Historical and critical matter The tempest. Two gentlemen of Verona. Merry wives of Windsor

Front Cover
J. Nichols, 1811
 

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 37 - I' the commonwealth I would by contraries Execute all things: For no kind of traffic Would I admit; no name of magistrate; Letters should not be known ; riches, poverty, And use of service, none; contract, succession, Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none; No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil; No occupation; all men idle, all, And women too, but innocent and pure : No sovereignty— Seb.
Page 64 - Be not afeard ; the isle is full of noises, Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears, and sometimes voices That, if I then had waked after long sleep, Will make me sleep again : and then, in dreaming, The clouds methought would open and show riches Ready to drop upon me, that, when I waked, I cried to dream again.
Page 88 - Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves ; And ye that on the sands with printless foot Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him When he comes back ; you demi-puppets that By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make, Whereof the ewe not bites ; and you whose pastime Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice To hear the solemn curfew...
Page 172 - Who is Silvia ? what is she, That all our swains commend her? Holy, fair, and wise is she, The heaven such grace did lend her, That she might admired be. Is she kind as she is fair? For beauty lives with kindness: Love doth to her eyes repair, To help him of his blindness ; And, being help'd, inhabits there. Then to Silvia let us sing, That Silvia is excelling; She excels each mortal thing, Upon the dull earth dwelling: To her let us garlands bring.
Page 142 - Not for the world : why, man, she is mine own ; And I as rich in having such a jewel As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl, The water nectar, and the rocks pure gold.
Page 6 - The force of his comic scenes has suffered little diminution from the changes made by a century and a half, in manners or in words. As his personages act upon principles arising from genuine passion, very little modified by particular forms, their pleasures and vexations are communicable to all times and to all places ; they are natural, and therefore durable...
Page 7 - If there be, what I believe there is, in every nation, a style which never becomes obsolete, a certain mode of phraseology so consonant and congenial to the analogy and principles of its respective language, as to remain settled and unaltered : this style is probably to be sought in the common intercourse of life, among those who speak only to be understood, without ambition of elegance.
Page 12 - The truth is, that the spectators are always in their senses, and know, from the first act to the last, that the stage is only a stage, and that the players are only players.
Page 3 - Shakespeare approximates the remote and familiarizes the wonderful; the event which he represents will not happen, but if it were possible its effects would probably be such as he has assigned; and it may be said that he has not only shown human nature as it acts in real exigencies but as it would be found in trials to which it cannot be exposed.
Page 3 - His adherence to general nature has exposed him to the censure of critics, who form their judgments upon narrower principles. Dennis and Rymer think his Romans not sufficiently Roman ; and Voltaire censures his kings as not completely royal.

Bibliographic information