy quiet rule, Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, smiling Peace, Thy gentlest influence own, And love thy favourite name ! THE PASSIONS.
Page 261 - Half-hidden, like a mermaid in sea-weed, Pensive awhile she dreams awake, and sees, In fancy, fair St. Agnes in her bed. But dares not look behind, or all the charm is fled.
Page 90 - tis madness to defer: Next day the fatal precedent will plead ; Thus on, till wisdom is push'd out of life. Procrastination is the thief of time ; Year after year it steals, till all are fled, And to the mercies of a moment leaves The vast concerns of an eternal scene.
Page 39 - And ever, against eating cares, Lap me in soft Lydian airs, Married to immortal verse, Such as the meeting soul may pierce, In notes with many a winding bout Of linked sweetness long drawn out With wanton heed and giddy cunning, The melting voice through mazes running, Untwisting all the chains that tie The hidden soul of harmony; That Orpheus...
Page 261 - Full on this casement shone the wintry moon, And threw warm gules on Madeline's fair breast, As down she knelt for heaven's grace and boon; Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest, And on her silver cross soft amethyst, And on her hair a glory, like a saint...
Page 49 - Tis with our judgments as our watches, none Go just alike, yet each believes his own.