Essays on Men and MannersPrinted at the Minerva-Press, for Lane, Newman, and Company, 1804 - 267 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
afford agreeable alliteration allowed ambition amusement answer appear arities beauty betwixt character Clelia colours consider contrived conversation dactyle degree dignity discover distinction distinguish dress effect elegance encrease endeavour envy equal esquire esteem Fairy-queen Falstaff fame fancy favour former fortune frequently garden genius gentleman give greater happiness highwayman honour imagination indolence instance judgment Juvenal kind ladies landscape latter least less Livy Lord Bolingbroke Lord Shaftesbury manner means ment merit mind nature never objects observed occasion one's opinion Ovid passions perhaps person pleasing pleasure plebeian poetry Polydore Pope pride proper proportion racter reason regard remarkable render respect Sallust scene seems self-love sense shew short sidered sions sometimes sort spirit style sublime superior suppose sure tain taste temper thing thought tion trees truth tural variety VIRG Virgil virtue vulgar WILLIAM SHENSTONE word writer
Popular passages
Page 178 - The best time to frame an answer to the letters of a friend, is the moment you receive them.
Page 185 - When misfortunes happen to such as dissent from us in matters of religion, we call them judgments : when to those of our own sect, we call them trials : when to persons neither way distinguished, we are content to impute them to the settled course of things.
Page 76 - NGENIOUS was the device of those celebrated worthies, who for the more effectual promulgation of their well-grounded maxims, first pretended to divine inspiration. Peace be to their manes ; may the turf lie lightly on their breast ; and the verdure over their grave be as perpetual as their memories ! Well knew they questionless, that a proceeding of this nature must afford an excuse to their modesty, as well as add a weight to their instructions. For, from the beginning of time, if we may believe...
Page 124 - LANGUAGE is to the understanding what a genteel motion is to the body ; a very great advantage. But a person may be superior to another in understanding, that has not an equal dignity of expression ; and a man may boast a handsomer figure, that is inferior to another in regard to motion. THE words No More have a singular pathos ; reminding us at once of past pleasure and the future exclusion of it.
Page 105 - Had I a fortune of eight or ten thousand pounds a year, I would methinks make myself a neighbourhood. I would first build a village with a church, and people it with inhabitants of some branch of trade that was suitable to the country round. I would then, at proper distances, erect a number of genteel boxes of about a thousand pounds a piece, and amuse myself with giving them all the advantages they could receive from taste.
Page vi - I never (faid he) will be a revengeful enemy ; but I cannot, it is not in my nature, to be half a friend.
Page 152 - AVARICE is the most opposite of all characters to that of God Almighty, whose alone it is, to give and not receive. A MISER grows rich by seeming poor ; an extravagant man grows poor by seeming rich.
Page 86 - I think the landscape painter is the gardener's best designer. The eye requires a sort of balance here ; but not so as to encroach upon probable nature.
Page 192 - That we are contemporaries, and persons whom future history shall unite, who, great part of us, however imperceptibly, receive and confer reciprocal benefits ; this, with every other circumstance that tends to heighten our philanthropy, should be brought to mind as much as possible, during our abode upon earth. Hereafter it may be just, and requisite, to comprehend all ages of mankind. THE best notion we can conceive of God, may be, that he is to the creation what the soul is to the body- : Dens...
Page 90 - Some artificial beauties are so dexterously managed, that one cannot but conceive them natural ; some natural ones so extremely fortunate, that one is ready to swear they are artificial. Concerning scenes, the more uncommon they appear, the better, provided they form a picture, and include nothing that pretends to be of nature's production, and is not.