Characters from the Histories & Memoirs of the Seventeenth Century: With an Essay on the Character and Historical NotesDavid Nichol Smith Clarendon Press, 1918 - 331 pages |
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Popular passages
Page 236 - In the first rank of these did Zimri stand: A man so various, that he seem'd to be Not one, but all Mankind's Epitome. Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong; Was everything by starts, and nothing long: But in the course of one revolving moon, Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon: Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking; Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking.
Page 141 - I came into the House one morning, well clad, and perceived a gentleman speaking, whom I knew not, very ordinarily apparelled ; for it was a plain cloth suit, which seemed to have been made by an ill country tailor ; his linen was plain, and not very clean; and I remember a speck or two of blood upon his little band, which was not much larger than his collar : his hat was without a hatband. His stature was of a good size ; his sword stuck close to his side ; his countenance swollen and reddish; his...
Page 232 - Of these the false Achitophel was first, A name to all succeeding ages curst: For close designs and crooked counsels fit, Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit; Restless, unfixed in principles and place, In power unpleased, impatient of disgrace ; A fiery soul, which working out its way, Fretted the pigmy body to decay, And o'er-informed the tenement of clay.
Page xii - JOHN). The First Part of the life and raigne of King Henrie the IIII.
Page 200 - I saw plainly all the paint of that kind of life, the nearer I came to it; and that beauty, which I did not fall in love with, when, for aught I knew, it was real, was not like to bewitch or entice me, when I saw that it was adulterate.
Page 310 - There is a good, honest, able man, that I could name, that if your Majesty would employ, and command to see all things well executed, all things would soon be mended ; and this is one Charles Stuart, who now spends his time in employing his lips and lusts about the Court, and hath no other employment ; but if you would give him this employment, he were the fittest man in the world to perform it.
Page 318 - The character of Zimri in my Absalom is, in my opinion, worth the whole poem: it is not bloody, but it is ridiculous enough; and he, for whom it was intended, was too witty to resent it as an injury.
Page 199 - Thus would I double my life's fading space; For he that runs it well twice runs his race. And in this true delight. These unbought sports, this happy state. I would not fear, nor wish, my fate; But boldly say each night, "To-morrow let my sun his beams display, Or in clouds hide them, — I have lived to-day.
Page 86 - Thus fell that incomparable young man, in the four and thirtieth year of his age, having so much despatched the true business of life, that the eldest rarely attain to that immense knowledge, and the youngest enter not into the world with more innocency. Whosoever leads such a life needs be the less anxious upon how short warning it is taken from him.
Page 237 - That every man, with him, was god or devil. In squandering wealth was his peculiar art: Nothing went unrewarded, but desert. Beggar'd by fools, whom still he found too late: He had his jest, and they had his estate.