The British Essayists;: IdlerJ. Johnson, J. Nichols and son, R. Baldwin, F. and C. Rivington, W. Otridge and son, W.J. and J. Richardson, A. Strahan, R. Faulder, ... [and 40 others], 1808 - English essays |
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Page 3
... seldom retentive . He that delights in obloquy and satire , and wishes to see clouds gathering over any reputation that dazzles him with its brightness , will snatch up the Idler's essays with a beating heart . The Idler is naturally ...
... seldom retentive . He that delights in obloquy and satire , and wishes to see clouds gathering over any reputation that dazzles him with its brightness , will snatch up the Idler's essays with a beating heart . The Idler is naturally ...
Page 4
... seldom in the mind ; there are many truths which every human being acknowledges and forgets . It is gene- rally known , that he who expects much will be often disappointed ; yet disappointment seldom cures us of expectation , or has any ...
... seldom in the mind ; there are many truths which every human being acknowledges and forgets . It is gene- rally known , that he who expects much will be often disappointed ; yet disappointment seldom cures us of expectation , or has any ...
Page 17
... seldom exchanged ; and what is there to be done in the charge or the retreat beyond the powers of a sprightly maiden . Our masculine squadrons will not suppose them selves disgraced by their auxiliaries , till they have done something ...
... seldom exchanged ; and what is there to be done in the charge or the retreat beyond the powers of a sprightly maiden . Our masculine squadrons will not suppose them selves disgraced by their auxiliaries , till they have done something ...
Page 34
... seldom to do with any thing remote or abstruse . The present state of things is before his eyes ; and , if he cannot be satisfied without retrospection , yet he seldom ex- tends his views beyond the historical events of the last century ...
... seldom to do with any thing remote or abstruse . The present state of things is before his eyes ; and , if he cannot be satisfied without retrospection , yet he seldom ex- tends his views beyond the historical events of the last century ...
Page 37
... seldom the result of much deliberation ; they are framed by chance in popular assemblies , or in conquered countries by despotic authority . Laws are often occasional , often capri- VOL . XXXIII . E cious , made always by a few , and ...
... seldom the result of much deliberation ; they are framed by chance in popular assemblies , or in conquered countries by despotic authority . Laws are often occasional , often capri- VOL . XXXIII . E cious , made always by a few , and ...
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Common terms and phrases
acquaintance admiration amusement art of memory beauty censure character common commonly considered curiosity danger delight desire dili diligence Ditto dreaded Drugget easily easy elegance endeavour equal evil expected eyes favour forded rivers fortune friends genius give gout gratified happiness hearts in motion honour hope Hudibras human idleness Idler imagination innu inquiry knowledge labour lady learned less live look lost Louisbourg mankind marriage ment mind misery mistress Mohair morning nation nature necessary ness never Newmarket night observed once opinion pain Pandæmonium passed passions perhaps Persian palace Peterhouse pleased pleasure praise produce pupillage quires racter readers reason resolved rich rience SATURDAY scarcely seldom sometimes soon Sophron suffered sure talk tell thing THOMAS WARTON thought tion told truth uncon virtue weary wife wish wonder writer XXXIII
Popular passages
Page vii - A hateful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged not by the common judges of property, but wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid.
Page 285 - The Italian, attends only to the invariable, the great and general ; ideas which are fixed and inherent in universal nature; the Dutch, on the contrary, to literal truth and a minute exactness in the detail, as I may say, of nature modified by accident. The attention to these petty peculiarities is the very cause of this naturalness so much admired in the Dutch pictures, which, if we suppose it to be a beauty, is certainly...
Page 287 - ... reason why we approve and admire it, as we approve and admire customs and fashions of dress for no other reason than that we are used to them; so that though habit and custom cannot be said to be the cause of beauty, it is certainly the cause of our liking it: and I have no doubt but that if we were more used to deformity than beauty, deformity would then lose the idea now annexed to it, and take that of beauty; as if the whole world should agree, that yes and no should change their meanings;...
Page 270 - Here will I hold. If there's a power above us (And that there is, all Nature cries aloud Through all her works), he must delight in virtue ; And that which he delights in must be happy.
Page x - I have to mention, that the late Mr. Strahan the printer told me, that Johnson wrote it, that with the profits he might defray the expense of his mother's funeral, and pay some little debts which she had left. He told Sir Joshua Reynolds, that he composed it in the evenings of one week, sent it to the press in portions as it was written, and had never since read it over.
Page 277 - There may perhaps be too great an indulgence, as well as too great a restraint of imagination; and if the one produces incoherent monsters, the other produces what is full as bad, lifeless insipidity. An intimate knowledge of the passions, and good sense, but not common sense, must at last determine its limits.
Page 39 - Surely nothing is more reproachful to a being endowed with reason, than to resign its powers to the influence of the air, and live in dependence on the weather and the wind for the only blessings which nature has put into our power, tranquillity and benevolence.
Page 57 - To be idle and to be poor, have always been reproaches, and therefore every man endeavours, with his utmost care, to hide his poverty from others, and his idleness from himself.
Page 244 - That some of them have been adopted by him unnecessarily, may perhaps be allowed ; but in general they are evidently an advantage, for without them his stately ideas would be confined and cramped. "He that thinks with more extent than another, will want words of larger meaning.