New Biographies of Illustrious MenWhittemore, Niles, and Hall, 1857 - 408 pages |
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Addison admiration afterwards Analogy appeared Atterbury Bacon became Bishop Bunyan Butler celebrated character Christian Church colony Coppermine River Crichton criticism death Descartes doubt Edinburgh Review edition eloquence eminent England English essays evidence fame father favor favorite FRANCIS ATTERBURY French Gassendi gave genius Gibbon Goldsmith grace Greek Homer honor Horace House Howard Hudson Bay Company Hume Iliad intellectual James Crichton Johnson JOSEPH ADDISON Julius Cæsar language Lausanne lazaretto learned less letters literary literature lived London Lord matter Memoirs ment mind moral nature never object OLIVER GOLDSMITH original party person philosopher Pilgrim's Progress Pisistratus poems poet poetry political popular prisons probably published reason received regard remarkable says seems Sir John society soon spirit style Tasmania theism thing THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY thought tion took Tory truth volume Whig writings wrote
Popular passages
Page 249 - It was at Rome, on the 15th of October 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted friars were singing vespers in the temple of Jupiter,* that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind.
Page 258 - I took several turns in a berceau or covered walk of acacias which commands a prospect of the country, the lake and the mountains. The air was temperate, the sky was serene: the silver orb of the moon was reflected from the waters, and all Nature was silent. I will not dissemble the first emotions of joy on the recovery of my freedom, and perhaps the establishment of my fame.
Page 257 - I wrote the last lines of the last page, in a summer house in my garden. After laying down my pen, I took several turns in a berceau, or covered walk of acacias, which commands a prospect of the country, the lake, and the mountains.
Page 57 - This he refused, saying, in his melancholy way, that " it was too late for him to try to support a falling church.
Page 224 - His fame was great and was constantly rising. He lived in what was intellectually far the best society of the kingdom, in a society in which no talent or accomplishment was wanting, and in which the art of conversation was cultivated with splendid success. There probably were never four talkers more admirable in four different ways than Johnson, Burke, Beauclerk and Garrick; and Goldsmith was on terms of intimacy with all the four.
Page 222 - Garden with a second play, She Stoops to Conquer. The manager was not without great difficulty induced to bring this piece out. The sentimental comedy still reigned, and Goldsmith's comedies were not sentimental The Goodnatured Man had been too funny to succeed; yet the mirth of the Goodnatured Man was sober when compared with the rich drollery of She Stoops to Conquer, which is, in truth, an incomparable farce in five acts.
Page 309 - I saved appearances tolerably well; but I took care that the Whig dogs should not have the best of it.
Page 218 - His narratives were always amusing, his descriptions always picturesque, his humour rich and joyous, yet not without an occasional tinge of amiable sadness. About everything that he wrote, serious or sportive, there was a certain natural grace and decorum...
Page 306 - He was a vicious man, but very kind to me. If you call a dog HERVEY, I shall love him.
Page 306 - It would be easy, on the other hand, to name several writers of the nineteenth century of whom the least successful has received forty thousand pounds from the booksellers. But Johnson entered on his vocation in the most dreary part of the dreary interval which separated two ages of prosperity. Literature had ceased to flourish under the patronage of the great, and had not begun to flourish under the patronage of the public.