General Biography: Or, Lives, Critical and Historical, of the Most Eminent Persons of All Ages, Countries, Conditions, and Professions, Arranged According to Alphabetical Order, Volume 9

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G. G. and J. Robinson, 1814 - Biography
 

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Page 119 - 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. Those who accuse him to have wanted learning, give him the greater commendation : he was naturally learned ; he needed not the spectacles of books to read nature ; he looked inwards, and found her there.
Page 289 - I have ever hated all nations, professions, and communities, and all my love is towards individuals ; for instance, I hate the tribe of lawyers, but I love Counsellor such-aone, and Judge such-a-one. It is so with physicians (I will not speak of my own trade) soldiers, English, Scotch, French, and the rest. But principally I hate and detest that animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas, and so forth.
Page 119 - I cannot say he is everywhere alike ; were he so, I should do him injury to compare him with the greatest of mankind. He is many times flat, insipid ; his comic wit degenerating into clenches, his serious swelling into bombast. But he is always great, when some great occasion is presented to him : no man can say he ever had a fit subject for his wit, and did not then raise himself as high above the rest of poets " Quantum lenta solent inter viburna cupressi.
Page 426 - Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery.
Page 126 - I have read too an octavo volume of Shenstone's Letters. Poor man ! he was always wishing for money, for fame, and other distinctions; and his whole philosophy consisted in living against his will in retirement, and in a place which his taste had adorned; but which he only enjoyed when people of note came to see and commend it : his correspondence is about nothing else but this place and his own writings, with two or three neighbouring clergymen, who wrote verses too.
Page 184 - To Macedon and Artaxerxes' throne: To sage philosophy next lend thine ear, From heaven descended to the...
Page 331 - ... had his parts and endowments been parcelled out among his poor clergy that he left behind him, it would perhaps have made one of the best dioceses in the world.
Page 430 - The Rights of the Christian Church asserted, against, the Romish and all other priests, who claim an independent power over it; with a preface concerning the government of the Church of England, as by law established,
Page 136 - He seemed to be a Christian," adds the bishop, " but in a particular form of his own ; he thought it was to be like a divine philosophy in the mind ; but he was against all public worship and everything that looked like a church.
Page 253 - I found that there were good books in these two sciences in Latin ; I bought a dictionary, and I learned Latin. I understood, also, that there were good books of the same kind in French ; I bought a dictionary, and I learned French. And this, my Lord, is what I have done : it seems to me that we may learn every thing when we know the twentyfour letters of the alphabet.

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