The British Plutarch: Containing the Lives of the Most Eminent Divines, Patriots, Statemen, Warriors, Philosophers, Poets, and Artists of Great Britain and Ireland, from the Accention of Henry VIII, to the Present Time, Volume 2

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Page 598 - Still to be neat, still to be drest, As you were going to a feast ; Still to be powdered, still perfumed : Lady, it is to be presumed, Though art's hid causes are not found, All is not sweet, all is not sound. Give me a look, give me a face, That makes simplicity a grace : Robes loosely flowing, hair as free : Such sweet neglect more taketh me, Than all the adulteries of art ; They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.
Page 592 - Triumph, my Britain, thou hast one to show, To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe. He was not of an age, but for all time!
Page 396 - IF all the world and love were young, And truth in every shepherd's tongue, These pretty pleasures might me move To live with thee and be thy love.
Page 159 - 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 482 - But the images of men's wits and knowledges remain in books, exempted from the wrong of time, and capable of perpetual renovation. Neither are they fitly to be called images, because they generate still, and cast their seeds in the minds of others, provoking and causing infinite actions and opinions in succeeding ages...
Page 311 - A quibble is the golden apple for which he will always turn aside from his career or stoop from his elevation. A quibble, poor and barren as it is, gave him such delight that he was content to purchase it by the sacrifice of reason, propriety, and truth. A quibble was to him the fatal Cleopatra for which he lost the world, and was content to lose it.
Page 305 - His characters are not modified by the customs of particular places, unpractised by the rest of the world ; by the peculiarities of studies or professions, which can operate but upon small numbers ; or by the accidents of transient fashions or temporary opinions...
Page 400 - Their purpose is ambition, Their practice, only hate ; And if they once reply, Then give them all the lie. Tell them that brave it most, They beg for more by spending Who in their greatest cost Seek nothing but commending ; And if they make reply, Spare not to give the lie.
Page 99 - We have been persuaded by some, that are careful of our safety, to take heed how we commit ourselves to armed multitudes for fear of treachery ; but, I assure you, I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people.
Page 314 - The objection arising from the impossibility of passing the first hour at Alexandria, and the next at Rome, supposes that when the play opens, the spectator really imagines himself at Alexandria, and believes that his walk to the theatre has been a voyage to Egypt, and that he lives in the days of Anthony and Cleopatra. Surely he that imagines this may imagine more.

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