Blair's Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles-lettres |
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Page 11
... manner . A Gothic Cathedral raises ideas of grandeur by its size , its height , its awful obscurity , its strength , its antiquity , and its durability . Q. What other class of sublime objects is there , besides what is found in the ...
... manner . A Gothic Cathedral raises ideas of grandeur by its size , its height , its awful obscurity , its strength , its antiquity , and its durability . Q. What other class of sublime objects is there , besides what is found in the ...
Page 13
... manner of the ancient times . * Q. What is essential to sublime writing ? A. Conciseness , simplicity , and strength . Q. To what is conciseness opposed ? A. To superfluous expression . Q. To what , simplicity ? " the water passed by ...
... manner of the ancient times . * Q. What is essential to sublime writing ? A. Conciseness , simplicity , and strength . Q. To what is conciseness opposed ? A. To superfluous expression . Q. To what , simplicity ? " the water passed by ...
Page 15
... manner is the sublime exhibit- ed to us ? A. In sudden flashes of the imagination , which dart upon us like lightning from hea- No writer can supply a continued run of unmixed sublime conceptions . ven . Q. What are we to think of ...
... manner is the sublime exhibit- ed to us ? A. In sudden flashes of the imagination , which dart upon us like lightning from hea- No writer can supply a continued run of unmixed sublime conceptions . ven . Q. What are we to think of ...
Page 28
... manner , expressive of a very extensive genera or species of ob- jects ; as tree , man , house , river . Q. What method was devised for specify- ing the individual object intended ? A. The introduction of the Article . Q. Have all ...
... manner , expressive of a very extensive genera or species of ob- jects ; as tree , man , house , river . Q. What method was devised for specify- ing the individual object intended ? A. The introduction of the Article . Q. Have all ...
Page 33
... manners ? A. On its copiousness ; the different ar- rangements of which its words are susceptible ; and the variety and beauty of the sound of those words . Q. What language possesses this quality in the highest degree ? A. The Greek ...
... manners ? A. On its copiousness ; the different ar- rangements of which its words are susceptible ; and the variety and beauty of the sound of those words . Q. What language possesses this quality in the highest degree ? A. The Greek ...
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Common terms and phrases
action Addison Æneid ages agreeable ancient animated Aristotle attention beauty blank verse book of Job Cæsar character chiefly Cicero clear colours Comedy composition concise connexion correct Dean Swift Demosthenes didactic dignity discourse distinct distinguished Dryden effect elegant Eloisa to Abelard eloquence eminent employed English epic poem Epic Poetry excel expression favourable figure French genius give grandeur Greek hearers Herodotus historian ideas Iliad imagination Imitation ject kind language Livy Lyric Poetry manner ment Metaphors Milton mind modern moral narration nature ness never object Orator ornament passion pastoral perspicuity philosophical pleasures poet poetical poetry Polybius preacher principal propriety pulpit racter renders ride to town Roman rule scenes sense sentence sentiments sermons simplicity sound speak speaker speech spirit strength style sublime Tacitus Taste Theocritus thing thought Thucidydes tion Tragedy unity Verb versation verse Virgil Whence words writing
Popular passages
Page 46 - Me miserable ! which way shall I fly Infinite wrath, and infinite despair? Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell; And, in the lowest deep, a lower deep Still threatening to devour me opens wide, To which the Hell I suffer seems a Heaven.
Page 47 - Earth felt the wound, and Nature, from her seat Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe, That all was lost.
Page 140 - A man of a polite imagination is let into a great many pleasures that the vulgar are not capable of receiving. He can converse with a picture, and find an agreeable companion in 'a statue. He meets with a secret refreshment in a description, and often feels a greater satisfaction in the prospect of fields and meadows, than another does in the possession.
Page 134 - Our sight is the most perfect and most delightful of all our senses. It fills the mind with the largest variety of ideas, converses with its objects at the greatest distance, and continues the longest in action without being tired or satiated with its proper enjoyments. The sense of feeling can indeed give us a notion of extension, shape, and all other ideas that enter at the eye, except colours ; but at the same time it is very much straitened and confined in its operations to the number, bulk,...
Page 140 - He meets with a secret refreshment in a description, and often feels a greater satisfaction in the prospect of fields and meadows than another does in the possession. It gives him, indeed, a kind of property in every thing he sees, and makes the most rude uncultivated parts of nature administer to his pleasures: so that he looks upon the world, as it were, in another light, and discovers in it a multitude of charms that conceal themselves from the generality of mankind.
Page 141 - There are indeed but very few who know how to be idle and innocent, or have a relish of any pleasures that are not criminal; every diversion they take is at the expense of some one virtue or another, and their very first step out of business is into vice or folly.
Page 142 - ... as the mind, and not only serve to clear and brighten the imagination, but are able to disperse grief and melancholy, and to set the animal spirits in pleasing and agreeable motions. For this reason Sir Francis Bacon, in his Essay upon Health,' has not thought it improper to prescribe to his reader a poem or a prospect, where he particularly dissuades him from knotty and subtile disquisitions, and advises him to pursue studies that fill the mind with splendid and illustrious objects, as histories,...
Page 141 - A man should endeavour, therefore, to make the sphere of his innocent pleasures as wide as possible, that he may retire into them with safety, and find in them such a satisfaction as a wise man would not blush to take.
Page 39 - I shall detain you now no longer in the demonstration of what we should not do, but straight conduct you to a hill-side, where I will point you out the right path of a virtuous and noble education ; laborious indeed at the first ascent, but else so smooth, so green, so full of goodly prospect, and melodious sounds on every side, that the harp of Orpheus was not more charming-.
Page 14 - He, above the rest In shape and gesture proudly eminent, Stood like a tower. His form had yet not lost All her original brightness, nor...