The British Critic, Volume 8

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F. and C. Rivington, 1796 - English literature

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Page 409 - Call, is still read as a popular and powerful book of devotion. His precepts are rigid, but they are founded on the gospel: his satire is sharp, but it is drawn from the knowledge of human life; and many of his portraits are not unworthy of the pen of La Bruyere. If he finds a spark of piety in his reader's mind, he will soon kindle it to a flame; and a philosopher must allow that he exposes, with equal severity and truth, the strange contradiction between the faith and practice of the Christian...
Page 67 - Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight : but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.
Page 585 - Thou heard'st their frantic females throw These galling taunts around : " Make now your choice — the terms we give. Desponding victims, hear : These fetters on your hands receive, Or in your hearts the spear.
Page 410 - It was at Rome, on the 15th of October 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins, of the Capitol, while the bare-footed friars were singing vespers in the temple of Jupiter', that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind.
Page 196 - Cook, with a company of a hundred and eighteen men, performed a voyage of three years and eighteen days throughout all the climates, from fifty-two degrees north to seventy-one degrees south, with the loss of only one man by sickness.
Page 410 - ... as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the bare-footed friars were singing vespers in the temple of Jupiter,* that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind. But my original plan was circumscribed to the decay of the city rather than of the empire : and, though my reading and reflections began to point towards that object, some years elapsed, and several avocations intervened, before I was seriously engaged in the execution of that laborious...
Page 108 - The ripe seeds are dried, and sold in every market to clear muddy water. The natives never drink clear well-water if they can get pond or river water, which is always more or less impure according to circumstances. One of the seeds...
Page 60 - Indians had left their wives (which was not far distant), they began to examine her bundle, and finding the child, one of the women took it from her, and killed it on the spot.
Page 58 - My situation and the terror of my mind at beholding this butchery cannot easily be conceived, much less described; though I summed up all the fortitude I was master of on the occasion, it was with difficulty that I could refrain from tears; and I am confident that my features must have feelingly expressed how sincerely I was affected at the barbarous scene I then witnessed; even at this hour I cannot reflect on the transactions of that horrid day without shedding tears.
Page 368 - Welcome, mighty chief, once more, Welcome to this grateful shore: Now no mercenary foe Aims again the fatal blow, Aims at thee the fatal blow. Virgins fair, and matrons grave, These thy conquering arm did save, Build for thee triumphal bowers; Strew, ye fair, his way with flowers, Strew your Hero's way with flowers.

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