The British Essayists: The LoungerJ. Richardson, 1823 - English essays |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
acquaintance acquired affection allowed amusement attention beauty Bustle character circumstances companions creative memory degree Delaserre delight disposition dissipation distress Don Quixote Draper dress Emilia enjoyment Eudocius excellence exertion Falstaff fancy fashion father favour favourite feelings fortune frequently genius gentleman give happy heard honour humour husband imagination indulgence kind lady ladyship late less letter lived look Lounger Macbeth manners marriage married melancholy ment mind misanthropy misfortune mother nature neighbours neral Nerva ness never object observed passion pawnbroker perfect perhaps person pleasure Plutarch poet possessed racter Richard courts ridicule Roberts drew Robin Grays Roman triumph Saintfort SATURDAY Scotland seems sensibility servant Shakspeare Sir William situation society sometimes sort spirit superior Symposius talk taste tell tender thing thought tion tivated told town turally Valens vanity virtue virtue betrayed wealth wife wish young youth
Popular passages
Page 307 - Thy snawie bosom sun-ward spread, Thou lifts thy unassuming head In humble guise ; But now the share uptears thy bed, And low thou lies ! Such is the fate of artless maid, Sweet flow'ret of the rural shade ! By love's simplicity betray'd, And guileless trust, Till she, like thee, all soil'd, is laid Low i
Page 305 - When youthful love, warm-blushing, strong, Keen-shivering shot thy nerves along, Those accents, grateful to thy tongue, Th' adored Name I taught thee how to pour in song, To soothe thy flame. " I saw thy pulse's maddening play, Wild send thee pleasure's devious way, Misled by Fancy's meteor-ray, By passion driven ; But yet the light that led astray Was light from Heaven.
Page 307 - Ev'n thou who mourn'st the Daisy's fate, That fate is thine — no distant date; Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives elate Full on thy bloom, Till crush'd beneath the furrow's weight Shall be thy doom!
Page 308 - Shakespeare discerns the characters of men, with which he catches the many changing hues of life, forms a sort of problem in the science of mind, of which it is easier to see the truth than to assign the cause. Though I am very far from meaning to compare our rustic bard to Shakespeare, yet whoever will read his lighter and more humorous poems, his Dialogue of the Dogs, his Dedication to GH , Esq., his Epistles to a Young Friend, and to W.
Page 329 - The love of letters is connected with an independence and delicacy of mind, which is a great preservative against that servile homage which...
Page 327 - The employment of a young man's vacant hours is often too little attended to by those rigid masters, who exact the most scrupulous observance of the periods destined for business. The waste of time is undoubtedly a very calculable loss ; but the waste or the depravation of mind is a loss of a much higher denomination. The votary of study, or the enthusiast of fancy, may incur the first ; but the latter will be suffered chiefly by him whom ignorance, or want of imagination, has left to the grossness...
Page 330 - In the possession, indeed, of what he has attained, in that rest and retirement from his labours, with the hopes of which his fatigues were lightened and his cares were smoothed, the mere man of business frequently undergoes suffering, instead of finding enjoyment. To be busy as one ought is an easy art ; but to know how to be idle is a very superior accomplishment. This difficulty is much...
Page 303 - I know not if I shall be accused of such enthusiasm and partiality, when I introduce to the notice of my readers a poet of our own country, with whose writings I have lately become acquainted; but if I am not greatly deceived, I think I may safely pronounce him a genius of no ordinary rank.
Page 308 - ... poems, it has been objected that they breathe a spirit of libertinism and irreligion. But if we consider the ignorance and fanaticism of the lower class of people in the country where these poems were written, a fanaticism of that pernicious sort which sets faith in opposition to good works, the fallacy and danger of which, a mind so enlightened as our poet's could not but perceive; we shall not look upon his lighter muse...
Page 235 - To say truth, he was no great genius, nor much a scholar. I believe my god-mother knew rather more of divinity than he did ; but she received from him information of another sort ; he told her who were the poor, the sick, the dying of the parish, and she had some assistance, some comfort, for them all. I could draw the old lady at this moment! — dressed in...