 True wit is nature to advantage dressed, — What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed; Something whose truth convinced at sight we find, That gives us back the image of our mind.  American Quarterly Review - Page 539edited by - 1835Full view - About this book
 | Sir William Forbes - Medicine - 1806 - 578 pages
...thought in different language will disgust or delight us. So just is the axiom of Pope,— " True wit.1 is nature to advantage dressed ; " What oft. was thought, but ne'er so well expressed." " I believe I mentioned in a former letter, that I had seen Bryant on the " Rowleyan... | |
 | Sir William Forbes - Authors, Scottish - 1807 - 412 pages
...are aware of. The same thought in different language will disgust or delight us. So just is the axiom of Pope, — " True wit,* is nature to advantage dressed ; " What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed." " I believe I mentioned in a former letter, that I had seen Bryant on the ' Rowleyan... | |
 | Sir William Forbes - 1807 - 410 pages
...are aware of. The same thought in different language will disgust or delight us. So just is the axiom of Pope, — " True wit,* is nature to advantage dressed ; " What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed." " I believe I mentioned in a former letter, that I had seen Bryant on the ' Rowleyan... | |
 | Sir William Forbes, James Beattie - College teachers - 1807 - 572 pages
...thought in different language will disgust or delight us. So just is the axiom of Pope, — 9 *Tnie wit,* is nature to advantage dressed ; " What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed." " I believe I mentioned in a former letter, that I had seen Bryant on the " Rowleyan... | |
 | Eliza Robbins - Children's poetry - 1828 - 408 pages
...pride." " Trust not thyself — thy own defects to know Make use of every friend, and every foe." " True wit is nature to advantage dressed — What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed." " 'Tis not a lip, or eye, we beauty call, But the joint force and full result of all."... | |
 | English literature - 1829 - 430 pages
...source in the vulgar opinion, with respect to style and the very nature of language. The poet says, " True wit is nature to advantage dressed, What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed." The critic cavils at this, and says, it is to degrade wit thus to define it, making... | |
 | Charlotte Fiske Bates - American poetry - 1832 - 1022 pages
...verbal critic lays, For not to know some trifles is a praise. [From An Essay on Criticism.] WIT. TKUE wit is nature to advantage dressed ; What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed : Something, whose truth, convinced at sight we find, That gives us back the image of... | |
 | Robert Walsh - American literature - 1835 - 582 pages
...whole human family, and which serve to make us all feel closely akin— one whose originality of stylo is constantly reminding us of that fine saying of...power and felicity all his own. Such a writer was Scott — and such a writer is Bird. Of course we do not speak with a precise reference to what he... | |
 | sir James Mackintosh - 1835 - 534 pages
...the modern sense of ludicrous fancy, I cannot tell. It must have been after Pope's definition — ' True wit is nature to advantage dressed, What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed.' By the way, was there ever a stronger instance than this of the second verse of a... | |
 | Sir James Mackintosh - 1836 - 546 pages
...to the modern sense of ludicrous fancy, I cannot tell. It must have been after Pope's definition — True wit is nature to advantage dressed, What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed. " llth. — Read a curious old life of Sir T. More, just published from a MS. at Lambeth,... | |
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