The Library of the Old English Prose Writers ...: Sir Philip Sidney's Defence of poesy; Selden's Table-talk

Front Cover
Hilliard & Brown, 1831
 

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 29 - ... cometh to you with words set in delightful proportion, either accompanied with, or prepared for, the well-enchanting skill of music; and with a tale, forsooth, he cometh unto you, with a tale which holdeth children from play and old men from the chimney corner...
Page 288 - And when he had thus spoken, one of the officers which stood by struck Jesus with the palm of his hand, saying, Answerest thou the high priest so ? 23 Jesus answered him, If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil : but if well, why smitest thou me?
Page 9 - Poesy, therefore, is an art of imitation, for so Aristotle termeth it in his word Mimesis, that is to say, a representing, counterfeiting, or figuring forth: to speak metaphorically, a speaking picture : with this end, to teach and delight; of this have been three several kinds.
Page xxxvi - Love my memory, cherish my friends; their faith to me may assure you they are honest. But above all, govern your will and affections, by the will and Word of your Creator; in me, beholding the end of this world, with all her vanities.
Page 39 - I never heard the old song of Percy and Douglas that I found not my heart moved more than with a trumpet; and yet it is sung but by some blind crowder, with no rougher voice than rude style; which being so evil apparelled in the dust and cobwebs of that uncivil age, what would it work, trimmed in the gorgeous eloquence of Pindar?
Page 14 - ... the highest end of the mistress-knowledge, by the Greeks called ttfjXiTrx-covixi], which stands, as I think, in the knowledge of a man's self; in the ethic and politic consideration, with the end of well-doing, and not of well-knowing only...
Page 16 - The historian scarcely giveth leisure to the moralist to say so much, but that he, loaden with old mouse-eaten records, authorizing himself (for the most part) upon other histories, whose greatest authorities are built upon the notable foundation of hearsay, having much ado to accord differing writers, and to pick truth out of partiality...
Page 19 - Now doth the peerless poet perform both; for whatsoever the philosopher saith should be done, he giveth a perfect picture of it in some one by whom he presupposeth it was done, so as he coupleth the general notion with the particular example.
Page 67 - Afric of the other, and so many other underkingdoms, that the player, when he comes in, must ever begin with telling where he is, or else the tale will not be conceived. Now ye shall have three ladies walk to gather flowers, and then we must believe the stage to be a garden. By and by we hear news of shipwreck in the same place, and then we are to blame if we accept it not for a rock.
Page 179 - KINO is a thing men have made for their own sakes, for quietness' sake : just as in a family one man is appointed to buy the meat...

Bibliographic information