Random Records, Volume 1

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H. Colburn and R. Bentley, 1830 - Actors - 628 pages
 

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Page 190 - By heaven, methinks it were an easy leap, To pluck bright honour from the pale-faced moon, Or dive into the bottom of the deep, Where fathom-line could never touch the ground, And pluck up drowned honour by the locks...
Page 122 - ... his mannerism prevailed ; still he tapped his snuff-box ; still he smirked and smiled, and rounded his periods with the same air of good-breeding, as if he were conversing with men. His mouth, mellifluous as Plato's, was a round hole nearly in the centre of his visage.
Page 206 - ... he comes flounce into bed, dead as a salmon into a fishmonger's basket; his feet cold as ice, his breath hot as a furnace, and his hands and his face as greasy as his flannel night-cap.
Page 122 - Gibbon levelled walks through parks and gardens. Mauled as I had been by Johnson, Gibbon poured balm upon my bruises by condescending, once or twice in the course of the evening, to talk with me : the great historian was light and playful, suiting his matter to the capacity of the boy ; but it was done more...
Page 241 - Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace : but there is, sir, an aiery of children, little eyases, that cry out on the top of question, and are most tyrannically clapped for 't : these are now the fashion ; and so berattle the common stages (so they call them), that many, wearing rapiers, are afraid of goose-quills, and dare scarce come thither.
Page 111 - Hey presto cockalorum!' cried the Doctor, and lo, on uncovering the shillings, which had been dispersed each beneath a separate hat, they were all found congregated under one. I was no politician at five years old, and therefore might not have wondered at the sudden revolution which brought England, France, and Spain all under one crown; but, as also I was no conjuror, it amazed me beyond measure From that time, whenever the Doctor came to visit my father, 'I plucked his gown to share the good man's...
Page 188 - And he spake of trees, from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall: he spake also of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes.
Page 223 - I found myself then as incapable of writing such an epilogue as I should be now of speaking it. The jingle of rhyme and the language of fiction would but ill suit my present feelings.
Page 46 - When I consider, what ado is made about a little Latin and Greek, how many Years are spent in it, and what a Noise and Business it makes to no Purpose...
Page 114 - This prop to his person I once saw standing by his bedside, ready dressed in a handsome silk stocking, with a polished shoe and gold buckle, awaiting the owner's getting up : it had a kind of tragicomical appearance, and I leave to inveterate wags the ingenuity of punning upon a Foote in bed and a leg out of it.

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