The Plain Speaker: Opinions on Books, Men, and Things : in Two Volumes, Volume 1

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Henry Colburn, New Burlington-Street, 1826 - 912 pages
 

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Page 173 - Say, Father Thames, for thou hast seen Full many a sprightly race Disporting on thy margent green The paths of pleasure trace; Who foremost now delight to cleave With pliant arm, thy glassy wave? The captive linnet which enthral? What idle progeny succeed To chase the rolling circle's speed, Or urge the flying ball?
Page 146 - Take the instant way For honour travels in a strait so narrow, W'here one but goes abreast: keep then the path; For emulation hath a thousand sons, That one by one pursue: If you give way, Or hedge aside from the direct forthright, Like to an enter'd tide, they all rush by, And leave you hindmost...
Page 403 - And time and place are lost: where eldest Night And Chaos, ancestors of Nature, hold Eternal Anarchy, amidst the noise Of endless wars, and by confusion stand. For Hot, Cold, Moist, and Dry, four champions fierce Strive here for mastery...
Page 137 - What then I was. The sounding cataract Haunted me like a passion : the tall rock, The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, Their colours and their forms were then to me An appetite ; a feeling and a love That had no need of a remoter charm, By thought supplied, or any interest Unborrowed from the eye.
Page 398 - Wharton, the scorn and wonder of our days, Whose ruling passion was the lust of praise ; Born with whate'er could win it from the wise, 'Women and fools must like him, or he dies : Though wondering senates hung on all he spoke, The club must hail him master of the joke.
Page 147 - That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand, And with his arms outstretch'd, as he would fly, Grasps in the comer : welcome ever smiles, And farewell goes out sighing. O ! let not virtue seek Remuneration for the thing it was ; For beauty, wit, High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service, Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all To envious and calumniating time. One touch of nature makes the whole world kin...
Page 147 - O'er-run and trampled on : Then what they do in present, Though less than yours in past, must o'ertop yours...
Page 122 - Bos. Do you not weep? Other sins only speak; murder shrieks out: The element of water moistens the earth, But blood flies upwards and bedews the heavens. Ferd. Cover her face; mine eyes dazzle: she died young.
Page 135 - A jest's prosperity lies in the ear • Of him that hears it, never in the tongue Of him that makes it : then, if sickly ears, Deaf 'd with the clamours of their own dear groans.
Page 293 - Return, Alpheus, the dread voice is past That shrunk thy streams ; return, Sicilian Muse, And call the vales, and bid them hither cast Their bells and flowerets of a thousand hues.

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