Essays and Tales in Prose: Memoir and essays on the genius of Shakspere. The death of friends. The Spanish student. A short mystery .The portrait on my uncle's snuff box. A day in Venice. The Stauntons. A chapter on portraits. The prison-breaker. The planter. Vicissitudes in a lawyers' life. The man-hunter. The two soldiersTicknor, Reed, and Fields, 1853 - English literature |
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amongst appeared arrived beauty Ben Jonson Bitche Blaise called Calne Campbell Carlton character child Coriolanus Dacre dæmon dark daughter death Demerara Denbigh dramas dramatist Edward exclaimed eyes father followed girl grandfather Halstein Harry Dacre hear heard heart hero heroine house of Stuart human imagination inquired intellect Jacobite John Shakspere John Vivian knew lady laughed learning listened lived looked lover Macbeth Mary Mercet mind Minotti mother nature never night once Othello Padua passion perhaps person Picardie Platow plays poet poor replied returned Robert Arden Rodrigo round Rubeland scarcely seemed Seyton Shakspere's Signior silence Sir Everard Staunton smile soldiers song Sophy speak spirit Stabroek story stranger Stratford suddenly tell things thought TITUS ANDRONICUS travelling TROILUS AND CRESSIDA truth Ulric uncle Venice verse Vivian voice wife wine words writer young youth Zetti
Popular passages
Page 23 - Some heavenly music, which even now I do, To work mine end upon their senses that This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff, Bury it certain fathoms in the earth, And deeper than did ever plummet sound I'll drown my book.
Page 16 - I loved the man, and do honour his memory, on this side idolatry, as much as any. He was (indeed) honest, and of an open and free nature...
Page 16 - We have but collected them, and done an office to the dead, to procure his orphans guardians; without ambition either of self-profit or fame; only to keep the memory of so worthy a friend and fellow alive as was our Shakespeare, by humble offer of his plays to your most noble patronage.
Page 15 - Master Jonson (like the former) was built far higher in learning ; solid, but slow in his performances. Shakespeare with the English man-ofwar, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, tack about and take advantage of all winds, by the quickness of his wit and invention.
Page 59 - Certainly, even our Saviour Christ could as well have given the moral commonplaces of uncharitableness and humbleness as the divine narration of Dives and Lazarus ; or of disobedience and mercy, as that heavenly discourse of the lost child and the gracious father ; but that his throughsearching wisdom knew the estate of Dives burning in hell, and of Lazarus in Abraham's bosom, would more constantly, as it were, inhabit both the memory and judgment.
Page 22 - A jest's prosperity lies in the ear • Of him that hears it, never in the tongue Of him that makes it : then, if sickly ears, Deaf 'd with the clamours of their own dear groans.
Page 65 - The sun was near his setting ; but the whole of the wide west was illuminated, and threw crimson and scarlet colours on the windows, over which hung a cloud of vine-stalks and changing leaves that dropped by scores on every summons of the blast. There she sate, — in a parlour full of flowers (herself the fairest) — among China roses and glittering ice-plants, and myrtles which no longer blossomed.
Page 17 - What needs my Shakespeare for his honoured bones The labour of an age in piled stones ? Or that his hallowed reliques should be hid Under a star-y pointing pyramid ? Dear son of memory, great heir of fame, What needst thou such weak witness of thy name ? Thou in our wonder and astonishment Hast built thyself a livelong monument.
Page 68 - Sisyphus, downwards in a moment : — that he who has worn the day and wasted the night in gathering the gold of science, should be — with all his wealth of learning, all his accumulations — made bankrupt at once. What becomes of all the riches of the soul, — the piles and pyramids of precious thoughts which men heap together? — Where is...
Page 14 - He was an eminent instance of the truth of that rule, Poeta non fit, sed nascitur — one is not made but born a poet. Indeed his learning was very little, so that as Cornish diamonds are not polished by any lapidary, but are pointed and smoothed even as they are taken out of the earth, so nature itself was all the art which was used upon him.