The Critical and Miscellaneous Prose Works of John Dryden: Now First Collected: with Notes and Illustrations; an Account of the Life and Writings of the Author, Grounded on Original and Authentick Documents; and a Collection of His Letters, the Greater Part of which Has Never Before Been Published, Volume 1, Issue 2T. Cadell, jun. and W. Davies, 1800 - English prose literature |
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Page 10
... rhyme , which from the context appears to have been meant by the words English verse . The greater part of the piece is in blank verse ; the choruses in alternate rhymes . Mr. Pope and Mr. Spence being struck with the merit of this ...
... rhyme , which from the context appears to have been meant by the words English verse . The greater part of the piece is in blank verse ; the choruses in alternate rhymes . Mr. Pope and Mr. Spence being struck with the merit of this ...
Page 11
... rhyme should force upon this rock , though sometimes it cannot easily be avoided : and indeed this is the only inconvenience with which rhyme can be charged . This is that which makes them say , rhyme is not natural ; it being only so ...
... rhyme should force upon this rock , though sometimes it cannot easily be avoided : and indeed this is the only inconvenience with which rhyme can be charged . This is that which makes them say , rhyme is not natural ; it being only so ...
Page 12
... rhyme has all the advantages of prose , besides its own . But the excellence and dignity of it were never fully known , till Mr. Waller taught it ; he first made writing easily an art ; first shewed us to conclude the sense , most ...
... rhyme has all the advantages of prose , besides its own . But the excellence and dignity of it were never fully known , till Mr. Waller taught it ; he first made writing easily an art ; first shewed us to conclude the sense , most ...
Page 13
... rhyme , shall naturally follow them , not they the rhyme ; the fancy then gives leisure to the judgment to come in ; which seeing so heavy a tax imposed , is ready to cut off all un- necessary expences . This last consideration has ...
... rhyme , shall naturally follow them , not they the rhyme ; the fancy then gives leisure to the judgment to come in ; which seeing so heavy a tax imposed , is ready to cut off all un- necessary expences . This last consideration has ...
Page 20
... rhyme ; and this is the dispute betwixt many ingenious persons , whether verse in rhyme , or verse without the sound , which may be called blank verse , ( though a hard expression , ) is to be preferred . But take the question largely ...
... rhyme ; and this is the dispute betwixt many ingenious persons , whether verse in rhyme , or verse without the sound , which may be called blank verse , ( though a hard expression , ) is to be preferred . But take the question largely ...
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Common terms and phrases
action admire Æneid Æschylus afterwards amongst ancients appears argument Aristotle audience beauty Ben Jonson betwixt blank verse CATILINE character Charles comedy confess CONQUEST OF GRANADA Cotterstock Cousin Crites criticks Dedication defend desire discourse DRAMATICK POESY Duke DUKE OF LERMA Earl edition English errour Essay Eugenius Euripides excellent fancy father faults favour Fletcher fortune French friends give heroick honour Horace humour imagine imitation JACOB TONSON JOHN DRYDEN Jonson judge judgment kind King lady language letter Lisideius Lord Lord Roscommon Lordship Madam manners nature never noble observed opinion Oundle Ovid passions persons pleased plot poem poet poetry Preface present printed probably publick reason rhyme scene serious plays Servant Shakspeare Shakspeare's shew SILENT WOMAN Sir Robert Howard sonn speak stage Steward supposed theatre thing thought tion tragedy translated Virgil virtue words writ write written
Popular passages
Page 99 - All the images of nature were still present to him, and he drew them, not laboriously, but luckily; when he describes anything, you more than see it, you feel it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted learning give him the greater commendation: he was naturally learned; he needed not the spectacles of books to read nature; he looked inwards and found her there.
Page 102 - As for Jonson, to whose character I am now arrived, if we look upon him while he was himself (for his last plays were but his dotages) , I think him the most learned and judicious writer which any theatre ever had. He was a most severe judge of himself, as well as others. One cannot say he wanted wit, but rather that he was frugal of it.
Page 282 - ... saw before him. He knew that any other passion, as it was regular or exorbitant, was a cause of happiness or calamity. Characters thus ample and general were not easily discriminated and preserved; yet perhaps no poet ever kept his personages more distinct from each other. I will not say with Pope, that every speech may be assigned to the proper speaker...
Page 181 - Delusion, if delusion be admitted, has no certain limitation; if the spectator can be once persuaded, that his old acquaintance are Alexander and Caesar, that a room illuminated with candles is the plain of Pharsalia, or the bank of Granicus, he is in a state of elevation above the reach of reason, or of truth, and from the heights of empyrean poetry, may despise the circumscriptions of terrestrial nature.
Page 85 - A continued gravity keeps the spirit too much bent; we must refresh it sometimes, as we bait in a journey, that we may go on with greater ease.
Page 101 - Beaumont's death ; and they understood and imitated the conversation of gentlemen much better ; whose wild debaucheries, and quickness of wit in repartees, no poet before them could paint as they have done. Humour, which Ben Jonson derived from particular persons, they made it not their business to describe ; they represented all the passions very lively, but above all, love.
Page 294 - And thus still doing, thus he pass'd along. DUCH. Alas, poor Richard! where rides he the whilst? YORK. As in a theatre, the eyes of men, After a well-grac'd actor leaves the stage, Are idly bent on him that enters next, Thinking his prattle to be tedious : Even so, or with much more contempt, men's eyes Did scowl on Richard ; no man cried, God save him...
Page 82 - But, like a ball of fire, the further thrown, Still with a greater blaze she shone, And her bright soul broke out on every side.
Page 32 - The drift of the ensuing discourse is chiefly to vindicate the honour of our English writers from the censure of those who unjustly prefer the French before them. This I intimate, lest any should think me so exceeding vain, as to teach others an art, which they understand much better than myself.
Page 44 - ... every age has a kind of universal genius, which inclines those that live in it to some particular studies: the work then being pushed on by many hands, must of necessity go forward.