An Account of the Life and Writings of James Beattie: Including Many of His Original Letters, Volume 1

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Archibald Constable and Company, 1807
 

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Page 25 - Let Vanity adorn the marble tomb With trophies, rhymes, and scutcheons of renown, In the deep dungeon of some gothic dome, Where night and desolation ever frown. Mine be the breezy hill that skirts the down; Where a green grassy turf is all I crave, With here and there a violet bestrown, Fast by a brook, or fountain's murmuring wave; And many an evening sun shine sweetly on my grave.
Page 113 - Not long ago I began a poem in the style and stanza of Spenser, in which I propose to give full scope to my inclination, and be either droll or pathetic, descriptive or sentimental, tender or satirical, as the humour strikes me; for, if I mistake not, the measure which I have adopted admits equally of all these kinds of composition.
Page 146 - See the grisly texture grow, ("Tis of human entrails made,) And the weights, that play below, Each a gasping warrior's head. Shafts for shuttles...
Page 349 - ... which they said was a book they always kept by them : and the King said he had one copy of it at Kew, and another in town, and immediately went and took it down from a shelf. I found it was the second edition. ' I never stole a book but once,' said his Majesty, ' and that was yours,' (speaking to me) : ' I stole it from the Queen, to give it to Lord Hertford to read.
Page 35 - Where be your gibes now ? your gambols ? your songs ? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table in a roar ? Not one now, to mock your own grinning?
Page 147 - HELA'S drear abode. Him the Dog of Darkness spied, His shaggy throat he open'd wide, While from his jaws, with carnage fill'd, Foam and human gore distill'd...
Page 63 - Goddess' pensive form was seen. Her robe of Nature's varied green Waved on the gale ; grief dimm'd her radiant eyes, Her bosom heaved with boding sighs : She eyed the main ; where, gaining on the view. Emerging from th' ethereal blue, Midst the dread pomp of war, Blazed the Iberian streamer from afar.
Page 248 - It allows the sententiousness of the couplet, as well as the more complex modulation of blank verse. What some critics have remarked, of its uniformity growing at last tiresome to the ear, will be found to hold true only when the poetry is faulty in other respects.
Page 347 - At twelve, the Doctor and I .-went to the King's house, at Kew. We had been only a few minutes in the hall, when the King and Queen came in from an airing ; and, as they passed through the hall, the King called to me by name, and asked how long it was since I came from town. I answered, about an hour. " I shall see you," says he,
Page 146 - Now the storm begins to lower (Haste, the loom of Hell prepare), Iron-sleet of arrowy shower Hurtles in the darkened air. Glittering lances are the loom, Where the dusky warp we strain, Weaving many a soldier's doom, Orkney's woe, and Randver's bane.

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