Tales and Popular Fictions: Their Resemblance, and Transmission from Country to Country

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Whittaker, 1834 - 354 páginas

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Página 17 - Most musical, most melancholy' bird! A melancholy bird? Oh! idle thought! In Nature there is nothing melancholy. But some night-wandering man whose heart was pierced With the remembrance of a grievous wrong, Or slow distemper, or neglected love, (And so, poor wretch...
Página 9 - A work of great interest might be compiled upon the origin of popular fiction, and the transmission of similar tales from age to age, and from country to country. The mythology of one period would then appear to pass into the romance of the next century, and that into the nursery- tale of the subsequent ages.
Página 23 - But knowledge is as food, and needs no less Her temperance over appetite, to know In measure what the mind may well contain; Oppresses else with surfeit, and soon turns Wisdom to folly, as nourishment to wind.
Página 239 - Dick had no property on earth but his cat, and, by his master's orders, he fetched her down from his garret, and committed her to the captain with tears in his eyes, for he said he should now be kept awake all night by the rats and mice. All laughed at Dick's venture, but Miss Alice kindly gave him money to purchase another cat. The ship was driven to the coast of Barbary, and the captain having sent...
Página 20 - As, when from mountain-tops the dusky clouds Ascending, while the North-wind sleeps, o'erspread Heaven's cheerful face, the louring element 490 Scowls o'er the darkened landskip snow or shower, If chance the radiant sun, with farewell sweet, Extend his evening beam, the fields revive, The birds their notes renew, and bleating herds Attest their joy, that hill and valley rings.
Página 343 - She was afterwards regenerated by the laver of holy baptism, and lived for many years in the service of that knight (as I have frequently heard from him and his family), and was rather loose and wanton in her conduct. Being frequently asked about the people of her country, she asserted that the inhabitants, and all they had in that country, were of a green colour ; and that they saw no sun, but enjoyed a degree of light like what is after sunset. Being asked how she came into this country with the...
Página 244 - That Whittington lived no doubt can be made ; that he was Lord Mayor of London is equally true ; but as to his cat, that, gentlemen, is the G-ordian knot to untie. And here, gentlemen, be it permitted me to define what a cat is. A cat is a domestic whiskered four-footed animal, whose employment is catching of mice ; but let puss have been ever so subtle, let puss have been ever so successful, to what could puss's captures amount ? No tanner can curry the skin of a mouse, no family make a meal of...
Página 344 - Deiri (Yorkshire), not far from my birth-place, a wonderful thing occurred, which I have known from my boyhood. There is a town a few miles distant from the Eastern Sea, near which are those celebrated waters commonly called Gipse. ... A peasant of this town went once to see a friend who lived in the next town, and it was late at night when he was coming back, not very sober ; when lo ! from the adjoining barrow, which I have often seen, and which is not much over a quarter of a mile from the town,...
Página 241 - The Life and Death of Sir Thomas Gresham, with the building of the Royal Exchange % or The story of Queen Eleanor, with the rearing of London Bridge upon woolsacks1?
Página 32 - But with wild beasts the sylvan war to wage, And o'er vast plains their herds and flocks to feed : Blest sons of nature they

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