Select British Classics, Volume 28

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J. Conrad, 1803 - English literature

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Page 121 - Squires: many of whom are born only for the destruction of game, and disturbance of their neighbours. They are mere vegetables, which grow up and rot on the same spot of ground : except a few perhaps, which are transplanted into the Parliament House. Their whole life is hurried away in scampering after foxes, leaping fivebar gates, trampling upon the farmers
Page 114 - I dreamt of my sweetheart, Betty said we should be married before the year was out. But to make it more sure I boiled an egg hard, and took out the yolk and filled it with salt ; and when I went to bed ate it, shell and all, without speaking or drinking after it. We also wrote our lovers...
Page 78 - ... or two extraordinary of gin. But this false notion of courage, however noble it may appear to the desperate and abandoned, in reality amounts to no more than the resolution of the highwayman, who shoots himself with his own pistol, when he finds it impossible to avoid being taken. All practicable means, therefore, should be devised to extirpate such absurd bravery, and to make it appear every way horrible, odious, contemptible, and ridiculous. From reading the public prints, a foreigner might...
Page 178 - ... night alone; The tolling bell, which for the dead rings out; A mill, where rushing waters run about; The roaring winds, which shake the cedars tall, Plough up the seas, and beat the rocks withal. She loves to walk in the still moonshine night, And in a thick dark grove she takes delight; In hollow caves, thatch'd houses, and low cells, She loves to live, and there alone she dwells. Then leave her to herself alone to dwell, Let you and I in Mirth and Pleasure swell, And drink long lusty draughts...
Page 169 - ... damaged last season by the fingering of those curious Connoisseurs, who could not be satisfied without feeling whether the figures were alive.
Page 168 - In imitation's dangerous road. Long as Tobacco's mild perfume Shall scent each happy curate's room, Oft as in elbow-chair he smokes, And quaffs his ale, and cracks his jokes, So long, O Brown,* shall last thy praise, Crown'd with Tobacco-Leaf for bays ; And whosoe'er thy verse shall see, Shall fill another Pipe to thee.
Page 3 - The hoop has been known to expand and contract itself from the size of a butter churn to the circumference of three hogsheads : at one time it was sloped from the waist in a pyramidical...
Page 112 - Cake together : you must know, two must make it, two bake it, two break it; and the third put it under each of their pillows, (but you must not speak a word all the time) and then you will dream of the man you are to have. This we did ; and to be sure I did nothing all night but dream of Mr. Blossom. The same night, exactly at twelve o'clock, I sowed hemp-seed in our back yard, and said to myself, " Hempseed I sow, Hempseed ft I hoe, and he that is my true love come after me and mow.
Page 78 - Paris-hiked sword, qualifies the polite owner for a sudden death, and entitles him to a pompous burial, and a monument setting forth his virtues in Westminster-abbey. Every man in his sober senses must wish, that the most severe laws that could possibly be contrived were enacted against suicides. This shocking bravado never did (and I am confident never will !) prevail among the more delicate and tender sex in our own nation : though history informs us that the Roman ladies were once so infatuated...
Page 105 - ... by this sect was, that it was proper, like our great forefather Adam, to go naked; and the proselytes to this faith came abroad in the public streets in open day-light without any clothing. But this primitive simplicity did not agree with the notions of those degenerate days; and the Adamites were looked upon as an intolerable nuisance. Their religion, like all others, was soon attended with persecution: and some of the converts were dragged naked at the cart's tail, some set in the stocks, and...

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