The Critical and Miscellaneous Prose Works of John Dryden: Now First Collected: with Notes and Illustrations; an Account of the Life and Writings of the Author, Grounded on Original and Authentick Documents; and a Collection of His Letters, the Greater Part of which Has Never Before Been Published, Volume 2

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H. Baldwin and Son, New-Bridge-Street, 1800

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Page 257 - ... fancy, or the variation, driving or moulding of that thought, as the judgment represents it proper to the subject; the third is Elocution, or the Art of clothing and adorning that thought so found and varied, in apt, significant and sounding words: the quickness of the Imagination is seen in the Invention, the fertility in the Fancy, and the accuracy in the Expression.
Page 247 - You are now a Phoenix in her ashes, and, as far as humanity can approach, a great emblem of the suffering Deity.
Page 14 - Play is regular enough, as to the inferior parts of it ; and the Unities of Time, Place and Action, more exactly observed, than, perhaps, the English Theater requires. Particularly, the Action is so much one, that it is the only of the kind without Episode, or Underplot ; every Scene in the Tragedy conducing to the main design, and every Act concluding with a turn of it.
Page 29 - I hope, I may affirm, and without vanity, that, by imitating him, I have excelled myself throughout the play ; and particularly, that I prefer the scene betwixt Antony and Ventidius in the first act, to anything which I have written in this kind.
Page 150 - An opera is a poetical tale, or fiction, represented by vocal and instrumental music, adorned with scenes, machines, and dancing. The supposed persons of this musical drama are generally supernatural...
Page 56 - D'Amboys upon the theatre; but when I had taken up what I supposed a fallen star, I found I had been cozened with a jelly; nothing but a cold, dull mass, which glittered no longer than it was shooting; a dwarfish thought, dressed up in gigantic words, repetition in abundance, looseness of expression, and gross hyperboles; the sense of one line expanded prodigiously into ten; and, to sum up all, uncorrect English, and a hideous mingle of false poetry and true nonsense; or, at best, a scantling of...
Page 479 - What will it profit a man to gain the whole world, and lose his soul...
Page 20 - And is not this a wretched affectation, not to be contented with what fortune has done for them, and sit down quietly with their estates, but they must call their wits in question, and needlessly expose their nakedness to public view?
Page 17 - ... tis but necessary, when they cannot please, that they should take care not to offend. But as the civilest man in the company is commonly the dullest, so these authors, while they are afraid to make you laugh or cry, out of pure good manners make you sleep.
Page 14 - Ulysses amongst the crowd of sutors, and, withal, to take my own measures in aiming at the mark. I doubt not but the same motive has prevailed with all of us in this attempt; I mean the excellency of the moral: For the chief persons represented were famous patterns of unlawful love; and their end accordingly was unfortunate.

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