The Critical and Miscellaneous Prose Works of John Dryden: Now First Collected: with Notes and Illustrations; an Account of the Life and Writings of the Author, Grounded on Original and Authentick Documents; and a Collection of His Letters, the Greater Part of which Has Never Before Been Published, Volume 3T. Cadell, jun. and W. Davies, 1800 |
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action admirable Æneas Æneid ÆNEIS afterwards amongst ancient appear Aristotle Augustus Augustus Cæsar beauty better betwixt Boccace Cæsar called Casaubon character Chaucer commendation confess copy criticks Dido Discourse Dryd Dryden Earl Eclogues endeavoured English Ennius epick poem errour excellent expression father fault French genius Georgick give given Grecians Greek hero heroick Homer honour Horace Iliad imitated invention JOHN DRYDEN judge judgment Julius Cæsar Jupiter Juvenal kind language Latin learned least lived Livius Andronicus Lord Lordship Lucian Lucilius Lucretius Lycortas manner master modern nature never noble numbers observed opinion original Ovid painter passage passions perfect Persius persons Petrarch pleased pleasure poet poetry Polybius praise Preface publick reader reason Roman Rome satire Satyrs Segrais sense shew sort speak suppose Theocritus things thought tion tragedy translation Turnus verse Virgil virtue wholly words write written
Popular passages
Page 214 - When first on this delightful land he spreads His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flower, Glist'ring with dew; fragrant the fertile earth After soft showers ; and sweet the coming on Of grateful evening mild ; then silent night With this her solemn bird and this fair moon, And these the gems of heaven, her starry train : But neither breath of morn when she ascends With charm of earliest birds...
Page 189 - A man so various, that he seemed to be Not one, but all mankind's epitome : Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong ; Was everything by starts, and nothing long ; But, in the course of one revolving moon, Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon : Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking, Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking.
Page 615 - Tis sufficient to say, according to the proverb, that here is God's plenty. We have our forefathers and great grand-dames all before us, as they were in Chaucer's days: their general characters are still remaining in mankind, and even in England, though they are called by other names than those of Monks, and Friars, and Canons, and Lady Abbesses, and Nuns; 'for mankind is ever the same, and nothing lost out of nature, though everything is altered.
Page 636 - I shall say the less of Mr. Collier, because in many things he has taxed me justly; and I have pleaded guilty to all thoughts and expressions of mine, which can be truly argued of obscenity, profaneness, or immorality, and retract them. If he be my enemy, let him triumph ; if he be my friend, as I have given him no personal occasion to be otherwise, he will be glad of my repentance.
Page 593 - Tales, their humours, their features, and the very dress, as distinctly as if I had supped with them at the Tabard in Southwark.
Page 189 - In the first rank of these did Zimri stand, A man so various that he seemed to be Not one, but all mankind's epitome : Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong, Was everything by starts and nothing...
Page 581 - What judgment I had, increases rather than diminishes; and thoughts, such as they are, come crowding in so fast upon me that my only difficulty is to choose or to reject, to run them into verse or to give them the other harmony of prose...
Page 632 - Achitophel, which he thinks is a little hard on his fanatic patrons in London. But I will deal the more civilly with his two poems, because nothing ill is to be spoken of the dead: and therefore peace be to the Manes of his Arthurs.
Page 617 - If I had desired more to please than to instruct, the Reeve, the Miller, the Shipman, the Merchant, the Sumner, and, above all, the Wife of Bath, in the Prologue to her Tale, would have procured me as many friends and readers as there are beaux and ladies of pleasure in the town.
Page 613 - ... if I shall think fit hereafter; to describe another sort of priests, such as are more easily to be found than the good parson; such as have given the last blow to Christianity in this age, by a practice so contrary to their doctrine.