Estimations in Criticism: Prose-writers: Edward Gibbon. Thomas Babington Maccaulay. The Waverley novels. Charles Dickens. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Sterne and Thackery. Index

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A. Melrose, 1909

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Página 81 - Their breath is agitation, and their life A storm whereon they ride, to sink at last, And yet so nursed and bigoted to strife, That should their days surviving perils past, Melt to calm twilight, they feel overcast With sorrow and supineness, and so die; Even as a flame unfed, which runs to waste With its own flickering, or a sword laid by, Which...
Página 122 - Pent in this fortress of the North, Think'st thou we will not sally forth, To spoil the spoiler as we may, And from the robber rend the prey...
Página 54 - Had I believed that the majority of English readers were so fondly attached even to the name and shadow of Christianity; had I foreseen that the pious, the timid, and the prudent, would feel, or affect to feel, with such exquisite sensibility, I might, perhaps, have softened the two invidious chapters, which would create many enemies, and conciliate few friends.
Página 91 - 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.
Página 160 - ... into a dark letterbox, in a dark office, up a dark court in Fleet Street — appeared in all the glory of print; on which occasion, by-the-bye, — how well I recollect it!
Página 90 - But of the vast and complex system of society, of the fine shades of national character, of the practical operation of government and laws, he knows nothing. He who would understand these things rightly must not confine his observations to palaces and solemn days. He must see ordinary men as they appear in their ordinary business, and in their ordinary pleasures.
Página 54 - Hence in a season of calm weather, Though inland far we be, Our Souls have sight of that immortal sea Which brought us hither, Can in a moment travel thither, And see the Children sport upon the shore, And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore...
Página 244 - My dear good lady," replied the author, "do not be gulled by such stories; the book is like your young heir there (pointing to a child of three years old, who was rolling on the carpet in his white tunics), he shows at times a good deal that is usually concealed, but it is all in perfect innocence!
Página 99 - The natural effect of this state of things was that a crowd of projectors, ingenious and absurd, honest and knavish, employed themselves in devising new schemes for the employment of redundant capital. It was about the year 1688 that the word stockjobber was first heard in London. In the short space of four years a crowd of companies, every one of which confidently held out to subscribers the hope of immense gains, sprang into existence : the Insurance...
Página 121 - These fertile plains, that softened vale, Were once the birthright of the Gael; The stranger came with iron hand, And from our fathers reft the land. Where dwell we now ? See rudely swell Crag over crag, and fell o'er fell. Ask we this savage hill we tread, For...

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