Payne's universum, or pictorial world: engravings of views, portraits [&c.] ed. [with descriptive letterpress] by C. Edwards, Issue 107, Volume 3

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Page 26 - I am now indebted, as being a work not to be raised from the heat of youth, or the vapours of wine, like that which flows at waste from the pen of some vulgar Amourist, or the trencher fury of a rhyming parasite, nor to be obtained by the invocation of Dame Memory and her Siren daughters, but by devout prayer to that eternal Spirit who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out his Seraphim with the hallowed fire of his Altar to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases...
Page 26 - ... an inward prompting which now grew daily upon me, that by labour and intent study, which I take to be my portion in- this life, joined with the strong propensity of nature, I might perhaps leave something so written to after-times, as they should not willingly let it die.
Page 29 - Muse to venture down The dark descent, and up to re-ascend Though hard and rare...
Page 29 - Yet not the more Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill, Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath, That wash thy hallow'd feet, and warbling flow, Nightly I visit...
Page 30 - But there are a few characters which have stood the closest scrutiny and the severest tests, which have been tried in the furnace and have proved pure, which have been weighed in the balance and have not been found wanting, which have been declared sterling by the general consent of mankind, and which are visibly stamped with the image and superscription of the Most High. These great men we trust that we know how to prize ; and of these was Milton.
Page 29 - Thus with the year Seasons return, but not to me returns Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn, Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose, Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine: But cloud instead, and ever-during dark Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair Presented with a universal blank Of nature's works, to me expunged and rased, And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
Page 28 - Bright effluence of bright essence increate. Or hear'st thou rather pure ethereal stream, Whose fountain who shall tell ? before the sun, Before the heavens thou wert, and at the voice Of GOD, as with a mantle, didst invest...
Page 30 - ... miraculous efficacy to invigorate and to heal. They are powerful not only to delight, but to elevate and purify. Nor do we envy the man who can study either the life or the writings of the great poet and patriot without aspiring to emulate, not indeed the sublime works with which his...
Page 25 - ... whether aught was imposed me by them that had the overlooking or betaken to of mine own choice, in English or other tongue, prosing or versing — but chiefly this latter, — the style, by certain vital signs it had, was likely to live.
Page 25 - I must say, therefore, that after I had for my first years, by the ceaseless diligence and care of my father, whom God recompense ! been exercised to the tongues, and some sciences, as my age would suffer, by sundry masters and teachers both at home and at the schools...

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