Essays on Men and MannersBradbury, Evans, & Company, 1868 - 340 pages |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
admire advantage affection afford agreeable alliteration allowed ambition amusement answer appear beauty better betwixt character Clelia colours consider contrived degree dignity discover disposition distinction distinguish dress elegance elegy endeavour envy equal esquire esteem fame fancy favour former fortune frequently gardening genius gentleman give greater happiness highwayman honour human humour idea imagination inclined inferior instance judgment Juvenal kind ladies landscape latter Leander Leasowes least less LIVY Lord Bolingbroke Lord Shaftesbury Lycidas manner means ment merit metre mind nation nature never objects observed occasion one's opinion Ovid passions perhaps person Piercefield pleasing pleasure plebeian poet poetry Polydore Pope proper proportion reason regard remarkable render respect Sallust scene seems sense shew sidered sometimes sort species spirit style sublime superior suppose taste thought tion trees truth Urim and Thummim vanity variety Virgil virtue vulgar WILLIAM SHENSTONE word writer
Popular passages
Page 232 - 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 276 - Vapid frivolous chit-chat serves to pass away the time. But corked up again in retirement, we recover our wonted strength, spirit, and flavour. THE making presents to a lady one addresses, is like throwing armour into an enemy's camp, with a resolution to recover it. HE that lies a-bed all a summer's morning, loses the chief pleasure of the day : he that gives up his youth to indolence, undergoes a loss of the same kind. SPLEEN is often little else than obstructed perspiration. THE regard, men externally...
Page 132 - Are there not broken rocks and rugged grounds to which we can hardly attribute either beauty or grandeur; and yet when introduced near an extent of lawn, impart a pleasure equal to more shapely scenes? Thus a series of lawn, though ever so beautiful, may satiate and cloy, unless the eye passes to them from wilder scenes; and then they acquire the grace of novelty.
Page vi - When forc'd the fair nymph to forego, What anguish I felt in my heart ! Yet I thought (but it might not be so) 'Twas with pain that she saw me depart. She gaz'd, as I slowly withdrew, My path I could hardly discern ; So sweetly she bade me adieu, I thought that she bade me return.
Page 165 - 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 302 - 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 218 - THERE is nothing more universally prevalent than flattery. Persons, who discover the flatterer, do not always disapprove him, because he imagines them considerable enough to deserve his applications. It is a tacit sort of compliment, that he esteems them to be such as it is worth his while to flatter : And when I tell him he hates flattery, He says he does, being then most flattered.
Page 176 - THE world may be divided into people that read, people that write, people that think, and foxhunters.
Page 142 - THE works of a person that builds, begin immediately to decay ; while those of him who plants begin directly to improve. In this, planting promises a more lasting pleasure, than building ; which, were it to remain in equal perfection, would at best begin to moulder and want repairs in imagination.
Page 277 - Shining characters are not always the most agreeable ones. The mild radiance of an emerald is by no means less pleasing than the glare of the ruby.