Censura Literaria: Containing Titles, Abstracts, and Opinions of Old English Books, with Original Disquisitions, Articles of Biography, and Other Literary Antiquities, Volumes 1-2

Front Cover
Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, 1805 - Bibliography

From inside the book

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 58 - And thro' the whins, and by the cairn, Whare hunters fand the murder'd bairn; And near the thorn, aboon the well, Whare Mungo's mither hang'd hersel. Before him Doon pours all his floods; The doubling storm roars thro' the woods; The lightnings flash from pole to pole; Near and more near the thunders roll: When, glimmering thro' the groaning trees, Kirk-Alloway seemed in a bleeze, Thro' ilka bore the beams were glancing, And loud resounded mirth and dancing. Inspiring bold John Barleycorn! What dangers...
Page 54 - THESE, as they change, ALMIGHTY FATHER, these Are but the varied God. The rolling year Is full of THEE. Forth in the pleasing Spring THY beauty walks, THY tenderness and love. Wide flush the fields ; the softening air is balm ; Echo the mountains round ; the forest smiles ; And every sense, and every heart is joy. Then comes THY glory in the Summer months, With light and heat refulgent. Then THY sun...
Page 51 - I never hear the loud, solitary whistle of the curlew in a summer noon, or the wild mixing cadence of a troop of grey plovers in an autumnal morning, without feeling an elevation of soul like the enthusiasm of devotion or poetry.
Page 213 - The world could not have furnished you with a present so acceptable to me, as the picture which you have so kindly sent me. I received it the night before last, and viewed it with a trepidation of nerves and spirits somewhat akin to what I should have felt, had the dear original presented herself to my embraces. I kissed it, and hung it where it is the last object that I see at night, and. of course, the first on which 1 open my eyes in the morning.
Page 91 - SEE, WINTER comes, to rule the varied year, Sullen and sad, with all his rising train ; Vapours and Clouds and Storms. Be these my theme, These ! that exalt the soul to solemn thought, And heavenly musing. Welcome, kindred glooms, Congenial horrors, hail ! with frequent foot...
Page 58 - O'er a' the ills o' life victorious ! But pleasures are like poppies spread, You seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed ; Or like the snow falls in the river, A moment white — then melts for ever ; Or like the Borealis race, • That flit ere you can point their place ; Or like the Rainbow's lovely form Evanishing amid the storm. — A stormy Nae man can tether Time nor Tide, night The hour approaches Tam maun ride ; That hour, o...
Page 475 - Full many a gem of purest ray serene The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear : Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air. Some village- Hampden, that, with dauntless breast, The little tyrant of his fields withstood, Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest, Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood. Th...
Page 51 - We know nothing, or next to nothing, of the substance or structure of our souls, so cannot account for those seeming caprices in them that one should be particularly pleased with this thing, or struck with that, which, on minds of a different cast, makes no extraordinary impression. I have some favourite flowers in spring, among which are the mountain-daisy, the harebell, the foxglove, the wild-brier rose, the budding birch, and the hoary hawthorn, that I view and hang over with particular delight.
Page 46 - Some things that may sweeten gladness, In the very gall of sadness. The dull loneness, the black shade, That these hanging vaults have made ; The strange music of the waves, Beating on these hollow caves ; This black den which rocks emboss, Overgrown with eldest moss : The rude portals that give light More to terror than delight ; This my chamber of neglect, Walled about with disrespect. From all these, and this dull air, A fit object for despair, She hath taught me by her might To draw comfort and...
Page 51 - Bagdat in order to pass the rest of the day in meditation and prayer. As I was here airing myself on the tops of the mountains, I fell into a profound contemplation on the vanity of human life; and, passing from one thought to another, surely, said I, man is but a shadow and life a dream.

Bibliographic information