British Writers on Classic Lands: A Literary Sketch

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Page 135 - The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre, Observe degree, priority, and place, Insisture, course, proportion, season, form, Office, and custom, in all line of order...
Page 136 - And posts, like the commandment of a king, Sans check, to good and bad : But when the planets In evil mixture, to disorder wander, What plagues, and what portents ! what mutiny ! What raging of the sea ! shaking of earth ! Commotion in the winds ! frights, changes, horrors Divert and crack, rend and deracinate The unity and married calm of states Quite from their fixture...
Page 155 - This was the most unkindest cut of all ; For when the noble Caesar saw him stab, Ingratitude, more strong than traitors...
Page 149 - As Caesar loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he was valiant, I honour him : but, as he was ambitious, I slew him.
Page 149 - Romans, countrymen, and lovers! hear me for my cause ; and be silent that you may hear : believe me for mine honour; and have respect to mine honour, that you may believe: censure me in your wisdom; and awake your senses that you may the better judge. If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Caesar's, to him I say, that Brutus' love to Caesar was no less than his.
Page 35 - They err who count it glorious to subdue By conquest far and wide, to overrun Large countries, and in field great battles win, Great cities by assault : what do these worthies, But rob, and spoil, burn, slaughter, and enslave Peaceable nations...
Page 142 - But I am constant as the northern star, Of whose true-fix'd and resting quality There is no fellow in the firmament.
Page 177 - tis haunted, holy ground, No earth of thine is lost in vulgar mould, But one vast realm of wonder spreads around, And all the Muse's tales seem truly told, Till the sense aches with gazing to behold The scenes our earliest dreams have dwelt upon: Each hill and dale, each deepening glen and wold Defies the power which crush'd thy temples gone: Age shakes Athena's tower, but spares gray Marathon.
Page 184 - The style of Dryden is capricious and varied, that of Pope is cautious and uniform; Dryden obeys the motions of his own mind, Pope constrains his mind to his own rules of composition. Dryden is sometimes vehement and rapid; Pope is always smooth, uniform, and gentle.
Page 121 - The perfect historian is he in whose work the character and spirit of an age is exhibited in miniature. He relates no fact, he attributes no expression to his characters, which is not authenticated by sufficient testimony. But by judicious selection, rejection, and arrangement, he gives to truth those attractions which have been usurped by fiction.

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