The Works of John Dryden: Dramatic works

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W. Paterson, 1883

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Page 47 - But know, that I alone am king of me. I am as free as nature first made man, Ere the base laws of servitude began, When wild in woods the noble savage ran.
Page 266 - Twas pleasure first made it an oath. If I have pleasures for a friend, And further love in store, What wrong has he whose joys did end, And who could give no more ? 'Tis a madness that he should be jealous of me, Or that I should bar him of another: For all we can gain, is to give ourselves pain, When neither can hinder the other.
Page 253 - Melantha is as finished an impertinent as ever fluttered in a drawing-room, and seems to contain the most complete system of female foppery that could possibly be crowded into the tortured form of a fine lady.
Page 128 - A watchful fate o'ersees its tender years: Till, grown more strong, it thrusts and stretches out, And elbows all the kingdoms round about: The place thus made for its first breathing free, It moves again for ease and luxury; Till, swelling by degrees, it has...
Page 141 - I'll like Almanzor act ; and dare to be As haughty, and as wretched too, as he. What will he think is in my message meant ? I scarcely understand my own intent : But, silkworm-like, so long within have wrought, That I am lost in my own web of thought.
Page 14 - Forgiveness to the injured does belong ; But they ne'er pardon who have done the wrong.
Page 158 - Your flame's too noble to deserve a cheat, And I too plain to practise a deceit. I no return of love can ever make, But what I ask is for my husband's sake; He, I confess, has been ungrateful too, But he and I are ruined if you go; Your virtue to the hardest proof I bring; Unbribed, preserve a mistress and a king.
Page 71 - Rather than lose the spotless name of maid!" Faintly, methought, she spoke; for all the while She bid me not believe her, with a smile. "Then die," said I : she still denied ; "And is it thus, thus, thus," she cried, "You use a harmless maid?
Page 232 - ... either in rejecting such old words, or phrases, which are ill sounding, or improper; or in admitting new, which are more proper, more sounding and more significant.
Page 265 - Till our love was loved out in us both: But our marriage is dead, when the pleasure is fled: 'Twas pleasure first made it an oath.

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