Blair's Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles-lettres |
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Page 59
... speaker ; and the various graces of style and utterance . Q. What is the foundation of all ? A. Good sense . Q. How many kinds or degrees of Elo- quence are there ? A. Three . Q. What is the first ? A. That which is designed to please ...
... speaker ; and the various graces of style and utterance . Q. What is the foundation of all ? A. Good sense . Q. How many kinds or degrees of Elo- quence are there ? A. Three . Q. What is the first ? A. That which is designed to please ...
Page 67
... speaker's mind . He should always , if possible , premeditate ; but his premeditation should be of things rather than of words . Q. Where are the best specimens of vigor- ous and spirited eloquence to be found ? A. In the Orations of ...
... speaker's mind . He should always , if possible , premeditate ; but his premeditation should be of things rather than of words . Q. Where are the best specimens of vigor- ous and spirited eloquence to be found ? A. In the Orations of ...
Page 68
... ? A. They detract from his weight and pro- duce a suspicion of his failing in strength of argument . Q. What is a common fault with speakers at the bar ? ... A. Verbosity . Q. What is a capital property in speaking at the 68 Eloquence .
... ? A. They detract from his weight and pro- duce a suspicion of his failing in strength of argument . Q. What is a common fault with speakers at the bar ? ... A. Verbosity . Q. What is a capital property in speaking at the 68 Eloquence .
Page 74
... speakers treat of persons ; there is no opposition to enliven ge- nius and procure attention . Q. What is the present state of the art of preaching ? A. It is far from perfection ; but we have more reason to wonder that we hear so many ...
... speakers treat of persons ; there is no opposition to enliven ge- nius and procure attention . Q. What is the present state of the art of preaching ? A. It is far from perfection ; but we have more reason to wonder that we hear so many ...
Page 77
... speaker . PRONUNCIATION OR DELIVERY . Q. How should a public speaker deliver his discourse ? A. So as to be fully and easily understood by all who hear him ; and to speak with such grace and force as to please and move his audience . Q ...
... speaker . PRONUNCIATION OR DELIVERY . Q. How should a public speaker deliver his discourse ? A. So as to be fully and easily understood by all who hear him ; and to speak with such grace and force as to please and move his audience . Q ...
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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.