Specimens of English Prose Writers: From the Earliest Times to the Close of the Seventeenth Century, with Sketches, Biographical and Literary ...

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Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, 1807

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Página 330 - ... a couch whereupon to rest a searching and restless spirit ; or a terrace for a wandering and variable mind to walk up and down with a fair prospect ; or a tower of state for a proud mind to raise itself upon ; or a fort or commanding ground for strife and contention ; or a shop for profit or sale ; and not a rich storehouse for the glory of the creator and the relief of man's estate.
Página 153 - But he cometh to you with words set in delightful proportion, either accompanied with, or prepared for, the wellenchanting skill of music; and with a tale, forsooth, he cometh unto you, with a tale which holdeth children from play, and old men from the chimney-corner...
Página 327 - Execrabilis ista turba, quae non novit legem^] for the winning and persuading of them, there grew of necessity in chief price and request eloquence and variety of discourse, as the fittest and forciblest access into the capacity of the vulgar sort.
Página 290 - My lord, when I lost the freedom of my cell, which was my college, yet I found some degree of it in my quiet country parsonage ; but I am weary of the noise and oppositions of this place, and indeed God and nature did not intend me for contentions, but for study and quietness.
Página 418 - In style, to consider what ought to be written and after what manner, he must first think and excogitate his matter, then choose his words and examine the weight of either, then take care in placing and ranking both matter and words, that the composition be comely, and to do this with diligence and often.
Página 482 - ... Equity is a roguish thing : for law we have a measure, know what to trust to ; equity is according to the conscience of him that is chancellor, and as that is larger or narrower, so is equity. "Tis all one as if they should make the standard for the measure we call a foot...
Página 154 - ... with a tale, forsooth; he cometh unto you, with a tale, which holdeth children from play and old men from the chimney-corner; and, pretending no more, doth intend the winning of the mind from wickedness to virtue ; even as the child is often brought to take most wholesome things by hiding them in such other as have a pleasant taste...
Página 149 - ... comfort ; here a shepherd's boy piping, as though he should never be old : there a young shepherdess knitting, and withal singing, and it seemed that her voice comforted her hands to work, and her hands kept time to her voice-music.
Página 329 - It seems to me that Pygmalion's frenzy is a good emblem or portraiture of this vanity ; for words are but the images of matter, and except they have life of reason and invention, to fall in love with them is all one as to fall in love with a picture.
Página 420 - Custom is the most certain mistress of language, as the public stamp makes the current money. But we must not be too frequent with the mint, every day coining. Nor fetch words from the extreme and utmost ages; since the chief virtue of a style is perspicuity, and nothing so vicious in it as to need an interpreter.

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