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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Common terms and phrases
Æschylus amongst appeared arrived beauty Ben Jonson Bitche Blaise called Calne Campbell Carlton character child Coriolanus Dacre dæmon dark 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 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 15 - I behold like a Spanish great galleon and an English man-of-war. Master Coleridge, like the former, was built far higher in learning, solid, but slow in his performances. CVL, with the English man-of-war, 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 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 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.
Page 63 - It is a desert without life, or fear, or hope, — shadowless, soundless. But the grave, in our belief, is populous : it is haunted by some intermediate nature — between flesh and spirit : — or if not, what then is it ? I throw the question to the theologians. * * • * * There is something very sad in the death of friends. We seem to provide for our own mortality, and to make up our minds to die. We are warned by sickness, — fever, and ague, and sleepless nights, and a hundred dull infirmities...
Page 68 - Not that they are in fact so ; but it is because they themselves have little or no relation to maturity. Life seems a race which they have yet to run entirely. They have made no progress towards the goal. They are born, nothing further. But it seems hard, when a man has toiled high up the steep hill of knowledge, that he should be cast...
Page 31 - In the sun's orb, made porous to receive And drink the liquid light ; firm to retain Her gather'd beams, great palace now of light. Hither, as to their fountain , other stars Repairing, in their golden urns draw light...