The Library of Literary Criticism of English and American Authors, Volume 1

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Charles Wells Moulton
Moulton Publishing Company, 1901 - History

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Page 561 - Shakespeare OTHERS abide our question. Thou art free. We ask and ask — Thou smilest and art still, Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill, Who to the stars uncrowns his majesty, Planting his steadfast footsteps in the sea, Making the heaven of heavens his dwelling-place, Spares but the cloudy border of his base To the foil'd searching of mortality; And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know, Self-school'd, self-scann'd, self-honour'd, self-secure, Didst tread on earth unguess'd at.
Page 468 - Rain influence, and judge the prize Of wit, or arms, while both contend To win her grace, whom all commend. There let Hymen oft appear In saffron robe, with taper clear, And pomp, and feast, and revelry, With mask, and antique pageantry, Such sights as youthful poets dream On summer eves by haunted stream.
Page 548 - ... ordain'd otherwise, and he by death departed from that right, we pray you do not envie his friends the office of their care and paine...
Page 552 - This pencil take (she said), whose colours clear Richly paint the vernal year : Thine, too, these golden keys, immortal Boy! This can unlock the gates of Joy; Of Horror that, and thrilling Fears, Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic Tears.
Page 547 - Soul of the age! The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage! My Shakespeare, rise! I will not lodge thee by Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie A little further, to make thee a room: Thou art a monument without a tomb, And art alive still while thy book doth live And we have wits to read and praise to give.
Page 377 - The generall end, therefore, of all the booke, is to fashion a gentleman or noble person in vertuous and gentle discipline...
Page 472 - Two households, both alike in dignity In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. From forth the fatal loins of these two foes A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life, Whose misadventur'd piteous overthrows Doth with their death bury their parents
Page 448 - Renowned Spenser lie a thought more nigh To learned Chaucer, and rare Beaumont lie A little nearer Spenser, to make room For Shakespeare in your threefold, fourfold tomb...
Page 548 - I remember, the players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare, that in his writing (whatsoever he penned) he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been, Would he had blotted a thousand.
Page 547 - And he, the man whom Nature selfe had made To mock her selfe, and Truth to imitate, With kindly counter under Mimick shade, Our pleasant Willy, ah ! is dead of late : With whom all joy and jolly meriment Is also deaded, and in dolour drent.

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