The Portico, Volume 3

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Neale Wills & Cole, 1817

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Page 481 - And it came to pass, as they still went on and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.
Page 390 - For this we may thank Pope ; but unless we could imitate him in the closeness and compactness of his expression, as well as in the smoothness of his numbers, we had better drop the imitation, which serves no other purpose than to emasculate and weaken all we write. Give me a manly rough line, with a deal of meaning in it, rather than a whole poem full of musical periods, that have nothing but their oily smoothness to recommend them...
Page 104 - Of the laborious and mercantile part of the people, the diction is in a great measure casual and mutable; many of their terms are formed for some temporary or local convenience and though current at certain times and places are in others utterly unknown. This fugitive cant, which is always in a state of increase or decay, cannot be regarded as any part of the durable materials of a language and therefore must be suffered to perish with other things unworthy of preservation.
Page 276 - Poetry, indeed, cannot be translated; and, therefore, it is the poets that preserve languages; for we would not be at the trouble to learn a language, if we could have all that is written in it just as well in a translation. But as the beauties of poetry cannot be preserved in any language except that in which it was originally written, we learn the language.
Page 180 - Tis the last remnant of the wreck of years, And looks as with the wild.bewilder'd gaze Of one to stone converted by amaze, Yet still with consciousness ; and there it stands Making a marvel that it not decays, When the coeval pride of human hands, Levell'd Aventicum, hath strew'd her subject lands.
Page 17 - Idalia's velvet-green has something of cant. An epithet or metaphor drawn from Nature ennobles Art ; an epithet or metaphor drawn from Art degrades Nature.
Page 477 - Relentless walls ! whose darksome round contains Repentant sighs, and voluntary pains : Ye rugged rocks, which holy knees have worn ; Ye grots and caverns shagg'd with horrid thorn ! Shrines ! where their vigils pale-ey'd virgins keep, And pitying saints, whose statues learn to weep ! Though cold like you, unmov'd and silent grown, I have not yet forgot myself to stone.
Page 182 - Far along, From peak to peak, the rattling crags among Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud, But every mountain now hath found a tongue, And Jura answers, through her misty shroud, Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud!
Page 232 - O ! would the Sons of Men once think their Eyes And Reason giv'n them but to study Flies! See Nature in some partial narrow shape, And let the Author of the Whole escape : Learn but to trifle; or, who most observe, To wonder at their Maker, not to serve!
Page 175 - Yet must I think less wildly : I have thought Too long and darkly, till my brain became, In its own eddy boiling and o'erwrought, A whirling gulf of phantasy and flame : And thus, untaught in youth my heart to tame, My springs of life were poison'd.

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