Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, Volume 3Brown and Taggard, 1860 - English essays |
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Common terms and phrases
Atheist Balsamo beautiful become Benjamin Constant Beppo bosom Boswell Cagli Cagliostro called character Comte de Cagliostro Corn-Law cried dark Denis Diderot Diderot divine Earth Encyclopédie endeavour Eternity existence eyes faculty fair Lily Faith father feeling foolish FRASER'S MAGAZINE French gift Goethe Goethe's gold hand head heart highest History human infinite James Boswell Johnson King labour Lamp lies light living look Madame de Staël Mährchen man's matter meaning Meanwhile Mechanical Philosophy ment mind mortal nature ness never noble nowise once Palermo perhaps Philosophe poetic poor Prince Quack reader rest reverence River round Samuel Johnson SCHILLER seemed shadow side silence Snake sort soul speak spirit stand stept strange Tale of Tales Temple thee thereof things thou thought tion true truth Universe Weimar wherein whither whole wholly Will-o'-wisps wise wonder words worth youth
Popular passages
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 the ground encumbers him with help?
Page 105 - At Edial, near Lichfield, in Staffordshire, young gentlemen are boarded and taught the Latin and Greek languages, by SAMUEL JOHNSON.
Page 137 - Sunday, Oct. 18, 1767. Yesterday, Oct. 17, at about ten in the morning, I took my leave for ever of my dear old friend, Catherine Chambers, who came to live with my mother about 1724, and has been but little parted from us since. She buried my father, my brother, and my mother. She is now fifty-eight years old.
Page 87 - Thus for Boswell's Life of Johnson has Time done, is Time still doing, what no ornament of Art or Artifice could have done for it. Rough Samuel and sleek wheedling James were, and are not. Their Life and whole personal Environment has melted into air. The Mitre Tavern still stands in Fleet Street : but where now is its scot-and-lot paying, beef-andale loving, cocked-hatted, pot-bellied Landlord ; its rosy-faced assiduous Landlady, with all her shining brass-pans, waxed tables, well-filled larder-shelves;...
Page 63 - How this poor drudge, being knocked up from his snoring, 'carried them into a little barn full of hay, which was a better lodging than he had for himself;' and by and by, not without difficulty, brought his Majesty ' a piece of bread and a great pot of buttermilk,' saying candidly that "he himself lived by his daily labour, and that what he had brought him was the fare he and his wife had:" on which nourishing diet his Majesty, 'staying upon the haymow...
Page 126 - He then burst into such a fit of laughter, that he appeared to be almost in a convulsion ; and, in order to support himself, laid hold of one of the posts at the side of the foot pavement, and sent forth peals so loud, that in the silence of the night his voice seemed to resound from Temple-bar to Fleetditch.
Page 77 - ... nay, apt, even (so strange had they grown) to be confounded with the very vices they lay contiguous to, and had sprung out of. That he was a wine-bibber and gross liver ; gluttonously fond of whatever would yield him a little solacement, were it only of a stomachic character, is undeniable enough. That he was vain, heedless, a babbler; had much of the sycophant, alternating with the braggadocio, curiously spiced too with an all-pervading dash of the coxcomb ; that he gloried much when the Tailor,...
Page 111 - Seven years, My Lord, have now passed since I waited in your outward rooms or was repulsed from your door, during which time I have been pushing on my work through difficulties of which it is useless to complain, and have brought it at last to the verge of publication without one act of assistance, one word of encouragement or one smile of favour. Such treatment I did not expect, for I never had a patron before.
Page 404 - Unconsciously, for the most part in deep unconsciousness, there was now the impossibility to live neglected, — to walk on the quiet paths where alone it is well with us. Singularity must henceforth succeed singularity. O foulest Circean draught, thou poison of Popular Applause ! madness is in thee and death; thy end is Bedlam and the grave.
Page 138 - Pride was the source of that refusal, and the remembrance of it was painful. A few years ago I desired to atone for this fault. I went to Uttoxeter in very bad weather, and stood for a considerable time bareheaded in the rain, on the spot where my father's stall used to stand. In contrition I stood, and I hope the penance was expiatory.