A Complete Manual of English Literature

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Sheldon and Company, 1871 - American literature - 540 pages

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Page 212 - ... sometimes it is couched in a bold scheme of speech, in a tart irony, in a lusty hyperbole, in a startling metaphor, in a plausible reconciling of contradictions, or in acute nonsense ; sometimes...
Page 454 - ... by night in places of interment. Some stalked slowly on, absorbed in profound reverie ; some, shrieking with agony, ran furiously about like tigers wounded with poisoned arrows ; whilst others, grinding their teeth in rage, foamed along more frantic than the wildest maniac. They all avoided each other ; and, though surrounded by a multitude that no one could number, each wandered at random unheedful of the rest, as if alone on a desert where no foot had trodden.
Page 127 - The reluctant pangs of abdicating royalty in Edward furnished hints which Shakspeare scarcely improved in his Richard the Second; and the death-scene of Marlowe's king moves pity and terror beyond any scene ancient or modern with which I am acquainted.
Page 235 - The surliness of Moliere's hero is copied and caricatured. But the most nauseous libertinism and the most dastardly fraud are substituted for the purity and integrity of the original. And, to make the whole complete, Wycherley does not seem to have been aware that he was not drawing the portrait of an eminently honest man. So depraved was his moral taste that, while he firmly believed that he was producing a picture of virtue too exalted for the commerce of this world, he was really delineating the...
Page 463 - We find in it the diligence, the accuracy, and the judgment of Hallam, united to the vivacity and the colouring of Southey. A history of England, written throughout in this manner, would be the most fascinating book in the language. It would be more in request at the circulating libraries than the last novel.
Page 24 - French derivatives. 4. By using less inversion and ellipsis, especially in poetry. Of these, the second alone, I think, can be considered as sufficient to describe a new form of language ; and this was brought about so gradually, that we are not relieved of much of our difficulty as to whether some compositions shall pass for the latest offspring of the mother, or the earlier fruits of the daughter's fertility.
Page 530 - ... the truth In her fair page; see, every season brings New change, to her, of everlasting youth; Still the green soil, with joyous living things, Swarms, the wide air is full of joyous wings, And myriads, still, are happy in the sleep Of ocean's azure gulfs, and where he flings The restless surge. Eternal Love doth keep In his complacent arms, the earth, the air, the deep.
Page 147 - tis most certain, Iras. Saucy lictors Will catch at us, like strumpets ; and scald rhymers Ballad us out o' tune : the quick comedians Extemporally will stage us, and present Our Alexandrian revels : Antony Shall be brought drunken forth, and I shall see Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness I
Page 463 - But, in fact, the two hostile elements of which it consists have never been known to form a perfect amalgamation; and at length, in our own time, they have been completely and professedly separated. Good histories, in the proper sense of the word, we have not. But we have good historical romances...
Page 479 - This remarkable man, the metaphysician of America) Was formed among the Calvinists of New England, when their stern doctrine retained its rigorous authority/!" His power of subtile argument, perhaps unmatched, certainly unsurpassed among men, was joined, as in some of the ancient Mystics, with a character which raised his piety to fervor. He embraced their doctrine, probably without knowing it to be theirs. ' True religion,' says he, ' in a great measure consists in holy affections.

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