An Account of the Life and Writings of James Beattie: Including Many of His Original Letters, Volumen2

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Archibald Constable and Company, 1807
 

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Página 286 - True wit is nature to advantage dressed, — What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed; Something whose truth convinced at sight we find, That gives us back the image of our mind.
Página 211 - Now, tell me," said the doctor, "whether, if you had a wife or a daughter, you would wish them to be your disciples? Think well before you answer me; for I assure you, that, whatever your answer is, I will not conceal it." Mr Hume, with a smile, and some hesitation, made this reply: "No; I believe scepticism may be too sturdy a virtue for a woman.
Página 314 - Montagu should smile, New strains ere long shall animate thy frame. And her applause to me is more than fame ; For still with truth accords her taste refined. At lucre or renown let others aim, I only wish to please the gentle mind, Whom Nature's charms inspire, and love of human kind.
Página 164 - We are slaves to the language we write, and are continually afraid of committing gross blunders ; and, when an easy, familiar, idiomatical phrase occurs, dare not adopt it, if we recollect no authority, for fear of Scotticisms. In a word, we handle English, as a person who cannot fence handles a sword...
Página 246 - Messiah' was first performed, the audience were exceedingly struck and affected by the music in general ; but when that chorus struck up, ' For the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth,' they were so transported, that they all, together with the King, (who happened to be present,) started up, and remained standing till the chorus ended : And hence it became the fashion in England for the audience to stand while that part of the music is performing.
Página 179 - When I first read Young, my heart was broken to think of the poor man's afflictions. Afterwards, I took it in my head, that where there was so much lamentation, there could not be excessive suffering ; and I could not help applying to him sometimes those lines of a song, " Believe me, the shepherd but feigns ; " He's wretched, to show he has wit." . On talking with some of Dr Young's particular friends in England, I have since found that my conjecture was right; for that, while he was composing the...
Página 288 - It is truly an unique — the specimens formerly published did very well to laugh at ; but a whole quarto of nonsense and gibberish is too much. It is strange that a man not wholly illiterate should have lived so long in England without learning the language.
Página 163 - We who live in Scotland are obliged to study English from books, like a dead language. Accordingly, when we write, we write it like a dead language, which we understand, but cannot speak...
Página 198 - Man, that is born of a woman, is of few days, and full of trouble. He cometh forth as a flower, and is cut down ; he fieeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.
Página 10 - ... day ; and the exhilarating song of " the lyric lark" in the mornings of summer used to fill him with delight. In 1755, his loneliness was cheered by the arrival of his brother David, who came to settle himself at the village of Fordoun. The celebrated and eccentric Francis Garden, Esq. (afterwards one of the judges of the supreme courts of civil and criminal law in Scotland, by the title of Lord Gardenstone,) who was then sheriff of the county of Kincardine, and occasionally resided in the neighbourhood...

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