New Elegant Extracts: A Unique Selection, Moral, Instructive, and Entertaining, from the Most Eminent Prose and Epistolary Writers, Volume 2

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C. and C. Whittingham; Published by Carpenter and son, 1827 - Conduct of life

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Page 275 - He was the man who of all modern, and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul, All the images of Nature were still present to him, and he drew them, not laboriously, but luckily: when he describes any thing, you more than see it, you feel it too.
Page 285 - What recks it them? What need they? They are sped; And, when they list, their lean and flashy songs Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw; The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed, But, swoln with wind and the rank mist they draw, Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread : Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw Daily devours apace, and nothing said: But that two-handed engine at the door Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.
Page 277 - ... human nature at one glance, and to be the only author that gives ground for a very new opinion, That the philosopher, and even the man of the world, may be born, as well as the poet.
Page 216 - He was a man of admirable parts, of general knowledge, of a versatile understanding fitted for every sort of business, of infinite wit and pleasantry, of a delightful temper, and with a mind most perfectly disinterested.
Page 332 - Sir Joshua Reynolds was, on very many accounts, one of the most memorable men of his time. He was the first Englishman who added the praise of the elegant arts to the other glories of his country. In taste, in grace, in facility, in happy invention, and in the richness and harmony of colouring, he was equal to the great masters of the renowned ages.
Page 200 - During the session, the first in, and the last out of the house of commons ; he passes from the senate to the camp ; and seldom seeing the seat of his ancestors, he is always in the senate to serve his country, or in the field to defend it.
Page 171 - ... of a personal courage equal to his best parts ; so that he was an enemy not to be wished wherever he might have been made a friend ; and as much to be apprehended where he was so, as any man could deserve to be.
Page 96 - Without doubt, no man with more wickedness ever attempted any thing, or brought to pass what he desired more wickedly, more in the face and contempt of religion and moral honesty : yet wickedness as great as his could never have accomplished those designs without the assistance of a great spirit, an admirable circumspection and sagacity, and a most magnanimous resolution.
Page 201 - ... to serve his country, or in the field to defend it. But in all well-wrought compositions, some particulars stand out more eminently than the rest ; and the things which will carry his name to posterity, are his two bills ; I mean that for a limitation of the claims of the crown upon landed estates ; and this for the relief of the Roman Catholics.
Page 336 - Huh. the task would still be difficult and the success uncertain : at the distance of twelve centuries, I darkly contemplate his shade through a cloud of religious incense ; and could I truly delineate the portrait of an hour, the fleeting resemblance would not equally apply to the solitary of Mount Hera, to the preacher of Mecca, and to the conqueror of Arabia.

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