The Life and Theatrical Times of Charles Kean, F.S.A.: Including a Summary of the English Stage for the Last Fifty Years, and a Detailed Account of the Management of the Princess's Theatre, from 1850 to 1859, Volume 1

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R. Bentley, 1859 - Theater
 

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Page 259 - Get thee to a nunnery; Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest; but yet I could accuse me of such things, that it were better, my mother had not borne me: I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious; with more offences at my beck, than I have thoughts to put them in. imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in.
Page 57 - The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together : our virtues would be proud if our faults whipped them not; and our crimes would despair if they were not cherished by our virtues.
Page iv - T^EAR no more the heat o' the sun -*- Nor the furious winter's rages; Thou thy worldly task hast done, Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages : Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney-sweepers, come to dust. Fear no more the frown o...
Page 27 - Full little knowest thou, that hast not tried, What hell it is in suing long to bide ; To lose good days that might be better spent ; To waste long nights in pensive discontent; To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow ; To feed on hope ; to pine with fear and sorrow ; To have thy Prince's grace, yet want her peers...
Page 293 - If I do prove her haggard, Though that her jesses were my dear heart-strings, I'd whistle her off, and let her down the wind, To prey at fortune.
Page 123 - ... who has lengthened, and one who has gladdened life ; with Dr. James, whose skill in physic will be long remembered ; and with David Garrick, whom I hoped to have gratified with this character of our common friend. But what are the hopes of man ? I am disappointed by that stroke of death which has eclipsed the gaiety of nations, and impoverished the public stock of harmless pleasure.
Page 364 - His was the spell o'er hearts Which only acting lends, — The youngest of the sister Arts, Where all their beauty blends : For ill can Poetry express Full many a tone of thought sublime, And Painting, mute and motionless, Steals but a glance of time. But by the mighty actor brought, Illusion's perfect triumphs come, — Verse ceases to be airy thought, And Sculpture to be dumb.
Page 72 - For others good, or melt at others woe. What can atone (oh ever-injur'd shade !) Thy fate unpity'd, and thy rites unpaid ? No friend's complaint, no kind domestic tear Pleas'd thy pale ghost, or grac'd thy mournful bier : By foreign hands thy dying eyes were clos'd, By foreign hands thy decent limbs compos'd, By foreign hands thy humble grave adorn'd, By strangers honour'd, and by strangers mourn'd! What tho' no friends in sable weeds appear.
Page 109 - The five long acts from which our three are taken, Stretch'd out to sixteen years, lay by forsaken. Lest, then, this precious liquor run to waste, 'Tis now confin'd and bottled to your taste. 'Tis my chief wish, my joy, my only plan, To lose no drop of that immortal man ! ' No man in Garrick's position would now venture to write additions to Shakspeare.
Page 338 - Ohy woman! lovely woman! nature made thee .To temper man : we had been brutes without you. Angels are painted fair, to look like you : There's in you all that we believe of Heaven, Amazing brightness, purity, and truth, Eternal joy, and everlasting love.

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