The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: Including a Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides

Front Cover
George Dearborn, 1833

From inside the book

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 290 - Why, Sir, if you were to read Richardson for the story, your impatience would be so much fretted that you would hang yourself. But you must read him for the sentiment, and consider the story as only giving occasion to the sentiment.
Page 111 - Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help ? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labours, had it been early, had been kind ; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it ; till I am solitary and cannot impart it ; till I am known and do not want it.
Page 414 - Live, while you live, the epicure would say, And seize the pleasures of the present day. Live, while you live, the sacred preacher cries, And give to God each moment as it flies.
Page 22 - When at Oxford I took up Law's 'Serious Call to a Holy Life,' expecting to find it a dull book, (as such books generally are) and perhaps to laugh at it. But I found Law quite an overmatch for me; and this was the first occasion of my thinking in earnest of religion, after I became capable of rational enquiry.
Page 224 - That trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay, As ocean sweeps the labour'd mole away: While self-dependent power can time defy, As rocks resist the billows and the sky.
Page 206 - At supper this night he talked of good eating- with uncommon satisfaction. " Some people (said he,) have a foolish way of not minding, or pretending not to mind what they eat. For my part, I mind my belly very studiously, and very carefully ; for I look upon it, that he who does not mind his belly, will hardly mind any thing else.
Page 242 - Sir, you do not know it to be good or bad till the judge determines it. I have said that you are to state facts fairly; so that your thinking, or what you call knowing, a cause to be bad must be from reasoning, must be from your supposing your arguments to be weak and inconclusive.
Page 442 - Extremes are only in the master's mind. Stern o'er each bosom Reason holds her state, With daring aims irregularly great. Pride in their port, defiance in their eye, I see the lords of human kind pass by, Intent on high designs — a thoughtful band, By forms unfashion'd, fresh from nature's hand, Fierce in their native hardiness of soul, True to imagined right, above control ; While even the peasant boasts these rights to scan, And learns to venerate himself as man.
Page 226 - Sir, if you are talking jestingly of this, I don't talk with you. If you mean to be serious, I think him one of the worst of men; a rascal, who ought to be hunted out of society, as he has been. Three or four nations have expelled him: and it is a shame that he is protected in this country.
Page 198 - My judgment, to be sure, was not so good ; but I had all the facts. I remember very well, when I was at Oxford, an old gentleman said to me, ' Young man, ply your book diligently now, and acquire a stock of knowledge ; for when years come upon you, you will find that poring upon books will be but an irksome task.

Bibliographic information