Characteristics of Eminent Men

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C. Griffin and Company, 1872 - Celebrities - 90 pages

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Page 3 - Lacked not, for love, fair objects whom they wooed With gentle whisper. Withered boughs grotesque, Stripped of their leaves and twigs by hoary age, From depth of shaggy covert peeping forth In the low vale, or on steep mountain side ; And, sometimes, intermixed with stirring horns Of the live deer, or goat's depending beard, — These were the lurking Satyrs, a wild brood Of gamesome Deities ; or Pan himself, The simple shepherd's awe-inspiring God...
Page 33 - As a companion no man ever exceeded him when he pleased to lead the conversation ; which, however, was not always the case. In company which he either disliked or despised, few could be more reserved than he ; but when he was warmed in discourse, and had got over a hesitating manner which sometimes he was subject to, it was rapture to hear him. His meagre visage seemed insensibly to gather beauty; every muscle in it had meaning, and his eye beamed with unusual brightness. The person who writes this...
Page 84 - Smith (?'), they be made good cheap in this kingdom ; for whosoever studieth the laws of the realm, who studieth in the universities, who professeth the liberal sciences, and, (to be short,) who can live idly, and without manual labour, and will bear the port, charge, and countenance of a gentleman, he shall be called master, and shall be taken for a gentleman.
Page 3 - Up towards the crescent moon, with grateful heart Called on the lovely wanderer who bestowed That timely light, to share his joyous sport : And hence, a beaming Goddess with her Nymphs, Across the lawn and through the darksome grove (Not unaccompanied with tuneful notes By echo multiplied from rock or cave) Swept in the storm of chase ; as moon and stars Glance rapidly along the clouded heaven, When winds are blowing strong.
Page 71 - He would have grown rich by saving, but was incapable of laying schemes for getting ; he was more properly dull than lazy, and would have been so well contented to have remained in his little town of Hanover, that if the ambition of those about him had not been greater than his own, we should never have seen him in England...
Page 64 - Such were Addison's talents for conversation. But his rare gifts were not exhibited to crowds or to strangers. As soon as he entered a large company, as soon as he saw an unknown face, his lips were sealed, and his manners became constrained.
Page 22 - I would not give up the country and the lazy reading of old folios for two thousand times two thousand pounds ; in short, that beyond £250 a year I consider money as a real evil — at which he stared.
Page 18 - His great pleasure consists in praising tyrants, abusing Plutarch, spelling oddly, and writing quaintly; and what is strange, after all his is the best modern history of Greece in any language, and he is perhaps the best of all modern historians whatsoever.
Page 33 - Fontenelle continued his triumph until about twelve o'clock, when Voltaire appeared at last roused from his reverie. His whole frame seemed animated. He began his defence with the utmost defiance mixed with spirit, and now and ' then let fall the finest strokes of raillery upon his antagonist; and his harangue lasted till three in the morning.
Page 59 - At the close of his letter, remembering that the prisoner, whose whole energy had been employed in the struggle for his life, had had but little time to set his affairs in order, he added a brief postscript, " If he must die, it were a charity to reprieve him until Saturday.

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