Blair's Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles-lettres |
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Page 20
... Discourse been considered as the chief of all the imitative arts ? A. Yes . It has been compared with paint- ing and with sculpture ; and , in many respects , justly preferred before them . Q. Is there any difference between Imita- tion ...
... Discourse been considered as the chief of all the imitative arts ? A. Yes . It has been compared with paint- ing and with sculpture ; and , in many respects , justly preferred before them . Q. Is there any difference between Imita- tion ...
Page 24
... discourse ; and afterwards the person or the thing that acted upon it . The moderns place first the person who speaks or acts ; next , the action ; and lastly , the object of the action . Q. How are we to account for this ? A. In the ...
... discourse ; and afterwards the person or the thing that acted upon it . The moderns place first the person who speaks or acts ; next , the action ; and lastly , the object of the action . Q. How are we to account for this ? A. In the ...
Page 39
... discourse ; next , a particular resemblance between some object , and the sounds that are employed in describ- ing it.t * The following is a very harmonious sentence from Milton : " We shall conduct you to a hill - side , labo- rious ...
... discourse ; next , a particular resemblance between some object , and the sounds that are employed in describ- ing it.t * The following is a very harmonious sentence from Milton : " We shall conduct you to a hill - side , labo- rious ...
Page 49
... discourse . Q. To what two classes may all Compari- sons be reduced ? A. To explaining and embellishing . Q. What is the fundamental requisite of a Comparison ? A. That it serves to illustrate the object for the sake of which it is ...
... discourse . Q. To what two classes may all Compari- sons be reduced ? A. To explaining and embellishing . Q. What is the fundamental requisite of a Comparison ? A. That it serves to illustrate the object for the sake of which it is ...
Page 55
... discourses , that are to be spok- en , require ? A. A flowing , copious style . Q. What are the Nervous and Feeble styles ? A. Much the same as the Concise and Dif- fuse , yet there is some difference . A style may be concise or diffuse ...
... discourses , that are to be spok- en , require ? A. A flowing , copious style . Q. What are the Nervous and Feeble styles ? A. Much the same as the Concise and Dif- fuse , yet there is some difference . A style may be concise or diffuse ...
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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 racter renders ride to town Roman rule scenes sense sentence sentiments sermons simplicity sound speak speaker speech spirit strength style sublime Tacitus Tasso Taste Theocritus thing thought Thucidydes tion Tragedy unity Verb versation verse Virgil Whence words writing
Popular passages
Page 112 - O SING unto the LORD a new song: Sing unto the LORD, all the earth.
Page 12 - Before him went the pestilence, and burning coals went forth at his feet. He stood, and measured the earth: he beheld, and drove asunder the nations; and the everlasting mountains were scattered, the perpetual hills did bow: his ways are everlasting.
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 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 47 - Earth felt the wound, and Nature, from her seat Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe, That all was lost.
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 - O unexpected stroke, worse than of death ! Must I thus leave thee, Paradise? thus leave Thee, native soil, these happy walks and shades, Fit haunt of gods? where I had hope to spend, Quiet though sad, the respite of that day That must be mortal to us both.
Page 44 - O, speak again, bright angel! for thou art As glorious to this night, being o'er my head, As is a winged messenger of heaven Unto the white-upturned wondering eyes Of mortals that fall back to gaze on him, When he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds And sails upon the bosom of the air.
Page 14 - Less than archangel ruined, and the excess Of glory obscured ; as when the sun, new risen, Looks through the horizontal misty air Shorn of his beams, or from behind the moon, In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds On half the nations, and with fear of change Perplexes monarchs.