Prefaces and Prologues to Famous BooksJames Spedding Collier, 1910 - 437 pages |
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admiration ancient appear Aristotle artist beautiful burlesque cause character Chaucer Christ Christian comedy composition criticism diction divine drama earth effect English epic Euripides everything eyes Faery Queene Fancy father feelings genius give grotesque hath Hippolyte Adolphe Taine Homer human ideas Iliad imagination imitation intellect judgment King King Arthur knowledge labour language laws Le Cid less literature living Lord manner matter ment metre mind modern Molière nations nature never noble object observation opinion Ossian Ovid Paradise Lost passages passions perhaps persons philosophy pleasure poems poet poetical poetry Pope preface present produced prose reader reason religion sense sentiments Shakespeare sometimes soul speak spirit style sublime Tartuffe taste therein things thought tion tragedy translated true truth unto verse Victor Hugo Virgil Voltaire whole William Caxton words write
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Page 301 - As a huge stone is sometimes seen to lie Couched on the bald top of an eminence ; Wonder to all who do the same espy, By what means it could thither come, and whence; So that it seems a thing endued with sense : Like a sea-beast crawled forth, that on a shelf Of rock or sand reposeth, there to sun itself...
Page 217 - When, upon some slight encouragement, I first visited your lordship, I was overpowered, like the rest of mankind, by the enchantment...
Page 174 - But enough of this : there is such a variety of game springing up before me, that I am distracted in my choice, and know not which to follow. Tis sufficient to say, according to the proverb, that here is God's plenty.
Page 34 - For therefore we both labor and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God who is the Saviour of all men, especially of those that believe.
Page 301 - She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes In shape no bigger than an agate-stone On the forefinger of an alderman, Drawn with a team of little atomies Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep : Her waggon-spokes made of long spinners...
Page 220 - Nothing can please many, and please long, but just representations of general nature. Particular manners can be known to few, and therefore few only can judge how nearly they are copied. The irregular combinations of fanciful invention may delight awhile, by that novelty of which the common satiety of life sends us all in quest ; but the pleasures of sudden wonder are soon exhausted, and the mind can only repose on the stability of truth.
Page 284 - What is a Poet ? To whom does he address himself? And what language is to be expected from him ? — Ijfe is a man speaking to men : a man, it is true, endowed with more lively sensibility, more enthusiasm and tenderness, who has a greater knowledge of human nature, and a more comprehensive soul, than are supposed to be common among mankind...
Page 173 - He must have been a man of a most wonderful comprehensive nature, because, as it has been truly observed of him, he has taken into the compass of his " Canterbury Tales" the various manners and humours (as we now call them) of the whole English nation, in his age.
Page 182 - 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 219 - The effects of favour and competition are at an end; the tradition of his friendships and his enmities has perished; his works support no opinion with arguments, nor supply any faction with invectives; they can neither indulge vanity nor gratify malignity; but are read without any other reason than the desire of pleasure, and are therefore praised only as pleasure is obtained...