The Critical and Miscellaneous Prose Works of John Dryden: Now First Collected : with Notes and Illustrations, 1. köide,2. osaCadell and Davies, 1800 - 596 pages |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 38
Page 32
... humour , will they not give it ; and to whom , when they are froward , will they not refuse it ? Reputa- tion with them depends upon chance , unless they are guided by those above them . They are but the keepers , as it were , of the ...
... humour , will they not give it ; and to whom , when they are froward , will they not refuse it ? Reputa- tion with them depends upon chance , unless they are guided by those above them . They are but the keepers , as it were , of the ...
Page 83
... humour and pas- sions and this Lisideius himself , or any other , however biassed to their party , cannot but acknow- ledge , if he will either compare the humours of our comedies , or the characters of our serious plays , with theirs ...
... humour and pas- sions and this Lisideius himself , or any other , however biassed to their party , cannot but acknow- ledge , if he will either compare the humours of our comedies , or the characters of our serious plays , with theirs ...
Page 84
... humour ; he tells you himself , his way is , first to shew two lovers in good intelligence with each other ; in the working up of the play to embroil them by some mistake , and in the latter end to clear it , and reconcile them . But of ...
... humour ; he tells you himself , his way is , first to shew two lovers in good intelligence with each other ; in the working up of the play to embroil them by some mistake , and in the latter end to clear it , and reconcile them . But of ...
Page 85
... humour , and to enjoy it with any relish but why should he imagine the soul of man more heavy than his senses ? Does not the eye pass from an unpleasant object to a pleasant in a much shorter time than is required to this ? and does not ...
... humour , and to enjoy it with any relish but why should he imagine the soul of man more heavy than his senses ? Does not the eye pass from an unpleasant object to a pleasant in a much shorter time than is required to this ? and does not ...
Page 92
... HUMOUR , to which , I suppose , our author here alludes , 66 Mit . He cannot alter the scene without crossing the seas . " Cor . He need not , having a whole island to run " through , I thinke . " Mit . No ! how comes it then that in ...
... HUMOUR , to which , I suppose , our author here alludes , 66 Mit . He cannot alter the scene without crossing the seas . " Cor . He need not , having a whole island to run " through , I thinke . " Mit . No ! how comes it then that in ...
Contents
99 | |
108 | |
133 | |
134 | |
138 | |
140 | |
144 | |
150 | |
156 | |
158 | |
3 | |
9 | |
15 | |
25 | |
30 | |
38 | |
40 | |
41 | |
42 | |
43 | |
45 | |
46 | |
48 | |
49 | |
50 | |
51 | |
52 | |
53 | |
73 | |
76 | |
78 | |
83 | |
84 | |
86 | |
121 | |
143 | |
151 | |
207 | |
225 | |
227 | |
255 | |
266 | |
269 | |
291 | |
316 | |
317 | |
331 | |
347 | |
353 | |
363 | |
379 | |
395 | |
405 | |
415 | |
423 | |
Other editions - View all
The Critical and Miscellaneous Prose Works of John Dryden: Now First ... John Dryden No preview available - 2019 |
The Critical and Miscellaneous Prose Works of John Dryden: Now First ... John Dryden No preview available - 2014 |
Common terms and phrases
acted action admire Æneid afterwards alluded ancients appears argument Aristotle audience beauty believe Ben Jonson betwixt blank verse character Charles comedy confess Cotterstock Cousin Crites criticks daughter Dedication desire discourse DRAMATICK POESY Duke Earl earl of Dorset edition English errour Essay Eugenius excellent fancy father faults favour Fletcher French friends give heroick honour Horace humour ICON ANIMORUM imitation JACOB TONSON JOHN DRYDEN judge judgment kind King lady language last age letter lines Lisideius lord Buckhurst Lord Radcliffe Lord Roscommon Lordship MADAM nature never observed opinion Oundle Ovid passions person pleas'd plot poem poet poetry present printed probably publick quæ reason rhyme scenes Servant Shakspeare Shakspeare's shew SILENT WOMAN Sir Robert Howard sonn speak stage Steward supposed theatre things thought tion tragedy translated Virgil virtue words writ write written
Popular passages
Page 83 - 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 110 - This last is indeed the representation of nature, but 'tis nature wrought up to an higher pitch. The plot, the characters, the wit, the passions, the descriptions are all exalted above the level of common converse, as high as the imagination of the poet can carry them, with proportion to verisimility.
Page 83 - I cannot say he is everywhere alike; were he so, I should do him injury to compare him with the greatest of mankind. He is many times flat, insipid; his comic wit degenerating into clenches, his serious swelling into bombast. But he is always great when some great occasion is presented to him; no man can say he ever had a fit subject for his wit, and did not then raise himself as high above the rest of poets *Quantum lenta solent inter viburna cupressi.
Page 266 - ... saw before him. He knew that any other passion, as it was regular or exorbitant, was a cause of happiness or calamity. Characters thus ample and general were not easily discriminated and preserved; yet perhaps no poet ever kept his personages more distinct from each other. I will not say with Pope, that every speech may be assigned to the proper speaker...
Page 29 - ... almost a new nature has been revealed to us ? that more errors of the school have been detected, more useful experiments in philosophy have been made, more noble secrets in optics, medicine, anatomy, astronomy, discovered, than in all those credulous and doting ages from Aristotle to us ? — so true it is, that nothing spreads more fast than science, when rightly and generally cultivated.
Page 16 - Ne pueros coram populo Medea trucidet, Aut humana palam coquat exta nefarius Atreus, Aut in avem Progne vertatur, Cadmus in anguem. Quodcunque ostendis mihi sic , incredulus odi.
Page 86 - One cannot say he wanted wit, but rather that he was frugal of it. In his works you find little to retrench or alter. Wit and language, and humour also, in some measure, we had before him ; but something of art was wanting to the drama till he came.
Page 278 - And thus still doing, thus he pass'd along. DUCH. Alas, poor Richard! where rides he the whilst? YORK. As in a theatre, the eyes of men, After a well-grac'd actor leaves the stage, Are idly bent on him that enters next, Thinking his prattle to be tedious : Even so, or with much more contempt, men's eyes Did scowl on Richard ; no man cried, God save him...
Page 147 - Our language is noble, full, and significant, and I know not why he who is master of it may not clothe ordinary things in it as decently as the Latin, if he use the same diligence in his choice of words.
Page 166 - Pontus ; we know that there is neither war nor preparation for war; we know that we are neither in Rome nor Pontus, that neither Mithridates nor Lucullus are before us. The drama exhibits successive imitations of successive actions, and why may not the second imitation represent an action that happened years after the first if it be so connected with it that nothing but time can be supposed to intervene ? Time is, of all modes of existence, most obsequious to the imagination; a lapse of years is...