An Essay on John Milton

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American book Company, 1894 - 85 páginas

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Página 65 - Such a spirit is Liberty. At times she takes the form of a hateful reptile. She grovels, she hisses, she stings. But woe to those who in disgust shall venture to crush her ! And happy are those who, having dared to receive her in her degraded and frightful shape, shall at length be rewarded by her in the time of her beauty and her glory ! There is only one cure for the evils which newly-acquired freedom produces ; and that cure is freedom.
Página 56 - As being the contrary to his high will Whom we resist. If then his providence Out of our evil seek to bring forth good, Our labour must be to pervert that end, And out of good still to find means of evil...
Página 77 - ... for mortal reach ; and we know that, in spite of their hatred of Popery, they too often fell into the worst vices of that bad system, intolerance and extravagant austerity, that they had their anchorites and their crusades, their Dunstans and their De Montforts, their Dominies and their Escobars. Yet, when all circumstances are taken into consideration, we do not hesitate to pronounce tHem a brave, a wise, an honest, and a useful body. The Puritans espoused the* cause of civil liberty mainly...
Página 76 - Fleetwood, he cried in the bitterness of his soul that God had hid his face from him. But when he took his seat in the council, or girt on his sword for war, these tempestuous workings of the soul had left no perceptible trace behind them. People who saw nothing of the godly but their uncouth visages, and heard nothing from them but their groans and their whining hymns, might laugh at them. But those had little reason to laugh who encountered them in the hall of debate or in the field of battle.
Página 38 - I should much commend the tragical part, if the lyrical did not ravish me with a certain Doric delicacy in your songs and odes, whereunto I must plainly confess to have seen yet nothing parallel in our language : Ipsa mollities.
Página 82 - With a view to the same great object, he attacked the licensing system, in that sublime treatise, which every statesman should wear as a sign upon his hand, and as frontlets between his eyes.
Página 28 - ... human actions, it is by no means certain that it would have been a good one. It is extremely improbable that it would have contained half so much able reasoning on the subject as is to be found in the Fable of the Bees.
Página 83 - It is to be regretted that the prose writings of Milton should, in our time, be so little read. As compositions, they deserve the attention of every man who wishes to become acquainted with the full power of the English language. They abound with passages compared with which the finest declamations of Burke sink into insignificance. They are a perfect field of cloth of gold. The style is stiff with gorgeous embroidery. Not even in the earlier books of the Paradise Lost...
Página 64 - Ariosto tells a pretty story of a fairy, -who, by some mysterious law of her nature, was condemned to appear at certain seasons in the form, of a foul and poisonous snake.
Página 61 - ... him for having violated the articles of the Petition of Right, after having, for good and valuable consideration, promised to observe them : and we are informed that he was accustomed to hear prayers at six o'clock in the morning. It is to such considerations as these, together with his Vandyke dress, his handsome face and his peaked beard, that he owes, we verily believe, most of his popularity with the present generation.

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