A History of English Literature, in a Series of Biographical Sketches |
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Page 11
... letters and print our books . In swampy places by the Nile , where the retreating flood had left pools , a yard or so deep , to stagnate under the copper sky , there grew in old times vast forests of tall reeds , whose triangular stems ...
... letters and print our books . In swampy places by the Nile , where the retreating flood had left pools , a yard or so deep , to stagnate under the copper sky , there grew in old times vast forests of tall reeds , whose triangular stems ...
Page 15
... letters of which our thirty - eight thousand words are made . Much of this opening chapter deals with countries far from Britain , and an age anterior , in the Old World at least , to the birth of British literature . But it is not a ...
... letters of which our thirty - eight thousand words are made . Much of this opening chapter deals with countries far from Britain , and an age anterior , in the Old World at least , to the birth of British literature . But it is not a ...
Page 18
... letter , which letter must also be the initial of the first word , on which the stress of the voice falls in the second line . The only approach to a metrical system yet discovered is , that two risings and two fallings of the voice ...
... letter , which letter must also be the initial of the first word , on which the stress of the voice falls in the second line . The only approach to a metrical system yet discovered is , that two risings and two fallings of the voice ...
Page 21
... letters , sitting among his books and plying his patient pen , as his time - candle . burns down , ring after ring , through the hours allotted to literary toil . Both sword and pen were familiar tools in that cunning right hand ...
... letters , sitting among his books and plying his patient pen , as his time - candle . burns down , ring after ring , through the hours allotted to literary toil . Both sword and pen were familiar tools in that cunning right hand ...
Page 25
... Letters of Alcuin give a life - like picture of the great events of his day . The wars of Charlemagne against the Saracens and the Saxons are there described ; and there , too , we find a graphic account of the inner life of the ...
... Letters of Alcuin give a life - like picture of the great events of his day . The wars of Charlemagne against the Saracens and the Saxons are there described ; and there , too , we find a graphic account of the inner life of the ...
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Common terms and phrases
Addison afterwards amid Anglo-Saxon appeared Archbishop of Canterbury beauty became Bible born brilliant called Cambridge CHAPTER Charles chief chiefly Church College coloured court death died drama Dublin Earl early Edinburgh Edinburgh Review England English English poetry Essays Faerie Queene fame father finest France genius gentle heart Henry History honour Illustrative extract James John John Milton King Lady land Latin letters literary literature lived London Lord Milton mind minstrels night noble novel novelist Oxford paper Paradise Lost picture play poem poet poet's poetic poetry poor prose published Puritan Queen reign ROGER ASCHAM romance round royal Saxon scene Scotland Scottish Shakspere song SPECIMEN spent story style Supplementary List sweet Tatler Thomas Thomas Fuller thought took tragedy translation Trinity College University of Edinburgh verse WILLIAM wonderful words writer written wrote young
Popular passages
Page 493 - Kent. Vex not his ghost. O, let him pass! He hates him That would upon the rack of this tough world Stretch him out longer.
Page 149 - Made by the joiner squirrel, or old grub, Time out of mind the fairies' coach-makers. And in this state she gallops night by night Through lovers...
Page 148 - Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses, Or else worth all the rest; I see thee still, And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood, Which was not so before. There's no such thing: It is the bloody business which informs Thus to mine eyes.
Page 392 - Almighty's form Glasses itself in tempests ; in all time, — Calm or convulsed, in breeze or gale or storm, Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime Dark-heaving — boundless, endless, and sublime, The image of eternity, the throne Of the Invisible ; even from out thy slime The monsters of the deep are made ; each zone Obeys thee ; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.
Page 209 - The other Shape — If shape it might be called that shape had none Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb ; Or substance might be called that shadow seemed, For each seemed either — black it stood as Night, 670 Fierce as ten Furies, terrible as Hell, And shook a dreadful dart : what seemed his head The likeness of a kingly crown had on.
Page 211 - Almighty hath not built Here for his envy ; will not drive us hence : Here we may reign secure, and, in my choice, To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell: Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven...
Page 378 - It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the Queen of France, then the dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision.
Page 391 - And monarchs tremble in their capitals, The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make Their clay creator the vain title take Of lord of thee and arbiter of war,— These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake, They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar Alike the Armada's pride or spoils of Trafalgar.
Page 363 - It was on the day, or rather night, of the 27th of June 1787, between the hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the last lines of the last page in a summer-house in my garden. After laying down my pen, I took several turns in a berceau, or covered walk of acacias, which commands a prospect of the country, the lake, and the mountains.
Page 210 - Is this the region, this the soil, the clime," Said then the lost Archangel, "this the seat That we must change for Heaven ? this mournful gloom For that celestial light? Be...