The Critical and Miscellaneous Prose Works of John Dryden, Now First Collected ...

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H. Baldwin and Son, 1800

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Page xviii - The clauses are never balanced, nor the periods modelled : every word seems to drop by chance, though it falls into its proper place. Nothing is cold or languid : the whole is airy, animated, and vigorous ; what is little, is gay ; what is great, is splendid.
Page 143 - With public zeal to cancel private crimes. How safe is treason and how sacred ill, Where none can sin against the people's will, "Where crowds can wink and no offence be known, Since in another's guilt they find their own ! Yet fame deserved no enemy can grudge ; The statesman we abhor, but praise the judge.
Page 390 - He sought the storms ; but for a calm unfit, Would steer too nigh the sands, to boast his wit Great wits are sure to madness near allied, And thin partitions do their bounds divide; Else, why should he, with wealth and honour blest, Refuse his age the needful hours of rest?
Page viii - Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison...
Page 479 - ... out of the country with one : however, in spite of my bashfulness and appearance, I used now and then to thrust myself into Will's, to have the pleasure of seeing the most celebrated wits of that time, who used to resort thither.
Page 134 - I have sent you herewith a libel, in which my own share is not the least. The king having perused it, is no way dissatisfied with his. The author is apparently Mr Dr[yden], his patron, Lord M[ulgrave,] having a panegyric in the midst.
Page x - To judge rightly of an author, we must transport ourselves to his time, and examine what were the wants of his contemporaries, and what were his means of supplying them.
Page 179 - Tis enough for one age to have neglected Mr. Cowley and starved Mr. Butler ; but neither of them had the happiness to live till your Lordship's ministry.
Page 150 - tis for parents to forgive! With how few tears a pardon might be won From nature, pleading for a darling son!
Page 460 - He was of very easy, I may say, of very pleasing access ; but something slow, and, as it were, diffident in his advances to others. He had something in his nature, that abhorred intrusion into any society whatsoever.

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