Thames-side in the Past: Sketches of Its Literature & SocietyG. Allen, Limited, 1913 - 402 pages |
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admiration afterwards Anthony Hamilton beautiful Boswell brother called Cambridge character Charles charming church Court daughter death died doubt Duchess Duke Dunciad Earl edition Edward Wortley Montagu eighteenth century England English Epistle Essay Eton famous father France French garden Garrick George Gothic Grammont Gray Gray's Hamilton Hampton Hannah Henry Horace Walpole interest John Johnson King King's Kitty Clive Lady Mary Lady Mary's literary London Lord Anson Lord Radnor manor married Memoirs mentioned Miss Hawkins Montagu neighbour never optimism painted Pangloss passage Paul Whitehead perhaps Peterhouse philosophy picture poem poet poetry Pope Pope's printed Queen quoted Radnor House reign Richmond Palace river Robert says Schopenhauer seems Sheen sister society Strawberry Hill taste Teddington thought tion told Toynbee Twickenham verses villa Voltaire Walpole's Letters Wharton Whitehead Whitminster wife Wortley writing written wrote
Popular passages
Page 61 - All nature is but art, unknown to thee ; All chance, direction, which thou canst not see ; All discord, harmony not understood ; All partial evil, universal good : And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite, One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right.
Page 26 - In vain, they gaze, turn giddy, rave, and die. Religion, blushing, veils her sacred fires, And unawares Morality expires. Nor public flame, nor private dares to shine; Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine Lo, thy dread empire, Chaos ! is restored; Light dies before thy uncreating word : Thy hand, great Anarch, lets the curtain fall, And universal darkness buries all.
Page 13 - A poem is that species of composition which is opposed to works of science, by proposing for its immediate object pleasure, not truth; and from all other species (having this object in common with it) it is discriminated by proposing to itself such delight from the whole as is compatible with a distinct gratification from each component part.
Page 82 - Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven ! — Oh ! times, In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways Of custom, law, and statute, took at once The attraction of a country in Romance...
Page 27 - Or roll the planets through the boundless sky : Some, less refin'd, beneath the moon's pale light Pursue the stars that shoot athwart the night, Or suck the mists in grosser air below, Or dip their pinions in the painted bow, Or brew fierce tempests on the wintry main, Or o'er the glebe distil the kindly rain.
Page 8 - Placed on this isthmus of a middle state, A being darkly wise, and rudely great ; With too much knowledge for the sceptic side, With too much weakness for the stoic's pride, He hangs between ; in doubt to act or rest ; In doubt to deem himself a god, or beast...
Page 125 - The small-pox, so fatal and so general amongst us, is here entirely harmless, by the invention of ingrafting, which is the term they give it. There is a set of old women who make it their business to perform the operation every autumn, in the month of September, when the great heat is abated. People send to one another to know if any of their family has a mind to have the small-pox...
Page 67 - I falter where I firmly trod, And falling with my weight of cares Upon the great world's altar-stairs That slope thro' darkness up to God, I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope, And gather dust and chaff, and call To what I feel is Lord of all, And faintly trust the larger hope.
Page 10 - I proposed to myself in these poems was to choose incidents and situations from common life, and to relate or describe them, throughout, as far as was possible, in a selection of language really used by men, and, at the. same time, to throw over them a certain colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual way...
Page 8 - Created half to rise, and half to fall; Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all; Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled: The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!